Epilogue
Gemma
The newspaper caughtmy eye the second I walked toward the dining room with Isaiah at my back. He pulled out my chair for me, and I shot him a playful smile all while Cade, Brantley, and Shiner made no attempt at hiding their snickering. They didn’t think their best friend, head Rebel of the school, was a gentleman, but they were wrong. Isaiah was different with me. He was different from what he’d always portrayed himself as on the outside.
I thought, deep down, his best friends knew that too.
They just liked to screw with him.
As soon as I sat down, the guys started talking again about lacrosse and how they wished it weren’t an all-year sport for our school. There was a giant elephant in the room, but they pretended there wasn’t.
Things were weird.
There...I said it. Sitting here, at my newly found father’s home, avery large house behind St. Mary’s, having family dinner at his table, was just awkward.
After things had calmed down and I returned to school, Tate had pulled me into his office, looking more disheveled than I’d ever seen him. His tie was loose, his sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, and three half-empty cups of cold coffee sat on the edge of his desk. He very hesitantly told me that he was moving from the servant’s cottage just below the school to the actual house that was just a mile or two down the road. He said he’d never wanted to live there because, “What would a single man like me need a house that big for?” But now, things were changing. Jacobi, along with Ann Scova, the social worker that had never once forgotten about me or Richard, had come together and were allowing Jack, Isaiah’s little brother, to move in with Tate. Isaiah’s father was behind bars and would be for a very long time given the severity of charges against him, and paired with the fact that their mother was being moved to a medical facility for further care, he had nowhere else to go. Jacobi’s job in the FBI wasn’t the most accommodating for young children, so this was their best option. Plus, Jack wanted to be with Isaiah, and this was as close as they could get. Jack would attend the primary school down the road and come back home in the evenings. Isaiah would still stay at the boarding school, but he could come and go as he pleased, even if Tate wasn’t actually blood related to either of them.
Instead, he was blood related to me.
He offered for me to stay here, too, but I declined politely. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to have a relationship with him; it was just that things were moving too quickly, and the rest of the school wasn’t aware that he was my father.
I was sure it would come out eventually, but for now, no one really knew except our closest friends, and that was how I wanted to keep it.
Now, if my brother came back, then my mind might change.
He was still staying away, and each day that passed that I didn’t hear from him made the knife dig in a little further.
But I tried not to focus on it. He was alive and safe, and that was all that mattered.
Grabbing the napkin off the side of the plate, I pulled it to my lap and looked back at the newspaper laying at the end of the table once more.
The headline caused my heart to slip.
“The Girl in the Basement Story Unfolds with New Witness Statements”
It wasno surprise that the news article was about me, and the future of having to talk with more lawyers and law enforcement did not dampen my foresight at all. Things were going to get harder, but I pushed the anxiety away, reminding myself that I wasn’t alone in this.
I had Isaiah, and our friends, and Tate. I also had Tobias, even if he wasn’t presently here with me.
As soon as Tate walked into the dining room, holding a box of pizza, Jack—who I’d yet to formally meet—came rushing in behind him with cute little glasses on the edge of his nose, beaming at his older brother and his three friends.
“Isaiahhhhhh!” He ran up to the side of his seat and clenched his arms around Isaiah’s middle.
“Hey, little man! Cool bedroom, am I right? I helped paint it.”
“No, you didn’t. You sat back and watched Gemma. Uncle Tate told me so.” Jack released his older brother and turned and looked at me before pushing his glasses up from the edge of his nose. “Are you Gemma?”
I smiled. “I am. Do you like your room?”
He nodded vigorously, his glasses falling down again. “I love it. Did you seriously draw Hogwarts on my wall? All by yourself?”
The awe in his blue eyes warmed my heart. I nodded slowly. “I did. Does it look okay? I’ve never seen Harry Potter, so I just looked at a picture on the Internet and tried my best.”
His little mouth flew open, and he snapped his head to Isaiah. “She’s never seen Harry Potter, Isaiah!”
Everyone in the room laughed, even Tate.
“I know, dude. What are we gonna do about that?”
Jack shook his head, taking the seat beside Isaiah. “Well, we have to watch Harry Potter after dinner. We have to!” He looked up at Tate, who was still holding the pizza in his hands. “Can we, Uncle Tate? Just the first movie?”
Tate gave him a warm grin. “Sure, if Gemma wants to. They all have to get back to the school here in a bit, though.”