“Since you made me one, KJC.”
Why had I asked for this?
Why had I begged for this?
Why had I put myself in this situation in the first place?
I blinked back at Edie, who had her face buried in her hands, her shoulders quaking.
Normally, she was strong for both of us.
Normally, she knew what to do.
But nothing about our situation was normal.
It terrified me that so much had changed in such a short period of time. My life had derailed from the endless, straight line I’d been sailing through, to a roller coaster with no beginning, middle, or end.
I was living in another state.
Knight hated me.
I hated Knight.
Rosie was dying.
I’d kissed a girl. And, pardon the poor cultural reference, but I’d liked it.
I’d really liked it. Not enough to change teams—well, maybe…though the only person I’d really ever wanted was my best friend—but enough not to regret it. That was a complication I couldn’t even focus on right now.
I’d broken a heart. Well, might’ve. Josh had stopped texting me. His unanswered messages were piled up in a neat corner of my phone’s memory like broken dreams, hung on a clothesline, damp from my tears of guilt.
And now this. The indigestible news I somehow still needed to swallow. The report sat between Edie and me, on the table, waiting to be acknowledged.
I stood up, slapped my open palm on the table, and yelled, “No!”
Only I didn’t do that.
I darted up and paced from side to side in our kitchen, throwing my head back and letting out a rabid laugh. “Good riddance!”
Only I didn’t do that, either.
I broke down in tears. I ran to my room. I felt. I felt.
Or I wished I had.
In reality, I just sat there, staring at my mom. My real mom. The one who’d been there for me from the moment she knew of my existence. The one who counted. Edie.
“Is that all he’s given you?” I whispered.
I hoped my voice would shock her into pulling herself out of her meltdown. It worked. She peeked at me between her fingers, then straightened in her seat, wiping the tears from her face.
“The private investigator?” She cleared her throat, trying to be cool.
I knew she would be cool about it. Knew she wouldn’t make a big deal of it, make a show, make me feel uncomfortable.
I nodded.
“He said she’d been living in Rio for the past eight years with her mother. Worked a job selling knock-off perfumes at a mall down her block. No partner, no kids, no family. Had a cat named Luar. She seemed to have gone through a really dark time. She died of an overdose eighteen months ago.”
My biological mother was dead.
I should feel devastated. I should feel free. I should feel, period. I poked my lower lip, tugging at it, not sure how to react.
Val was still my biological mother.
Also, the woman who gave me up.
The woman who’d screwed me over.
The woman who’d wanted to use me as a pawn.
But also the woman who named her cat Luar—moonlight in Portuguese.
Val wore many hats in my life. All of them had painted her in an ugly way. People were wrong. I wasn’t Saint Luna. I was capable of hating, too. I just didn’t know it until now. Somehow, I stood up. Edie rose to her feet after me.
“You have a mother,” she stressed, slapping her palm over her chest. “You have me, Luna. You’ll always have me.”
“I know.” I smiled.
“Speak more.” Her expression softened.
“I try. I’ve been trying my whole life. It’s just that…when the words come out, they do it of their own accord.”
“Don’t you get it?” She held my arms, giving them a gentle shake.
She had a goofy, lopsided grin—one I’d catch on Dad when he looked at her lovingly. She’d always had the courage to look at me and not through me.
“You’re free now. Free to speak. Free to talk. Free to be someone else, not the person she made you when she walked away.”
“I know,” I whispered.
But did I? What if this didn’t free me? What if I was destined to speak in random bursts?
We both shifted from foot to foot. There was a major elephant in the room, and we needed to address it.
“Your dad needs to—”
“I’ll tell him,” I cut her off.
Yes. I knew what I had to do, what I was capable of doing. Val was no longer here to remind me my words didn’t matter, that my voice held no weight. Edie was right. It was time to shed the dead skin of the person I was, and to become someone else.
The person Knight needed.
The person Dad, Edie, and Racer deserved.
I was going to talk to Dad.
With words.
“Come in.”
Dad looked up from the paperwork on his office desk, still clad in his suit. He shuffled some papers around for the sake of doing something with his hands, flashing me a tired smile. There was something pathologically wary about his expression when he looked at me nowadays. Love dipped in misery, wrapped in a bitter crust of pity.