“It did.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” I inch closer until I’m standing above her. Molly sighs, then swings her legs over and moves up the chaise. She looks down at the empty space and then up at me. A truce, I realize, and I sit. “Why now, though? What changed?”
Molly is quiet for a long while, and I can see the gears turning behind her watery eyes. Finally, she turns to me, a sense of resolute determination on her face, and she straightens.
“I have a daughter.”
My heart practically leaps up my throat and out of my body. That wasnotwhat I was expecting her to say.
“W-What?” I splutter, stunned.
“Surprise,” Molly quips in a sing-song voice, a little smile curving at the corner of her mouth. “She’s nine. The most beautiful, headstrong, stubborn kid.God, she’s incredible.”
Molly’s face lights up when she talks about her daughter, while my jaw is still hanging open, my brain processing the shock.
“Her name is Morgan,” she says, then clears her throat. “And she’s been asking a lot of questions recently.”
“About what?”
“About my parents—why we don’t speak to them, but we speak to my grandparents. About you. She wanted to know why her middle name is Chloe, and where that name comes from.”
I swallow hard. No. No, no, no. “Molly, I?—”
“It’sokay. I was still mad at you when she was born, but…I thought we would have made up after I told you about her. And then, I just never could.” Molly’s expression has softened, the sadness transforming into something else—something like regret. Painful. Inevitable. Bittersweet. “She’s the one who convinced me to come, actually. To see you. To make things right.”
My mouth crumples, and I feel tears threatening to spill. This little girl, whom I didn’t even know—didn’t even have theopportunityto know because I had been too stubbornand stupid—was the reason why Molly was here. The thought instantly makes my heart ache. I had been so angry at Molly for coming here, and it was a kid, hopeful that her mom might make up with her oldest friend, who had set this whole thing in motion.
“But it’s not just that,” she admits, then takes a deep breath and sighs, her shoulders rising and falling in one exaggerated motion.What else could she possibly drop on me?“She’s also been asking about her dad.”
“Who’s her…?” And it hits me.
Colin Wakelin.
Molly’s daughter was Colin’s child. The timeline added up. Why I never saw Molly around school again, or even at graduation, makes sense now. I had blocked her on all the socials we used, and we didn’t have many mutual friends, so I never would have learned about Morgan.
“Colin Wakelin,” I murmur.
She nods, melancholy lacing her expression.
“I was sleeping with him,” she croaks out, a single tear trailing down her cheek. “That whole semester, we had been seeing each other. I tried to end things just before the class finished… I should have waited until we had been graded on our final project. I guess he was…mad at me.”
I stop moving. Stopbreathing. My brain screeches to a halt, and I can feel my heartbeat thumping through my entire body. My heart cracks open—wide, all-encompassing—and suddenly, everything that happened between us is eclipsed by a single revelation.
Molly didn’t plagiarize anything.
She was, and had always been, completely innocent.
“He wasmadat you?” I simply don’t understand. A rich, successful, celebrated filmmaker, who could have anything and any woman he wanted, was mad at a twenty-one-year-old for, what—blowing him off? Having standards?
I almost can’t believe it. But then again…
I think back to every instance throughout my career where I had seen sexism blatantly on display in the industry, but backs remained turned to it nearly every single time. Bad behavior was always excused by genius or merit. Voices were silenced with ease if the implications of what they revealed might bring down any man with power, sway, or status.
Another realization dawns on me.
Colin hadn’t just fucked up my career. It washershe wanted to sink. And he’d succeeded.
“Oh my God, Molly, I’m so sorry.” Tears are starting to stream down her face, and she scrubs at them quickly, trying to hide the hurt she must have bottled up for years. So many regrets begin to fill the yawning pit of despair that has opened in my chest.
