When I leftProfessor Archer’s office, I didn’t even bother to go plead my case with the OSCCS. Instead, I had Miles drive me to New York. Besides going to find Aoife and grovel my ass off, I needed to talk to my brothers about what was about to happen.
New York was a shit show.
Aoife was gone.
Her father was furious and ready to put me in the ground until he realized I was panicked because I had no clue where she was.
My father thought it was hilarious and there wasn’t a fucking thing my brothers could do to help me with the mess I was in at school. I ended up having to hire a digital forensic investigator, thanks to the loan my brothers gave me, to get proof that my code was tampered with. By the time they proved what Grace had done, it was too late to salvage my reputation. Enough harmhad already been done. MIT was forced to take action against Grace, but I couldn’t stand to finish my degree with them. Instead, the minute everything was settled, I marched my ass down to the Army recruiter’s office and signed eight years of my life away.
SEVEN
Hidden
AOIFE
I talkedto Miles for a long time once we got to New York. We sat in the parking lot and discussed everything that had happened between Grace and me, how Logan stopped caring, and what my future might look like now that my best friend was no longer in it. Miles was patient and kind as he spoke with me, but I drew our conversation to a close when he begged me to come back and tell Logan everything. He finally told me why he wasn’t by my side at the party, like he promised.
“I had a feeling she would pull some kind of stunt as soon as she saw you.”
“You weren’t wrong.”
“No, I wasn’t. Wish I had been.”
I shrugged my shoulders and then let them fall with the heavy weight of grief, disappointment, and a tinge of anger. What was it that old proverb said?“If wishes were fishes, we’d all swim in riches.”
I reached over and hugged Miles. “Thank you for trying but I can’t even look at Logan without wanting to slap him right now. He didn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt or ask a single question. I won’t be the one to tell him how wrong he was.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Figure out how to disappear.” It was a heartbreakingly honest answer but the only one I had.
“Without telling him?”
“He made his choices,” I argued.
“Yeah, but only because he believed that whore’s lies!”
“He believed her lies without even asking for my truth, Miles. A true friend wouldn’t do that.” I offered a weak smile as I leaned over and placed a kiss on his cheek. “One day, a special woman is going to come along and knock your socks off. When that happens, you’re going to know exactly how to hang onto her. You’re a good man, Miles. Thanks for trying to set the record straight for me, but there’s no turning back now.”
I got out of his car before he could say a word and walked up to the room I still shared with Aimee. When I got there, it wasn’t my friend who greeted me. It was an older woman who I’d never met before.
“I’m here to grant you your freedom.”
“Who exactly are you to do that?”
“Your mother’s mother.”
She looked familiar, but I hadn’t ever met my grandmother in person. Aine Murphy Sweeney Coonan had been the last of her family to carry the Sweeney name before she married. Her father had been the first Sweeney, since he changed his name from Mac Suibhne to the Americanized version of Sweeney when he immigrated to America. Still, I had never met the woman because despite being born in the United States, she returned to her family’s home country of Ireland after her oldest daughter, my mother, married.
There was a slight Irish lilt to the woman’s voice, but it felt like it didn’t exist unless you really worked to process what you just heard. “Don’t think too hard on things, darling. If you wantto escape your father’s machinations for you, then you’ll grab your bags and come with me. They’re already packed.”
“You packed my bags for me?” I managed to ask while stupefied by the fact that my maternal grandmother was in my dorm room. There was no denying who she was, though. Seeing her was like looking in the mirror and seeing my future self or my own mother if she had lived long enough to age a bit more.
“Your roommate packed your bags but she couldn’t be here to say goodbye to you because she’s currently pretending to be out shopping with you.”
“How is that possible when I’m here?”
“I hired a look-a-like. She’s more like the Walmart Aoife, but no one will know unless they get close enough to see the differences. We are running out of time before that happens. Every minute we make the girls put on this farce is another minute we don’t have to flee, so grab those bags and let’s go.”
