“Just tell me.”
“My mother is Mrs. M.”
The words she spoke bounced around in my brain for a few seconds before they fully registered.
“Wait, what? How?”
“I’m the one who, unintentionally, sent her to you.”
“Mrs. M? You’re Mrs. M’s daughter?”
She nodded.
I shook my head, pissed and I wasn’t even sure why.
“Just let me explain.”
And she did. Grace documented the series of events that led her mother to my doorstep. I listened, intently, struggling with every single word. Mrs. M was my ticket out of here. My chance at a better life. If she found out what I’d done with her daughter…
My heart hammered in my chest. There was no plausible scenario where I didn’t pay the price. Like the time in that foster home playing chase with the family’s biological son. We broke a lamp, both of us, but I was the one who stood staring at a wall for hours.
Grace was just as guilty as me, but she had trust banked. I did not.
“It’s not like I was holding this back from you. I just found out today. I only came to confront you, maybe even punch you in the gut. I didn’t expect any of this, so don’t look at me like I catfished you or something.”
I leaned against her car, feeling defeated.
Grace hugged me. “Nothing bad is going to happen. My mother loves you.”
“She did… before I deflowered her daughter.”
“Rory, I’m going to fix this. I already have a plan. I’m going to ‘volunteer’ for the next class as your emotional support fuck buddy, and that’s how we’ll ‘meet’ for the first time.”
I glared at her.
“Too soon?” She smiled up at me. “Don’t be mad.”
The tension slowly eased. “Is there anything else I need to know before I go flog myself in the town square?”
She laughed. “Just one. M stands for McKallister.”
My brain was not connecting the dots.
“Mrs. M is Michelle McKallister.”
Nope. Nothing.
“Rory, the night we met, you saw me go into the VIP entrance at my brother’s concert. McKallister.”
That was when it registered. “Jake?”
She nodded.
“You’re hissister?” I asked, the hair on my arms peaking to attention. If I reminded her of Jake McKallister, the kid who’d spent over a month in what could only be described as a living hell, then she assumed something similarly sinister had happened to me. She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t like her thinking I wasn’t whole.
“Yes. Younger by nine years.”
“And your mom…”
