Chapter 22: : Chapter 22

“Sit down.”

I prefer to stand, but I’m guessing I may as well settle in. I take the seat in front of her desk.

“After the fights and your behavior the past few weeks, I’ve been calling the phone numbers on file,” she tells me, closing her office door. “None of them work or they’re wrong numbers. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

I stare at her as she takes her seat behind her tidy, little desk. Unbuttoning her suit jacket, she scoots in and opens a file, undoubtedly mine. It’s nearly empty.

But I keep quiet.

“If you had a concern about Trey, you should’ve come to me,” she demands. “Not break into the school and write horrible accusations on the wall.”

Accusations? Were the pictures she found in her bedroom not clear enough?

“Where is he?” I ask.

She straightens. “I’ve sent my stepson home for the day, while we sort through this mess.”

I feel like smiling, but I don’t. I simply stare at her. With the amount of upset students outside her door right now, I’m guessing the mess will take quite a while to sort through.

“Where are your parents?” she asks.

“My father lives in Thunder Bay.”

“And your mother?”

“Gone.”

She exhales a sigh and folds her hands on her desk. She knows she’s not going to get anywhere like this.

Reaching over, she picks up the phone receiver and holds it to her ear. “Give me your father’s phone number.”

My fingers curl, but I don’t give myself away. This is it.

“742-555-3644.”

“What’s his name?” She punches in the number. “His real name.”

I hear the line start ringing, and my heart pounds painfully, but I remain stoic.

“Matthew,” I answer flatly. “Matthew Lare Grayson.”

She suddenly goes still and darts her eyes up to me. Her breathing speeds up, and she looks like she’s seen a ghost.

Well, she remembers his name. That’s something, at least.

My father’s voice comes across on the other line. “Hello?”

And she looks back down, and I see her swallow the lump in her throat, blinking nervously. “Matthew?”

“Gillian?”

She hangs up the phone like it’s burning hot and covers her mouth with her hand. I almost want to smile. Just to add to the taunt.

She raises her eyes, locking on mine and looking like she’s scared of me. “Misha?”

Yep.

And awesome. She remembers my name. Two points for Mom.

Now she knows. Me choosing to come to this school and sit in this office had nothing to do with Trey. It was about her.

“What do you want?” she asks, and it sounds like an accusation.

I laugh to myself. “What do I want?” And then I drop my eyes, whispering to myself, “What do I want?”

I raise my chin and cock my head, sitting across from her and holding her fucking accountable. “I guess I wanted a mom. I wanted a family, and I wanted you to see me play the guitar,” I tell her. “I wanted to see you Christmas morning and to smile at me and miss me and hold my sister when she was sad or lonely or scared.” I watch as she just sits there silently, her eyes glistening. “I wanted you to like us. I wanted you to tell my father that he was a good guy who deserved better than you and that he should stop waiting for you. I wanted you to tell us to stop waiting.”

I flex my jaw, getting stronger by the moment. This isn’t about me. I’m done being hurt and asking myself questions when I know the answers won’t be good enough.

“I wanted to see you,” I go on. “I wanted to figure you out. I wanted to understand why my sister died of a heart attack at seventeen years old, because she was taking drugs to keep her awake to study and be the perfect daughter, athlete, and student, so you would come back and be proud of her and want her!”

I study her face, seeing Annie’s brown eyes staring back, pained and turning red. “I wanted to understand why you didn’t come to your own child’s funeral,” I charge. “Your baby who was lying on a dark, wet, cold road for hours alone while your new kids,”—I shove at a picture frame on her desk, making it tumble forward—“in your new house,”—another picture frame—“with your new husband,”—the last picture frame—“were all tucked safe and warm in their beds, but not Annie. She was dying alone, having never felt her mother’s arms around her.”

She hunches forward, breaking down and covering her mouth with her hands again. This can’t be a surprise. She had to know this was going to happen someday.

I mean, I know she hasn’t seen me since I was two, but I thought for sure she would know me. That first day, seeing her in the lunchroom, I felt like she was going to turn around. Like she’d be able to sense me or some shit.

But she didn’t. Not then, not when she pulled me into her office for a “Hey, how are you?”… and not any time after that.

She deserted us and moved away when Annie was just a baby. After a time, I heard she went to college and started teaching, but honestly, it barely hurt.

I could understand being young—twenty-two with two kids—and not to mention the cut-throat family she married into. But I thought she’d eventually find her way back to us.

And later, when Annie and I found out she was only one town away, married to a man who already had a son, and she’d started a family with him and still hadn’t made the slightest effort to seek Annie and me out, I got angry.

Annie did everything in the hope our mother would hear about her or see her team in the paper and come for her.

“Now…” I say, my tone calm and even, “I don’t want any of those things. I just want my sister back.” I lean forward, placing my elbows on the tops of my knees. “And I want you to tell me something before I leave. Something I need to hear. I want you to tell me that you were never going to look for us.”

Her teary eyes shoot up to me.

Yeah, I might’ve convinced myself that I came here to collect the photo album of my sister’s school pictures and newspaper clippings Annie said she mailed her here that I found in her file cabinet and my grandfather’s watch, but really, part of me had a shred of hope. Part of me thought she might still be a good person and have an explanation. A way to tell me why—even in death—Annie’s mom still didn’t come for her.

“I want you to tell me you don’t regret leaving and you haven’t thought about us a single day since you left,” I demand. “You were happier without us, and you don’t want us.”

“Misha—”

“Say it,” I growl. “Let me leave here free of you. Give me that.”

Maybe she missed us and didn’t want to disrupt our lives. Maybe she missed us and didn’t want to disrupt her life. Or maybe that part of her life is broken and over, and she doesn’t want to go back. Maybe she doesn’t care.

But I do know that I can’t care about this anymore. I stare at her and wait for her to say what I need to hear.

“I wasn’t going to look for either of you,” she whispers, staring at her desk with tears streaming down her face. “I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t be your mother.”

I slam my hand down on her desk, and she jumps. “I don’t give a shit about your excuses. I won’t feel sorry for you. Now say it. Say you were happier without us, and you didn’t want us.”

She starts crying again, but I wait.

“I’m happier since I left,” she sobs. “I never think about you and Annie, and I’m happier without you.” She breaks down as if the words are painful to say.

The sadness creeps up my throat, and I feel tears threatening. But I stand up, straighten my spine, and look down at her.

“Thank you,” I reply.

Turning, I walk for the door but stop, speaking to her with my back turned. “When your other daughter, Emma, turns eighteen, I will be introducing myself to her,” I state. “Do yourself a favor and don’t be an asshole. Prepare her before that time comes.”

And I open the door, leaving the office.

I step into the empty hallway and make my way for the entrance, the distance between my mother and me growing. With every step, I feel stronger.

I won’t regret leaving, I say to myself. I won’t think about you a single day from now on. I’m happier without you, and I don’t need you.

I’ll never look for you again.

“Did you ask her why she left?”

“No.” I sit against the wall in Annie’s room with Ryen resting against me between my legs.

“You’re not curious about her reasoning?” she presses. “How she would justify it?”

“I used to wonder. But now I… I don’t know.” It’s not that I don’t care, but…“If someone doesn’t want us, we need to stop wanting them. I used to tell myself that, and now I believe it,” I tell her. “It’s not so hard, facing her and walking away. If she wanted to explain, she would’ve. If she could’ve, she would’ve. She didn’t chase after me. She knows how to find me if she wants to.”

Ryen smoothes her hands down Annie’s blue scarf. “So that’s why you were in Falcon’s Well.”

“Yeah. She had the watch. An heirloom gifted by my father’s father for her and my dad at their wedding,” I say, burying my nose in her hair. “Family tradition dictates it goes to the first-born son. She took it when she left—maybe to spite my dad or pawn it for money if she needed—but somehow she ended up giving it to Trey.”

“You must’ve hated her for that.”

“I already hated her,” I shoot back. “That hurt, though. She’d already abandoned us. How could she steal one more thing—especially something that rightfully belonged to me?”

She was selfish and spiteful, and maybe she isn’t the same person now that she was then, but I’m not waiting for her like Annie did. I hug Ryen close. This, right here, is everything. I can’t wait to live all the days I’m going to live with her. We’re going to have a hell of a lot of fun.

Especially since I no longer have to worry about that cocksucker at school with her for the rest of the year. She got a text from Ten earlier, saying he heard that the superintendent stepped in and forbade Trey from stepping foot on school grounds until everything clears up. And since a few students are pressing charges, for the photos and various assaults, it looks like the next several months of Trey’s life will be spent in court.

Ryen stands and pulls me up, both of us trailing out of the room. I’d come in here to put Annie’s locket and photo album back. There had also been letters with the album in the envelope I’d taken from our mother’s office, too. Annie didn’t tell me she’d written her, just that she’d sent her a photo album of her pics and stuff. She made sure to leave photos of me out of it, though. She knew I wouldn’t have liked that.

Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the album and letters. After our mother never showed up to the funeral, though, I just didn’t want her to have anything of Annie’s.

But Annie gave them to her, I guess. It was her wish our mother have those things.

If she wants the envelope back, she can have it. But she has to come and ask.

I close the door quietly behind me and walk into my room, seeing Ryen sitting on the bed, reading a piece of paper.

“What’s this?” she asks.

I look down at the white paper. “It’s a letter.”

She folds it up and sets it down. “Well, I didn’t read it or anything, but it could be an offer to talk about a recording contract.” She smirks. “And there’s several more there.” She points to the bedside table. “I didn’t read those, either, but I was wondering if maybe they could be letters of interest, too. I’ll bet some well-connected dudes have seen Cipher Core’s YouTube videos and want to talk.”

They don’t want Cipher Core. They want me, and I don’t want to leave my band.

I plop down on the bed and pull her back, tickling her. “The only things I want to do are things that won’t take me away from you. Understand?”

She laughs, squirming and trying to stop me.

“Well, college isn’t far off!” she giggles, slapping my hands away. “I’ll be leaving. And I looked at your band’s Facebook page. They have tour dates up for this summer.”

“It’s just bullshit dives and fairs and festivals.” I climb on top of her, straddling her and pulling her arms up over her head.

“But that sounds amazing.”

I stick my tongue out and lean down, trying to touch her nose.

“Are you five?” she squeals, flopping her body and attempting to buck me off.

I dart in, licking the tip of her nose. She winces and shakes her head rapidly so I won’t get a second shot in.

I chuckle, releasing her hands. “Honestly, I don’t know why Dane still has that shit up. I told him I wasn’t going.”

“Yes, you are.”

I climb off her. “Ryen, I—”

“Stop,” she says. “It’s not forever. You have to go. Just follow this and see where it leads.”

Right now, I couldn’t want anything less. The idea of leaving her makes me really fucking unhappy.

“You and I have had a long distance relationship for seven years,” she goes on. “I think we’ve withstood the test of time and distance. No one has ever come close to meaning to me in person what you mean to me in your letters. And now that we’ve met, and I love you,” she says, climbing into my lap and wrapping her legs around me. “I don’t doubt this. You need to go.”

“I just got you.”

“And I don’t want you holding back because of me.”

I slide my hands up the back of her shirt, savoring her warm, smooth skin.

“We’re going to have everything we want,” she tells me, laying down the law. “That’s the only way I want this with you. If you go, and you don’t like it, come home. If you do like it, I’ll be waiting when you’re done.”

I can feel my nerves firing, and I don’t know how to deal with this. I’d rather not think about it today at all.

Would I like to drive around in an old rented bus and play some music this summer? Maybe. That was the plan up until February.

But now I have Ryen, and I can’t imagine not seeing her every day. I don’t see the goddamn point of wasting a minute without her in it. I won’t be happier just because I have the music.

But she’s right. She’s going off to college, and although I can, too, it won’t be the same school. I could go with her, but…I can’t follow her. We both need our own work someday, a way to be fulfilled.

“If you don’t try,” she says, “you’ll wonder later if you should’ve. Don’t put that guilt on me.”

I give a weak laugh. Geez, punch me in the nuts, why don’t you?

“If I do this, I have a condition of my own,” I tell her, looking up into her eyes. “I want you to write a letter.”

She breaks out in a gigantic smile. “A letter? I’ll write you more than one while you’re gone.”

“Not to me.” I shake my head. “Delilah.”

Her face instantly falls. I can tell the prospect of facing that demon unnerves her.

“She left Falcon’s Well in sixth grade. I wouldn’t even know where she is now.”

“I’m sure she’s just a Google search away.” Which she knows. She’s just looking for an excuse to not face it.

She turns her head away, biding time, but I nudge her chin back to me again.

“What if she doesn’t even remember me?” she asks. “What if it was no big deal to her, and she thinks I’m an idiot for still dwelling on it?”

I hood my eyes. “Any more excuses or are you done?”

“Okay,” she bursts out like a child. “I’ll do it. You’re right.”

“Good.” And I flip her over onto her back and pin her down again. “Now get undressed. I need to make up for lost time while I’m away.”

“What?” she argues as I pull her shirt over her head. “You make up for lost time when you get back!”

“Yeah. We can do that, too.”