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She lifted her head from my lap and looked at me with narrowed eyes. “But then why did you ask for me to leave and not see you again?”
“What?” Her words made no sense. “I never asked you to leave. I wouldn’t have. I fucking needed you more than I ever needed anyone in my life.”
She stood up, still holding the blanket around her, and began pacing the room. “Your mother… Your mother…”
She turned to face me. “I came to see you and your mother met me at the door. She had told me you didn’t want me to be around any longer but didn’t have the heart to tell me. And considering you had just lost your brother, she told me I should do the kind thing and leave you alone. You were going through enough. And since your mother was such a kind soul, she said she would continue to pay for me to go to school. Just away from here. Away from Darlington and away from you.”
I stood up as shock and fury coursed through me. “I never knew!” I shouted. “I would have never… I never said a word to my mother. I thought you just—”
“Left,” she answered for me as she nodded. “Your mother always hated me. It makes sense now. This was her way to get me out of the picture. She most likely hated that your father paid my way all those years.” She paused and then studied me. “But I sent you emails. Letters. Nothing. Why did you ignore me?”
I shook my head, baffled by what she was saying. “I shut down after Tim died. I barely finished out my senior year. Mom had to help with my assignments by the end when she realized I might fail and how badly that would reflect on her, so she was checking my email, emailing my teachers for me. She must have seen and…” I felt sick when I realized my mother’s full treachery.
She must’ve deleted Fallon’s emails before I’d ever seen them. I was the only son she had left, so she’d obviously decided that if she didn’t have Tim, the least she could do was start to try to control my life the same way she’d always done his. She just moved on to me, even though I never could measure up. Jesus Christ, that woman was so fucked up.
“You just disappeared and never contacted me. It broke my heart. I shut down on everyone and by the time I came back up to the surface and you hadn’t even tried to reach out, well I thought… I thought… I thought it was for the best. I never wanted you to know that I had deep feelings for you. Far greater than just best friends. And since you were gone, I knew you were in the best place. The last thing you needed was me in your life. I thought I was poison.”
I ran my hands through my hair and was happy I was locked away at the Oleander. Because if I was near my mother right now, I would fucking strangle her.
“I would have never left you,” she said softly. “I thought you wanted me gone. And Jesus… I had deep feelings for you too. So deep that when your mother told me to leave, it broke me. I thought I wasn’t good enough for you. I was just the poor little maid’s daughter they took pity on because I was the child of the Order.”
“Wait…what?” Her words were like a punch to the gut. A tidal wave of confusion washed over me. “Child of the Order?”
Fallon nodded. “My mom was a belle once. A rejected belle. In fact, the Initiate was your dad, but he chose someone else. But even though she didn’t get chosen, she still participated in the Trials as one of the other women. And got pregnant with me by one of the members.”
“With you? Fuck! Are you telling me that my father could be your—”
“I’m not your sister, don’t worry,” she quickly interrupted. Hearing the words she wasn’t my sister was like a splash of cold water on my fire of chaos scorching every emotion searing through me. “Mrs. H told me all of it, and she swore your father didn’t sleep with anyone during his Trials but his belle. He never ever slept with my mom. But she did get pregnant, and whoever the Elder was who did it also rejected her.”
“Who was the Elder?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. If it weren’t for Mrs. H, I wouldn’t have even known this much. She felt I needed to know the truth about my past. She helped convince me to become a belle in the first place. She said it was my birthright. I was owed this money. I was owed all my dreams to be granted by the Order. I was owed everything my father denied me by denying my existence and letting Mom be a single mother with no support. Mrs. H knew you’d choose me”—Fallon’s eyes narrowed—“even though you didn’t. Anyway… she felt it was time I got what both my mother and I deserved.”
