“Honey, what are you talking about?” Mom said at last.
The knot in my chest unraveled a bit, her answer giving me hope that she was as clueless as I had been, that there was no way she could lie about something this big.
“The letters Rose wrote to me?” I was trying to sound calm, but my voice crept up an octave. I could no longer ignore the dread I’d been feeling since the discovery. “They were hidden under your bed.”
More silence. Finally, “What were you doing in my bedroom?”
There was no denial in her response. “So you knew?” I whispered. “You knew she was writing to me?”
My mom heaved a sigh. “You don’t understand, Felicity. It’s more complicated than you think.”
I tried to wrap my mind around what she was saying, wondering if I’d misheard her even though I knew I hadn’t. “How could you do this?” I exclaimed. My dread was quickly heating to sizzling anger.
“Felicity, baby,” she said, and I could picture her leaning against the kitchen counter, dragging her fingers through her bangs.
“Don’t!” I snapped. “You pretended you didn’t know where Rose was forfouryears. You let me think that she didn’t want anything to do with us. Withme.”
“But I didn’t always know where she was and—”
“I don’t care,” I countered, not giving her a chance to explain. “You knew she was okay, that she was alive, and you didn’t tell me!”
“You’re right,” she said. “I kept this from you because I was trying to protect you. I know you’re upset right now, but let’s not do this over the phone. Come home, and I’ll tell you everything.”
Too flustered to sit still any longer, I leaped out of bed, hardlyblanching when my bare feet hit the cold wooden floor. In fact, I welcomed the cold—it helped cool the flush spreading through my body. If she thought she could gain ground with me by admitting the truth, she was so wrong.
“I’m not coming home, Mom,” I said, fuming. “Not until I talk to Rose.”
“Felicity.” From the tightness in her voice it sounded as if she was on the verge of crying. “Where are you?”
I glanced out the window at the backyard. Now that it was daylight, the long stretch of forest wasn’t as foreboding as it had been last night.
“You know that boy you didn’t want me to see? The musician who drove me home from the masquerade?” I knew what I was going to say would upset her, but I didn’t care. I wanted my mom to hurt, to feel the same anger I was feeling, so I flung my words at her. “I’m withhim. He’s helping me find Rose.” Not waiting for a response, I punched the end button and chucked my phone on the bed. Three seconds later, it started buzzing, but I ignored the call.
My whole body trembled.
Ever since Rose ran away, I’d felt protective of my mom because I was all she had left. Everyone else had deserted her. I thought our mother-daughter bond had been strengthened by adversity. It was the two of us taking on the world. That she could deceive me like this seemed inconceivable.
Maybe, deep down, I knew my mom had been lying to me when I found the letters. And maybe I’d overlooked that deception because acknowledging she’d kept me from my sister meant that allthe choices I’d made since Rose ran away—choices about school and my future, choices that made me who I was today—were based on a devastating lie. All of a sudden, I felt an overwhelming sense that I’d lost a part of myself, like a bunch of little pieces that defined me were slipping away.
Yesterday morning, after I found Asha and Boomer together, I mistook my feelings of surprise and confusion for betrayal. At the time, I didn’t have a real understanding of the emotion.
Now I did.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t think.
I couldn’t stop the silent sobs that racked my body.
Thiswas what real betrayal felt like.
Asha’s best-friend telepathy must have kicked in, because there was a knock at the door and she poked her head inside. “Hey, Fel. You up?” She glanced at the bed first, and then gasped when she spotted me crying by the window. “Oh hell, what’s wrong? Something totally happened, didn’t it?” she asked as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Unable to answer, I merely nodded my head.
“What is it?” she demanded. “Did that boy hurt you? Because you know Boomer and I will kick his ass if he did.” Her gaze flickered over me, from my face to my feet and back up again, as if she was scanning for signs of bodily harm.
“What are you talking—” I stopped short. By boy, she meantAlec. “No, of course not! How could you think something like that about him?”
