I run through everything the doctor told her, and how he told me to call family to come see them.
“Fuck,” I hear Declan say, and my mom places her hand over her mouth.
“Where is she?” Lileah asks.
“In the car, said she can’t come in here, no one wants her here.” I stop and shake. “When she was talking to the doctor, she said something which I haven’t stopped thinking about.I lost everything for her. Do you get that? I lost fuck…I lost everything for my mom. My best friend. My future. The man I loved more than I ever thought was humanly possible. I lost it all for her.” No one says anything, which I didn’t think they would, because even I don’t know what to fucking say to that.
But I glance over at Cain who’s watching me with a raised brow. Digging through my pocket, I throw the envelope on the table.
“What the fuck does he have to do with anything?” I ask.
Mason grabs the envelope, and they all move around him to look at the name, then stare at Cain for an answer.
Before Cain can answer, my dad, who’s been sitting quietly on the arm of the couch, says, “Looks like she went to the place she always loved being.” I look to where my dad is facing, and my heart stutters.
The treehouse.
I haven’t been back since prison. Haven’t climbed those wooden steps because all they did was echo with her laughter.
Cain nods, voice calm and low. “Go get your answers.”
I stare at the door.
And for the first time in years, I want them.
I climb the ladder slowly, the old wood creaking under my boots. When I reach the top, I’m not surprised by the creaks in the wood, I can’t even remember the last time I was up here myself.
“It feels smaller in here than I remember,” I say with a half-smile, hoping it will make her feel a little… I don’t know, safer. She doesn’t turn around right away. Instead, I hear her scoff lightly through her tears.
“That’s because you’re built like a giant now.” Her voice is broken, raw, and when she finally looks at me, her eyes are red-rimmed, her cheeks damp from the tears escaping her eyes. I sit down next to her, close enough that our shoulders brush. It’s crazy that being here with her again, and everything just feels normal, like back when things were good between us.
She wipes another tear away, sniffles softly. “Life was meant to be different for us,” she whispers. “I had so many visions of us together.”
“I never fucked it up for us, Olivia,” I tell her, my voice sharper than I intended it to be. “I had dreams for us too. You’re the one who threw everything we had into the fire.”
I wait for her to say something, anything, but silence. I mean what do you say, how do you take the blame for all of this. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, but it’s heavy.
“Tell me the truth, Olivia. Tell me why?—”
“I can’t—” Her voice cracks like glass under pressure.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I always thought…” I exhale hard, trying to control the weight building in my chest. “In the hospital, you told the doctor you lost everything to save your mom. How did sending me to jail help her?”
She doesn’t look at me. Instead, she stares out into the garden, with what looks like a haunted smile on her lips. “I used to joke with you about who'd win when the twins fought out there. Seeing them now, I think Miles would lose.” She wipes her tears again and drops her gaze to her hands.
“Don’t let the geek look fool you,” I reply, trying to ease the tension, shifting a little closer. Gently, I move her hair from her face. “Talk to me,” I whisper.
She leans forward, placing her forehead against my chest, and I can feel her heartbeat pounding against my hand as I hold her wrist.
“My mom…” Her voice is barely audible, cracking under the weight of everything. It’s almost like this is the first time she’s about to say it out loud. “She wasn’t just sick. She was illegal. She came to America when she was four, but she was never documented, nor did she ever apply for citizenship. Her cancer was getting worse,” she continues, stuttering on her words. She takes another deep breath. “Af… after that night at the hospital—” She tries to pull away, but I don’t let her. She needs someone to hold her up now.
“The police were there. I was about to tell them everything, everything those assholes did to me. But I stopped when four men came in. I didn’t know them, but my dad told them to leave. They wouldn’t, they looked like men with money and power.” She trembles against me, she shakes her head, before talking again. “It was Leo’s dad… and the others. My mom’s doctor was with them. Her oncologist. He… he was friends with them.”
My jaw clenches, because it’s all fitting together.
“They told me… they said they knew everything about my mom. That she wasn’t legal, and if I told the truth, they’d deport her. The doctor said her treatments would stop, and he’d make sure she was put at the bottom of the waiting list for any treatment she needed.” She swallows hard, her next words strangled. “We didn’t have money for lawyers. We didn’t have time to stop her treatments.”
She shakes her head repeatedly against my chest. “Or… I could keep quiet and say it was you. Say the man I loved… the boy I grew up with…did it.” I can feel the heaviness in thesentence she’s just said. “And they’d help her; they’d send her to one of the best doctors in the country.”
