“It’s not a storm, Nicky, it’s a call for my death like some kind of witch hunt,” I sigh, grabbing my necktie and blazer. “And honestly, there’s nothing I can do to change the narrative against me.”
“You don’t know that they’re against you.”
I shoot her a get real stare. I’ve been online. I’ve seen the hashtags #IceQueenLiar or #MoneyHungryWhore and my favorite #FitzTrash. And judging by the look on her face, she’s seen it all too.
“No matter what I do, they’re still going to talk, whether they know the truth or not,” I say, wearing the rest of my uniform with short, wooden movements. “The last thing I need is to hide out like a coward, it will just make things worse.”
“It’s not hiding out, sweetheart, it’s protecting yourself,” Nicky continues, stepping forward to smooth down my blazer softly, reminding me of Nancy. “I can talk to your principal.”
“Uh, no thanks,” I say immediately, swiveling away from her reach.
Our principal is great at her job sure, but everyone knows she’s a terrible gossip.
I mean how else do the rest of the teaching stuff know about student’s personal issues soon after their miserable rich as fuck parents leave her office?
Hell, once upon a time, I was that bitch who got information on other students from her after easing her with a box of Golden Crystal Ube doughnuts—the woman has expensive taste in food and a poor fashion sense.
So now, if Nicky calls her, the news will spread on the grounds of Clintwood Academy like the wildfires of Cali. Uncontrollable and raging.
Silence is my best course of action.
Emotions can only be expressed in private, if ever.
Everything else doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters now.
“Okay then,” she sighs. Then she’s silent for a while, looking around the walk-in closet like she’s trying to find the words she needs, annoying me even further.
“Is there something you need?” I finally snap.
Her face falls in an instant. For a moment, I feel bad for being snarky and short with her but it’s just a brief freaking moment.
She was, after all, the one who helped build my father’s web of deceit that got Julian thrown in jail and is facing a trial today that will determine his future. And as far as I’ve heard, it looks like it’s going to be a mess.
“Well, I know you’re not exactly happy with me right now and honestly, I understand that, but Mia, we have to talk.”
Ah fuck.
“No, we really don’t.”
Checking my reflection in the mirror, I grab my book bag and brush past her, completely aware that I’m back into hiding behind a perfect hairdo and flawless makeup, my Ice Queen mask firmly in place as if the blissful, amazing and indescribable weeks I spent with Julian didn’t change me and make me feel everything for the first time in my stone-cold life.
“Mia, I’ve been patient with you these past couple of weeks, giving you as much space as you need but come on,” she says, following me back into my room. “Look at this! Look at where we are.”
“We’re home.”
“Exactly!” She spreads her arms out. “How are we here? This house, bless its charm and the history in each room, is not ours. Doesn’t it now belong to that snake of a woman, Courtney?”
Here we go.
“Technically she does, but she’s not here, is she? And we are currently homeless.”
“Yes, but not for long, I’ve been out looking for apartments…”
“Your accounts were frozen, and you don’t have any more cash since my pathetic attempt of running away, also orchestrated by you, failed.” She gapes at me all wide-eyed and shocked, but I keep going. “And I know he took everything else from you.”
She opens her mouth to say something but snaps it shut, but I keep moving, grabbing my books and shit I know I won’t need because my concentration is shit. I hope she won’t probe deeper and ask more questions. I don’t want to have to lie to her.
So far, I’ve been as honest as I can be, even when it’s easier to just lie, but after what I learned about my past the day I ran to see Courtney and found her with my father and what ensured after, I’m just trying to do what I can to make sure the people I love survive this pit of hell and devils.
“How… how did you know?” Nicky asks, her voice all but a whisper.
“Oh, I know.” I more than know. Nathan warned me there’s no way out and made it abundantly clear that he has every part of my life on lock, including Nicky’s. And if either of us are going to survive, I’ll have to play along to this dance but now, I’m beginning to resent Nicky. For pushing me to leave that day. For starting a sequence of unfortunate circumstances that has led Julian to be the face of a scandal that will for sure destroy his future.
Nicky takes a deep breath as if to calm herself down. Then she shakes her head and stares at me.
“Mia, how are we here in this house? What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something?” I say just as my phone vibrates with a text.
“Mia, seriously,” she says exasperated. “This might be the house you grew up in, but make no mistake, that witch still owns it. Neither one of us is safe. While we’re under her roof, which is basically like being under her thumb.”
She’s right. Of course, she’s right.
But how do I explain? How do I demand answers from her when my life flipped upside down the day I saw Courtney with my father and truths came out? My life’s been a lie. I’ve been nothing but my father’s puppet since I was four so what’s Courtney’s manipulations now in the grand scheme of things?
“What do you want from me?” I snap. “What do you want me to say?”
“Mia…”
“If anything, you should be the one doing all the talking right now,” I say, my voice rising. “How could you let me live like that? How could you allow me, as my own biological mother, to be raised by that man? Used as his puppet?”
As soon as I say that I watch as her face grows pale, her eyes widening with horror.
“Oh God,” she whispers seemingly broken by that revelation.
Everything in me comes to a screeching halt at the confirmation in her eyes.
“So, it’s all true, huh?” I mutter woodenly, my heart beating in slow motion.
I was hoping—no, I was praying—that he lied, that he was just trying to fuck with me, forcing ne into his sick, twisted plan to hurt the Fitzgerald family but no. The truth is right there.
“Oh God,” she whispers again, covering her mouth with a trembling palm. “You… you know?”
“What exactly am I supposed to know, Nicky?” I mock. “Should I know that I’ve been believing since I was four-years-old that my name is Mia when my legal, birth name is Amy?”
“Oh no…”
“Should I know that you let that man make me believe that Nancy was my mother while you stood by and signed me away only for that man to break me and now, years later you come in and strip away everything I thought I knew like this?”
“Oh Mia, listen to me…”
“How about we talk about how you knew all of this but still let it happen?”