“You kept my daughter from me for years beyond the period where you were guiltless,” Tess fires back, finally turning around to face them. It makes sense, why she’s angry. Logically, I know that. Rationally, I understand. But this is how she chose to confront the situation? By dragging me here when she knew I didn’t want to be interviewed? Forcing this on me when I’d rather dig my own grave and climb in?
“Fuck you,” I say, and the entire audience goes quiet. Tess stops talking, my grandparents stop talking, Martina stops talking.
At least for a second.
“Who are you speaking to, Dakota?” she asks softly, like I’m a delicate child whose petals might break. I glare at her.
“You,” I say, “because you exploit people.” I look up at my grandparents with angry tears brimming in my eyes. “And you two for having an inkling of what was going on and ignoring it.” Next, I look at Tess and she goes from seeming angry and self-righteous to wary. “And mostly you. For everything. For thinking more about yourself than me. Eat a bag of dicks.” I’m about to launch into a tirade, right there on a live feed, but then someone’s storming across the stage with their sweatshirt hood up and grabbing my wrist.
Parrish yanks me up from the chair and drags me across the stage while everyone watches.
Just a few steps later and we’re running.
We run down the hall, past the woman with the lanyard, past the Cortez twins who gape at us like we’re crazy, and right out the doors of the recording studio. It’s misting out here—of course it is, it’s the Pacific Northwest (gag)—but that doesn’t stop Parrish from dragging me down the steps and along the sidewalk.
A few minutes later, a car pulls up alongside of us and Parrish opens the door.
It’s Chasm.
“What’s the matter, Little Sister?” he asks, his voice edgy, like he hates himself for even asking that question of me.
I look back, finding Parrish’s gaze on mine as he takes a step back.
“I’ll tell Tess you’re headed home,” he says, pushing me in before he closes the door and turns back around on the sidewalk.
“Excuse me,” I breathe, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. “Can you just … I don’t know, drive me around for a minute?”
The thought of going back to the ice palace is too much for me right now.
Instead, as Chasm drives, I roll down my window and stick my head out, even going so far as to get on my knees so I can breathe in the misty morning air. He leaves me alone for a couple of breaths and then reaches out, yanking on the bottom hem of my already too short dress.
With a yelp, I slap my hands over his and slump back in the car just before we hit a sharp curve and I wonder if I might actually have fallen out if he hadn’t yanked me back in.
“You can’t touch someone’s ass without permission,” I snarl, but he’s already giving me an apologetic look, like he knows something bad happened in that studio. Oh. Oh. He was probably watching the live feed.
“You okay?” he asks, but I’m not. He knows it. I know it. Even Parrish knew it. So why doesn’t Tess? How could my grandparents lie to me like that?
“No. Fuck them, fuck them all,” I grumble, wishing I hadn’t deleted all my social media accounts so I could go rant somewhere and people would listen.
“You just said that—live. Are you sure you don’t want to be internet famous? Because I’ve already seen GIFs.”
I whip my phone from the pocket on my dress—dresses with pockets are the fucking best—and stare at all the messages flooding in. Sally and Nevaeh, Lumen and Danyella. Maxx. Maxine. I pick up when an incoming call shows from my sister.
“I didn’t know, Kota. Oh my god, I swear I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t,” I agree, even though I’m breaking on the inside. My world already felt flipped upside down, but at least I was getting used to it. Now it’s been turned in a completely different direction and I’m starting to get dizzy.
The Banks knew I wasn’t Saffron’s kid? They might not’ve known exactly who I was, but shouldn’t they have known from principle that something bad happened? Am I mad at them for not coming forward sooner … or because I still—even after this—wish we hadn’t been caught?
“Why am I here?” I ask to no one in particular, even though Maxine is still on the other end of the phone, crying. “Why am I wearing this?” I look down at the sparkly black party dress that shows off every inch of my thighs and costs more than it should and I feel suddenly sick. Without a second thought, I tear it over my head and Chasm overcorrects the car while simultaneously cursing at me in Korean.
“Little Sister,” he chokes out, sounding like he wants to kill me as I hijack his Whitehall Prep blazer from the back seat and shove my arms into it, buttoning as many buttons as I can with shaking hands. “Do you want to die in an accident today?”
I ignore him in favor of talking to my sister. For whatever reason, I decide to put her on speaker.
“Where are you right now? I’m having issues with my car, so I’m going to have Maxx drive me down.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, even though it isn’t. I want to tear my hair out right now. I want to get mad at … someone. Anyone. I’m just not exactly sure who to get mad at. Tess, for being angry that she was kept from her daughter longer than she needed to be? My grandparents, for losing the child they spent a decade and a half raising? Or Saffron, the mentally ill and damaged grieving mother who stole me to fill a hole in her heart?
“Dakota, I’m not leaving you alone right now,” Maxine asserts, and I can hear that stubborn streak in her voice, the resolute ring of finality that says she’s not taking no for an answer.
“Look, I’ll be fine. This news doesn’t change anything, does it? It doesn’t change the fact that Saffron had a dead child who was named my name, who should’ve lived my life, and I’m here in … in fucking Medina of all places, living the life of some rich girl daughter to the world’s most famous author since J.K. Rowling and E.L. James.”
I’m getting hysterical here, but none of what I’ve said is a lie or an exaggeration.
“I’m getting in the car now,” Maxine tells me, but it won’t help. I won’t be able to see her unless I find a way to sneak out, but you can bet your ass Tess is going to try to talk to me as soon as I get home.
I find my way to the live feed of the show and see that it’s still happening without me: Tess versus the Banks. They don’t even need me there to fight about me.
“Listen, if you want to come, come next weekend. Chasm can pretend we have a study session together to get me out of the house.” I glance his way, but he doesn’t respond. I take that to mean yes.
“I’m taking you on a hike,” Maxine declares because, like a true PNW Native, she believes that a hike can cure anything from depression to anxiety to a sprained ankle (don’t ask me how). To be honest, I despise hikes. The only thing that sounds worse to me in this moment is spending time with Tess.
“Fine. I’ll do a hike, but only if you pick one with less people.”
I can practically hear Maxine grinning through the phone, but when she sends a request to turn our call into a video chat, I decline it. If she looks at me now, she’ll see that I have tears running down my face, even though I don’t mean to let them.