Page 86 of The Charade

But then the dots disappeared.

"She's probably scrambling right now," I said to Elyse.

The dots reappeared again. I sat up straighter, wondering if she was finally going to tell us the truth for once in our life.

A text came through a moment later.

Mom:I'll explain everything this weekend.

She'll explain everything this weekend?

She'd had seventeen freaking years to explain things to us. She could tell us right now.

But before I could text that to her, she sent us another text.

Mom:I'll tell you everything soon. Until then, please don't go around asking more people questions.

What? Did she actually have the gall to tell us to stop trying to find the answers on our own, after basically leaving with us no other option but to figure it out ourselves since she was never open about the truth?

My hands shook and rage coursed through me as I typed my response.

Me:Are you serious right now? Don't ask questions? This is my life, Mom. I freaking deserve to know who my father is. Elyse and I both deserve to know who gave us half of our DNA! You don't get to decide everything!

I was fuming! Who the heck did she think she was to still keep this from us? I had tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. To believe that she had her reasons and that maybe she was right to keep us from him and him from us.

But if Mr. Hastings was our dad?

If that kind man who I'd only ever heard good things about since moving to this town was my dad, then maybe my mom was actually in the wrong. Maybe I’d been raised by a deranged woman without even knowing it.

My phone vibrated with a text.

Mom:Just give me some time to figure this all out. You'll have your answers soon enough.

Me:You've had 18 freaking years to figure this crap out, Mom. Elyse and I deserve answers.

I rubbed a hand across my forehead, feeling the stress inside me building and building.

Elyse and I watched my phone's screen for the next few minutes, waiting for our mom to respond. But after five minutes passed and no messages came through, I tossed my phone on the pillow and threw myself back against my mattress. I yelled out, "You suck, Mom."

35

Ava

I wentto bed after crying angry, frustrated tears into my pillow for a while. But instead of finding sleep, my mind just ran on an endless loop of worrying about Carter being my brother, worrying about how everyone at school was going to react when they found out about it, and then worrying about how everything was going to work.

Would my mom finally fess up to everything? Would Mr. Hastings request a DNA test? What would Mrs. Hastings do? Would Cambrielle and Nash be excited? Would Elyse and I have to leave the school dorm and move in with the Hastings family since we were related?

Where would Elyse and I sleep? Would it be in the same wing as the rest of the Hastings kids? Or would we be put on the other side of the house because they knew Carter and I had a complicated relationship and would need some space to figure things out?

Or would our mom take us out of the school and away from Eden Falls because she really didn't want us to have any kind of association with Mr. Hastings?

Needless to say, I didn't sleep well Monday night because my brain just wanted to worry about all the possible scenarios that might arise from this.

Elyse and I agreed before we went down to breakfast the next morning that we wouldn't tell anyone about what we'd discovered the night before. We didn't have any for-sure answers yet, and so until we did, we didn't want to trigger any of the gossip mills at the school.

When I sat next to Carter during math, I asked him if he'd heard anything from his dad. He shook his head and said, "Nothing yet."

I released a long sigh, not sure how I felt about his dad staying silent just like my mom. As long as I didn't know for sure, there was still hope that this was all just a huge misunderstanding. That my dad could still be some random one-night stand and it didn’t happen on my mom’s high school reunion night. There was still hope that I wasn't in love with my half-brother.

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