Page 99 of The Charade

"Brendon?" I furrowed my brow, not knowing who Brendon was or what he might have to do with this story.

"Oh, um," my mom said. "You might know of him as Dr. Aarden? He has a son your age named Mack."

Still frowning, I glanced at Elyse, curious if she understood where our mom was going with this, but she looked just as confused as I felt.

Mom cleared her throat. "Okay, so Brendon and I dated for just a short time in high school during the fall of our junior year. It was nothing big, just a few dates here and there that fizzled out before it could get too serious. He went on to date my best friend at the time, Brianna, and I got to know his best friend Joel better during our production ofRomeo and Juliet."

Elyse and I nodded, this information fitting with what Mrs. Simmons had told Elyse.

"Anyway," my mom said. "Joel and I dated for the next year and a half and grew quite close during that time. But when we graduated and I had to move back to Israel because my student visa was about to expire, we had no choice but to try to move on."

"Did you keep in contact after that?" Elyse asked, clearly more interested in the details than I was since all I was here for was the moment when she told us he was our long-lost dad.

Mom nodded, seeming encouraged that at least one of her daughters was being pleasant to her. "We emailed every week for the first year or so, but after we realized that a long-distance relationship wasn't going to work out, we decided to just end things for real and tried to move on with people in our same zip code."

"That makes sense," Elyse said.

Mom continued, "I basically lost contact with all of my friends from the academy after that and just went on living life, helping take care of your grandfather and getting my degree. As you know, I was able to move back to New York after graduating and started working toward becoming a citizen. Then about five years after my high school graduation, I received an email announcing a class reunion. Since I thought it might be fun to catch up with everyone from the old days, I got myself a cute dress and drove the few hours to attend."

I flexed my hands into fists, my heart rate increasing as I realized she was finally getting close to the part of the story I'd been waiting my whole life to hear.

Mom crossed one of her legs over the other as if trying to get comfortable for what she had to say next. "The reunion was held at one of the hotels in Eden Falls, so I checked myself into a room there. When it came time for it to start, I headed down to the conference room where it was being held and nervously waited to see if any of my friends had come. My friend Cortney was there." Mom met our gazes. "I think she actually teaches math at the academy. Her married name is Cortney Simmons."

"She's my Statistics teacher," I said.

Mom nodded. "So I hung out with Cortney for a little while and asked her to give me an update on all of the latest Eden Falls gossip. She told me that both Joel and Brendon were planning to come and that they were both single, if I was interested in reviving an old fling." She shook her head and cleared her throat. "I'll admit that the idea of rekindling something with Joel did spark some interest in me since here we were, both single and available, but when he showed up, I soon realized that nothing would be happening there because while he was friendly and courteous, he was not open to flirting with me like old times."

"So you and Joel—Mr. Hastings—" I corrected myself. "—didn't rekindle anything that night?" I asked, feeling more confused than ever.

Mom shook her head. "I later found out that he'd been trying to get back with the woman that he’s actually married to now, and so he wasn't interested in going down memory lane with me."

I frowned for a moment as I tried to make sense of what she was saying. If she hadn't hooked up with Mr. Hastings that night, then why was she telling us about her high school reunion in the first place?

Why even talk about Mr. Hastings at all?

And since I was tired of beating around the bush, I blurted out, "So is Mr. Hastings our dad or not?"

"What?" Mom put a hand to her chest. "No. Of course not." She shook her head. "Is that what you thought?"

"Well, yeah," I said, like it should have been obvious. I gestured at the room around us. "We’re in his office right now and you did come here to talk to him. Isn't that why we're here?"

"No, honey." Mom leaned forward and put her hand on my knee. "Joel Hastings is not your father. I don't know what led you to believe that he was, but it's not him."

It wasn't?

Mr. Hastings wasn't my dad?

Carter's dad wasn't my dad?

It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did, I suddenly felt lightheaded.

Carter's dad wasn't my dad.

Which meant that Carter wasn't my brother.

We weren't related.

Which meant that Carter and I could actually be together.

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