Page 76 of The Plan

“Don’t even say that, Vidia.” She shakes her head, and I tilt her chin up so she meets my eyes. “I’m one hundred and ten percent sure if she could choose to never have you and also not have to go through that with him, she’d choose to have him put her through hell all over again.”

I’ve only ever seen her and her mom interact a few times besides a few phone calls, but I know her mom loves her more than anything on this earth.

“Yeah, but—”

“But nothing, Vid, nothing you could’ve done can change what he did, and you simply being born had nothing to do withhim being an abusive son of a bitch.” She nods softly, and I reluctantly pull my hand from her face.

“I think your mom would kill you if she heard you say that.” She chuckles softly, and I only watch her, not even wanting to blink away from her smile.

She tells me it’s my turn again, and my eyes feel heavy, like I might knock out in the next few seconds, but I don’t want my conversation with her to end so soon, so I share again.

“The day after I was adopted, she told me she wished she aborted me.” I can literally see the moment Vidia’s heart sinks. “She ruined a great day for me like always.”

I know it’s technically her turn to go next, and maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t slept in two days, but I can’t stop the word vomit. “I think from not so bad to horrible, I’ll rank the shit she did to me as—being late to pick me up from school, the cops would come after two hours, but then my mom would pick me up when she got the twins.” At the mention of my real mom, Kat, I notice Vid’s smile.

“Then there’s her barely feeding me.” I pause as I think about what’d go next. “I think the beatings and burnings are tied, but the crash is definitely next, or maybe that one is tied with her leaving me at a crack house. I think she was trying to sell me for drugs.”

When I hear a soft gasp, I look back up at Vidia, and I’m somehow reminded she’s still here. She shakes her head softly, and I immediately want to take my words back because she looks sad, and that’s the last thing I want her to feel right now, or at all.

“Don’t cry for me.” I smile up at her, and she quickly blinks her tears away. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not, though.” She blinks faster, and I pull her in before she cries. “I feel like nothing else I have to share would be on the same level as any of that.” She sounds so defeated, but I can’t help but let out a bitter laugh.

“It isn’t a competition for the worst childhood, Vid.” She laughs bitterly under me before pulling away.

“No, either way, you won by a long shot.” I give her a weak smile and shrug. “I remember you telling me she lost her parental rights when you were already in high school. Why’d it take so long?”

I let out a sigh and slouch in my seat to lean my head on the side of the couch. “I never went to the hospital for any of my injuries, so there was no evidence.” I shake my head at another reminder.

“When I first met Lis, I was climbing her fence for an apple that fell from her tree. She thought I was breaking in and started throwing apples at me, and her aim was shit.” I smile at the memory and the reason I call her Apple Jack, her stupid apple tree she loved so much.

“We obviously became close after that, and one day, we climbed her tree, only I didn’t know how to get back down.” I shake my head at how Lis bullied me for days after that. “She called for Fiona, but she never came, so I was stuck for hours. When she finally did come, she told me to jump, and she’d catch me.”

Vidia shakes her head, clearly sensing what’s next. “I broke my arm on the fall, and she didn’t even take me to get it checked. A whole week I sobbed, but the minute Kat saw me, she knew something was wrong and got me to a hospital.”

“Remind me to thank her when I see her.” I give Vid a smile and remind myself to call my mom because it’s been too long since we spoke.

“So you met Lis, then the crash happened, and you met the twins, but—” I shake my head, cutting her off.

“I met Lis the day I was stealing her apples.” Vid chuckles softly. “Then I met August in class. I was seven.” She nods as I go on. “That whole year, we were together almost every day. Thecrash was when I was eight, but I still lived with Fiona since it was somehow deemed an accident.”

“How?!” Vidia shakes her head in disbelief, and I continue.

“At this point, I was at home with the twins almost every day and slept over almost every other weekend.” I take in a breath as the harder part comes. “Fourteen is when Lis and I fell into the wrong group and started using. A year later, Fiona almost burned the house down cooking meth or some shit and went to jail. By the time she was out, I was already adopted.”

Vidia nods softly, putting the timeline together in her head. “That’s…”

“A lot, yeah.” I run a hand through my hair, feeling suddenly very small now that that’s all out. The weight in my chest lifted somewhere along the time we were talking, so I guess talking to her worked, but there’s one more thing I add.

“If there’s one thing I could change about my childhood, wanna know what it would be?” Vidia watches me carefully as she answers.

“That Fiona was a good mom to you?”

“No.” I shake my head, feeling like I didn’t answer fast enough. “If she was even a quarter of a better mom, there's a possibility that I would’ve never met the twins or my parents.”

She keeps her eyes on me as I say the one thing I wish I could say to the woman who brought me into this world. “That she never made it out of the car the night of the crash.” Vidia doesn’t move a muscle as I go on. “That she sank to the bottom of that lake with me and felt the fear I did as water filled her lungs. That she died.” I wait for her to start looking at me like I’m a monster for thinking that, but her eyes only soften.

Slowly, she reaches forward and cups my face in her hand as she wipes the tear I didn’t know fell onto my cheek. “You were dealt a shitty hand, Sire,” she spoke softly, and I let my eyes fall shut, leaning into her touch. “Yet you came out on top and inspades.” I look over at her, and she offers me a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Think about the irony of that whenever you have another nightmare of that bitch.”

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