Page 89 of The Ruling Class
“I’m not your sister.” Those words were harder to misunderstand. “I was never your sister.”
I don’t understand.
I don’t want to.
“I was seventeen.” Ivy’s arms encircled her waist. “He was young, too, recently enlisted. It was the first, last, and only time I’d ever really let go. And then, when I found out …”
Found out. Found out. Found out.The words echoed in my mind.
“I was your age, Tess. I was a kid, so when Mom and Dad decided that the best thing would be for them to raise you, I said yes.” She repeated herself then. “I said yes.”
I remember my parents’ funeral.
I remember my sister carrying me up the stairs.
I remember my head on Ivy’s chest.
Except Ivy was saying that they weren’t my parents. They wereherparents, and she wasn’t my sister.
She was my mother.
“I am going to keep you safe,” Ivy told me, her voice shaking. “I have to.”
I stood there, staring at Ivy, a hundred thousand thoughts and memories and moments rushing through my head.
And then I got on the plane.
And then I shattered.
CHAPTER 53
For the longest time after the plane landed, I just sat there, staring straight ahead, feeling like a hitchhiker in someone else’s body. My limbs had grown unbearably heavy. I felt like I might never move again.
I was seventeen, Ivy had said.
I didn’t want to replay the words. I didn’t want to picture Ivy at my age. I didn’t want to think about the one year we’d lived in the same house, before she’d gone off to college and it had been just Mom and Dad and me.
Not my mom. Not my dad.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that they’d died, and it wasn’t fair that Ivy had taken the few memories that I had and twisted them until I didn’t recognize them anymore.
My parents died when I was little. How many times had I said those words? But it wasn’t true—none of it was true. I wasn’t an orphan. I’d neverbeenan orphan. The woman who’d given birth to me wasn’t dead. And my father?
He was young, too, recently enlisted.
Six words—and that was all I knew.
My parents were never my parents, I thought, forcing my brain to actually form the words.And my grandfather …I thought of Gramps forgetting that I existed and mistakenly believing that I was Ivy and that Ivy was his daughter.
Gramps knew, I realized suddenly.Of course he knew. He’d lied to me.
They all did.
I closed my eyes, memories flooding over me.I remember the funeral. I remember Ivy carrying me up the stairs. I remember sitting on the floor in front of Ivy while she brushed my hair. I remember Ivy kneeling down next to me. I remember patting her wet cheek.
I remember Ivy crying, then giving me away.
Having your entire life rewritten in a heartbeat was an impossible thing.
