Page 115 of Endgame
He’s nestled into her chest, swaddled in a white cloth. His lips are rosy and pouty. His patch of hair is almost black.
Then he flutters his eyes open.
Blue. They’re as blue as the sky on a spring day.
As blue as the girl’s eyes in the photo in Everett’s library room.
A blue that resembles mine. Not quite, but…
The dread from earlier slams into me. Flattening my lungs. Stealing my breath.
I don’t get why it hits me with such intensity, but it does.
The girl. Everett. The family photos.
Maybe she wasn’t his close friend. Maybe she was his sister.
And maybe, maybe, I was too quick to dismiss the thought that she was my mother.
So, if Everett’s sister were my mother…
If I have feelings for him…
If he fucked me…
Oh God.
Oh my God.
I think I’m going to be sick.
“Nurse Gina.” Another nurse walks past Cormac into the room.
The two women chat while I’m being buried alive under a thousand metaphorical bricks.
A new scenario unfolds as I wait for her to return.
Though he didn’t look at the girl like he was in love, and neither did she, they could’ve been high school sweethearts.
They wouldn’t be the first teenagers to have unprotected sex. Or his condom could’ve broken.
They were so young.
As responsible as Everett is, he might’ve freaked out. So could have the girl.
They could’ve put me in the hands of the only married couple they trusted with this secret.
The girl, mymaybemom, was devastated by the whole ordeal and ran off.
Then, what if—what if the Clarkes wouldn’t let him see me when he came to his senses?
Winston and Molly are evil enough to tell him I never wanted to meet my biological parents. They might’ve said I was the reason he wasn’t allowed near me in the Royalty meetings.
Or it could’ve been my mom who asked for me, and they wouldn’t let her see me. She could’ve been consumed by grief. Might’ve run off from all that grief, then died of a broken heart.
That could’ve happened.
Then again… Is that how Everett avenges her? By fucking me? His child?
