“You weren’t teaching English abroad?” Poppy asks, dumbfounded.
I shake my head. “That was my cover.”
“Oh my gosh, Rosie,” Noli breathes.
“Were you in danger?” Poppy squeaks.
“Not really. Not directly.” I hedge. “I’m very good at my job—or what was my job. I was fired tonight.”
I tell them about Anton and coming clean. About how that put me in breach of our contract. About how Dad was livid and so was the queen. And most of all, so was Anton.
“He doesn’t want anything to do with me.” My voice cracks. “I don’t blame him. I was dishonest. For his whole life, people have been telling him what he wants to hear or telling him what he needs to do. He never knows anyone’s motives and whether or not they’re pure. He trusted me, and I turned out to be everything he feared. I went from being someone he cared about to his worst nightmare.”
“You’re no one’s nightmare, Rosie.” Poppy starts stroking my hair.
I shake my head. “How can you even say that? I lied to you too.”
“Yeah. About that,” Noli huffs. “What the heck?”
Poppy reaches across me and swats her. “Not. The. Time.”
“Sorry,” Noli mumbles.
“No.I’msorry.“ I start crying again. “I just…when Dad reached out, I was so hopeful for a connection with him. I thought he’d come around eventually and want to have a role in our family again. He got into the business because he was a loner. He didn’t have anything holding him back, and that worked to his advantage. I was the same way, so he taught me everything he knew. The whole time, I was waiting for an opening to try to get our family reconciliation going, but it never came. By that point, I was so far in the weeds of my secret life with his agency that I didn’t know how to get out. I’ve completely lost myself. I just morph into whatever my assignments require of me, and I don’t know which way is up anymore. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t deserve to be found.”
“Alright, let’s get one thing straight.” Noli’s calm voice pierces through the fog of my self-loathing and grief. “That is absolutely not true.”
“One hundred percent false,” Poppy puts in.
I start shaking my head, but Poppy reaches up and squeezes my cheeks between her hands, cutting me off. “You do, Rosie. You unquestionably deserve to be found.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “I really went and ruined everything, but you guys are being so nice.”
“It doesn’t matter what you did,” Poppy shushes me. “With the whole secret-double-life thing, or with Anton, or with our father, or any of it.”
“Although, we’re definitely going to circle back to all of that becausewow, I’m going to need details.“ Noli’s droll tone makes me chuckle in spite of myself.
Poppy shoots her a look. “Right now, you need to understand that your worth, who you are as a person, isn’t tied up in whatyou’ve done. You are inherently good. You have value because you’re a human being. That doesn’t go away because you got messed up in a job or a relationship.”
I want to believe her, but it’s going to take a lot of soul searching to regain a semblance of my own identity—and the belief that I’m not a complete screw-up and the worst person in the world.
“It feels a little like it does. I’m scared,” I whisper. “Who even am I?”
“That’s the beautiful thing, Rosie. You get to decide that,” Noli says.
“For starters,” Poppy leans in and hugs me, “remember that you are Rose Marie Kasper, and you are loved.”
She holds me close, and Noli strokes my hair, and I fall apart again. I don’t remember the last time someone took care of me. I’ve always felt like the outlier in our sister group. I love Poppy and Noli more than anything, but I’ve intentionally kept myself distanced from them because of my job. Now I don’t have to. Everything imploded, and honestly? It’s a relief.
Another bout of my tears makes me shake. I feel empty, but at the same time, in my emptiness, there’s a levity I haven’t felt in years. It’s like I cried out all the secrets, broke through the web of deception that had been shrouding my soul, and while all that’s left is open space, at least I’m finally clean.
34
For the Team
Anton
My teammates are eyeing me with varying levels of concern. For good reason. I was a complete space cadet during our Friday walk-through. I wouldn’t make eye contact, wouldn’t talk to anyone beyond one-word responses during our entire flight to our away game. Instead of using my free time on Saturday afternoon to explore the city and grab dinner with the guys like I usually would, I holed up in my hotel room alone. I got room service and only came out for team meetings. When those were finished at a little after eight, I came straight back to my room. I’ve gone through the motions of the warm-up today on autopilot.
