She raises her hand. "London, you need to go. I need some time alone with my daughter."
Their gazes lock, but not in challenge. Instead, I see what looks like understanding. That has to be what it is, because no matter what I believe of London, I know he wouldn't chase mehere to Willow Creek only to walk away before saying everything he needed to get off his chest.
His eyes swing back to me. "I'm not leaving. I love you. You and this baby are my whole damn world. I knew the risks; I always knew the risks and took them with you because this is what I want."
My lip trembles as I look into his sorrowful eyes, believing every word. But I don't say it back. I don't say anything. I can't.
He rises to his feet to exit, and when he gets to the door to pass by my mother, she says, "I'm sorry. I'm so damn sorry," as though the breath is being taken from her lungs.
I watch in confusion, not understanding what she's apologizing for. London hurt me, not the other way around. A stone settles in my stomach as I watch him give her a hug. He doesn't look back before he takes his leave, and the hot tears that had been stinging my eyes roll down my cheeks.
My mother stands frozen in the doorway, glued to her spot, until we hear the sound of the front door closing behind London. The sound reverberates through my bones, the familiar ache of his absence carving itself deep. I know this pain intimately. It's the same wound that tore open the last time I stood in this suffocating town, watching him disappear into the night. The memory strikes like a blow, but this time, I'm not the one who landed the punch. My mother is.
"Mom." My voice fractures on the single syllable. "Why did you apologize to him?"
"Laney, I think it's time I tell you my side of the story."
"I'm confused. What side? What story?"
She returns to my bed, this time taking her seat beside me. "The story about the day you killed a man."
"You know?" I lick my lips, tears streaming again. "You know it was me and not London?" She nods slowly, her eyes cast down at her hands, where she has them clasped together so tightly that her knuckles are turning white.
"Yes." The single word lands heavily between us. "I know all about the day you murdered your father in self-defense."
Everything tilts sideways, the room, reality, the bed beneath me. My vision blurs at the edges as the air turns so thick I can barely swallow. It's as if invisible hands have locked around my throat, squeezing until every breath becomes a battle, until the light starts to drain from the world around me. This can't be real. The words have to be wrong, scrambled somewhere between her mouth and my ears. Not the man I killed. Not him. Not the phantom I'd built entire fantasies around, the missing piece I'd spent my last years of high school searching for. The father I'd imagined meeting, embracing, and understanding parts of me I'd never know. They can't possibly be one and the same.
"Say that again." My voice sounds foreign, distant. "I thought you said I killed my father."
"That's exactly what I said."
"I don't—" My words crumble as I search for the right ones. "I don't understand. How is that even possible?" Panic surges upward, making it hard to breathe. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you—" My chest seizes, and the room starts to spin faster. "I can't breathe." The admission comes out as barely a whisper. "I can't breathe."
"Laney, look at me." My mother is on the floor in front of me. "You're safe. This is going to pass, but I need you to breathe, slow and deep, in through your mouth…" She coaches me through the action. "Long and steady release… Another deep breath in, hold for a count of four. One…two…three…four…release."
She walks me through the breathing exercise a few more times, and the tightness in my chest starts to dissipate. Her thumbs trace gentle circles over the backs of my hands, each stroke deliberate and soothing as the storm inside of me settles.
"Why did he want to hurt me?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
The silence that stretches between us feels like a canyon, deep with decades of unspoken truth. I watch as she attempts to gatherherself, squaring her shoulders and preparing to unload a burden she's carried alone my entire life.
"Laney, there's a reason we traveled for most of your life. I became a travel nurse so I could outrun your father. I lied when I told you I didn't know who he was."
With her admission, a second shock ripples through me, weaker but still there. I'm already too numb to feel its full impact.
"I always knew his name. But he wasn't a good man. He wasn't anyone I ever wanted you to meet. I thought—" Her voice catches. "I thought believing the lie was better than knowing the truth."
"If he was so bad, why were you ever with him?"
"Well, the one-night-stand part of my story wasn't a lie. We met at a college party, and he said all the right things. I was never that girl who could put out without a connection, but damn it, if he didn't sweet talk his way right into my bed. It was great, and he didn't take anything I wasn't offering. The next morning, he was gone, and that was that until we ran into each other a week later at a local coffee shop, and what was only supposed to be one night turned into a summer."
"So it wasn't all bad," I say, hopeful to find a slice of good.
She sighs heavily. "Things are rarely bad in the beginning," she points out before reclaiming her seat beside me. "If we saw the worst in people from the start, a lot less bad things would happen. We were good until we weren't…until I found out I was pregnant with you."
"He didn't want kids?"
"We were college students. Kids never came up in our conversations. He wasn't my soul mate, and I wasn't dreaming of a future with him that summer. I was simply happy and having fun. When I told him the news, he wasn't upset—shocked, yes, but not upset. I told him he didn't have to stay because I was pregnant but that I would be keeping you. Giving you up wasn't an option, not for one second."
