But I settle for words. I always do more damage with those anyway.
“You’re lying. Who are your parents, Gaia?”
The room goes still. Everything cold. Still.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Her arms wrap around herself, and her voice is barely audible. “I... I’m your best friend.”
I rise from the bed like a force of nature, ripping the covers off, storming up to her.
“You’re lying!” I shout, finger in her face. “We’ve been best friends for twenty years. Don’t insult me. I know when you’re lying.”
“She’s your sister, Athens.” Josie’s voice slices between us like a guillotine. I freeze.
“She didn’t tell you because it wasn’t time. Kaia made sure of that. You’ve met before, when you were little. But together, the memories could come back. When you were ready.”
I let out a bitter laugh, turning toward her. “And you’re saying I’m ready now?”
Josie nods, tired. “Seems like it. When did the dreams come back?” She grabs my wrist gently, pulling me back toward the bed.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “A few weeks ago. What does that even matter?”
She softens. “Have you ever felt like you lost time? Like your reality wasn’t yours?”
I pause.
I close my eyes, trying to feel. Trying to remember.
But all I find is static. Blankness. Like someone wiped the slate clean with bleach and sorrow.
“You drop this on me,” I whisper, then louder, bitter, broken, “and then expect me to believe I’ve got some twisted archive of abuse and secrets shoved in the back of my head?”
I rise again, heart pounding. “You’re not just my aunt. You’re my mother.” The word lands like poison on my tongue.
“How the fuck do you expect me to come back from that?” I make for the door.
“Athens, don’t you dare talk to your mother that way.” Gaia’s voice cuts clean through the fog.
I stop. Turn back.
Slow. Controlled. Lethal.
“My mother? If you’re my sister, why don’t you call her that?”
The silence is crushing.
Then she speaks, and the truth she spits leaves the room in shreds. “Because we had the same father. But no one came to save me.” Her voice cracks.
“I ran. Lived on the streets. Until Josie found me. Took me in. Raised me like I was hers. If she hadn’t, I’d be dead.”
The words suck all the oxygen out of the room.
“What?” I breathe. A whimper. A scream. Both.
Josie nods, eyes full of mourning.
“Your father was a cruel man, baby. Once, you and Gaia were his world. But power rotted him. And his lust... ruined everything. He stopped seeing you as his daughter. And started seeing you as something else. Something he wanted.”
I collapse back onto the bed, the walls spinning.
