Gemma
My mouth opened.Then closed. Then opened again. All while the room fell silent. There were four of us in here, but it felt like just me and…Headmaster Ellison…my father.
“Gem.” Isaiah’s thumb rubbed slow circles over my hand. Headmaster Ellison looked equal parts relieved and horrified.
“I…” My voice was a whisper again, and I cleared my throat, forcing my mouth to move through the emotion straining my vocals. “I don’t... I’m confused.”
Headmaster Ellison’s hands rested over his thighs evenly. His chest rose and stayed for a second before it deflated, and he spilled.
“Your mother and I were a lot like you and Isaiah. We came from completely different backgrounds but were drawn together nonetheless. We were in a sort of secret relationship due to a number of things, but she…helped me through some messed up stuff, and when she got caught in a bad spot—felony theft—I helped her out. Or I thought I was helping. I bargained with my father—or who I thought to be my father—Isaiah’s grandfather, to help her. Our family had been doing business with the Stallards for a very long time. So, Isaiah’s grandfather asked Judge Stallard, Richard, for a favor in keeping your mother out of prison, all in exchange for me to leave the family because it turned out I was an orphan, just like your mother was. I’m not an Underwood. I’m not related to Isaiah. And his grandfather knew that from the beginning and wanted me out of the family.” Headmaster Ellison’s eyes were glossy, and the agony was there, evident on his face, and I felt it just as much. The guilt. He had to have had so much guilt. “I thought I was helping her. I thought I was helping her stay out of prison.”
“Did you…” I unclogged my tight throat, looking away. “Did you know she was pregnant with me and Tobias? Did you know who I was the second I showed up at St. Mary’s?”
“No!” Headmaster Ellison popped to his feet and walked over to the bed, so I was forced to look up at him. “I tried to talk to your mother after her sentencing, but every time I would try to have contact with her in the group home, I would get shut down. My letters would go unanswered, and eventually, I believed that she just didn’t want to talk to me anymore. But I think now I know why. Richard didn’t want her to have contact with me or anyone from her past life. He must have seen something in her… Maybe he saw a future with a beautiful young girl who was stuck in a bad spot with two little babies. Maybe he knew I was your father all along. Although, if he had known that, I doubt he would have sent you to me.
“After her sentence ended, I tried to find her again. Ann, Richard’s mother, had said that she’d disappeared. I hired private investigators, everything. There was no trail of her. Anywhere.”
My head fell in defeat. “That makes sense. There would be no paper trail when you are no longer alive, and not to mention, Richard is well versed in covering things up. He told Tobias and me that she committed suicide because she was so sick. That's why she left us in the first place. To go to the hospital to get better and…that she killed herself.” I slowly raised my head and looked at Jacobi, all while squeezing Isaiah’s hand. “That’s not true. Richard killed her. Or someone in that place did.”
His jaw tensed as he nodded and began scribbling it down in his notebook.
“I’m so sorry, Gemma.” I came back and met Headmaster Ellison again. The familiarity of his presence and calmness he always gave me was still there and even more palpable.
“You remind me of Tobias.” I bit my lip, squeezing my eyes for a second before opening them back up and taking a deep breath. I pushed up off Isaiah’s hard and sturdy chest, suddenly missing the way his heart beat along my back. “From the second I met you, I…you felt so familiar to me. Like I knew you somehow.” The realization hit me like a ton of bricks, and I wanted to cry. I really did. There was so much hurt jabbing at me, but one thing was for certain: Headmaster Ellison, my father, was not the one at fault. The true evil here was Richard Stallard. All his lies, his cover-ups, his payouts. He was the one who needed to take the blame. All of it.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I whispered, placing my hand on his. The headmaster’s head flew up in surprise. “I know you think you have their blood on your hands, but you don’t. It’s Richard’s fault. Not yours. There were plenty of young girls at the group home that he could have chosen from. Who knows? Maybe this isn’t the first time he’s become obsessed.”
We stayed locked on each other for far too long. My heart hurt, but at the same time, it felt stitched back together. It was banged up, and parts of it would likely never heal. The wounds of losing someone forever would stay, but there were parts of me that were still hanging on. There were parts of me that could care for someone and learn to trust them. I learned that from what I felt for Isaiah.
“Gemma,” Jacobi interrupted Headmaster Ellison’s and my tense moment. “There is something else that you need to know.” He stood up, shifting his attention to Isaiah and then to Headmaster Ellison, which only spiked my blood with more dread.
“Now what?” I asked, feeling as if I were teetering over the edge.
“Like I said, it isn’t just your word against his. There are photos that we have collected from the house you grew up in, along with many corroborators who have come forward after the press release on the accusations of Richard, along with those who he tried to bribe and/or pay off. Like a…” Jacobi shuffled through some papers before nodding. “Miss Ann Scova. She was the social worker who had taken on your case after some girls from the group home began speaking up about the girl in the big house. That social worker is a tough cookie. Anyway, Richard had tried to pay her to turn a blind eye, but she didn’t.”
I nodded. “She was the reason I was sent to Wellington Prep. Richard said he had no choice but to send me to an actual school because of a social worker poking around. And then that led to sending me to St. Mary’s.”
“Yes, and…” Jacobi looked at Isaiah again, and he tensed behind me. I spun around and looked at the wariness pulling along his dark features.
“Gemma, what did Richard say to you about Tobias?” His brows slanted, and his tongue darted out to lick his lips. He pulled himself up higher on my hospital bed and bent a knee, resting his arm on it as I sat in between his legs. “Didn’t you tell me that you knew Tobias was still alive? That's why you went to the Covens that one night, yeah?”
My head dropped again, but I thought better of hiding the hurt. Instead, I peeked back up and let Isaiah read my face for what it was. “Richard told me he killed him when I had made a remark. And I know what you’re thinking. Why would I believe anything he says? But you didn’t see the look in his eye, Isaiah. And it makes sense...” I shrugged, not wanting to believe the truth that had been in the back of my mind for the last several years. “I couldn’t find anything in that house that was connected to my brother. There were no leads, no clues, nothing. And you even said it yourself: he wasn’t at the Covens. Where else would he be?” My heart thrashed, and if the nurse came in here right now and took my blood pressure, I was certain it would be much higher than it was an hour ago. “He killed him.”
“Gem,” Headmaster Ellison’s voice was soft, and like before, I felt calm near him. Almost just as calm as I did with Isaiah. “Your brother is alive.”
Chills coated my arms, except this time it wasn’t from fear. It was from shock. My heart whacked inside. “He’s alive?”
“He’s our other witness. There is no way anyone in their right mind could let Richard Stallard walk freely on this earth after the evidence and statements from the pair of you. Even given his judicial stance. There is too much against him now for a cover-up. I won’t let it happen.”
“Just like you won’t let Dad walk either?” That came from Isaiah, but I’d forgotten that his father even had a role in this. Jacobi gave him a look and said something, but I couldn’t focus on what he’d said.
Tobias was alive.
My twin brother was alive.