“Thank you, that’s sweet.”
I’d forgotten to take the ones left out for me after the phone debacle this morning. These will be a lifesaver.
He pushes off his locker. “You sure?”
My hand closes around the circular white pills before I can overthink it. My facial expression’s overexaggerated as I swallow them down with the last of my coffee.
You aren’t her. Lillian had an addiction; you’ll be okay.
You’re fine.
“I’m fine.” Panic grips my throat as I feel them slide down. “Really. I appreciate the thought,” I force out past my own reservations.
“You never talk about her.”
“About my mother?”
“Yeah,” he says, pressing his back to the metal.
What’s there to say? She was a depressed addict who couldn’t move on from the past. Blaming me for her and Abram’s demise since my birth.
Looking back with clearer eyes, I wonder now if she neglected me because I was a reminder of what she’d lost. Sure, I don’t look like Abram, but I’m still carrying half his DNA in my veins.
“Man, your mom hated me. I could tell as soon as she saw me that I was in trouble.” He snorts at the memory. “I guess it’s fair because Lorna hasn’t always been your biggest fan either…”
“You met my mom?”
This is news to me.
“Don’t you remember? We met that one time when we were younger.”
None of this makes sense. “That summer I stayed when I was twelve?”
“No, before that.”
Finn is right, I’d taken that trip alone. Lillian refused to leave the house. Someone else picked me up in a car and took me to the airport.
I’d made the entire journey alone.
“What are you talking about?”
Did I sound panicked? I feel like I’m panicking. My mind is spinning with new questions to answers I thought I had. Most importantly, why does Finn seem to remember things I don’t?
The first time we’d met, and I realized I had a sibling, had been that summer. That’s what I’d always thought, but now I’m not so sure?
“How long have you known?” I swallow on a pause. “About me, I mean?”
He rotates his body and head to the side, shouldering them both to his locker.
“I’ve known about you for a long time, as far back as I can remember honestly. Dad liked to try and bring you up, but then mom would get mad and then they’d end up in a big fight.”
“I had no idea,” I breathe.
Abram tried to bring me up. That tidbit of knowledge a revelation. Why would someone who cares so little for me try so hard to include me even if I wasn’t there?
What am I missing? And more importantly, what aren’t I remembering?
“Look, I need to dip,” he rushes out suddenly. Eyes catching something over my head. His spine straightens to an iron rod pushing from his earlier relaxed form. “Hope the pills help.”