Mom offered a sad smile. “Please remember how much we love you, Saige. No matter what.”
I narrowed my eyes and turned to Dad. “What’s going on?”
He rubbed his hands over his jeans as emotions filled his face. He sniffed and finally looked up. “We have a lot to tell you, but before we start, you have to understand that we didn’t want to keep this from you. If it had been up to us, we would have told you years ago, but it was a matter of your safety.”
I bristled at that word. Yet another thing they were protecting me from. For my own good. I wasn’t even sure what was going on, and I was already annoyed.
“You need to stay calm too,” Masie said. “Your emotions are what’s causing the earth and water to react.”
I flinched. “What?”
She patted my hands. “We’ll get to that.”
Mom and Dad shared a look, and I nearly snapped. Dad started speaking again. “We’ll start from the beginning.” He swallowed, and his gaze drifted to Masie. “You know that Mom and I met in college.”
Why were they telling me this? I knew the story of how they met.
“We met our best friends there too. Amber was Mom’s roommate, and Peter and I joined the same fraternity. Starting from freshman year, we were inseparable. They were like family to us. We got married just six months after them.” Dad sucked in a breath, and Mom smiled sadly. “A year later, they were killed in an accident.”
None of this made sense. I’d never heard them talk about anyone named Amber or Peter. If they were so close, then why hadn’t they ever mentioned them?
“The night they died, Masie showed up at our apartment.” Mom took over. I glanced over at my aunt, and she gave my hand a firm squeeze. “She brought you to us.”
My mind wasn’t comprehending her words. I opened my mouth, only to close it again.
“You’re adopted, sweetie,” Dad explained. “Your birth parents are Peter and Amber.”
I gasped as the world was torn out from under me. I stared at my parents, trying to understand. They weren’t really my parents? Not by blood?
Masie jumped in. “I’m still your aunt. I’m Amber’s sister, not Melissa’s.”
The sound of Mom’s first name jarred me from my spiral. “What?”
“They asked us to be your godparents, and when they passed away, we adopted you,” Mom repeated the news, but it didn’t help the meaning sink in.
I focused on taking in several slow breaths to give myself time to process the information. I was adopted. My birth parents were dead. Killed in an accident? Was that what Dad said? Masie was still my aunt, but she wasn’t related to Mom.
While this was all overwhelming enough on its own, something stood out to me.
I turned to my aunt. “You said you hoped this wouldn’t happen. What did you mean?”
She bit her lip before speaking. “We were hoping some of their traits didn’t pass down to you.”
If I had to ask “what do you mean one more time”, I was going to break something. The ground started shaking, and Dad jumped up. “Honey, calm down.”
My attention went to him, and the rattling stopped.
Masie sucked in a breath, “This is going to be a problem.”
“Please, just tell me what’s going on! The bits and pieces are making me crazy.”
Mom blinked at me with watery eyes, Brielle asleep in her arms and blissfully unaware of my life falling apart. “Honey, we will.”
Dad sat back down and nodded toward Masie. “Why don’t you take over?”
She shifted to face me. “Right, let’s start with my family. After Amber died, my parents closed themselves off even more than normal. They’re very traditional and didn’t support her and Peter being together. When you were born, they started to change their minds, but then your parents died. They blamed Peter. I think they were in too much pain to think clearly, but they decided then to remove themselves from your life.”
“So, they’re still alive?”