Page 102 of The Best I Never Had

He pauses for a minute, then repeats, “Addy told her to leave.”

Addy’s face goes white. “She’s gone?”

“Yes, she’s gone,” I scream, and Addy flinches. Harrison steps between us, but I have no intention of hurting her with anything but my words. “You told your sister, who has spent her whole life prioritizing you, that you don’t want her here. What the fuck did you think would happen?”

“I didn’t think she’d leave,” Addy whispers, almost like she’s talking to herself.

Harrison slides his arm around her shoulder, murmuring in her ear.

“I said the most horrible things to her, Harrison.” A tear slips from her eyes, and she swats it away with a jerky movement so reminiscent of Thea that I want to cry myself. “I was angry and scared I’d lose you.”

He kisses her forehead. “We’ll sort it out.”

“Driving or flying, Vaughn?” I ask.

He hums, an infuriatingly passive-aggressive sound that has me thankful he’s on the phone and not close enough for me to punch. “Not sure.”

“Bullshit. Her car’s still in the shop, so if she drove, she’d have to take your car. Did you fly or drive here?”

“She doesn’t want anyone to follow her, Owen,” Vaughn says, almost sympathetically. I’ve always liked him and regretted losing touch when he left Hayes, but I’m at the end of my rope.

“You know what? It doesn’t matter. Either I’ll catch her at the airport or I’ll get on the next flight back to Orlando to go after her.” I stab the end call button as a replacement for the fist I want to put through the wall.

“What about the wedding?” Mom asks.

“Like I’m going to the wedding,” I say sarcastically. “Isn’t that what you said yesterday when you were humiliating Thea?”

She gasps like I’ve attacked her. “Well, I don’t—”

I don’t care enough to hear what she has to say, instead turning to Harrison. “You know how much I love you, right?”

His normally jovial face is written in harsh lines right now. For a minute, I think he’s going to lay into me about the lying, but then he walks to me in a couple of long strides and pulls me in, a clinging full-hearted hug. “Go. We’re fine.”

Mom grabs my arm. “Owen, this isn’t like you. I get why you’re so charmed by her—we all were—but she’s not worth throwing away your family for.”

I turn back to her, reading the terror underneath her angry facade. I think, for the first time in thirty-two years, I may understand her. She’s been dealt a shitty hand, watching the love of her life waste away. Seeing Thea eaten away by disease would break something inside me, too. It’s easy to assume her issues are about wanting control, but maybe it’s something more. Maybe it’s her fear of what happens if she does let go.

Part of me—a very, very large part after last night—wants to write my mother off. She has manipulated me my entire life. I now realize she’s hurt Harrison with her indifference. And worst of all, she drove Thea away. I’m not sure that’s something I can forgive.

But the truth is none of us have been honest with her. We haven’t given her the chance to change, at best ignoring her behaviors and at worst enabling them. Maybe she won’t hear us—maybe she’s too buried in her own issues to dig herself out—but I have to at least try.

My heart’s pounding, beating out a rhythm that says, Get to Thea, get to Thea, get to Thea, but I force myself to slow down. I want a future with her. A real future, where we can build our lives together. And to do that, it needs to start from a place of honesty. I don’t know how my mother will respond, and I’ve realized I can’t control that.

“Mom, I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear me. I don’t have time to say this more than once, and I’m not going to fight with you. First, and most important, everything Thea said about me in that letter is a lie. She was telling the truth about Addy’s involvement—she found out the day before you did—but it wasn’t Thea’s idea. I didn’t even know her until after I’d come up with the plan, and our mutual friend introduced us so I could ask her to pretend to be my girlfriend. She didn’t influence or manipulate me. It was all me.”

My mom’s eyes fill with tears. “I don’t understand why you’d do something like that.”

“I know you don’t, because I’ve never been brave enough to tell you. I know things were hard before Dad died and only got worse once he was gone, but I’ve always felt responsible for keeping this family together. Every time I’ve tried to do something off the path of what you’ve decided for me, you shut down.”

“That’s not true,” she cuts in.

“Mom,” I say, leveling her with a stare. “I mentioned I want to start a side business for something I love, and you went to bed for a day. You almost missed Harrison’s rehearsal.”

“Would have been better if she had,” Harrison mutters, and I shoot him a glare. She doesn’t need us ganging up on her.

I continue. “I don’t want the life I’m living. I’ve never enjoyed the work, but I’ve done it because I felt obligated to do what was best for this family, to maintain Dad’s legacy. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my relationship with you. But I can’t keep living like this—giving up what I want because I’m walking on eggshells. And I won’t lose Thea because I’m too scared of the fallout with you.”

She sniffles. “You think I’m that bad of a mother?”