Page 78 of Splitting Secrets
I bite the retort back, deciding I don’t care either way. There’s nothing we can do to change how everything was handled, but now that I know the truth, I expect to be included in the conversations surrounding my life.
Lowering my voice, I shrug one shoulder. “Not much can overwhelm me anymore.”
She shifts in her seat to fully face me, her fingers rubbing against her forehead uncomfortably. “We haven’t talked about what happened to Poppy, and I’m sorry about that.”
“Oh, no,” I push out, holding up my palms to stop her. We arenottalking about Poppy right now. The only way I’ve been able to survive this long is by placing all thoughts of her in a perfect little box and shoving it as far deep into my mind as possible.
Sensing my hesitancy, she frowns. “I know it’s hard to lose someone so important to you, especially alongside the emotional whiplash you’ve had over me and your father. You don’t have to spill your guts to me, but I want you to know that I’m here if you need someone to listen.”
“Okay,” is all I can say, my throat growing tight. We’ve already been on the topic for too long. The proverbial lid to the box threatens to pop off, but I try to hold it on by pivoting my thoughts.
She makes a tutting sound. “It’s wrong, what they did to her. They’ve made an enemy out of Divina.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask.Questioning will only lead to deeper conversation, and the last thing I need right now is more conversation about Poppy.
“What do you mean?” The words fly off my tongue as if they’ve grown wings.
The lid is off. I repeat, the lid is off.
Her brows knit together in a frown, lips pursing. “You didn’t know...” The question dies off, lingering in the air between us.
No, Connie. No one was in a rush to share the gory details with me when I was locked in a cell beneath the ground.
Instead of snarking back, I shake my head. I want to cover my ears and blast her with questions at the same time. I want to know everything, but my heart can’t handle it.
“When the Syndicate found out who you really were, they targeted Poppy. She was already in a bad spot, so when they offered to fly her in, claiming they were speaking on her mother’s behalf, she trusted them.”
“No,” I say, my mouth going dry. I refuse to believe it. This is too much. It goes against my strict, no-Poppy conversation rules. The tiny, delicate box I’ve kept her safe in my mind is about to blast apart into a million tiny pieces, releasing a tsunami of emotions I can’t handle right now. If I allow them to escape, there’s no telling what will happen.
I can’t do it. Iwon’t.
Shut it down. I need to change the subject pronto.
“They flew her here and killed her,” my mother explains, her voice breaking.
No,no,NO.
That can’t be true.
No, it doesn’t add up. They said they found her in Eugene, Oregon. Aunt Divina was standing right there when he told me. How could she stand beside those monsters after what they did to her daughter? How could she look at me like I was the traitor?
How could she lie so well?
Grief tightens its fist around my heart, squeezing until I can hardly suck in a breath. My defenses are crumbling. The box is wide open, giving way to a storm of emotions I can’t even begin to process before the next one replaces it.
This feels worse than when I first found out she was gone. The adrenaline of being captured is gone, leaving no excuse to shove it all away or pretend it isn’t real.
She’s truly dead.My other half.
None of it was a lie or some sort of endless nightmare—not like I’ve been secretly hoping it would be.
“Sonny, what is happening?” my mother’s worried voice asks from somewhere off in the distance.
I can’t form a response. I can’t do anything but sit here andfeeleverything I’ve been avoiding for the past few weeks.
The agony of losing Poppy.
The shock of my parent’s lies.
