Page 66 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
“Did you do this because MASH was a good idea, or because you wanted to help me?Me, specifically.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“Because you’ve never cared before,” I say, my voice rising. Miller’s knee is pressed to mine, the only thing keeping me grounded. “And now that I made something that interests you, suddenly you want to be more involved than a gift once a year? You’ve been trying to make me this person my whole life, but what if it hadn’t worked?”
She blinks rapidly, the only tell on her calm, calm face. “But you were interested in those things,” she says. “You did want to pursue technology.”
“What if I hadn’t?” My voice breaks, and against every instinct, I force myself to keep looking at her. “You’d never have shown up here? I have to like what you like for you to care about me?”
“Rose,” she says, impatient. “It wasn’t a crime to share my interests with my own daughter.”
“Then why’d you stop sending things when I wrote to you?” I hadn’t meant to ask it, but it comes out on its own. Hangs therebetween us, waiting to be named. “I was supposed to like these things, but never talk to you about them?”
“It wasn’t that,” she says dismissively. “I just thought, when you turned twelve, that you might prefer the money. That you were growing up, and you were old enough to choose.”
“Then why aren’t you letting me choose now?”
She sighs, bitter and clipped. “If I hadn’t gotten involved, everything that’s happened, all this success—”
“Are you taking credit for it?” I’m so close to exploding out of my body, I have to grip the armrests to keep from standing up. “Is that seriously what you’re doing right now?”
“No.” She lifts a hand like I’m a dog, like that motion can make me stay. “I’m just explaining that I’ve supported you, in spite of—”
“Youhaven’tsupported me. And you know what?” My voice is rising again, and I fight to bring it back down. “If you want to take so much credit for MASH, fine. Step up and do the right thing. Shut it down yourself.”
Silence falls between us. All I can hear is the frantic rush of my heart, the breath clamoring for space in the trapped cage of my lungs. I want to get out of here. I want my dad.
“XLR8 owns fifty percent of MASH.” My mother’s voice is flat and unflinching. “We aren’t shutting it down. TheTodayshowappearance has been rescheduled for January—we’ll use it to turn the PR around and seal our story before Celeritas.”
“If you think we’re going back to New York after all this—”
“I don’t think,” she says, her eyes sharp on mine. “I know. I’d hoped we could get on the same page today, but clearly, wecannot. I’ll take it from here and have Felix loop you back in when you’re ready. After Celeritas, we can discuss changes, if that’s still what you want.”
Miller and I speak the exact same words at the exact same time: “You can’t—”
He breaks off, lets me take over.
“You can’t do whatever you want,” I say. “MASH is mine, too.”
“I think you’ll find,” she says, “that this is what you want as well. I need you to trust me.”
My mouth falls open, and I snap it back shut. “Trustyou?”
“We’re more alike than you seem to think,” she says. “We’re made for this. Both of us.”
“I’m not like you,” I bite out.
“You’re just like me.” Her nostrils flare, her whole face rigid with anger. “One hundred percent. And we’ll get through this together if you follow my lead. My direction hasn’t led you astray yet, has it?” She points between Miller and me. “This seems to have worked out.”
And she’s right—it did. But it occurs to me in the same moment that my own mother orchestrated this false romance, had no problem throwing me into a fake relationship just to make this app work. She didn’t know it would be Miller. She didn’t know I’d be all right.
“You do realize,” she says, “that if we shut down now, Miller doesn’t get his end of the deal? There will be no tuition money.”
“Don’t put that on her,” Miller says, before I can respond. Her words hurt right at the base of my throat, like something bluntpressing on my windpipe. “It was your choice not to give me that money up front. And it was your choice to hide all this from us.”
My mother just shakes her head, like she’s done with this conversation.
“Go home, Rose.” She turns away, reaches for her briefcase. “I’ll be in touch.”
