Page 74 of Corrupted Union

“I was so scared I would lose you.” My words grew thin, sticking in my throat on their way out. “I love you so much, and I don’t tell you that nearly enough. I’m so sorry.”

She rolled her head from side to side. “When I saw Stetson pointing that gun at you, I realized how stupid I’ve been.”

“Not stupid, Mom—”

She raised a hand. “I couldn’t change anything about Ivy being gone, but losing you to my grief was my own fault. I didn’t see it until that moment. I could have lost you before I ever truly got to know the woman you’ve become.” Tears trickled down her cheeks, but she smiled, and for once, it glowed all the way to her gray-green eyes. Eyes that Ivy and I had both inherited. “I love you so much, baby girl.”

This time, I leaned in and hugged her with more force than before. I couldn’t help myself because what I was about to say might have made her look at me differently, and I hated for that to happen when we’d only just found one another.

“Mama? I have to tell you something,” I said into her hair, not able to look her in the eye. “It’s eaten at me all these years, and before we can move forward, I think you need to know what happened that day. The day Ivy died.” I pulled back, my gaze dropping to my fingers as they worried at my sleeve. “It was my fault.” The words were nothing but breath and guilt, yet they cleaved me in two.

“What?”

“I dared Ivy to jump the curb that day. I knew it was dangerous and did it anyway. I know I was only a kid, but she'd still be here if I hadn’t done it. It was all my fault.” Finally. I’d finally spoken the truth. And in a way, it was a relief.

Cleansing tears streamed down my cheeks, and my chin quivered, my body overcome with emotion.

Mom’s brows knotted together. “Baby girl, nothing was your fault.”

“I knew you’d say that because—”

“No.” She cut me off. “I don’t think you do know. Sweetie, your sister had an aneurysm. That’s why she fell off the bike. She passed before she’d even hit the ground.”

My ears began to ring as my brain attempted to process what she was saying.

“Don’t you remember doing a brain scan not long after she died? With you two being identical, we had to have you checked, but they didn’t find anything. All the doctors could say was that it was a fluke. One of those mysteries of nature.”

My lips opened and shut like a fish stranded on shore. “I … an aneurysm? I remember … a loud machine.”

“That’s the one.”

“But I didn’t know what it was for.”

Sorrow lined her already pale features. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. You were young, and we tried to explain, but communication was difficult between your age and our grief. As the years went by, it never occurred to us that you might have blamed yourself. I’m so incredibly sorry.” She gripped my hand with all her limited strength.

“I—” A sob choked back my words. “I didn’t … It wasn’t me…”

“No, baby. Not your fault at all.”

I lost it. Every emotion I’d ever felt about Ivy’s death poured out of me in a sobbing, heaving mess of tears and snot. My head bowed into the edge of Mom’s mattress as I gave myself over to the cathartic release.

“That’s why I wanted to be so perfect for you guys.” I hiccupped once the worst of the sobs subsided. “If I’d taken Ivy, I felt like I owed it to you to be the perfect daughter.”

“Rowan, you are and always will be perfect, just the way you are.”

Rowan had been crying.I knew that the second I walked back into her mother’s room, but the brilliant smile she flashed assured me that her tears were the best kind. I waited until we were alone in the car on the way home before satisfying my curiosity to know more.

“Feeling better?”

“I’m still in shock,” she said dazedly.

“Shock?” I’d thought she’d started to process the whole Stetson incident even though it had only been twenty-four hours.

She looked at me with such raw vulnerability that she could have been six years old again. “For sixteen years, I believed I was responsible for my sister’s death. Sixteenyears. And I learned today that it wasn’t my fault.”

I’d told her that, but if it took talking to her mom to truly believe it, then I was glad. So long as she got the message. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“No, you don’t get it. It wasn’t my fault,” she said pointedly. “Ivy had an aneurysm, and that’s why she fell from her bike—not because I dared her to jump. Mom and Dad tried to tell me when I was younger. I remember them telling me about blood in her head, but all I could see was the blood in her hair from hitting the ground. I never understood that she’d had a blood clot, and I felt so bad about what I thought I’d done that I never told them about daring her to go off the curb.”

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