Chapter 31 - Poppy #2
"And I..." She looks around the apartment again, seeing it for what it is—a fortress built against a threat that no longer exists. "I've been running from a ghost. All these years, all this fear, and he was already gone."
Tears spill down her cheeks. She presses her hand to her mouth, trying to hold back the sobs that shake her shoulders.
I move to sit beside her, wrapping my arm around her. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry you didn't know."
"Twenty-five years," she gasps. "I wasted twenty-five years hiding from a dead man. I could have... we could have..."
She can't finish the sentence. Neither can I. The weight of what she's lost—what we've both lost—is too enormous to put into words.
We sit together in the silence, holding each other, mourning all the years of fear that never needed to exist.
Eventually, the tears subside. My mother pulls back, wiping her face with trembling hands.
"How did you find out?" she asks. "About Dwayne, about what happened to him—how did you learn any of this?"
I've been dreading this question. The truth is tangled in so many other truths—Gabriel, the murder I witnessed, the impossible web of connections that binds us all together.
"I've been... involved with someone," I say carefully. "A man who had access to information about what happened."
"What kind of man?" My mother's eyes sharpen, the protective instinct cutting through her grief. "Who is he?"
I hesitate. There's no way to soften this.
"His name is Gabriel Ambrose."
The effect is immediate. My mother recoils as if I've slapped her. All the color drains from her face.
"No." She's shaking her head, pulling away from me. "No, no, no. Poppy, those people—they're dangerous. They're the kind of people Dwayne was connected to, the kind who make problems disappear, who protect monsters—"
"He's not like that—"
"How do you know? How can you possibly know what he's like?
" Her voice rises, decades of fear pouring out.
"I spent years hearing Dwayne talk about families like the Ambroses.
The power they have, the things they've done.
They're not good people, Poppy. They're the reason men like Dwayne get away with what they do! "
"Gabriel didn't protect Dwayne." The words come out harder than I intended. "He killed him."
Silence.
My mother stares at me, her face frozen.
"What did you say?"
"Gabriel was one of Dwayne's students. One of his victims." I force myself to hold her gaze. "For two years, Dwayne did to him what he did to all those other boys. Gabriel was sixteen when he killed him. Sixteen years old, and he ended the man who was destroying him."
"The student who—" My mother's hand goes to her throat. "The man you're involved with... he's the one who killed your father?"
"Yes."
"And you didn't know? When you got involved with him, you didn't know about the connection?"
"No. Neither did he. It only came out recently." I take a breath. "Gabriel didn't know Dwayne had a girlfriend who was pregnant. He didn't know about me. He killed his tormentor to protect himself, and he had no idea he was... that Dwayne was..."
I can't say the words. My father.
My mother is quiet for a long moment, processing everything I've told her. I can see the wheels turning behind her eyes—the fear, the confusion, the desperate attempt to reconcile what she's hearing with everything she thought she knew.
"He's an Ambrose," she says finally. "Whatever else he is, he comes from that world. The same world that protected Dwayne."
"I know."
"And you're still with him? Even knowing what his family represents?"
"It's complicated, Mom. He's complicated. He's not the man I thought he was, but he's not... he's not purely evil either. He was a victim too."
"Victims can become monsters."
"I know." I meet her eyes. "But I'm not ready to make any decisions about him yet. That's why I'm here. That's why I needed to talk to you first."
My mother studies my face, searching for something I'm not sure I can give her. Then her expression shifts—softens into something that looks almost like resignation.
"There's something else, isn't there?" she asks quietly. "Something you haven't told me."
I should have known she'd see it. She's my mother—she's always been able to read me, even when I tried to hide.
"Yes," I whisper. "There's something else."
"Tell me."
I take a breath. Close my eyes. And finally say the words out loud.
"I'm pregnant."
The silence that follows is absolute.
My mother doesn't move, doesn't speak, doesn't even seem to breathe. She just stares at me, her face frozen in an expression I can't read.
"Pregnant," she finally repeats. "You're pregnant with his child. An Ambrose child."
"Yes."
"How long have you known?"
"About a week. I haven't told him yet." I laugh weakly. "I haven't told anyone. You're the first."
"Oh, Poppy." Her voice breaks. She pulls me into her arms, holding me the way she used to when I was small—like she could protect me from everything just by holding on tight enough.
"What are you going to do?" she asks against my hair.
"I don't know."
"You could leave. Disappear, like I did. Raise the baby somewhere far away from him, from all of this—"
"I'm not you, Mom." I pull back, meeting her eyes. "I can't spend my life running. I need to face this. I need to decide for myself what I want."
"And what do you want?"
The question hangs between us, enormous and unanswerable.
"I want..." I hesitate, searching for words that feel true. "I want to stop being afraid. I want to stop letting other people control my choices. I want to look at my life and know that I chose it—all of it, the good and the bad."
"Even if that means staying with a man from that world? From the Ambrose family?"
"Even then." I take her hands. "You spent twenty-five years running, Mom. You lived in fear, always looking over your shoulder, never able to build a real life. I don't want that for myself. I don't want that for my child."
She's crying again—silent tears that track down her cheeks. "I was trying to protect you."
"I know. And I love you for it. But I'm not a child anymore. I need to protect myself now. And that means making my own choices, even if they're hard. Even if they're dangerous."
We sit together in the fading light, mother and daughter, both of us carrying the weight of Dwayne Thomas's legacy. He's been dead for twenty-five years, but his shadow still stretches over our lives—shaping our fears, our choices, our relationships.
Maybe it always will. Maybe some monsters never truly die.
But I'm done letting him control me. Done letting fear make my decisions.
Whatever comes next, I'll face it with my eyes open.