Chapter 24 #2
I set my toast back on the counter. My call with Lyla rolls around in my head along with the conversation I need to have with Tabitha, and I’m not sure which one is making me feel worse—Parker’s right.
I need to be honest with Tabitha, and with Lyla.
Going home to open our business isn’t as important to me as it was a few weeks ago, and I’d be lying to her if I pretended it was.
No matter what my final decision is, I need to let her know where my head’s at so that she can make her own decision with both eyes wide open.
And once I’ve spoken to her, I can fill Parker in too.
It doesn’t seem right anymore to keep something like this from him, even if I’m not planning to take Lyla up on the offer.
I’ll tell him everything. I care about him too, so I’ll take his advice and be honest with him about the situation, even if that means he'll leave entirely. I know how important honesty is to him, and I want him to know that whatever is happening here between us, I’m all in.
But I owe it to Lyla to have that conversation with her first. Whatever I choose, the decision needs to be mine and mine alone.
The second I ask other people for their opinions, the decision stops being mine.
And I know myself well enough now to know I need to act before I give anyone else the chance to influence my decision, or make Lyla feel like I’m choosing someone else over her.
If things have a hope in hell of working out between Parker and I, like I hope they do, I need her not to resent him for taking me away from her.
Parker rinses his now-empty plate in the sink and dries his hands before he moves to me. Just being near him sets my equilibrium back in balance and makes me feel stronger for the tough conversations I need to have. Somehow, in a few short weeks, he’s become the anchor I didn’t know I needed.
“I’ve gotta run,” he says, wrapping his arms around me long enough for me to try and memorize his smell.
“Call your dad, then talk to Tabitha. You’ll feel better.
” He tilts my chin up to place a tender kiss on my lips, tugging on the sweatshirt of his I’m still wearing.
“And please, please be wearing this when I see you tonight.”
He wishes me luck, hitting me with a lingering look on his way out the door that somehow steels me with the courage I need to gather my phone off the couch where it ended up earlier.
In the quiet confines of the cabin, heart pounding, I pull up my dad’s contact and make the call I’ve been putting off for weeks.
Dad picks up on the second ring. “Sloan?”
My breath catches in my throat. Suddenly, I’m shaking, because I don’t know what to say, but then Parker’s voice reminds me that I don’t have to do everything alone—all I have to do is be here.
“Hi Dad,” I say, my words trembling.
An exhale rushes out from the other end of the line, and I hold my breath through the silence that lasts a beat, then two, three.
“It’s so good to hear your voice, sweetheart.”
The tears welling in my eyes break free, rolling in waves down my cheeks, and I don’t bother hiding my sobs.
When I first found out the news, I was so shocked and numb that I didn’t cry at all.
But I can hear the relief in his voice, and it tells me everything that I needed to confirm—he still wants me.
Dad soothes me as I cry into the phone with words of comfort, until eventually I calm down enough to talk.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner,” I tell him. “I’ve been so scared of how things would change.”
“Oh, honey, they don’t have to change. I’ve told you that.”
“It’s okay, Dad. Different doesn’t have to mean worse.”
As I say it out loud, I realize it’s the truth.
And it gives me the confidence I need to have the other difficult conversation I’ve been putting off.
Dad and I talk for a while longer, eventually moving on to catch up on what we’ve each been up to over the past several weeks— the kind of things we would talk about before everything changed.
We finally hang up through tearful I love yous after making firm plans for the timing of our next call, and then I clean myself up and let myself out of Parker’s cabin, heading up to the house in search of Tabitha.
The air is crisp, a sharp, cool breeze cutting through my thin layers as I hike through the forest beneath the canopy of bright yellow, orange, and fiery red leaves.
Despite the wind, the late afternoon sun is warm on my face, though as the temperature drops with the incoming cold front, it’s a reminder that the change of seasons is officially here, and soon we’ll be trading long sleeves and vests for heavy sweaters, coats, and hats.
Most of the clothes I brought with me are about to be useless.
It would be nice to go home to visit my parents and collect more of my things—if Tabitha is still okay with me staying, that is.
As I kick off my muddy boots and head inside the main house, an invisible grip tightens around my throat, but I push my feet forward and follow the familiar sounds of the whirring pottery wheel to the studio. I want to stay, but only if Tabitha knows the truth.
About everything.
She looks up, beaming at me as I rap lightly on the door so I don’t startle her.
She calls me in enthusiastically, beckoning with her head since her hands are busy.
I’m grateful that she’ll have a slight distraction as I say what I need to say.
Still, my timing is off since she stops working almost immediately, sitting back on her stool and cocking her head like she does with every finished piece to decide if she’s happy with it or needs to start over.
She nods, then stands to wash her hands at the sink in the corner.
It’s nice to see her confidence back, but as much as I want to ask her about it to deflect from the real conversation, I steel myself and blurt, “I called Dad.”
She looks at me over her shoulder, turning to face me fully as she dries her hands on an old rag.
“That’s great! Hopefully, he’ll stop bugging me about you every two days.”
“That was the first time I spoke to him.”
She frowns. “Since you got here, you mean?”
“Yes. And …” I swallow hard around the marble in my throat, my fingers clenching and unclenching at my sides.
I take a final look at her, mentally capturing the image of this version of Tabitha—the one I might be saying goodbye to forever in mere seconds.
“Since I found out he’s not my biological father. ”
Tabitha’s hands go still. Her entire body freezes as her expression goes blank, trying to process my words. “Wh-what?” Her voice is shaky. “Are you … I can’t tell if you’re joking.”
“I found out by accident,” I press on, a crack carving its way through my heart at the sight of Tabitha’s crestfallen face. “I was never supposed to know. Nobody was. The DNA test was Lyla’s idea, for my birthday.”
“Yeah, I remember …”
“We thought we might be connected to a celebrity, or a member of the Royal Family. Worst case scenario, we thought we’d fill in some DNA gap that would help catch a serial killer.
” We’d been so na?ve, thinking about problems that were so unlikely to touch us, never considering for a second that we were about to unravel my entire identity.
“What I learned instead is that Mom and Dad had trouble conceiving and decided to use a sperm donor.” I gulp down some air.
“I’m not Dad’s biological daughter. Which means … I’m not your real niece.”
I have to look away as I say the last part. I can’t watch her change the way she sees me, because if Tabitha doesn’t know who I am anymore, I’ll be lost all over again.
“Oh, Sloan.”
Her voice is closer now, right in front of me.
“I’ve known this whole time, but I’ve been too afraid to tell you because I don’t want it to change anything between us,” I rush, still not looking at her.
“I don’t want to lose what I have with you, and I don’t want to lose this place because Salem Stables is the only place I’ve ever really felt like I’ve belonged.
But I still don’t even know how I feel about this, and I’ve known for weeks.
So, I understand if you need some time to process, and—”
“Wait, what do you mean? Process what?”
My eyes snap to hers, and some unknown feeling swells in my chest. “… well, you might not have agreed to let me stay here indefinitely if you’d known.”
She stares at me, confused.
“I lied to you,” I whisper.
“You were processing this, like you said. I don’t need time for that. I know how I feel.”
“You do?”
“Yes.” Her eyes bore into mine, imploring me to listen, so I do.
“Because the way I feel hasn’t changed since you walked through that door, or since the first time I watched you ride a horse, or graduate from college, or when you dressed up as me for Halloween when you were eight.
How I feel about you right this second is the same way I felt about you the first time I held all six pounds, twelve ounces of you when your parents first brought you home from the hospital, Sloan.
I was your aunt then, I’m your aunt now, and I will hold onto that title tomorrow and the next day and the next, until you pry it out of my cold, dead hands, got it? ”
A watery laugh bursts out of me as she wraps me in her arms in a hug so fierce it hurts. I cling back just as tight as a fresh wave of tears rushes out of me because it’s the exact same hug she gave me when I showed up on her porch six weeks ago.
She wipes away a tear from her own cheek before placing tender hands on my cheeks.
“You’re my Sloan. You will always be my Sloan. Got it?”
My lips quiver. I know I wouldn’t be able to speak even if I had the words, so instead I nod vigorously and let her pull me into another hug.
I cling to her, my tears pouring down my cheeks like a river of every emotion I’ve been holding onto.
Fear, sadness, and uncertainty drain away, making room for a deep sense of relief.
My heart swells with the kind of happiness I’m not sure I’ve ever felt and a grounding sense of calm that I’ve only felt with Parker earlier today.
My life is still a mess, but even though I don’t have everything figured out, I know that I already have what matters most.