Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
TALLY
With Willow coming over to meet Brinley today, I've got the perfect excuse to make myself scarce.
I head to Van Nuys to see Sibley Flynn at the regional office, my stomach knotting with each mile closer.
I need answers about those missing years—the ones my brain apparently decided were too much for me to process.
Funny how minds work, building walls around the worst parts to keep us functioning.
Sibley's face lights up when I walk in. Her arms wrap around me in a hug that smells like vanilla and printer paper.
"Tally," she says, stepping back to look at me properly. "What a wonderful surprise when I saw your name in my calendar. I love watching my kids grow up and succeed. And here you are with your own tattoo studio—you've really made something of yourself."
I nod. "The business is thriving, but I'm still.
.." My fingers twist together in my lap.
"I started seeing a therapist. Yesterday she asked me something I couldn't answer, not until I went home and picked up my brushes.
" I meet Sibley's eyes. "I painted you. Your face just appeared on the canvas, like my hands knew something my brain didn't."
She leans forward, elbows on her knees. "I'm listening, Tally. You know, in all my years of fostering, few adjusted to life's curveballs like you did."
"Maybe that's exactly it." The words catch in my throat.
"I was offered something real—this man who's..." I press my palm to my chest. "He's everything, Sibley.
And I pushed him away. Worse—I practically gift-wrapped another woman for him.
" My laugh sounds hollow even to my ears.
"I told myself it was for his happiness, but the truth is, I'm terrified I'd be just one more tragedy in his life. And he's already had his share."
I twist the hem of my shirt until my knuckles go white.
Her eyes bore into me—those pity eyes that make my skin crawl.
I can practically hear her thoughts screaming: How the hell did this broken girl survive?
The truth hammers in my chest: Did I survive?
Or am I just a walking corpse of the girl who got buried alive in her own trauma?
"What exactly did your therapist say?" Her voice cuts through my spiral. "You mentioned something triggered you."
My throat constricts. "She asked if I deserved to be happy." The words burn coming out. "And I just... froze. Completely fucking froze."
"Sit down," she commands, leaning forward with an intensity that matches the storm in my head. "I'm going to tell you everything I know."
I drop into the chair, hands trembling.
She takes a deep breath. "How much do you remember about those years?" she asks.
My throat tightens. “Too much.” I shake my head.
Remembering isn’t the problem. I can still smell vomit on carpet.
Can still see pills scattered across bathroom tiles.
Can still remember having to drag Mom’s unconscious body into recovery position at thirteen.
I can vividly remember every time the social worker came over to take me out of the home.
Can remember every home I was in during those years.
So, yeah, it’s all there in vivid detail.
But, at the same time, I’m so emotionally stunted about that time that it all seems like a dream.
She nods. “Too much. How is your relationship with your mother now?”
I dig my fingernails into my palm. "She lives with me now.
Bipolar disorder. The whole time she was just—" My voice cracks.
"She takes lithium and Abilify now, and it's like living with a different person.
A stranger wearing my mother's face." I laugh, but it sounds more like choking.
"Some nights I stand in her doorway watching her sleep, and I want to scream until my lungs bleed.
So my brain just... erases it all. Survival, right? "
"The mind builds walls around trauma," she says softly.
"Like scar tissue forming over a wound that would otherwise never stop bleeding.
" Her eyes darken. "It's like the pandemic.
We all act like it never happened, but two years of our lives were stolen.
Two years of isolation, fear, death. Nobody's forgotten—how could we?
The nightmares, the empty streets, the sirens all night, over a million dead.
We just buried it alive, pushed it down deep where all the other horrors go, because that's what humans do when reality becomes unbearable. "
The pandemic feels like a fever dream now—something we all lived through but can barely remember.
Back then, it consumed every conversation, every thought.
Maybe she's right about trauma. Once it's behind you, what good does it do to keep looking back?
Except I know the years bouncing between foster homes left their mark on me.
If they hadn't, I'd be wearing Cameron's ring right now, planning my future with him instead of his planning a possible future with somebody else.
And I know that Cameron would fucking marry me tomorrow because he's made that crystal clear.
Not just when he whispered it against my neck that night in bed at the chalet, but every goddamn time we're doing something mundane—his hands freezing mid-air while folding Brinley's onesies, his eyes burning into mine over steaming pots in the kitchen.
He's told me he loves me and wants to marry me so many times I could choke on the words, but I always act deaf and change the subject so fast it gives me whiplash.
Can't deal with that shit. Won't. If I pretend hard enough, maybe those words will evaporate into nothing.
“So, yeah,” I say. “My brain doesn’t seem to process what I went through. But it’s there, always. It’s buried deep but it seems to really be the one thing that’s standing in the way of my being happy. Truly happy with my little girl and this amazing man.”
“So,” she says. “I guess you need my feedback on what you went through and you might even want my opinion on why you’re standing in the way of your own happiness, then?”
I inhale a breath. “No. I remember what I went through. Intellectually, anyhow. I remember it all. In vivid detail. So, that’s not the problem. The problem is - how did my brain process everything that happened? Did I give you any clues on how I handled things back then?”
“What kind of clues?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You oversaw the caseworkers that would come to the house. Did they tell you anything about me and how I handled the chaos?”
She nods, manila folder open on her lap. "I reviewed your file before our session. Your previous caseworkers were quite thorough in their documentation. One pattern stood out—you consistently assumed responsibility for your mother's issues."
"That can't be right," I say, but my protest sounds hollow even to me.
Here I am, after all, giving my mother my spare bedroom, counting her medications, making sure she eats three meals a day.
I never once demanded an apology for the nights I went hungry, or the school events she missed, or the times I had to hide her empties before CPS visits. I should hate her. Why don't I?
Maybe it started with those missed parent-teacher conferences, when I'd sit alone in plastic chairs meant for adults, my legs dangling, watching other kids' moms show up.
I'd stare at my B+ and think: if this was an A, she'd be here.
Or those mornings I'd find her sprawled across our bathroom floor, vomit crusting the corners of her mouth, pill bottles scattered like landmines around her limp body.
I'd check her pulse with trembling fingers, praying to a God I didn't believe in, and feeling fucking horrible that I didn’t hide the pills better.
Every time she'd clutch my hand and rasp, "You're the only good thing in my life, Tally," my chest would cave in, and I'd want to scream: THEN WHY AM I NOT ENOUGH?
I became a fucking contortionist, twisting myself into whatever shape might keep her sober.
If I was quieter. If I was smarter. If I hadn't gotten drunk that one time at twelve—TWELVE—stumbling home at dawn to find her wild-eyed and sober for once, clutching the phone to call the police. I freaked her out so much that of course she went back to using, even though at that time she’d been sober for six months.
By that afternoon, she was high again. My fault. My fault. MY FAULT.
It was always like that. Now that Sibley's telling me I always assumed her problems were my fault, I'm drowning in the memories of exactly why I believed it.
Sibley glances at her notes. "You repeatedly told caseworkers you blamed yourself for your mother's addiction and for her getting caught, which led to you being removed from the home."
I stare at my hands. "Yeah, that tracks.
Like when she was high at Ralph's grocery and my friend’s mother spotted her?
That was on me. She'd asked me to go shopping because she needed one thing, but I was being selfish.
Just wanted to play Minecraft with my friends.
" My throat tightened. "If I'd just gone instead, no one would've called CPS that day. "
“Tally, you were being a teenager. Teenagers want to play Minecraft with their friends.”
My voice cracks. "I was awful that day. Mom just needed cream for her coffee.
One simple errand. She never asked me for anything—always did the shopping herself, kept our fridge stocked no matter how tight money got.
But I was too busy playing Minecraft." I press my fingertips against my temples.
"Every damn day I replayed it. If I'd just gotten off my ass for an hour and walked to the store for her fucking cream, she wouldn't have been tweaking in the cereal aisle while one of my friends’ moms saw her and then hotlined her.”
Sibley continues to look at her file on me. “And then there was the time your mom was hotlined because of a parent-teacher meeting. You blamed yourself for that, too.”
I pick at a loose thread on my jeans. “Yeah.
When Ms. Davos asked where my mom was after she missed that meeting, I just..
. told the truth. Said she was in bed and didn't want to come.
With her history, the teacher immediately suspected pills.
" I swallow hard. "Which was true—she was passed out on Oxy—but I should've lied.
Could've said she had the flu or had to work or something, anything but just saying that she couldn’t get out of bed.
Instead, I basically handed them the reason to take me away. "
“And you blamed yourself for her getting busted for a DUI, which led to yet another hotline and you being taken from the home again. How was that your fault?"
I slam my palm against the table. "That one was a hundred percent on me.” I shake my head, remembering that day.
“I was at Tara's house after school, ignoring Mom.
Every text. Every call. My phone buzzing in my pocket like a fucking time bomb.
" My throat tightens. "I was pissed at her—can't even remember why now—but I knew exactly what I was doing.
" I dig my nails into my palm. "So when I didn’t come home after school and she couldn’t get ahold of me, she tore out of the house, convinced I was being dismembered in some psycho's basement.
I knew what the drugs did to her brain, how paranoid she sometimes got.
I knew she'd imagine my blood pooling on concrete somewhere. And I let her spiral anyway.” I shake my head, blinking rapidly.
"So yeah. When she couldn't find me, she jumped in the car after downing half a bottle of pills. Got pulled over three blocks away. Child services showed up the next morning, and I spent the next eight months with the Petersons while she spent 6 months in jail - it wasn’t her first offense - and did mandatory rehab. "
Sibley slams her file shut. "We've found it, Tally.
The poison at your core. This conviction that you don't deserve happiness—it's rooted in carrying blame that was never, ever yours.
Your mother's incarcerations, those humiliating court appearances, every time they ripped you from her arms..
. you've branded yourself guilty for all of it.
And her addiction?" Her eyes bore into mine.
"You've crucified yourself for that too, haven't you? "
My throat closes like someone's strangling me.
I can barely nod. "Yes." The word scrapes out, barely audible.
"God, yes. I believed—I still believe—if I hadn't gotten her caught so many times, if I hadn't been this.
.. this burden... she wouldn't have needed to escape reality.
It was this vicious cycle crushing us both—drugs created chaos, chaos demanded more drugs.
And I was just this stupid kid who couldn't keep secrets, who kept accidentally betraying her to neighbors or teachers.
Who caused her stress because of all the times I vanished without calling her, knowing that would cause her to spiral.
I convinced myself if I could just disappear completely, become nothing. .. she might finally break free."
Sibley smiles and extends her hands across the desk.
I hesitate before placing mine in hers. " Tally," she says, her voice gentle but probing, "you've identified that you believe you don't deserve happiness because you feel you betrayed your mother throughout your childhood.
You've been carrying the weight of your mother’s dysfunction as if it were your responsibility.
How do you plan to move forward from this realization? "
I sigh. Fucking fantastic. The million dollar question.
Sure, identifying the problem is one thing.
And yeah, it's a huge thing. I never connected those dots before—that I felt responsible for all the shit that went down when I was a kid. But now what? Am I supposed to just snap my fingers and suddenly believe I deserve to be happy? That I deserve Cameron? And if my brain convinced myself that I caused my mother’s problems, how can I make it not believe that I won’t be poison to Cam just like I was poison to Mom?
If I could figure that out, maybe I'd stop being such a self-sabotaging disaster long enough to let him in.
But I won't hold my fucking breath.