The Fake Sister’s Lies Couldn’t Silence Me Chapter 09
I transferred to a new boarding school.
Nobody pushed me out.
I chose to go.
The new school was far from the Calders’ house. My dorm was loud.
The girl next door snored. Someone upstairs dragged furniture around every morning. The RA yelled at people during curfew checks.
For the first time, I thought noise was a good thing.
Mom texted me every day.
[Did you take your medicine today?]
[Does your leg still hurt?]
[Can I come see you?]
I only replied when I had to.
[1 did.]
[No.]
[Don’t.]
No ‘good morning’s. No ‘goodnight’s. Nothing extra.
Brennan visited three times.
The first time, he brought my notebook.
He’d taken the pages Mr. Harlan taped together and organized them into a new binder.
“I’m sorry.”
I took it and flipped through.
Evan Rhodes’s peanut allergy page was still there. Mr. Harlan’s page about his back was there too.
I nodded, deadpan.
“Looks good.”
His eyes lit up.
“So can you unblock me?”
“No.”
The second time, he came with news about Sloane.
She admitted to switching the tags and covering up where I’d gone.
Because of the severity of my injuries, it went way beyond school discipline.
She was put on juvenile probation with mandatory counseling.
The Calders hired her a lawyer.
But Mr. Calder didn’t ask me to write a letter to the judge begging for leniency.
Brennan’s voice was quiet.
“She brought this on herself.”
I didn’t say anything.
It was the first time he hadn’t made an excuse for her.
But doing the right thing when it was already too late didn’t change anything.
The third time, he played an audio file on his phone.
It was a recording from my old social worker’s case file. Me, as a six-year-old, asking my teacher
over and over.
“When is Mom coming?”
“I didn’t fight with anyone today.”
“I didn’t talk too much, either.”
“Is she coming to get me soon?”
Then Mom’s voice.
“Just a little longer.”
“The Calders don’t know about Tessa yet.”
“Once I’m settled, I’ll come back for her.”
That was eleven years ago.
Mom was standing at the end of the dorm hallway. She didn’t dare come closer.
She was shaking, barely holding herself up.
“Tessa, I didn’t abandon you.”
“I had no choice back then.”
I looked at her.
“What about after?”
She had nothing to say.
Of course she didn’t.
She had a mansion, a driver, and time to make every parent-teacher conference for Sloane.
In all those comfortable years, she never came for me.
She only showed up because Child Protective Services notified her I was about to turn eighteen and
age out of the foster system.
That my case file needed to be closed permanently.
She didn’t come back for me.
She came to close a file she’d left open for eleven years.
Brennan’s voice was rough.
“Give us one more chance.”
“We’ll be different.”
“We’ll actually be different this time.”
I pushed his phone back into his hand.
“I already gave you chances.”
“Every message I sent was a chance.”
“Ninety-nine was more than enough.”
Mom let out a muffled sob, pressing a hand over her mouth.
i turned and walked back into my room.
No one followed me.
This time, they finally let me walk away.
