I cover my mouth in fear of expelling the small amount of food I have in my stomach. This can’t be happening. I couldn’t have been that stupid—that blind.
“Megan,” my dad calls my name, not hiding the anger in his dominant tone. I look up, no doubt lacking any sort of color to my face. “Do you hear this? You’re done with him. You’re lucky I have the resources to hide this shameful scandal. How could you? Our name? Our legacy? Have you no sense of respect for yourself and your career? No less your family’s?”
Trying to catch my breath, I wipe at my soaked cheeks. Everything about us was a ruse. He lied to me. He fooled me. Or maybe I was just too wrapped up in the fantasy of us to see the signs. But everything felt so real. Genuine. My heart opened wide for him with every single promise he imbedded deep inside. But it was just to trick me. Get close to me as a ploy.
“Damn you.” I grab for another set of oven mitts, removing the ruined batch of cookies. “So much for pulling a Martha Stewart move, making my house smell magical like warm sugar cookies.” I sadly laugh at myself and dump the cookies in the trash.
The truth about Mason isn’t the only shame I feel. The disappointment in my mother’s eyes. My dad’s anger. He wouldn’t even look at me. I’ve spent my entire life trying to make my parents proud, and in an instant, I ruined everything. All because I had a desire and finally found a guy who made me feel normal.
“Yeah, well that guy doesn’t truly exist.” I throw the mitts and pull open my freezer to grab a frozen pizza instead. I’m washing my hands when my doorbell rings. My head whips toward the front of my house, curious who would be stopping by. My eyes search out the grandfather clock in the hallway. My family would still be in church. I dry my hands, grab a robe from the laundry room and cautiously make my way to the front door. Peeking through the curtain, I see a girl. It doesn’t take a genius to see the resemblance. Her hair is lighter, and she may be shorter, but there’s no hiding those steel eyes.
Unlocking the three bolts, I pull the door open.
“Hi, Megan. I’m—”
“Mason’s sister.”
“Oh…uh, yeah. Well, I was wondering if we can—”
“I have nothing to say to you or your brother. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I start pushing the door shut when her hand slams on the door, stopping it. “Excuse me!”
“I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say. This isn’t just about Mason. It’s about you too.”
We stare at one another for a moment, her eyes haunting me, the same steel eyes as his, until I release the door. “Make this quick.” I give her my back and walk into my living room. The sound of the door shutting, and her boots hitting the tile echo until she’s sitting next to me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to be rude back there,” she starts.
“This better be good. I have things to do.”
She peers over my shoulder, her nostrils twitching. “Like what? Trying to burn your house down?”
“I was trying to bake cookies,” I snap.
Her nostrils flare again, her eyebrows creasing as she takes another whiff of my living room. It does really stink in here. “Okay, well…”
“Yeah. Sure, get to it.” She reaches to her side and shuffles into her purse until she retrieves a worn photograph. She hands it to me, and after some hesitation, I grab it. My eyes scan the photo. My aunt and uncle and cousin sitting proudly next to a younger Mason and his sister. It wasn’t new information that the Griffin’s fostered kids. I always thought it so admirable of them. But as kids, we were never exposed to them and my cousin, Chastity never spoke about them much.
“This isn’t new to me. Aunt Lillian told me the story.” I toss the photo back at her. The tears my aunt shed, rehashing the memory of Evelyn Blackwell and how she found my uncle in her room. The stealing.
“You don’t know the real story.”
“Oh, and what’s that? You didn’t lure my uncle to have sex with you? You didn’t steal from them when all they wanted to do was help you? Mason’s violent attacks on my aunt—”
“Those are lies,” she spits at me.
“And you expect me to believe you? What, do you want me to feel sorry for you? I know how you got here, just like your brother. Blackmail.” I jump up from my couch. “Actually, I want you to leave.”
She follows suit and stands. “And I’m not leaving until you hear the truth. Afterward, if you still think your family is innocent, that’s your burden to bear. I’m pretty sure my brother’s in love with you and he’s hurting bad, and it kills me to see him this way. I’d rather come over here and wipe your ass across the floor for the way you dismissed him, but I know you need to hear what I have to say. After that, it’s on you. Now, sit the fuck back down.”
Her fierceness sends my eyebrows up in shock. The fight in her to protect her brother. The acknowledgement that he loves me. My mouth goes dry. My tongue attempting and failing to wet my lips. I struggle to speak. I surrender to her demands and nod slowly, taking my seat. She does the same.
“The photo was taken about three years ago when we were first placed into the Griffins’ home. To a passing eye, it looks like we’re all happy. But there are lies behind those fake smiles.” She hands me back the photo, and this time, I truly take it in. Mason is so much leaner. His arms are bare of any tattoos. His expression is still troubled, but not nearly as much as it is now. The permanent scars he wears behind those beautiful grey eyes.
“Nothing was as it seemed. Lillian was not the sweet, nurturing caretaker who made it her life’s mission to help the helpless. She was the devil in disguise who had so much hate in her, she was suffocating herself with it.”
The way she describes Lillian is unfamiliar to me. Far from the loving aunt I’ve grown up with. The one who would braid my hair at family parties or help me with my homework when she came by to visit with my dad. I want to demand she stop spilling such hate on someone who has been nothing but loving to me. But I also have this pinging feeling inside me that says I need to hear her out.
“We were with the Griffin’s for a year. Our previous family, we thought we would stay with them until we chose to enter the world on our own. But she got pregnant, and well…when you finally get your own children, the temporary ones you have kinda just become that. Any who, Mr. Griffin, in that time, had been coming into my room late at night, drunk beyond comprehension.” I clench my fingers at the fear of what may spill from her lips. “He never touched me. But the other girls they fostered weren’t so lucky.”
My lungs seize, feeling as if I just got kicked in the stomach. “No…”
“Yes. He’d come into my room late at night, booze making his tongue loose, and confess things. Stuff he’d done.”
This can’t be true. Uncle George would…could never. “I don’t believe you. Why would he do such horrible things, but never to you?”
“Because I didn’t look like his daughter.”
The choked intake of breath causes me to sway in my seat. “Oh God, Chastity? Did he—?”
“No. He admitted he never touched her. He would cry sometimes because his desires were so intense, he was afraid one day he wouldn’t be strong enough to restrain them. But from the time we were with them, he hadn’t.”
Oh, my poor cousin. The thought… I shake my head.
“The night we were removed from the Griffin house, Lillian caught George in my room. He’d come home from a business function. He was drunk and angry about something that happened. I would have never known what he meant then, but now it makes sense.” I lift my hand to rest on hers. A tear escapes her sorrowed lids, and I give her the moment she needs before she continues. “The whole time, he was confessing secrets about The Elite. If I would’ve known to tell someone then…maybe…maybe I could have done something…”
“Honey, what are you talking about?” She’s lost me. My uncle was part of many clubs. He was a high ranked member in our society. “He could’ve been talking about anything. His Golf Club maybe? The church had a—
“The Elite. Secret society run through the university. He’s a part of it. Your aunt is a part of it. There’s more. So many more.”
I can’t stop shaking my head. I think she’s confused. This…a secret society? That’s just nonsense. “Evelyn, listen. I know you’ve been through a lot, but—”
She stops me, reaching back into her bag, and hands me a gold piece of paper. It’s thick like some sort of cardstock, the corner singed. “What is this?”
“This is proof.” And the next twenty minutes burn into my mind, trying to diagnose everything she tells me. The years her and her brother were torn apart. The horrid things she went through. Mason. My poor Mason. Lillian’s true hold over them both. The Elite. I threaten to expel my breakfast, the color washed clear from my face. If all she says to me is true, then Mason and I haven’t been a ruse. And Lillian…Lillian is exactly what she says she is: the devil in disguise.