“Not until today.” And then I tell her about hiding and reading them. “I didn’t know I was Brandy. I felt sorry for the girl who wrote the letters. I couldn’t imagine being pregnant at 16. I just turned 17.”
“I know,” she says with a smile.
“I felt really bad for her, and I got why she did it. It didn’t click until the letters about me being sick.”
“That was so hard,” she blows out.
“That’s also when Alex showed up in your letters, and I figured his wife is the one I wanted lessons from.”
Her face colors.
“Then you married him and everything fell into place. I read the letters really fast then, and got more and more pissed.”
Kelsey looks down into her cup of coffee as if she’s unable to look into my eyes.
When I think about all those emails that went unanswered, and her rejecting me at the competition and my mom always being worried I had contact with Kelsey, I start getting pissed all over again.
“Were you two in on it?”
She jerks up. “What?”
“My not getting lessons? You give them to everyone else who asks.”
“Not everyone,” she argues, but her tone is more defeated than defensive.
“Did you and Mom talk behind my back to make sure I couldn’t get lessons?”
“Madison, the last time I talked to your mother was when you were six years old and she told me that the bone marrow transplant had worked. I wasn’t allowed to have contact with you, or even know anything about you. If you weren’t winning competitions, I still wouldn’t know anything.”
“Why won’t you give me lessons?”
“I can’t.”
“Why?” I stand. “I’m your daughter!” I cry.
Kelsey slowly comes to her feet and reaches for my hand. “Because you don’t belong to me.”
Twenty-One
I don’t know what I was expecting when I came here, but it wasn’t to be rejected again. It’s as if she just sucker punched me in the gut. Yanking my hand away, I run down the stairs and out of the brownstone. Kelsey is calling after me, but I’m not stopping. I don’t want to see or talk to her again.
Mom and Dad must have just pulled up. They are getting out of the car, and Alex is there too. He must have dumped their sons off at this Dylan’s house, and came back. What was he supposed to do, protect Kelsey from me?
“Take me home.”
Mom and Dad share a look but don’t move.
“I said, take me home.” I haven’t been this bratty since I was about thirteen, but I don’t care.
“Madison!”
Dad’s sharp tone stops me in my tracks. He isn’t the one who yells at me, or doles out the discipline. That’s my mom. He gets irritated enough, but she’s the punisher.
Well, except that one time I mouthed off, also when I was thirteen, and then slammed my bedroom door.
He removed it from the hinges and left it that way for two months. I was too stubborn to apologize, and he was too stubborn to give in. That damn door would probably still be off if I hadn’t finally said I was sorry.
“Maybe we should go inside and talk,” Alex says.
“Why?” I hate that I’m about to cry. I want to be stronger and more mature, but it hurts. A lot. She gave me up, and I get that but even now she doesn’t want me around.
All of those fucking letters were a lie.
“She doesn’t want me.”
“That’s not what I said, and it’s certainly not the truth,” Kelsey says as she comes down the steps toward me. “I said I can’t teach you right now.”
“What’s the big deal?” I scream. “Am I not good enough for you?”
Kelsey looks at my mom. “I made an agreement, and I must stick with it.” Then she focuses on me. “I promised never to contact you. It was the deal I made so you could have a full life with loving parents. Only you can come to me and allow me into your life, and you can’t do that until you are 18, if you even want to know me after today.”
Right now I don’t care if I ever see her again. If she can’t help me now, then she’s useless to me in the future.
“Maybe we should go inside,” Dad says.
“What’s the point?”
“Because I don’t want to watch you pout all day, ruining Thanksgiving.”
“I’ll stay in my room.”
“I can remove that door again, and if this attitude keeps up, I’ll do that as soon as I walk in the house.”
I just glare at him but know better than to say anything.
“You’ve read the letters, Madison. It’s time to talk about this.”
“Can’t we talk at home?” I glare over my shoulder at Kelsey. “She doesn’t want me here, so why stay?”
“I do want you, Madison. You aren’t listening.” She says.
“Not enough to give me lessons and not until I’m 18.” I turn full around. “By then, I intend to forget you.”
She straightens, her eyes wide with shock and mouth open, as if I struck her.
“Madison Anne Cross, you will apologize right this instant.”
What the hell? Mom is mad at me. She’s the one that kept Kelsey from me, now she’s siding with her?
“Fine. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you. Have a nice Thanksgiving with your family.”
“You’re not too old to take over my knee, young lady.”
Crap, I have pissed Dad off. That’s next to impossible to do.
Blowing out a sigh I let my head drop. “Sorry.”
“Now, let’s go inside and talk about this like reasonable adults,” Dad says.
The four of them head into the brownstone. I hang back.
Mom turns to look at me.
I smile. “I’m not an adult, remember?”
“You’re certainly not acting like one. If you want your grounding to extend until spring break, then stay out here. Otherwise, get your butt in here.”
Well, I don’t want to be grounded into infinity, and I am kind of being a brat. I know I am, but I’m still pissed. Or, maybe it’s disappointment. It’s
