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So many secrets about my own family and my friends have come to light, and now I am starting to wonder if I have just been blind to everything or if everyone is just lying to me. How has dad kept it from mom, or does she know and pretends not to? Sam knows my father, so is it a coincidence that we met, or was that thought out, too?

“Addie, I promise you won’t regret coming with us,” Cyrus says.

“Regret coming with you? I already do, and we haven’t even left. You want to know what I regret?”

Cyrus seems to think for a second.

“I regret ever getting in that goddamn elevator.”

“You don’t mean that. You’re just upset. Everything will work out. You’ll see.”

“No, what I see is everyone always choosing for me. I never get a say in anything. You think I wanted to be a secretary? That I didn’t have dreams? That I wanted to raise my sister’s kid? That I would be stuck responsible for everything out of my control? Everything I have worked for was for nothing because you have ripped the rug right out from under me in a matter of days. Everything I put on hold is now on hold again because of you and Eli.”

“You can still do whatever it is that you want. We will just be beside you for it.”

“That’s just it, Cyrus. All I have wanted was to be on my goddamn own, be responsible for no one else but myself, and do what I want to do without having to plan around schedules and everyone else. Being with you doesn’t change that. It just gives me one more person to answer to, to ask permission from.”

“You will adjust. It’s that simple. We don’t always get what we want, Addie. You just adjust to it.”

“Adjust? What the fuck do you think I have been doing? I have done nothing but adjust. Adjusted to working three jobs and going to school because my father died and we were going to lose everything, adjusted to having an extra mouth feed and someone else to raise when I was still a kid myself, adjusted to my sister’s drug addiction. Everything is an adjustment. What’s one more, right?”

Cyrus says nothing, just lets me rant. My mother clears her throat on the stairs, having woken up from my raised voice, no doubt. Guilt hits me, wondering what she’s heard. By the look on her face, she’s heard everything.

“Mom, what are you doing up?” I ask, looking at the clock. It is 5AM.

Cyrus straightens up, and I hear Eli walk down the stairs behind her. I have managed to wake nearly the entire house, my emotions getting the better of me once again since meeting them.

“Go!” my mother says softly.

“What?”

“Go, Addie. Go to Soya. You’re right. You have done enough, it was never your responsibility, and somehow I lost sight of what it was you wanted. This was never your burden to carry.”

“But, mom, Maya…”

My mother shakes her head. “She was never yours, Adeline, never meant to be your responsibility, and neither am I. You don’t have to keep putting your life on hold for us. You’re twenty-four years old and have done nothing but help us and stuck around out of fear of me being on my own, so I am helping you by making the decision for you. Go. I can handle everything here.”

“But, Ma, Taylor?”

“No, Adeline, she also isn’t your responsibility. I can manage. We will be fine. Go and do something without having to worry about school runs and appointments and looking after me. We will be fine.”

I don’t know what to say. The way she’s said it sounds like she thinks they are a burden on me, and I don’t want her to think that. I have done everything along with her; we’ve kept each other sane when everything was insane. Guilt keeps me from walking away, but she is family. She raised me, so I’ve never seen it as a burden, just that it was necessary. Everything we have done was for a reason: keeping the house, making ends meet, or helping raise Maya. And now she is telling me to leave?

I feel tears threaten to spill over at her words. Grabbing my keys off the kitchen counter, I walk out of the kitchen heading for the front door.

“Ada, wait!” my mother calls out to me.

But I am done, so fucking done. I’ve wanted my freedom, but not like this, and I sure as hell don’t want to go with them to Soya. Getting to the door, I swing it open, the door shutting behind me, and I make a run for my car. Getting in, I start my little beast just as the passenger side door opens, and Eli hops in.

“Get out, Eli!” I scream in frustration.

“No! Why are you leaving?”

“Eli, get the fuck out of my car!” I scream even louder, but he doesn’t move and instead reaches over, ripping my keys from the ignition. My anger gets the better of me, and I turn in my seat and slap him. He growls in the back of his throat.

“I am going to pretend you didn’t just hit me, Adeline,” he snaps at me with a glare on his face as he rubs his cheek.

My breathing quickens as I fight the urge to break down. My life has just been completely thrown upside down.