Chapter Thirty-Eight

Sami

Going home was the most frightening thing I’d ever done. Scarier than Martinique. Scarier than telling Eric the truth about me. Scarier even than facing down Adrian and Morgana.

My parents were my bogeymen. But it had to be done. Before I could make any more decisions about my future, I had to face the past.

The house I grew up in was a five-thousand-square-foot modern monstrosity on a corner lot in one of the pricier neighborhoods in Palo Alto. It was all cubes and angles, glass and metal. I didn’t like it any better now than I had while growing up in it. Eric’s cozy, rustic cabin was more my style.

Nerves fluttered in my belly as I pressed the doorbell. Dad had said I wasn’t welcome back.

Mom answered the door. Saliha Lazri Blackwood, former beauty queen turned tech genius. Although she was a nonpracticing Muslim, she often still wore a scarf loosely over her hair. I never asked her why, just assumed it was an ingrained habit left over from her life in Algeria. Today, the scarf was a lovely deep purple with embroidered gold accents. I don’t know why it was the first thing I noticed. Maybe because it was easier to look at the top of her head than her face, which had a few more lines around her eyes and mouth than the last time I’d seen her.

Her lips thinned into a flat line. “Samira.”

“Hi, Mom.” I was so nervous my palms had gone damp with a clammy sweat. I didn’t know what to expect from this reunion. For all I knew, she’d slam the door in my face. “Is Dad home? I’d like to talk to you both.”

She crossed her arms in front of her. “Your father died last year. Heart attack.”

I winced at the surprisingly sharp stab of grief. I didn’t know my father well enough to grieve his loss, but I did grieve the loss of the relationship I’d hoped to build with my parents. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

My mother’s eyes softened, some of the ice receding. “Of course you couldn’t have known. I should have been more tactful telling you.”

“Mom—” I stopped short and swallowed down a surge of panic. I wasn’t going to leave without saying what I needed to say. “I messed up and disappointed you. I get that, but you let me down, too. When I most needed my parents, you turned your back on me.”

“You had to be taught a lesson.”

“Yeah, I did. But it was a lesson I could’ve learned with the support of my family. Instead, you abandoned me to a system that most kids never make it out of. I nearly didn’t. I made bad decisions that hurt people I care about. But I’m still here. I survived, and I’ll keep surviving without you in my life, but that’s not what I want. It would be nice to have a mother again, but it’s not worth it if she disapproves of everything I am. Everything I’ve become.”

She said nothing and stared at me like she’d never seen me before. I figured that was my answer. She’d never understand me, not to mention approve of me.

I couldn’t move on with my future until I reconciled my past, so I’d tried. I guess that was all I could do. Like Gavin said, I needed to stop looking back at the what-ifs and start looking toward the what-nows.

“Okay.” I nodded and backed away from the door. “I just thought you should know how I feel. Bye, Mom.”

I made it to the driveway before she spoke again.

“Samira?” She had come outside in her bare feet. She stood on the bottom step of the porch, one hand gripping the newel post. “Samira, wait.”

“Actually, it’s Sami,” I corrected. Samira was a girl whose parents had placed her on a pedestal. She was not the girl who had fallen off and destroyed all of their plans. She wasn’t me.

Mom gave a delicate wince but said, “Sami. Do you have somewhere to stay?”

“Don’t worry.” I waved a dismissive hand, though I didn’t feel quite as blasé about it as I pretended. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”

“You could—” At her hesitation, I glanced back at her. She seemed to be waging an internal battle, and it played across her face in vivid detail. It was painful to watch and only highlighted how incredibly broken our relationship was. Was it even possible to fix? Maybe not. Probably not.

“It’s okay, Mom. Really, it is.”

“No.” She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, whatever battle she’d been fighting had ended. She’d made up her mind. “Stay here, Samir—Sami. Let’s talk.”