My eighteenth birthday comes with a bang. Literally. The car backfires and Thorny can’t get it to start. Cursing and huffing, we face an ultimatum: walk or reschedule.

With money on the line, we can’t afford to waste a second. So I skip upstairs to exchange my leather Mary Janes for a pair of sneakers. My jeans and my shirt should hold up during the hour-long trek, but fuck it. I take them off and fish my new dress from its pile of tissue paper.

Today is a day worth celebrating. I’m officially an adult and Thorny is free.

Hooray.

We celebrate in silence during the long walk to Thornton. Cars pass us, honking in nonverbal offers of assistance, but Thorny ignores them all.

He’s especially brooding today. I let myself stare at him for once, eyeing every inch of my once almost-daddy. He’s changed his clothes at least, but he still hasn’t shaved. His hair is in the semblance of its neat, professional coif, but sweat makes loose strands stick to the back of his neck. He’s dressed to the nines, my uncle. His suit jacket is gray, matching a set of pristine slacks far too fancy to belong on a body traipsing along the side of the road.

What a pair we make.

My new dress swishes and flounces when I walk. I’m like Elaine minus the elegance. I’m Elaine minus the angry husband.

I’m Elaine back before her grown-up mistakes. I bet she wore less makeup and smiled more. Really smiled in a charming way that made her eyes sparkle.

Eyes are the window to the soul.

Mr. Lawyer shields his eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles once we arrive at his office, panting and sticky from the heat. “Happy birthday, Maryanne,” he tells me. Those arbitrary words Thorny has yet to utter.

He ushers us into the back room and opens a crisp, shiny new file.

“It seems I…misplaced the last round of documents,” he mutters. “Luckily, the originals are kept in a safe. Here we are.”

Tada!

Grandmama’s last will and testament is finally fulfilled. She got her wish: Thorny finally took me in.

And his life imploded.

Mr. Lawyer goes over the documents one by one, summing up what I already know.

One: Thorny’s guardianship over me is terminated. Two, another specification courtesy of Grandmama: I won’t be able to touch the money until after I graduate in—per Mr. Lawyer’s calculations—at least three more months, given the amount of schoolwork I have to make up.

“You are willing to oversee her education until then?” Mr. Lawyer asks Thorny, who stiffly nods.

His face tells it all: He doesn’t have a choice. Not if he wants his slice of the family money pie.

Then that’s that. Thorny and I are dismissed with little fanfare and we begin the long trek back to Thornfield.

Turning eighteen doesn’t feel any different than seventeen—go figure. I still have those naughty little urges to say things I shouldn’t. Thorny is free. I’m nothing more than a boarder taking up space in his house until I get my diploma.

Therefore, he doesn’t owe me anything. Not even the answer to a teensy little question.

“Elaine didn’t want me.” Or so he said. “Then why did you take me back? You wanted the money, huh, James? That’s it, isn’t it?”

His shoulders stiffen, and his sigh reaches me as we crest the hill. “Not now.” He’s tired. So tired that he stops short, his entire body tense with awareness. “Maryanne…”

His tone is a warning, telling me not to look as I draw up beside him. Not to stare at the unfamiliar black car in the driveway. Or at the beautiful, buxom blond strolling up the front porch.

She turns as if sensing us on the outskirts of the property. With one hand, she shields her brilliant, blue eyes while the other upturns in a graceful wave.

Even from this distance, I know she’s not Elaine. She’s taller, her hair blonder, her skin paler. Like mine. We even share a similar body shape, just like everyone says—something I wasn’t sure of until I see her now.

Marie in the flesh.

“She’s back,” I hear myself croak. What has it been? Eleven years? Eleven long years without so much as a birthday card or a phone call. Coincidentally, eleven years when I didn’t have a penny to my name.

Eleven damn years.

“Wait here.” Thorny starts forward with his arm extended in a silent command: stay.

His posture is stiff and formal, but nothing fazes Marie. Her broad smile shines like a beacon as he approaches. God, it’s like looking into a mirror. A blurry one, smeared with age, where everything reflected takes on a menacing edge.

No wonder Thorny is always so damn suspicious of me, if I really look like that.

Finally, close to the house, he jabs his finger at something, pointing. Then he must say something, because Marie’s warm grin falters. She drifts across the porch as Thorny becomes more and more animated with his hand gestures. I’ve never seen him so emphatic, and stone-like certainty forms a ball in the pit of my stomach.

He’s venting. I can only assume he is recounting every naughty little game. Every time I got in the way of his peaceful life. I’m a burden, he conveys with a heavy sigh. Can she take me away? Please.

Her pinched face confirms as much as her eyes shift from him to the copse of trees where I’m holed up. She says something to Thorny that makes him shake his head as he turns and heads back toward me.

He’s still so serious, frowning like hell. More than usual. He’s…resigned.

“You…you should probably talk to her,” he says once he’s paces away. “If you want. She says she wants to see you.”

“Why?” My voice is an ugly rasp. I’ve lost my spunk. My pizazz.

“Maryanne…” Thorny shrugs in that helpless yet authoritative way only adults can. “If you don’t—”

“What’s the point?” I sound so damn hollow. Defeated. As empty as the house my mother is standing beside. “I know what she wants. It’s the only thing any of you want!”

Which certainly isn’t me.

“Maryanne, wait!”

Thorny’s shout ricochets off bulletproof eardrums. I’m running, racing. Through trees. Weeds. Fields. I don’t stop until I’m knee-deep in frigid water and the roar of a crashing wave swallows the way I scream.

Some nightmares are far too silly to ever envision happening in real life.

Like Marie, my wayward mother, creeping back into my life on my eighteenth birthday. She went over ten years without sending so much as a card. But on this day in particular, she’d return looking like a model fresh off a runway, tainted with the sickly sweet scents of France.

I used to think it, but then I’d stop myself.

No one would be that cruel.

No one could be so selfish.

No one could think…

I’m that fucking dumb.

The ocean seems to think so. You care, it cackles, lapping at my calves. You care. You care. It’s why you’re crying.

It’s why you’re shaking.

It’s why you’re on your knees, choking on salt water, Maryanne.

You care. You care!

But I don’t.

“Maryanne!”

Thorny’s voice battles with the roar of the waves. He sounds worried. I know why. It could be jealousy. What if I do what he’s been too afraid to?

Though, if I drown myself, how will he collect his check? I try to stand up, but the water is vicious. A wall of waves knocks me down, leaving me sputtering in the tempest.

I kick my legs helplessly, feeling my pretty dress cling to them. My lungs burn. My face is on fire. Desperately, my hands claw at the foamy surface of the water then across the sandy bottom. There is no traction. No salvation. I’m drowning.

Then air.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

I’m squirming in his arms, choking on gasps. He holds me too tight. We fit together like puzzle pieces, Thorny and I. I’m the right height to bury my face against his shoulder and smother whatever stupid, pathetic cries might break loose.

It’s a sympathy ploy, of course.

And Thorny doesn’t disappoint. “I’ve got you,” he tells me, smoothing his hands along my back, only to hold tighter when I quake. “She’s gone. I told her to leave. She’s gone.”

There’s a hitch in his voice. He’s too damn serious. Like he thinks he’s helping. Like he thinks I need him.

I don’t. Grinning from ear to ear, I pull back and meet his gaze through a screen of fat, fake tears. “I’m—”

Fine, I mean to say. Hahaha. You fell for it. I’m fine!

“Shhh.” Thorny jerks me closer, smothering my screams against the front of his jacket. I can’t stop fucking screaming. Shouting. And for once, no one tries to shut me up.

“I know. I know.” He says each word into my ear so I can’t ignore them. His scent is ingrained in my lungs, his touch forever etched into my skin. “I know, baby. I know. It’s okay. I’m here.”

But for how long?

A seven-year-old girl could suppress the memories of good, comforting Uncle Thorny, who smelled so nice, with the voice like thunder. Only he could make the bad thoughts go away.

Only he cared enough to tell me the truth as the world around me shattered.

Until he left.

“I’m here now,” he says, guiding me back from the water and onto dry land. “I know you’re hurting. It’s okay. Just let it all out. You don’t have to pretend with me. I’m here.”