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“I’m fine, honestly,” I protested when she started pressing, but all she did was raise her eyebrows.

“I carried you in my womb for nine months, I raised you, I’ve lived with you for almost seventeen years, and you don’t think I can tell when something’s wrong?”

In response, I curled into myself, pulling my feet onto the car seat and hunching my arms in tight. She said it like we were constantly opening up to each other. But sure, I’d bite.

Obviously, I couldn’t tell her everything. But maybe I could find a way to tell her what’d happened, without telling her.

“It’s about Brooke and Ray,” I said.

Mom nodded, sympathy flitting across her features. “Having a hard time with it, huh?”

She knew how I felt about Brooke. Or,hadfelt about Brooke, anyway. “No, it’s not that. Actually, they broke up. And it was sort of my fault.”

An eyebrow raise, but silence. My invitation to go on.

“So, Ray did something pretty bad to Brooke,” I said. Best not to tell Mom about the whole “rigging the election” thing. I didn’t want to risk her involving the staff in all this messiness. “And I found out, and I knew Ray wanted to tell her, but I told her first. And then she dumped Ray.”

There was no point sugarcoating it, or trying to paint myself in a better light. If I couldn’t be honest about my ugly parts with my own mom, who could I be honest with? It was a sobering thing, realizing that in an equation where a few people weren’t innocent… I was the most wrong.

To her credit, Mom didn’t seem shocked or judgy. But then, she didn’t seem much of anything. She barely took her eyes off the road as she replied. “So, tell Brooke that Ray wanted to tell her, honey. You shouldn’t lie, even if it’s by omission.”

“But… if I tell Brooke the whole story, she’ll be pissed at me.”

Mom shrugged. “Maybe. And maybe she’d have a rightto be.” Hah. She didn’t know the half of it. “But since when is that a good enough reason to not do the right thing?”

“I get it, I get that, but… I don’t know if I can.”

Mom slammed on her brakes to stop at the traffic light. “Hold on a sec, hon, this guy won’t get off my butt.” She wound down her window and stuck her head out to direct a nasty look at the car behind us. Well, gee. It was good to know she was emotionally invested in my struggles, here. I mean,she’dasked me to talk to her.

The light turned green, and Mom started driving again, but she kept shooting glances at the mirror. Finally, the car behind us sped up and overtook us. “Yeah, you do that, hope you get home a whole five seconds faster,” Mom snapped.

I stayed silent. Mom muttered something to herself. Eventually, she remembered I was pouring my heart out to her. “Sorry, Darc, what were you saying? Oh, Brooke. Honey, she’ll be madder at you if she finds out you knew and kept it a secret. Plus, you’ll feel relieved if you get it off your chest. You’re better off getting it out of the way now.”

Was she right? Would it be better for me and for Brooke in the long run if I told her everything now? So she could know that after months of making the wrong choices over and over again, I was at least determined to change that pattern now?

At the thought, the brick that’d been sitting in my stomach for weeks vanished.

Simultaneously, all the hairs on my body stood to attention in terror.

I knew the right thing to do. But that did not mean I relished the thought of doing it.

SIXTEEN

Self-Analysis:

Darcy Phillips

Is a good person who dida bad thingtwo very bad things.

Would do anything to protect Brooke, especially when Brooke gets rose-colored-glasses syndrome when she’s in love.

Is wondering if it’s okay to hurt someone to save them from worse hurt?

Isn’t that called “The Greater Good”?

Isn’t that the motivation behind every movie villain ever?

Isnota movie villain. Is notanytype of villain. Right?