I finally break, “I wanted to tell, but I’m not supposed to.”
“What did you want to tell, sweetheart?” my dad asks, looking worried now. “Did Reynolds do something to you?”
Warren ignores him, but I can see the way his jaw goes angrily tight. “Why aren’t you supposed to tell, Vandy? Did Reyn ask you not to tell?”
“No,” I answer, rubbing my palms nervously over my thighs. “Not Reyn.”
“Then who?”
I look nervously at my parents, and there’s no way to back out of this. “His lawyer did.”
Warren obviously wasn’t expecting this answer. He falls back, eyebrows pushed together. “I haven’t even had a chance to contact Steven yet.” He explains to my parents, “Old friend from college. He’s helped in the past.”
I shake my head. “Not… Steven. It’s someone else. I called in a favor?” I say this like a question, feeling small and guilty.
My mom’s face screws up. “A favor to who?”
Warren raises a hand. “Let’s come back to that later. Why did this lawyer ask you not to tell?”
I push out a hard breath, not at all prepared for my parents to hear what I’m about to say. “Because I risk incriminating Reyn. And… and myself. She said I should wait and let her handle it, and I know it looks bad.” I plead to him with my eyes. “I know it looks terrible, but I’m just trying not to make things worse.”
“We’re not the authorities,” Warren says, voice soothing. “There’s no incrimination happening here between the four of us, understand? You can tell us, it’s okay.” He looks at my parents, seeking their agreement. “We’ll just keep it right here, in this room.”
My parents look both mystified and concerned, but they reluctantly nod along.
So.
This is it, then.
The nervous flutter in my belly transforms into wild flapping. I shift in my chair, trying to look them in the eye, but I can’t. I can’t look them in the eye when I say it. I look into Warren’s instead—into the familiar green—and if I squint, cross my eyes and make everything go fuzzy and indistinct, I can almost pretend it’s Reyn in front of me.
“The pills weren’t Reyn’s.” I say, “They were mine.”
The dining room is bathed in a tense silence while the confession sinks in.
My mother’s face works though a dozen expressions, the strongest being the cognitive dissonance that’s been holding her together for the last three years. That I’m still a child. That I’m hurt. That I need help.
My father is a little more connected with reality. “Can you repeat that?”
“The drugs were mine,” I say in the firmest voice I can muster. “I’d been hoarding them for a long time. Getting extra prescriptions when I went to the doctor, double doses from the specialists. I talked each one of them into giving me a little bit more so that I had enough to take for as long as I needed.”
“But,” my mother starts, touching her throat, “why would you need them? You’ve been past that level of pain for years now.” Her eyebrows knit. “Are you still in pain? Do I need to call—” My father’s hand rests on her knee.
I fix my eyes to the table, throat thick with shame. “I took them because I liked how it felt. Because it took me away, to a different place. I took them because I was,” I swallow thickly, “reliant on them. But not anymore,” I rush to say. “I stopped, I’m off them now.”
“Sweetheart,” my dad carefully says, “if you feel like you need to cover for Reyn—”
“I don’t need to cover for him. I need to tell the truth.” To protect him. To fix this. If it can even be fixed. “Those were my drugs. Reyn found them in my room and took them away from me, but he did it for my safety. He was worried because I’d been upset—”
“Reynolds was in your room,” Mom clarifies, face paled. “Last night?”
And a bunch of other nights, too.
“Yes,” I slowly say, eyes flicking to Warren. “We’d had a fight earlier and he came over to make sure I was okay. I wasn’t,” I confess, avoiding their eyes. “I was having a… really bad night. He took care of me.”
“And he took the pills away from you,” Warren says, looking relieved. So relieved that he breathes a laugh. “I knew there was more to this. That damn kid.” Despite his words, I can see a spark of frustrated pride in his eyes, and I’d been