mean for me? If dad was one of them, then by right, I’m a wolf too. Were the years Nic spent at my side just some game to get close to my dad? Is Sebastian even the best friend I’ve always believed him to be? Is Elijah really my voice of reason? Kairo my protector?
Every little thing that I’ve known to be true before sitting in that guidance counselors office is in question. I don’t know who to trust, what’s right and what’s wrong. Did Mom know about this and hide it all of these years? Miss Davies could have had a bad case of mistaken identity, she could have had it wrong. It’s possible that there was more than one Big Lou in Breakers Flats, right?
Mom’s brows crease as she watches me and concern begins filtering through her features. “What’s wrong, Honey? What is it?”
Shit. How is it possible for Mom to read me so clearly? Is it impossible to hide anything from this woman?
I look away, not able to meet her eyes as the possibility of learning that she has lied to me all these years begins to haunt me. “I, umm … I had a meeting with the guidance counselor at school the other day—”
“Oh?” she questions, taken back just as I had been. I don't think we even had a guidance counselor in Breakers Flats.
I meet her eyes and just as the words begin to form in my mouth, I pussy out like a fucking bitch. How could I bring up my father just moments before we’re due to be heading to a funeral? What kind of insensitive bitch am I? I wasn't raised to kick someone when they’re already down. Maybe I belong in Bellevue Springs after all.
“Yeah,” I say as pathetic as ever. “She wanted to discuss my future.”
“How do you mean?”
“College.”
Mom rears back, her lips scrunching in surprise. “College?”
“That’s what I thought,” I tell her truthfully. “She’s been going over my records and grades and she thinks I have potential to be accepted. You know, nothing like an Ivy League like the rest of Bellevue Springs, but a small college. She thinks I can make it.”
Mom blinks three times before finally speaking up. “Are you … how do you feel about this?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I really don’t know,” I say, shaking my head, completely lost on the topic. “She just kinda sprung it on me and then, you know … that happened and that was the last I thought about it. I guess I want to know what you think about it.”
“My daughter going to college,” she muses, her voice rising an octave in her excitement. “I think that would make you the best damn thing to come out of Breakers Flats and if this is what you want to do, then I’ll support you completely, but just know, that if you decide against this that I still think you’re the best thing to come out of that hellhole.”
“I know,” I tell her. “It's just the money. I don’t have the grades to get a scholarship, not that I’d even know the first thing about applying for one, and from every movie I’ve ever watched, it’s supposed to be ridiculously expensive. I can’t afford it, even if I was working full time, and besides, what would I even study? I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’ve never even had to think about it. I’ve always learned that to make it through high school without being shot is the main goal.”
“Oh, Honey,” Mom says, flinging her arms around me and drawing me in. “If money is the only thing holding you back from this then you shouldn’t worry yourself. You’re my daughter and your education is my responsibility. If you get accepted into college then the financial burden will be on me and you better believe that I will work my ass off to make sure your fees are paid. I will work a second job if I have to, but if this is what you want and you get in, then that’s what you’re going to do.”
I shake my head. “Are you insane? I’m not about to let you pay for this. I don’t even know how much it’s going to be. Hell, I don’t even know if I actually want to go yet.”
“Ocean,” my mother says sternly. “You listen to me now and you listen closely. I do not care what you want to do with