The Year I Became Isabella Anders (Sunnyvale, #1)(13)

I jerk back from the door. “What the hell?” I say louder than I mean to.

Indigo captures my arm and tows me back down the hallway, making a beeline for the front door. I don’t know if my grandma or dad heard me, but the bedroom door is still shut by the time Indigo drags me outside. She only releases me when we’ve crossed the parking lot and reached the tree area across from the apartment.

“Holy shit.” I run my fingers through my hair as I pace back and forth across the grass. “I don’t get what just happened. I don’t . . . none of this makes sense.” I place my hands on my hips and hunch forward as my stomach burns. “Keep me? He chose to keep me . . . I don’t understand.” I peer up at Indigo, who has a cigarette between her lips and a lighter in her hand. “Do you know what any of that was about?”

She cups her hands around her mouth and lights the cigarette. “I’m not positive, but I have a few theories,” she says, a cloud of smoke circling her face. “But they’re just theories based on shit I’ve heard my mother and father talking about.”

Still woozy, I squat down and inhale deeply. “What are the theories?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you,” she says, eyeing me warily. “You already look like you’re about to hack your guts up.”

“I feel like I’m going to hack my guts up.”

“Here.” She crouches down in front of me and offers me her cigarette.

I scrunch my nose. “I don’t smoke.”

“I know, but a drag or two might help you chill out.”

The smoke burns my nostrils as I take the cigarette from her hands. My fingers shake as I lift the end to my lips and inhale. “Holy shit, that burns,” I say through a fitful of coughs as my lungs drown in smoke.

Indigo laughs in amusement as she removes the cigarette from my hands. “Sorry. I probably should’ve warned you first, but I thought going in blind might make it more exciting for you.” She sits down in the grass and takes a few drags as I catch my breath.

Once I no longer feel like a ninja used my lungs as a punching bag, I settle in the grass beside her. “I wanna hear your theories. In fact, I need to hear them; otherwise, I’ll come up with my own. And my head is full of all sorts of crazy.”

She sighs heavily. “I was hoping the whole smoking thing would distract you from that.”

Shaking my head, I pick at the grass. “How can I think of anything else, when it sounds like I was . . . adopted?”

“Is that what you think that was about?” she asks, squinting at the highway in front of us.

“Um, yeah.” I massage my temples as my head pulsates. All this time, I knew I didn’t quite fit in with my family, that I was an outcast. Different. And yeah, the thought crossed my mind that maybe I was adopted, but the thought was never out of seriousness. “What else could it be?”

She grazes her thumb across the end of the cigarette, scattering ashes all over the grass. “It could be adoption . . . or it could be that maybe your . . .” She looks at me and pity fills her eyes. “Have you ever wondered why your mom treats you like shit?”

“You’ve noticed that?”

“Isa, everyone who’s ever crossed paths with the two of you knows there’s tension between you and your mother.”

“Tension from her,” I point out. “I try to be nice, but she acts like I’m some sort of vile reptile or something.”

She puts her cigarette between her lips and smoke laces the air as she dazes off at the highway again. “I have this theory that maybe the reason she’s always treated you like shit is because maybe you remind her of a shitty time in her life . . . maybe something shitty your dad did to her that kind of led to the procreation of you.”

It takes a second or two to process what she’s implying. “Wait . . . you think . . .” I shake my head. “No, there’s no way. My dad didn’t have an affair . . . he wouldn’t do that to my mom. Trust me. He does everything she says, sometimes too much.”

Her brows arch. “He wouldn’t, huh? Okay, I guess my theory’s wrong.”

I shake my head, but inside, my wheels are turning. All those times my mother looked at me with such disdain, and sometimes jealousy, are starting to make sense.

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear,” she says then mutters, “Although, I don’t know why. Your mom’s a bitch.” She clears her throat. “But you have to admit it kind of makes sense.”

I lower my head into my hands. “None of this makes sense. Where did you even get this theory? Did you just pull it out of your ass, or is it based on some sort of legit info?”

“I heard a rumor,” she says. “Or, well, I overheard my mom and dad gossiping about your family once, and my mom said something about the other woman, and how it was a good thing your dad didn’t leave you with her.”

Wide-eyed, I lift my head and gape at her. “How long ago was this?”

She shrugs as she puts the cigarette out in a patch of dirt. “I don’t know. Like a few years ago or something.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”

“Isa, this is like the longest the two of us have talked. Usually, at reunions, your family stays in a hotel and spends a whole lot of time sitting around in the corner with your noses stuck in the air like a bunch of snobs.”