The Year I Became Isabella Anders (Sunnyvale, #1)(66)

I watch him until he disappears around the corner, and then I head for my locker, my mind swimming in a sea of confusion, where nothing makes sense, not even myself, which is sadly becoming my motto in life.

I worked so hard to reinvent myself while I was on the trip, but I’m starting to realize the makeover was solely an outside thing. While I appear to be put together on the outside, I’m still as confused and lost as I was when I left.

Maybe even more.





I SPEND THE rest of the day stressing over how upset Kai looked when he left, but the second I walk into my house, my worries for Kai fly right out the window.

My dad is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and talking to Lynn about something while he reads over a piece of paper.

“Dad, you’re home,” I breathe in relief, wanting to get on my knees and kiss the ground. Yes! I no longer have to do chores for Lynn and Hannah.

But when he looks at me, my elation fizzles like flat soda. “We need to have a talk.”

“What do you mean by we?” I ask. “You and me, or . . . ?” I glance at Lynn.

She twists in her chair and smiles sweetly. “Your father, me, and you are all going to talk.” She pulls out a chair and pats the seat.

I hesitantly walk over to the table, dropping my bag on the floor before I take a seat in the chair farthest away from Lynn.

Her eyelids lower to slits, but she collects herself and reaches for the sugar dish in the middle of the table. “Your father and I are very worried about you, Isa.” She scoops up a spoonful of sugar and adds it to her coffee. “Ever since you went on that trip, you’ve been acting like a completely different person.”

“You wanted me to go on that trip,” I calmly remind her.

A shrill laugh escapes her lips. “I never agreed that you could go on that trip. I was always under the impression that you were going to spend the summer at your grandmother’s, getting a job and working so we would no longer have to spend so much money on you all the time.”

My fingers curl inward as I ball my hands into fists. “I pay for most of my stuff.” Which is the truth. Most of my pencils, sketchbooks, and clothes have come from money I’ve made doing part-time jobs here and there and from the cash my grandpa gave me.

“Stop lying.” She stirs her coffee, sitting in the chair with perfect posture, trying to appear like the calm, picture-perfect woman she’s not. “You’ve been doing too much of that lately.”

“I haven’t lied about anything,” I say, fighting to keep my temper under control.

She wipes the spoon clean on the brim of the cup before setting it down on the table. “Maybe lying isn’t the right word. But you’ve been keeping secrets from us.”

I sort through my thoughts, trying to figure out which secret she’s referring to.

“I’m talking about all the snooping you’ve been doing,” she says. “For the last couple of weeks, you’ve torn this house apart every time your father and I aren’t around.”

I glance at the paper my dad was looking at when I walked in. It looks like a receipt from a hotel in Virginia, but it doesn’t make any sense, since he was supposed to be in Florida. “How do you know I was looking for something?”

My dad must notice I’m looking, because he folds up the paper and stuffs it into his briefcase.

“I have my ways of finding out what you’ve been up to.” Lynn’s icy gaze warns me a storm is coming for me, and I’m not going to be able to get out of its path. “But that doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that you found what you were looking for.”

“I didn’t find it.” I feel like I’m walking into a trap. “Hannah left it on my bed, but I think you already know that, don’t you?”

“Isabella, stop lying!” My dad suddenly explodes, slamming his fist onto the table.

I jump, my heart slamming against my chest. “Dad, I—”

“Don’t you dare make excuses!” He cuts me off, stabbing a trembling finger in my direction. “You had no right to look for your birth certificate. No right at all.”

“I do too have a right.” I suck back the tears, refusing to cry in front of them. “It’s my birth certificate. And when I turn eighteen in a few months, you would have had to give it to me anyway.”

His face reddens with anger. “You don’t even know what you’re getting into. Just because you found out about her,” he flinches, casting a panicked glance in Lynn’s direction, “you think you understand everything.”

“What I understand is that I was lied to for years. That the people I always thought were my family aren’t. That this place,” I flail my hand around at the kitchen, “wasn’t always my home. That all these damn years I spent here, feeling like a fucking outcast, could’ve been avoided if you would’ve just let Grandma raise me, instead of bringing me into a family who hates me!” I’m breathing ravenously by the time I’m finished, but it feels so good to get it out.

The vein in my dad’s forehead bulges as he glides his hand across the table and clutches my hand. “You will never talk to me that way again. Do you understand? I won’t let you turn into your mother. I won’t let you turn into that vile woman who ruined my life.”