The Girls I've Been: Chapters 42–52

“You sound like Mom,” I say, because I’m hurt and raw, and I want her to sprout the same kind of wound.
“I’m not her,” she says, so calmly that I know my barb failed to pierce.

Her razor-sharp bob swings with each step and her suit is impeccable, even though she probably got the call long past midnight.

She has short blond hair and a somber face.

If things had gone according to plan, she would’ve had a fingerprint kit and we’d be able to move in on his entire operation after a thorough vetting.

“Sure, enlighten me,” Agent North drawls.

And if you are audacious enough to make me say this in front of lawyers or a judge or even any of those other pesky agent friends of yours? I will say the same thing. Along with some other choice secrets of yours and maybe some of your higher-ups’ secrets, too.

“I’m sorry the murderous psychopath parenting my sister didn’t adhere to your schedule.”

Amelia lunges to her feet, crossing the room fast, out of my sight, and I hear the soft rustle that can’t be a punch but has to be some sort of touch, because the agent lets out a breath that is not quiet.

“She almost got killed getting you what you wanted.” Amelia says it like a condemnation, and the agent bristles at it.

You needed us. I made a deal that risked her because my kid sister was more competent than your agents.

She took insane risks. I had a clean extraction plan for her.

There’s no artifice...no calculation or prettiness.

A little girl cut him off at the knees, and it’s not going to sit well with him or his cohorts.

All three of those things are unfathomable: safety, therapy, and home.

“When I left that first time, I knew I had to find a way to make it so that once I had you with me, Mom couldn’t get to you ever again. I either had to kill her or put her in prison. And since I didn’t want to add matricide to my list of crimes, I chose the latter. Which meant I needed two things: I needed you to actually want to leave, and I needed an FBI agent in my pocket for the moment that happened.”

“The FBI already knew about Abby, but North is ambitious. And a con woman who’s tangled up with all sorts of other criminal power because of the men she targets is a big get. If they managed to bring in Abby, think of all the marks she’s had through the years. Think of all the dirt she’s dug up. If she turned snitch, she’d be a gold mine.”

She folds her hands together; she is so dainty and prim in her dress, and you can’t think anything diabolical about her when her cheeks are pink like that and her eyes are downcast just so.

“No way.”
She bristles.

You can’t con a con artist. Isn’t that what they always say?
Once, I thought it was true. Absorbed it with all of her other teachings and my baby food. But I’ve proved the adage wrong, haven’t I?

When we arrive in Florida and she doesn’t give me a new name or a new hairstyle, it feels like punishment instead of a reprieve.

She hums as I trot into the bathroom, and when she begins to brush my hair in front of the mirror, my skin crawls. It should lull me, but the last two weeks of her dodging me has made me needy, desperate for her attention, unable to settle in the scraps of her presence.

And the last two months have made me skittish in a way she didn’t raise me to be.

She tucks the end of the braids behind the plaits, pinning them tight.

I keep at my volleys, and the third time I miss in twenty minutes, I drop the racket, my mouth twisting.

I hold my hand out with a little flourish. All the girls have good manners. “I’m Ashley.”

“Control yourself,” she orders under her breath.
But I can’t, and she ends up taking me back to the car and finally gets the story out of me in halting bursts as we drive back to the hotel.

“When did these arrive?” she asks the concierge.

Then she grabs the big trash can near the door and carries it over to the sink, pulling the top off and assessing the contents with a glance.

She unwinds the toilet paper with the efficiency of a seasoned TP-er, which I can’t imagine is the case.

I hand it to her and she roots around, pulling out her makeup bag and digging inside that, coming up with a plastic pin with two little hearts. It’s old, like almost everything she owns. From the time people actually wore brooches.

Most of the time, we’re this shiny little Stepford family veneer to hide the criminal grime.

It’s not hard, most of the time, because they are obsessed with each other, in that gross, gooey, show-off way that Mom relishes after so many years of being unknown.

“Christ,” he mutters, like the clothes Mom bought me are an affront to him.

“Why don’t you go downstairs and make me a list of the appropriate clothes you’re thinking about so I can go shopping?” she suggests softly, going into mollify mode, just like I did.

“I sacrificed everything, baby. For you. So I need you to start behaving. Stop being so sullen. I did not raise you to show this level of disrespect to your father.”

My mind catches up with my heart, because she looks so tentative when she finally glances up.

I recognize it in her: the fight against what’s ingrained in you through fear and what you’re starting to learn is truth now that you’re free.

“I’m not her anymore. I’m not sure I ever was.”
“That’s not an answer,” she tells me, shrewd as ever.

The sanitizer-soaked toilet paper fills the room with so much acrid black smoke, I’m choking underneath the handkerchief.

The door swings open, the smoke billows out, and Red Cap starts coughing.