tricks of time ― grayson hawthorne [the inheritance games]

035. A DEADLY TRUTH

Grayson chokes. "You did what?"

"It's crazy," Jameson says, shaking his head in disbelief. "The old man left everything here. It was like he knew that if someone found the secrets left here- they would find everything. Everything here is just- laid out, waiting for us. I can't believe I never noticed any of it before."

I furrow my brows. "What- what do you mean?"

He hands me the folder finally. "See for yourself," he says.

Unsure what I would find- or even what I was expecting- I lifted the folder out and opened it. I felt Grayson scoot closer to me to see for himself. He wrapped a strong hand across my shoulders. Although he didn't say anything- I knew what that draped hand meant. I'm here. With you. I will always be here- be here for you.

The first thing  I  saw  was  a  copy  of  my  birth  certificate.  Tobias  Hawthorne  had highlighted my biological mother- and my father's signature. I felt a pit in my stomach grow deeper. It all made so much sense that it was sickening. Despite the fact that I was trying to find some proof- anything, to make this all a figment of my imagination, I couldn't find anything. And it killed me.

I have a secret, I could hear my mother saying. About your birth. Your ancestry.

I had no idea what to make of that- any of it. I flipped to the next page and the next and the next. They were full of pictures, four or five a year, from the time I was three. For those few years, he must have lost track of me.

He would have kept track of you, I could hear Grayson saying. A random little girl who really wasn't random at all.

The number of pictures went up significantly after my sixteenth birthday. After Emily died. There were so many, like Tobias Hawthorne had sent someone to watch my every move. It was almost eerie- thinking there was someone always in the shadows, stalking me everywhere- and through 17 years, I never knew. You couldn't risk everything on a total stranger, I thought.  Technically,  that  was  exactly  what  he'd  done,  but  looking  at  these pictures, I was overwhelmed with the sense that Tobias Hawthorne had done his homework.

I wasn't just a name and a girl to him. There were shots of me running poker games in the parking lot and shots of me carrying way too many cups at once at the diner. There was a picture of me with Leslie, where we were laughing, and one where I was standing with my body between hers and her ex-boyfriend. There was a shot of me playing chess in the park and one of me and Leslie in line for breakfast, where all you could see was the back of our heads. There was even one of me in my car, holding a stack of postcards in my hands thoughtfully. The photographer had caught me dreaming.

Grayson picks up the photo and smiles fondly at it. "Can I keep this?" He asks me. I nod, a small smile on my lips. I watch him tuck it away carefully before looking back at the folder.

Tobias Hawthorne hadn't known me- but he'd known about me since the day Ms. Laughlin gave birth to me. The day I was put up for adoption and given to my mother.

I might have been a very risky gamble. I might have been a part of the puzzle and not a player. But the billionaire had known that I could play. He hadn't entered into this blindly and hoped for the best. He'd plotted, and he'd planned, and I'd been a part of that calculation. Not just Leah Adler- a girl who had been adopted because she was unwanted and just so happened to be born on the same day her half-sister died- but the girl in these photos.

I thought about what Jameson had said. Tobias Hawthorne left me the fortune- and all he'd left them was me. He gave me the fortune because he was never going to give it to any of them anyway in case it sprung up new rivalries and betrayals. Instead of giving it to charity- he gave it to me, because he pitied me and believed that I should know the truth of my birth.

And yet- this all tied back to my sister- Emily Laughlin. The words felt unknown to my brain. This whole puzzle- all it's twists and turns...at the center, always stood Emily Laughlin.

A ping of a text message snaps me up. "They'll be here in 4 hours," Jameson says, glancing up from his phone to me. "You have exactly 4 hours to make your decision- whatever you want to say."

And then he leaves.

My mind feels like it's about to explode. What do I say? How do I say any of it?

How do you confront your biological mother who gave you away as a baby?

I'm pretty sure even Google doesn't have an answer for that.

authors note

vote and comment. why? because it makes me happy.

word count: 1533 words