Love at First Fight - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Eleven

Forever, I heard a voice say, but Mom's mouth was stuffed with pasta, so I knew that the voice I was hearing had to be fake. Probably. I wanted to leave forever.

I would not allow my brain to trick me. Not this time. Instead, I occupied my thoughts with conversation—I made my mother speak, so that I could remember what the real version of the voice sounded like. "Are you headed out again soon?" I asked.

You should've seen the way they looked at me. Maggie? She exists? And she's sitting right in front of us? Golly gee, who could have known?

When the question hit Mom's ears, her smile weakened and, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until my father looked at me from the tops of his eyes that I realized my question sounded more like an accusation. "Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean that you should leave. I just..." wanted to know the plan. Wanted to know what you were doing. Wanted to know how much time I was going to have with you before you left me again.

"No, I get it," she said, and she did, because in the end, Cameron Goode had never been a terrible mother. "I'm flying out with the Collins kid tomorrow. Charlotte says she has a lead."

The way she said his name—the Collins kid. It was so nonchalant. It was so cold. As far as I knew, there was no way to say the name Collins without feeling flame, but maybe that was just me, so I didn't say so. "Who's the lead?" I asked instead. "What information are you tracking down?"

At this, she cut a glance at my father, asking how much I was allowed to know and how much I wasn't. I suddenly felt like I was intruding and stuck my nose into my carryout bin, poking at something that was probably supposed to be chicken. It was a far too familiar scene—the adults at the head of the table, exchanging looks and making silent conversation in front of the little girl who, in all likelihood, had already heard too much.

That was really when I started to realize that she didn't know. That she hadn't been there when I'd been forced to do the majority of my growing up. The last time she had seen me, I had been a day over fifteen.

Child, she said. Little girl.

"I'm not a little girl," I bit back.

"What?"

The voice seemed more immediate this time, and instantly I knew that I had answered the wrong version of my mother. I snapped my gaze upward, hoping that maybe—just maybe—I was wrong, and that Mom had been talking this whole time, but the way she looked at me told me that she definitely hadn't been.

There are moments, whether you are a daughter of two spies or not, when you know you're busted. Parents spot every little misstep, be it through the front door after a long night out or a stutter across the lips after a long night in. Right then, the pair of them were looking at me like I had been caught, or at the very least, like I should be caught, even if they weren't entirely sure what for.

In these moments, you can either fess up or keep lying. This is true of any scenario in which you are undeniably busted, and it's generally known that fessing up bodes better in the long run, but there was no way—no way—that I was going to tell my parents about the voices. Or rather, voice, as the case may be.

"Nothing," I said instead. "It's nothing I just thought..." that you were speaking. That you were talking to me. That the voice in my head was real. So many words left unsaid. "I'm not a little girl. I'm a part of this. If your lead has info on the Gathering, I want to know about it."

"Maggie, sweetie, I really don't think—"

She was cut off by a nudge, ever so light and ever so subtle. If I hadn't been Joe Solomon's granddaughter, I never would have noticed it, but I did, and I was more than a little relieved to see that Dad was rooting for both of his girls, not just Mom.