Love at First Fight - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Twenty-One

"But he didn't," she said, plotting that data point into her missing timeline.

I shrugged, feeling my confidence leave me. My next words were harsh, but they needed to be said. "I don't think he could believe that you'd really fuck things up this badly, Mom."

A blink, but otherwise, nothing. I didn't regret the words, but I did need to escape them—needed to keep them from damming up the dialogue. I wasn't ready to give up on my mom yet. "And on top of that," I said. "I haven't exactly been a reliable source lately."

Even the best poker faces have cracks in them. Even the blankest faces, at some point, are brought back to life. I saw that in my mother just then. I saw her drop her defenses and enter familiar territory. "Yeah," she said. "Collins has been filling me in. He says you've been having a hard time."

Just the sound of his name made me want to ask a hundred different questions. What has he said? When did he say it? Exactly when did she and Luke Collins become so buddy-buddy?

But now was not the time for Collins. This was a time that circumstance had reserved just for me and my mother, so I said, "Understatement of the century."

She shook her head, her fingers fidgeting ever so slightly. "When did it start?" she asked. "How have you been doing? Are you on medications? Are you—are you happy, Maggie?"

She was hitting me with the hard ones tonight. Was I happy? I didn't know. The question seemed so bizarre on her lips, echoing alongside the others until I could finally place why it felt so strange. "Those all sound like things that a mother should know about her daughter," I said. "And I think, maybe, that's why I'm so pissed."

I was right. It was maybe the first time in my life that I didn't want to be, but I was. We both knew it. We both knew that daughters shouldn't have to hunt down missing parents. We both knew that daughters shouldn't have to be told they're crazy. We both knew that Mom could have helped and that she should have been here and that I had needed her.

But most of all, we both knew that I had changed. Mom had come back as the same mother she had been two years ago. She hadn't been expecting a completely different version of her daughter to greet her when she came home. I wasn't the same Morgan she knew, and she hadn't been prepared to meet me as I was now.

"I want you to be my mom again," I said. "I'm sick of you being a bystander. I'm sick of you tiptoeing around, waiting for someone to tell you that you're doing it wrong. I need a mom. I need you."

She didn't answer, which was just as well because I didn't want her to. It was finally her turn to do the listening. "I've needed you for two years now, and I'm pissed that you thought the best way to keep me safe was by leaving. Because it didn't work, Mom. I'm not safe. I'm just scared. And I need someone to tell me that it's going to be okay, even if you're lying."

"It's going to be okay."

"Are you lying?"

She smiled. "I don't know."

And that was the worst part, really. She didn't know. Her return wasn't some sort of magical progress. We'd still have to work, and work hard, to bring down the Gathering. To stop them from killing people we loved. No matter how much either of us had changed, that much would remain the same.

"Yeah," I said, because what else was there? "Yeah, okay. I'm going to go to bed. Long day tomorrow."

She looked like she wasn't ready for things to be over. She looked like she had a hundred more things she wanted to say to me, and then I realized it was because she did. We both had lists of what needed to be said, but we couldn't afford a sleepless night. We needed everything to go smoothly in the morning, and sleepy agents made for sloppy ops. "Okay," she said. "Good call. You need to sleep."

"So do you."

"Sure thing, kiddo."

My breath hitched. Hell, my entire body hitched, frozen in space by that one little word. Kiddo. How long had it been? "I love you," I told her.

"I love you too," she replied.

And maybe it could have been left there. Maybe I could have gone to my room and she could have gone to hers and all would have been well, but I'm glad that she spoke up. I'm glad that she had to knock just one more thing off of that to-say list of hers. "I would have done the same thing, you know."

I was already halfway down the hall when she said it, lost in the shadows, my mother somewhere behind me and out of sight.

"What you did for William—Will. You father says he told you not to go."

Gut punch. The most unintentional guilt trip in human history. "Yeah," I managed.

"I would have gone. Your father would have too, but he'll never admit it. I just—" She paused, considering her words carefully. "You did the right thing, Maggie," she said. "It may not have been the smartest thing or the safest thing, but you did the right thing, okay?"

I had spent a lot of time regretting my decisions that night. I had spent a lot of time asking myself what would have happened if I just hadn't gone. I had spent so long thinking that I had made a bad call, so it was honestly amazing to me that just a few words from my mother could completely change my point of view.

I had gone to Dock Twelve because someone I trusted had asked me to.

I had gone to Dock Twelve out of loyalty.

That was who I was, and that was not my fault.

So I stood there, letting her words wash over me. I wondered how many other things had been stupid, but right. Then I wondered if my mother's last two years had been exactly that. Not the smartest decision. Not the safest. But right.

I didn't know. This wasn't the time to figure it out. I just kept walking, towards the room and towards sleep, and towards tomorrow.