Anita sat across the kitchen table from Gracie and her foster parents, there was a look on Anita's face that Gracie had seen countless times. A mix of pity and guilt that made her feel sick to her stomach.
"As you know, I've been getting Gracie's paperwork in order for the adoption appointment with the judge," Anita was famous for beating around the bush, "And some new information has come to light, actually it was an oversight from Gracie's last social worker, the one who took her case when Hugo passed away."
"What does that mean?" Stella asked frustratedly.
"It means she's taking me away again," Gracie stared at Anita, furious with her.
"No, Gracie, I'm not here to remove you from this home," Anita sighed.
"What?" Gracie was confused, Anita only ever showed up when something bad happened.
Lilah let out a relieved breath, "You're not?"
"It seems," Anita was talking slowly, taking big breaths between words like she didn't want to say what she had discovered, "It seems that Gracie's birth parents, or at the very least her mother, are alive."
Gracie's hand instinctively reached for the pendant that hung from her neck, the necklace given to her by her Hugo before he died, "That's not funny," her brow furrowed and her nose scrunched up, "I was the one who found my dad's body, okay? You can't fake that. And I saw the order of service from my mom's funeral, my dad gave it to me. I kept it in my journal for years until it was burnt with the rest of my stuff, he wouldn't have lied about something like that."
The truth was that Gracie didn't know her father very well at all, but she knew he loved her, and he would never go out of his way to corroborate such an elaborate lie and he certainly wasn't the type to fake his death.
She thought back to the day she found her father's lifeless body covered in his blood. She remembered the bruises she had from being dragged out kicking and screaming. And then the years of abuse and neglect that she endured in foster care. There was no way her parents were alive. Anita must've meant something else, and that possibility terrified Gracie.
Lilah reached out for Gracie's hand, "Gracie, let's hear what Anita has to say."
"No," she stood up from the table and backed away from everyone, suddenly feeling cornered, "They're dead, she's lying!"
It felt like she was losing her mind, like Anita playing a strange game, and Gracie just didn't understand.
"Gracie, please," Lilah stepped closer to Gracie and took her hand to try and keep her calm, but Gracie was unreachable inside her head, "Sit back down."
Gracie stayed on her feet, fondling the pendant between her fingers, and faced Anita, "Go on then, explain."
"Hugo and Francesca Santos are dead, that's true, but," Anita took another breath, barely looking Gracie in the eye.
"Just tell me!" Gracie demanded through tears as her balled up fist hit the table.
"Neither of their names was on your birth certificate, there was just one, does the name Julia Santos mean anything to you?"
Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she answered reluctantly, "Graciella Francesca Julia Santos, that's my full name." She remembered Hugo once telling her it was a family name. "But if my dad isn't my dad then who the hell did I live with for eight years?" Nothing was adding up in Gracie's head, she couldn't process everything she was being told.
"Hugo and Francesca are your grandparents."
"No," Gracie was shaking her head, denying everything.
"Your birth mother is currently being held in La Mesa penitentiary. She's been charged with prostitution and drug trafficking."
Mentally exhausted, all she could do was laugh, "Oh great, so my mother's a whore and a junkie, and I suppose my dad is, what, her dealer? One of her customers? It's no wonder I ended up a psycho, I really won the gene lottery."
"You're not a psycho, Gracie," Stella said, "Don't talk about my daughter that way."
She sat back down next to her foster mothers, wishing so desperately to be biologically related to them instead of some stranger who was locked up in prison, "Sorry."
"Have you contacted her?" Lilah asked.
"No, I thought the decision should be left up to Gracie, but sweetheart," Anita reached across the table and took Gracie's hand, "You should know, you can't be adopted unless your birth mother signs away her rights."
"Rights?" Gracie scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. "How does she have any rights to begin with? She didn't raise me, my dad- Hugo barely raised me!" Tears were forming in her eyes, "I raised myself for seven years in a system that's done nothing but chew me up and spit me out over and over again, and now... Now that I finally have a real family, you're telling me I can't get adopted because a woman who I've never met has the right to uproot everything I've worked for?"
"If you want to be adopted you can, but you'll have to speak to her yourself," Anita said.
"My love," Stella wrapped her arms around Gracie, "You don't have to see her, in fact, I think it's best that you don't."
Gracie had already made her mind up, "Yes I do!" She cried out, pulling away from Stella, barely noticing that both of her foster mothers had started crying too, "I want to be your daughter, not hers, I have to see her and tell her to sign the stupid papers," Stella, Lilah, and Anita were all exchanging glances, "Stop looking at each other like that," she begged.
"Are you sure it's a good idea?" Anita asked, "I know how badly you want to be adopted but is it worth disrupting your life here?"
"My life is constantly being disrupted, if I want to be a normal kid, I need to get out of the system," she insisted, "So, will you take me to see her?" She asked Stella and Lilah.
"We'll discuss it, and let you know," Stella said, "We have to be sure that it's the right thing for you."
Gracie rolled her eyes through her tears, she shouldn't have been shocked. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
"There's something else, Gracie," Anita said.
"No, I'm not listening to this anymore, this is such bullshit," she picked up her backpack and stormed out of the room. She'd never spoken that way to any of her foster parents, but this was different, she had to make them see her perspective.
"Gracie," Lilah called after her.
"I'm going out," Gracie slammed the front door behind her and ran down the street, waiting until she was at least a block away from the house before breaking down in tears.
She sat on someone's side lawn, leaning against a tree trying to catch her breath.
'Hasn't life dealt me enough of a bad hand already?' She asked herself, 'Why me? Why now?'
It didn't matter what Gracie wanted for herself, her life would always be in the hands of someone else, and she never had any control. It was no wonder she often resorted to self-harm as a way to have some sort of rule over her life.
'It's karma, for all of the lies I've told and the people I've hurt,' she concluded, 'Maybe this is what I deserve.'
Just as she caught her breath and stopped crying, she stood up to go for a walk to clear her head when she noticed something, a figure across the street. Someone was staring at her, watching her. He was thin and not much taller than her, wearing dark jeans and a black hoodie that cast a shadow over his face. Still, she could tell that it wasn't a man, it was a teenage boy.
"What?" She yelled across the street, and the boy turned away and walked in the opposite direction.
She was so angry and confused, and she knew there was only one person who could help her feel better. She'd arranged to meet Rachel anyway, so she made her way to the beach and got there in record time.
"Hey," Rachel said when she saw her girlfriend, and then she saw the tears in her eyes, "Hey what's wrong?" She took Gracie in her arms and let her cry on her shoulder.
"It's this damn system, I hate it!" Gracie rarely got angry, but everything was piling up and she needed to yell.
"What happened?" Rachel pulled Gracie over to a bench and they sat down. "Is it your foster moms?"
Gracie wiped away her remaining tears, "No, not them. My birth mother," Gracie laughed again, it was all so unbelievable, "Turns out the people who I thought were my parents are actually my grandparents," she reached for her necklace again, but this time she pulled it off, snapping the clasp and threw it across the beach into the sand. "My da- grandpa lied to me my whole life and my birth mom just didn't want me. At least not as much as she wanted to get high. She gave me away to sleep with strangers for money to fund her drug habit."
"What? Oh my God, Gracie," Rachel comforted Gracie with an arm over her shoulders.
"That's not even the worst part, Stella and Lilah want to adopt me, but they can't unless my birth mom signs her rights away. Which means I have to see her, and they don't want me to because they think it'll mess me up or something. As if possible to be more messed up than I am already."
"Jesus, that's intense, you just found all of this out?" Gracie nodded in response, "So, what's going to happen? I mean you can't go back into the system, I'll never see you," now it was Rachel's turn to panic.
"No," Gracie said flatly, "I'm not going to let that happen, I can't lose you too," she took her hands, "I'm going to see my birth mom, whether Stella and Lilah like it or not, and I'm going to make her sign the papers so I can finally have a normal life."
"You? Normal?" Rachel joked, "Nah, I don't see that happening."
Gracie smiled for the first time since Anita broke the news, "I'm so lucky to have you, I don't know what I would do if I were alone right now."
"Maybe we should just get out of here?" Rachel said, "Like for good. Just me and you, we can go wherever we want."
Gracie smiled again, imagining a life out in the world with Rachel, but it was just a fantasy. And anyway, she didn't want to leave her new family.
"No seriously," Rachel was getting excited, "I have savings, I have the car, we could do anything, go anywhere!" She had a smile so wide that Gracie hated having to hit her with reality.
"Rachel, I finally have a life here, I have responsibilities and a family that I don't want to stop fighting for. I can't leave, but it doesn't mean we can't be together."
"But I thought you loved me," her smile faded away, and tears filled her eyes.
"I do, you know I do, but... but-"
"But what? You love me but just not enough? You'd rather stick around here and wait to get moved to another home? In the meantime, what? You'll go on playing happy families in a house full of people who barely know you? What kind of life is that?"
"They do know me," Gracie interjected.
"Not like I do. Gracie, you mean everything to me, don't you care how much it hurts me to see you this way? I can take you away from all of the drama and we can just be. You just have to let me take care of you," she grabbed Gracie's hands and squeezed them with desperation.
"I know, I'm sorry," Gracie's heart ached at the sight of Rachel so upset, "But I can't leave them, they're my family," she admitted.
Her grip on Gracie's hands loosened, "I thought I was your family," Rachel stood up and shook her head, "Whatever," she started walking away.
"Rachel wait," Gracie said, not understanding what was happening, "Don't leave, please," she begged, "Let's just talk about this."
"You know what? No. I can't do this. I can't be pulling all of the weight in this relationship, it's over. Okay? We're over," Rachel turned and stormed away from Gracie.
She called after her a few times, but Rachel didn't look back. Gracie was left standing all alone on the beach, confused and heartbroken all over again.
It didn't make any sense, Rachel was always there for Gracie, and vice versa, so why now had it become too much for Rachel? She knew that Rachel loved her, so the only logical explanation was that Gracie was in the wrong, but there was nothing she could do now, Rachel was gone.
Defeated and exhausted, Gracie started walking back home, hoping that if she walked slowly enough, maybe Anita would have left by the time she got back. As she walked, she had an eerie suspicion that someone was watching her.
She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and turned around. It was the same boy from before, "Are you stalking me?" She yelled at him, tears still in her eyes. "I'll call the cops!"
"Uh, sorry," the voice was familiar. "I just- well I saw you crying earlier," the boy took a few steps closer, "I wanted to see if you were okay," he took his hood down. It was Jasper, the boy from group therapy.
"Oh, it's you," she said, walking over to him, "I'm fine, just family stuff."
"I also saw you throw this, I don't know what's going on but I thought maybe you'd like the option to keep it," he presented her with the necklace.
She'd regretted throwing it the second she did it, it was all she had left of her old life.
"Thank you," she smiled.
Now she was face to face with him, she could see that one of his eyes was almost swollen shut and the skin around it was turning a vibrant shade of purple. "Are you okay?"
"What? This? Yeah, I just got into a fight with my foster brother, looks worse than it is," the right side of his mouth turned up slightly, and Gracie instantly knew that was his tell. He was lying.
"Right, well, I should get going, I kind of ran out on my moms earlier," she started to turn away.
"So you have two moms, that's cool," he said, clearly trying to get Gracie to stick around.
"Yeah, totally," Gracie was getting nervous, after all, she barely knew this boy. "Anyway-"
"And how many brothers and sisters do you have?"
"Look, I've gotta go, sorry," Gracie brushed him off and rushed around the corner, hoping he wouldn't follow her all the way home.
She thought maybe he just wanted a friend, someone to talk to, but Gracie had been in enough dangerous situations to know that it's always safer to remove yourself if you're not sure.
"There you are," Stella was sitting waiting for Gracie on the porch, "We've been calling."
Usually, Stella would be furious at her kids for ignoring her phone calls, but she knew Gracie just needed some space, and she was gone for less than an hour. Still, Gracie knew it wasn't fair on her.
"I'm sorry."
Stella sighed, "Are you alright?" She folded her arms.
Gracie was most definitely anything but alright, not only had her world tuned upside down again, her heart was broken too. But she couldn't tell Stella that her secret girlfriend had just asked her to run away with her and then five seconds later ended their relationship.
"Yeah," she lied, "I shouldn't have run off like that, I know, I just needed to take a walk to cool off."
Stella put an arm around Gracie and led her inside, "I know, love, never again okay?" She kissed her on the head.
"Yeah. Never again. And I know I said that last time, but I mean it, I swear."
"Our baby girl is home," Stella called out to Lilah as she shut the door behind them.
"Oh thank God, I was starting to worry," she came and hugged Gracie, and the two women brought her into the kitchen where Marco was doing his homework.
"Sorry, again," she sat at the table with her moms, "I understand why you guys don't want me to, but I have to see her. Not because I want to but because I have to get adopted."
Marco was trying his best not to seem like he was listening in on the conversation, but his eyes met Gracie's and he offered her a supportive smile. Stella and Lilah shared another look, Gracie was convinced they could read each other's minds.
"Unless you don't want me anymore? I'd totally get it if you've changed your minds."
"No!" Stella quickly corrected her, "God, no Gracie, of course, we want you, we'll always want you."
"We're just not sure if seeing your birth mother is going to do more harm than good right now, you're still recovering from your ulcer and everything else you've been through." Lilah made a good point, but how was Gracie supposed to move on if she was still living in fear of being taken away again?
"As we said, we're going to discuss it privately, but Gracie, there's something else you should know," Lilah sighed, and Gracie knew it was going to be more bad news. "Marco, can you give us the room please?"
"Sure," he packed up his homework, "Just one thing," he stopped by the door, "Me and Maia made contact with our birth mom a while back and it helped to open up. So, I'm here if you want to talk about it."
"Thanks, Marco."
Marco was usually such a joker, so light-hearted, but he was also very sensitive, and he was extremely protective of his family.
"Okay, so what is it?" She sighed and braced herself, Gracie wanted to get straight to the point.
"So, there was no signature where your father's name should have been on your birth certificate," Stella explained, "Which means he probably doesn't know that you exist."
"Yeah, so he doesn't have any rights. Right?" Gracie asked, one birth parent dilemma was all she could handle in one day.
"Not currently, but if we do decide to take you to see Julia, it's her responsibility to tell your father about you, it's also her decision," Stella was always so straightforward, and Gracie appreciated it, she treated her as an equal. "And if he then decides he wants custody, he has the right to appeal the courts."
"So basically, if he wants rights he can get them? If he wants me he can have me?" Gracie was trying not to get upset again, and she was too tired and defeated to start crying again. "Just like that?"
"Well there would be several hoops he'd have to jump through, but we will stop at nothing to keep you under our roof," Lilah held Gracie's hand and Stella held the other, "No matter what happens, you will always be our daughter."