Effie breathed out deeply. She was beyond nervous about the impending cross-country move. She knew it was right, felt it in her bones, but that didn’t make it any easier. When she’d told Renee, her best friend flipped out.

“What? Seriously, the last time I talked to you, you were planning your wedding with Thorne and now you’re back with his brother?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Effie said. She wished she could have told Renee in person, but it just wasn’t possible. “But you have to trust me, this is the right thing. I’m doing the right thing.”

“I don’t know,” Renee said. Effie could hear the worry in her voice. Renee had been her confidante back in high school when she’d broken up with King. “I just remember how upset you were back then—God, you didn’t leave your room for days. Are you sure this isn’t just wedding jitters because of the wedding?”

Effie let out a laugh, it was so ridiculous. “Renee, I know it’s asking a lot, but please try to support me with this.”

“Okay, okay,” her friend said. “I mean, I do have to admit you sound happy for the first time since forever. It’s nice hearing the old you back.”

“You didn’t think I was happy?” Effie asked. Why didn’t anyone say anything?

“Effie… after you and King broke up, you were a mess. I mean, I thought that you’d just changed forever, you know? You seemed a little better when you hooked up with Thorne, even though it was totally messed up. And you never acted like you liked him much when you were with King. I don’t know, we were eighteen! I didn’t know anything, but you seemed like you knew what you were doing.”

“I wish you would have said something,” Effie said.

“Would it have made a difference?”

“No, probably not,” she admitted. “But promise you’ll say something in the future? If it looks like I’m going off the deep end.”

“Okay, but just for the record I did just say something about this. But let me clarify: it sounds crazy, but you seem genuinely sound happy. So if you need a best friend approval, consider it granted. Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“King was always hotter.”

Effie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s totally how you choose a life partner. Hotness.”

“Well, beyond that, I liked him so much better anyway.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. Effie, Thorne was weird! I mean, he was loaded, so that helped, but totally weird. And I can’t believe he cheated on you.”

“I can.” It felt strange to say it aloud, but also cathartic.

“Okay, well I can, too. He was always ogling other people. It was so overt, it’s like he wanted to get caught. I gave him the stink eye when I could, but he didn’t seem to notice.”

“I dunno, I thought that was just part of his whole macho act,” Effie said. “It didn’t bother me. But I guess I didn’t realize it didn’t bother me because I really didn’t care.”

“He hit on me once. I never told you,” Renee said.

“What? When?”

“About a year ago. And before you ask, I didn’t say anything because it was super subtle. It’s not like he propositioned me or anything. You guys were moving towards engagement, and it didn’t seem like a huge deal. Maybe it was just flirting, I dunno.”

“What happened?” Effie wasn’t mad about it, but she needed to know. There were all these pieces to a puzzle she didn’t even know what sitting in front of her.

“It was that time we went to the martini bar for your birthday? You were super drunk and I’d just helped you into the Lyft. He was adamant that you’d be fine on your own and tried to tip the driver like an extra hundred to help you to bed.”

“And?”

“And… well, he told me that I should stay. He said why ruin a fun night out just because you couldn’t hold your liquor. It was so weird, and I asked him why he’d want me to stay. It’s not like he and I were friends or ever hung out without you.”

“And what did he say?”

“Something like, ‘Oh, I always thought you were gorgeous, I’d love to get to know you better’. I told him that was inappropriate, and he touched my hand in this weird way and said, ‘Don’t act like you’ve never fantasized about it, I’ve seen how you look at me’.”

“Oh, my God,” Effie said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t remember that at all.”

“Don’t be sorry, he was an asshole. I just wrote it off for him being drunk that night, but I guess I was wrong.”

Effie shook her head, incredulous when she thought of what Renee had told her. There were signs all over the place for years, and she’d never looked.

But she wasn’t the only one. Both Renee and King had assumed that things were largely okay. It was only Yaya who had seen Thorne for who he really was.

The day they packed for the airport, shortly after King had beaten Thorne to a pulp outside those shops, it seemed surreal. Effie had dreamt about this since the first time King asked her to go to California with him. Of course, at the time it had seemed like sheer fantasy.

Who could have known that it would really come true?

She sat in the back of the taxi with Yaya while King sat in the front and chatted with the driver. Everything the three of them owned fit into the trunk. It was strange, since Effie thought King had overspent wildly on their last-minute shopping outings.

Effie watched the airport exits grow closer. She pulled in her breath as the taxi pulled into the Departures area. Yaya held her arm as she helped her out while King paid the driver. He brushed her away when she protested and tried to carry at least one of the bags.

“Ready?” Effie asked uneasily as she walked slowly with Yaya into the ticketing area.

“No,” King said. He put their things down gently. “I think there’s someone you should talk to first.”

“What?” Effie turned and saw her mother approaching her.

Effie’s heart started to pound, but she felt King give her hand a squeeze. Without saying a word, King headed towards the ticket booth and left Effie with her mother and Yaya.

Clem approached Effie cautiously. Effie didn’t pull away when her mother slowly embraced her, but she felt frozen. Yaya patted Clem’s arm with a smile.

“Be well, my two girls,” she said before she followed King with a slow gait.

Effie turned and looked at her mother.

“Well, obviously you know that I’m moving,” Effie said. She couldn’t keep her mother’s gaze.

Why would King do this to me? Effie also couldn’t read her mother’s expression.

The rage she’d seen boiling beneath the surface for so many years had subsided. There had been a generous dose of fear in there, too—and that had also subsided.

“And with King, no less,” her mother said. She crossed her arms and looked into the distance. “At least this time you got what you wanted.”

Effie looked at her mother, curious. There was a hint of wistfulness in her tone. “I did. I love him.”

Her mother squinted into the distance. “I never told you this, but I went on a few dates with King’s father when I was very young.”

“Wait, what?” Effie asked.

Her mother never talked about her past, at least not before Effie’s father. Clementine’s past before Effie was sparse, and Yaya never spoke of it either.

“Yes, I was very young. Obviously,” her mother said. “Considering when I had you… but I thought… I thought I was in love with him.”

Effie was speechless. She searched her mother’s eyes for answers, but her mom seemed lost in another era.

Clem’s lip quivered.

“King’s father was… well, much older, so… it was easy to forget him when I got pregnant with you. But when I found out that he was your boyfriend’s father… when I found out that he had a son just like him… I thought that you had a chance to do things over. Do them right. Do what I didn’t.”

Clem shook her head.

“It was stupid, but that’s what happens when you have kids. Right or not, you see them as a part of you. Little do-overs of you. I couldn’t help it.”

“So, that’s why you liked Thorne so much? He… God, I never realized how much he looks like his dad. Acts like him, too.”

Effie had never considered it much. Sure, she’d realized that Thorne was his father’s spitting image, and once or twice she’d envisioned what Thorne would be like when he got older. The two of them even had the same mannerisms.

When Thorne and King told people they were brothers, they often weren’t believed. King got his mother’s genes in full force, and left Thorne to be the doppelganger of his father.

“I don’t… I don’t know how to take this all in,” Effie said.

“I’m sorry if I pushed too hard for you to date Thorne. You know, I didn’t even realize who King’s father was when the two of you got together. With a surname like Smith, it’s not like I thought much of it.” Clem shrugged. “I didn’t even see Thorne for months after you and King got together, and at first I thought it was just a coincidence. That’s… I don’t know if you remember, but that’s why I started digging and asking you about King’s parent back in high school. When I happened to meet Thorne, it was like going back in time.”

“I remember,” Effie said. “Yeah, I… I mean, I thought it was weird. You’d been so flippant about everything to do with King for so long, then all of a sudden you got this huge interest in him. Oh, my God, I remember. I remember how you looked when you asked his parents’ names.”

It was another sign she’d missed. Effie had been so wrapped up in figuring out how to do her hair for the winter formal, she hadn’t thought anything about her mom’s sudden interest in her boyfriend’s parents. Or why she turned white as a sheet at his father’s name.

“I should have known. At least known something was up,” she said as she shook her head.

“Effie, I’m sorry,” her mother repeated. “He seemed heaven sent when you were all broken up about King leaving… and he looked so much like his father. When I… when I said he was older, it was right before I got pregnant. I was sixteen and he was twenty-one. Obviously, it wasn’t going to work out. I had this dream, you know? When I was in high school? That his father would swoop in and save me when I got pregnant. That never happened. So when Thorne… when he offered to take care of all of us…”

“That was your do-over,” Effie finished.

She couldn’t imagine her mother being a scared, pregnant teen. She also couldn’t imagine King’s father being the white knight, and of course he hadn’t been.

“Effie,” her mom said as she took her hands gently. “I was blinded by it all. By Thorne looking like his dad, by his promises to save us. I thought everything had finally come full circle. And before that, when you were head over heels for King—”

“Am. I am head over heel for him,” Effie corrected.

“Okay, you are. I just, I saw the heartbreak coming. Puppy love doesn’t last. I… I didn’t want you to get hurt like I was. And I certainly didn’t want you to rush off and get pregnant by someone who would leave you just to lick your wounds.”

Effie’s heart dropped. She’d never realized her mother actually cared.

“But King has filled me in about his brother’s… issues,” Clem said. “God, I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known. I just thought, you know, you were being too sensitive. Exaggerating. I should have listened to you.”

Effie teared up and blinked fast to wash them away.

“Maybe … you know, maybe you can come visit me in California. When we’re all settled in.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see King and Yaya waiting.

“I have to go,” she said. This time, when her mother pulled her close, she melted into her arms.

The tears had gone by the time she made her way to King. He held her close and Effie tipped her head up for a kiss.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much better.”

“Much better, me and you,” he whispered. “Love you forever.”

“Love you forever.”

THE END