Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“Okay…” I draw out the word. “We might…we might not be triplets.” My insides twist, and I share a pained look with both of my brothers.
Standing behind Hailey, Oliver holds the back of her chair. “We might also still be triplets. It’s not a guaranteed lie.”
Hugging the book, Hailey continues, “It’s also totally possible Phoebe and Oliver are twins and Nova is older, but more likely, they lied about our places of birth and birth dates.”
Rocky stares gravely ahead. “They didn’t want us to figure out who we really are.”
“I think so,” Hailey whispers. “We need to start looking at the real possibility that our ages are incorrect.”
My brows jump. “Like how incorrect?”
“Hailey thinks we might be off by a year or more,” Nova says from the computer. “Rocky hit puberty way before me and Ol did.”
“But Nova and Oliver could’ve been late bloomers,” Hailey reasons, her voice pitching weirdly. “What else does everyone remember seeing? With your own eyes?”
We all try to recall the past.
I’ve been padlocking fond memories of me and my mom. Where she combed my hair late at night and called me sweet spider. It’s all been grief upon rage, and as the tidal wave rises, I instinctively swim away.
Nova runs a hand against the back of his neck. “They hired tutors for Oliver everywhere we went. Paid for them,” Nova says. “When he was little. Maybe four, five, six. They’d pull him out of pre-prep, or maybe it was pre-K, where I’d be with Phoebe.”
“I was always jealous,” I say. “I wanted to be in those sessions. I thought they were cool…but really…I just wanted to be with him.”
“Me, too.” Nova meets my eyes, then shifts to Oliver. “You remember being tutored?”
“Eight hours of eight different languages a day. It’s in there somewhere.” His smile is light and effervescent, like those aren’t traumatizing memories. I want to believe my brother that they weren’t, for his sake. “Isn’t that right, Hailstorm?”
“Hmm?” Hailey lifts her chin to look at Oliver above her. “I was there.”
“You were there?” Rocky’s gaze darkens.
I frown, not aware of this either. “I thought Addison homeschooled you when we were that little.”
I hated that Hailey couldn’t go to the preppy pre-K with me, Rocky, and Nova, too. Later, around middle school, she would join us, but that was on the occasion that our parents decided to enroll us in a private school rather than teach us at home.
“She did, but sometimes she’d leave me with Oliver and his tutors.” Hailey watches Oliver unwrap the salty caramel protein bar and break it.
He hands her half. “To our sequestered childhoods. May they forever be remembered.” He taps his piece with hers, and my sunken heart only elevates when I see Hailey nibble on her chunk.
“I remember holding Trevor,” Rocky says, looking over at his little brother. “You were a newborn. I know you were.”
“I don’t care if they’re my parents or not, Rock,” Trevor admits. “They’ve never cared for me—”
“That’s not—”
“It is true.” He wobbles, then catches his balance. “They’ve always acted like I’m a mistake, and maybe now we know why.”
“None of us saw her in the hospital,” Hailey says, faraway, “after she gave birth to Trevor. She just appeared three weeks later with the baby and no longer pregnant.”
Rocky glares. “So the pregnancy could’ve been a scam. And for the rest of us, we have no memories of each other being that young because we’re all too close in age.”
“I-I just think we can’t believe anything they’ve ever told us,” Hailey says.
I hold out my hands. “What if, what if, Trevor is adopted, and we’re just blowing this all out of proportion?”
“You would like that,” Trevor deadpans.
I grimace. “No, I wouldn’t.” He might annoy me, but Rocky’s love for Trevor makes me care for him, too. “It’d still mean you and the rest of us were lied to. But it also beats the alternative. Being kidnapped. I don’t want that for you, Trevor, or for any of us.”
“It’s not that simple,” Hailey mutters to herself, staring off at the uneven floorboards. “It can’t be that simple.”
Oliver lifts her wrist toward her mouth. Hailey takes a dazed bite from the protein bar in her hand. “I have a better question,” he says to me and Rocky. “How exactly are we supposed to pull a job on the Konings without the help of the people who raised us?”
Rocky’s face twists. “We can do it without them.”
Hesitation spreads from the rest of us. Even as my stomach overturns at the idea of working with our parents, this isn’t a two-man job. Plus, we’re coming in at such a disadvantage.
In our mountain of silence, Rocky assures us, “We can.”
“Hailey and I are servers at a country club,” I remind him. “Oliver set himself up as a therapist. What is he going to do?”