Chapter 60

                                    

                                          
I know it won't work by Gracie Abrams
Part of me wants you back but I know it won't work like that, huh?



Toby had taken me outside to talk in private. The horizon was empty other than trees and a river, I can see why Sheffield Grayson would choose here. Nobody around. Nobody to see or hear the damage he would have done.
"You're going to keep her a secret?" I demand, "Eve?"
"Go with your friends. Travel north. Go home." He tells me. 
"That's it?" I swallow. "That's all you have to say to me?"
Toby reaches out and brushes the hair off of my forehead. "Or.. You can come with me." He suggests again. 
I go silent again. 
"My mom and I had this game," I tell him, trying my best not to cry. "We had lots of games, actually- but this one, her favorite, it was about secrets."
He doesn't make eye contact. "I made her promise never to tell you- about me, about my family. But if it was just a game, if you guessed... Damn it, Hannah."
"How the fuck was I supposed to guess?" The words burst out of my mouth. I relax my face when I remember, "She said that she had a secret about the day I was born."
Toby stays silent.
"You signed my birth certificate." I want answers.
"There was a storm that night," he says quietly. "Worst one I'd ever seen- Hawthorne Island included. I shouldn't have been there in the first place. I'd managed to stay away from Hannah for nine long months. But something brought me back. I just wanted to see her again, even if I couldn't let her see me." 
"Forecasts were calling for a hurricane. And she was alone. I was going to stay away. She was never supposed to know that I was there, but then the power went out- and she went into labor."
"The ambulance didn't make it in time," Toby says, his voice growing hoarse. "She needed someone."
"You." I manage one word, through tears.
"I brought you into this world, Paris Riley Grambs."
There it is. My mother's secret. Toby was there the night I was born. He'd delivered me. I wonder what my mom felt, seeing him again after years. I wonder if she'd tried to make him stay.
"Your Mom and Ricky had a name all picked out. Margaret. Your welcome by the way, I was the one who talked her out of it."
"Hannah was set on giving you Ricky's last name," Toby continues. "But she didn't like the first name Margaret that he chose, she thought it was too old fashioned."
"Ricky wasn't there." I blink back tears and stare at Toby. "You were."
"When the ambulance got there, I disappeared," Toby continues. "I snuck into the hospital one last time to see you both."
"You signed the birth certificate," I say.
"With Ricky's name, not mine. It was the least he owed her."
"And then you left." I stare at him, trying not to hate him for it.
"I had to."
"No, you didn't." My Mother loved him. He didn't have to leave. 
"You have to understand. My father's resources were unlimited. He never stopped looking for me. I had to stay on the move if I wanted to stay dead."
"What are you going to do now?" I ask, my voice like sandpaper in my throat. "The world knows you're alive. Your father is dead. As far as we know, Sheffield Grayson was the only person who realized the old man had buried the police report about Hawthorne Island. He's the only one who knew-"