Four Of A Kind-Chapter 149: [3.51] Conditional

My chest felt tight. Like someone had wrapped rubber bands around my ribs and kept twisting.

I hated this. Hated that two months of silence could get erased by five text messages. Hated that part of me, the stupid kid part that never quite grew up, wanted to respond. Wanted to hear her voice. Wanted her to explain why she left us like we were furniture she didn’t need anymore.

Another buzz.

I pulled out my phone. Looked at the screen.

i made a mistake leaving like that. i should have said goodbye properly. i should have made sure you both were okay first.

Should have.

Past tense. Conditional. The grammar of regret that changes nothing.

My thumb hovered over the keyboard. I typed one word.

why

Sent it before I could delete it.

The response came back in under thirty seconds.

because i was drowning isaiah. because every time i looked at you and iris i saw him. your father. and i couldnt breathe anymore.

Him.

My biological father. Michael Angelo. The man who existed in exactly three memories and zero photographs because he burned them all when he left.

I was six when he walked out. Old enough to remember his voice. Not old enough to understand why.

My mother spent the next twelve years looking for him in every man she dated. Found approximations. Close enough versions. Men who stayed for three months or six months or if we were lucky, a year.

None of them stayed for good.

I understood that now. Had for years. You can’t replace people. You can only pretend the hole they left isn’t there until you fall into it.

But Iris.

Iris never knew him. Never asked about him. She had me instead.

And our mother left us both because looking at us reminded her of a man who’d been gone for over a decade.

I stared at the message until the words stopped making sense. Just shapes. Just pixels on a screen.

My vision got blurry around the edges.

No. Absolutely not. I wasn’t crying in a school parking lot over a woman who chose her own pain over her children’s survival.

I wiped my face with my sleeve. Composed myself. Put the phone back in my pocket without responding.

The couple in the BMW were still making out. The girl’s laugh had gotten quieter. More breathless.

I looked away.

Started the car. The engine purred to life. Expensive. Smooth. The kind of sound that said this vehicle cost more than my mother made in three years.

I could drive somewhere. Skip my afternoon classes.

But that would mean disappointing Dr. Reyes. Vivienne. The tailor who was expecting me at three. Cassidy, who was counting on me for our Friday test prep session.

Iris, who believed I could handle anything.

So I shifted into drive. Pulled out of the parking spot. Headed toward the east lot exit.

My phone buzzed again.

I didn’t look.

Couldn’t. Not right now. Not when I had seventeen hours of work ahead of me and zero emotional capacity left for the woman who taught me that love was conditional and leaving was easy.

The guard at the gate waved me through.

I drove.

The city blurred past. Buildings. Traffic lights. People walking dogs. Normal Wednesday afternoon things happening to normal people who didn’t have absent mothers and billionaire employers and kisses they couldn’t identify.

My phone kept buzzing.

I turned it off completely.

The silence in the car was worse than the buzzing.

Just me and my thoughts and the persistent voice in my head that sounded like Iris asking why I never talked about our parents.

Because talking about them makes them real, I’d told her once. And if they’re real, then them leaving means something.

She’d looked at me with those dark eyes that matched mine. Said nothing. Just hugged me and went back to her homework.

She was nine.

Too young to be that wise.

Too young to already understand that some people leave and never come back and the only thing you can do is keep going without them.

I pulled into a parking spot three blocks from the tailor. Turned off the engine. Sat there.

The clock on the dashboard said 2:53.

Seven minutes until my appointment.

I should go in. Get measured for a suit I didn’t need for a party I didn’t want to attend. Smile and nod while someone pinned fabric to my shoulders and pretended I belonged in clothes that cost more than Iris’s entire wardrobe.

Instead I just sat there.

Thinking about my mother’s messages. About the read receipts she could see. About how she knew I was reading her words and choosing not to respond.

Good.

Let her sit with that. Let her wonder what I was thinking. Let her feel a fraction of what Iris felt every time she asked when mom was coming home and I had to lie and say soon.

Let her drown in it.

My hands were shaking. I gripped the steering wheel tighter. Focused on the leather texture under my palms. The slight give when I squeezed.

This was stupid. Getting worked up over someone who didn’t deserve the emotional energy. Who made her choice. Who left.

I was better than this. Smarter. I’d spent years building walls specifically to avoid situations like this.

But apparently walls only work until the person who taught you to build them shows up asking for the key.

Someone knocked on my window.

I jerked. Looked up.

Vivienne stood outside the car. Still in her school uniform. Her purple eyes were narrowed. Her arms were crossed.

She made a rolling motion with her hand. The universal sign for roll down your window or I’m breaking it.

I hit the button. The window descended with an expensive whisper.

"You’re late," Vivienne said. "The tailor has other appointments. He’s doing us a favor by squeezing you in. You were supposed to be inside three minutes ago."

"I know."

"Then why are you sitting in your car staring at nothing like you’re auditioning for a depression medication commercial?"

Despite everything, my mouth twitched.

"That’s oddly specific."

"I’m good at specificity. It’s one of my few redeeming qualities." She studied my face. Her expression shifted from annoyance to something sharper. More alert. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Isaiah."

The way she said my name. Flat. Like she was calling bullshit without actually saying the words.

"Family stuff," I said finally. "Nothing to do with work."

"Is Iris okay?"

Same question Cassidy asked. Different voice. Same concern underneath.

"Iris is fine."

Vivienne didn’t move. Just kept looking at me with those purple eyes that missed nothing. Cataloged everything.

"Your mother contacted you."