As furious as I am at him for what he did to us, this part rings true for me. I liked our life. But it doesn’t change the fact that none of it was based on reality.

“I thought that it was behind us, then the college applications started happening.”

And there it is. The real reason we’re in this position.

“Oh, so first it’s my fault you took me and now it’s my fault you got caught?”

“No!” He holds up his hands. “No, not at all. My love for you made me do something foolish. My fear of what your mother was going to do kept me driving. This is all on me, and I’ve been running from that mistake ever since. I should’ve told you. I should’ve done a lot of things. But now the truth is finally out and I’m going to take responsibility for my actions. All I can say is that I’m so sorry, Ally.”

“Don’t you mean you’re sorry, Amanda?” I don’t feel like an Amanda. But in this moment I want to punish him as much as I feel I’m being punished.

“Amanda …” He looks off in the distance as if he forgot that was my real name. “We called you Mandy. I thought I could easily switch you to Ally without you asking too many questions.”

Now questions were all I had.

“Didn’t I ask about my mother, miss my other family?”

“You were so young,” he says. “You did ask about her at first, but then as time went on, you adjusted.”

“By ‘adjusted’ don’t you mean you told me she was dead.”

He flinches.

“She’s alive. She wants to talk to me.”

This surprises him. “You haven’t talked to her yet?”

I return his question with a glare. How could he think that it would be so easy for me to go from thinking I don’t have a mom to being totally cool talking to her?

“Honey, you should. She really loves you. I’m sick thinking about what I did to her.”

“What you did to her? What about what you did to me?”

Tears begin streaming down his face. “I know. I know. This is all my fault. I’m so sorry.”

“You keep saying that. Everybody keeps apologizing to me, but it doesn’t fix anything. Is saying sorry going to change the fact that the past fifteen years of my life have been one big lie?” My entire body is vibrating with anger and frustration.

“Ally Bean—”

“Don’t you dare Ally Bean me,” I spit out.

“I’m sorry. I’m going to make this right, please believe me. I’m not lying anymore. I’m going to serve my time. The only thing I hope you can do is forgive me. Can you forgive me?”