The messages he’d left on her phone made her feel crazy—he said he loved her and he’d slipped, but it meant nothing. That he was lonely and vulnerable because he felt she didn’t want him with her. That she was his everything. Quinn found herself believing it one minute, then feeling angry again the next. Would she ever be able to forgive and forget? Did she even want to try? And how many times had he slipped in the past that she was too naive to know about?

She felt such a keen sense of loss and longing for her mother that she was dizzy. If her mother were here, Quinn would be calling her. Telling her the news or asking what she should do.

But then, if her mother were here, Quinn wouldn’t have had a reason to take the test or seek out the truth about who her father was. She wouldn’t know that the man she’d always thought was her deadbeat dad actually wasn’t.

Quinn remembered what Auntie Wang had said about the birth certificate.

It was so frustrating. Her mother had started all this, and now, when Quinn needed her the most, Quinn had to navigate it alone. A catch in her chest alerted her to how lonely she felt.

She went to the bed, and after pulling off her dusty clothes from her day out with Liam, she climbed in, too overwhelmed and weak to even think about showering. For once, she wasn’t even going to go through taking off her makeup and the regimen that normally followed.

What was a film of sweat and dirt when she was soon going to meet someone related to her by blood?

In three days.

It would be only the second relative she had ever known. If he even was a relative. How much could a wad of spit really tell you about your family line or connect you with a relative half a world away? Was it really as accurate as people said? Could it be a mistake? What would she say to him? What would he think about her? And maybe he was a weirdo. A freak. A murderer who had hacked her account and was drawing her in as prey.

She turned over, clutching the pillow to her chest. Now she was getting melodramatic. But being alone with so many torrential thoughts was making her crazy. She needed to talk to someone.

A friend.

Liam was out of the question. The next thought that came to her was a surprise out of left field.

Maggie Dalton.

She hadn’t talked to her former best friend in quite a few years, she thought as she cringed, remembering that she hadn’t even contacted Maggie when her mother died. That would hurt her. Maggie had always said Quinn’s mom was like a second mother to her.