"Well, I already started, so I might as well continue." She blows her nose again and tells me.
"My parents always acted like I was an annoyance. Like a rock in their shoe. I was always too loud, or took up too much space. And that's when they actually noticed me. Most of the time they chose to ignore me. I have no idea what possessed them to adopt me in the first place, honestly. Maybe someday I'll ask them. I remember that they'd get angry if I left any of my things in the living room. They didn't like evidence of me being there. I learned to confine all of my stuff to my room." Jesus Christ. That sounds awful.
She continued.
"So, anyway, I just thought that I was going to be on my own and then . . . Then one day I was in my dad's office because I needed my birth certificate to fill out some forms. And that's when I found it. The folder with my original birth certificate and the adoption papers. It changed everything. I just . . . For the first time I had hope that there was someone out there who wanted me. That maybe I had a mother who really did love me. I know I had Melissa and Neil, but this was something different. I could have a family that was mine." I could absolutely understand her. We were so similar.
"And then a week later my parents basically told me they were going to cut me off financially if I didn't quit doing cheer and focus on school. My grades were good, but I think they wanted a reason to wash their hands of me and that's what they chose. Anyway, I told them I wasn't quitting cheer and started looking for other colleges. It almost seemed like fate when I got a scholarship to MSU. What were the chances that I'd get a good financial-aid package from a school in the same state that my birth mother lived in? I couldn't pass it up. So I packed up my car, said goodbye to Mia and her parents, and came here. So. Now you know everything."
I reach out and take her hand because she's crying a little again. She squeezes my fingers and gives me a watery smile.
"All I could think about was her. My mother and her name and who she was and why she gave me up and what she looked like." I nod because, fuck, I have been there. But I know my parents' names. I have pictures of them. I know that I got my father's hair and my mother's chin. On nights that were bad, I would think about them. Even though they were gone, I had that comfort that at least I knew they existed and I had something left from them. Uncertainty is a horrible demon to have on your back.
She bites her lip and doesn't want to go on, so I tell her about my parents. Well, what I know of them. I go to the fireproof safe that that resides under my bed and pull out the few pictures of my parents that I have.
"You look like them," she says. "Especially your mom. You look so much like her." I fight back my own tears, looking at my parents' wedding pictures. I inherited a little money from them, but it's long gone. Everything else I have from them is in this safe. Not much, but it's something.
"So you came here to find her," I say as she flips through the pictures.
"Yes," she says. "But I just . . . I can't do it. I can't seem to handle it." She bites her bottom lip.
"Have you tried?" She keeps her lip trapped between her teeth.
"Sort of. I did some looking online, but haven't found anything, really. Not a picture or anything. But I'm not trying that hard, honestly. What if she doesn't remember me?" Her voice is quiet.
"I can guarantee you that she thinks about you every day," I say. I don't need to know anything about her birth mother to know that.
"Do you think she regrets it?" She speaks so low I can barely hear her.
"I don't know. You could ask her." Her eyes snap up and look at me.
"I made all these plans before I came here. I had these dreams about seeing her and she'd have the same hair as me and I'd run to her and she'd hug me and tell me how much she loves me. But I'm not a fucking Disney princess." She chuckles a little.
"No, you're not, but that could still happen. Right now you're just sitting in limbo, not moving forward. And you can't move forward until you tackle this." Freya lets out a long breath.
"I just don't know, Rhett." She leans toward me, and I put my arms around her again. So easily. She lets herself melt into me, and I wonder if tonight will change our relationship. We both opened our proverbial closets and showed the other what's inside. Sure, I have other stories from how I grew up. Ugly stories. Terrible stories that ooze darkness. But for now, this is enough. She's enough.
I just hope I'm enough.