Chapter 25: The Apology Letter

I carried Greer's envelope home without opening it.

It sat beside my laptop while I ate dinner, finished an assignment, and listened to my mother complain that I was still walking too quickly for someone recovering from surgery.

Only after she went to shower did I finally break the seal.

The letter was handwritten.

Greer's handwriting was neat at first.

By the second page, the lines tilted.

“Imogen, I don't know how to apologize without making it sound like I'm asking you to make me feel better.”

I stopped.

That was more self-awareness than I expected.

I continued.

She admitted that she had hated me before she knew me.

After finding Richard's old documents, she had become convinced that my existence meant her father had built another family in secret.

Elaine had encouraged that fear.

Every time Richard defended my right to attend Westbridge, Greer interpreted it as proof that I was replacing her.

Then she saw me at the hospital.

“I knew OB-GYN could mean a hundred things,” she wrote.

“I posted it because I knew everyone else would choose the ugliest explanation.”

My fingers tightened around the paper.

There it was.

No misunderstanding.

No joke.

She had understood exactly how the rumor would work.

“When you posted my picture back, I was terrified because suddenly I was standing where I had put you.”

She wrote about the fake visitor form.

Brooke had made it after Greer called her in a panic.

She wrote about Mason.

She admitted telling him to scare me but claimed she never expected him to send threats.

That distinction didn't absolve her.

She knew it.

“I kept telling myself I wasn't responsible for what other people did. But I was the one who pointed everyone at you.”

I read the sentence twice.

In my first life, I had needed someone to say exactly that.

Now the words couldn't resurrect the girl I had been.

But maybe they could help the girl I was now.

My mother came back and found me crying.

She didn't ask why.

She sat beside me.

I handed her the letter.

She read it silently.

When she finished, she folded it carefully.

“What do you want to do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I don't owe her an answer.”

My mother nodded.

“No, you don't.”

I put the letter into my evidence folder.

Not because it was ammunition.

Because it was part of what happened.

The next week was strangely quiet.

Greer remained suspended.

Mason's disciplinary case continued.

Brooke returned but avoided me.

Sienna transferred out of one class we shared.

The school forum stayed offline.

Westbridge announced a new reporting system for harassment complaints and an independent review of student privacy procedures.

Principal Warren asked me to join a student advisory group.

I declined.

I wasn't interested in becoming the school's poster child for reform.

I wanted to finish eleventh grade.

I wanted good marks.

I wanted my mother to stop checking whether I was breathing when she passed my bedroom.

I wanted ordinary life.

Then Margaret Pierce invited us to lunch.

My first instinct was no.

My mother said, “We can leave whenever we want.”

So we went.

Margaret chose a quiet restaurant and arrived without Richard.

That helped.

She didn't ask me to call her grandmother.

That helped more.

She talked about the trust only after I brought it up.

“You don't need to decide whether you want a relationship with the family in order to receive what was legally arranged for you,” she said.

“I still don't understand why you included me.”

Margaret looked at me.

“Because adults made decisions before you were born. You shouldn't carry the financial consequences of their secrecy.”

I looked at my mother.

She had worked double shifts.

We had counted grocery money.

I had applied for every scholarship I could find.

Refusing the trust suddenly felt less like independence and more like allowing Elaine's scheme to succeed.

She had wanted me ignorant.

She had wanted me to reject something before I even knew it existed.

“Can it pay for college without changing anything else?” I asked.

Margaret smiled faintly.

“Yes.”

“Then I'll consider that. Nothing more for now.”

“That's entirely your decision.”

No pressure.

No demand.

I liked her more for it.

After lunch, my mother and I walked toward the parking lot.

She nudged me.

“College without loans.”

“Don't celebrate yet.”

“I'm celebrating a little.”

I laughed.

My phone rang.

Officer Ramirez.

His voice was serious.

“Imogen, we completed the review of the apartment incident from eight months ago.”

My smile disappeared.

“The break-in?”

“Yes.”

“Did Elaine's investigator do it?”

“No.”

I stopped walking.

“Then who?”

“Counselor Bennett.”

My mother went still beside me.

Ramirez continued.

“We recovered messages indicating he entered looking for the trust notification and related correspondence.”

I closed my eyes.

The man who had told me to stop making trouble had been inside our home before I ever knew his name mattered.

“Was Elaine involved?”

“We're still determining exactly what she authorized.”

I looked at my mother.

The school rumor had nearly killed us in one life.

In this one, it had exposed something much older.

And now the adults who had believed they could quietly control my future were finally being dragged into the light.