The Secret (Boston's Best 1)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Maddie

The past three years have been really difficult on my family. With my dad dying and some other things. It's been hard.

Especially since we haven't had any other family.

I've always admired how my parents didn't take any shit from their parents and stood their ground with their beliefs and what they believed in.

But after dad died, mam threw herself into work and let it consume her and she neglected us –don't get me wrong she's come back to us but just not the same, and I had to step up and care for Riley and if our brother Eoghan hadn't passed when he was a baby, him too.

And it was time's where mam stayed at the hospital without coming home for three days and I had to rush from my school to Riley's to walk them home and do the food shopping and make dinner and clean and get to my own practise's and study, that I really wished we had some family.

So, after the funeral when no family showed up for dad I looked them up on FaceBook –we lived in Versailles until I was 3, but we didn't have any contact with my dad's family over there, but I knew of their names and faces.

I found an account for my aunt, my dad's sister, Inès and I followed her on a fake account. She is married to a beautiful woman called Yvonne and they have twin boys Gabriel and François –after my dad Francis.

I found out that my grandparents, Delphine and Lucien were still alive and living happily in retirement in their mansion.

After nearly a year of cyber-stalking Inès, I accidentally liked one of her pictures on my real account and less than a week later I had a message from her asking if I was Francis' daughter.

I explained everything to her and she was distraught. Apparently the news of him dying never reached them, they didn't know.

We talked for a few hours and she asked if I could ever meet her, but I wasn't sure how comfortable mam would be about it so I told her I'd think about it.

But then the summer after the one year anniversary and mam was better again, I told her that there was this summer program over in France –Aebhín and I made a website and everything to make it seem real, and she let me go for a whole month.

It was the best month of my life.

I had a big family for the first time in my life and they are extraordinary.

My grandparents explained everything that happened all those years ago to me and how upset and how appalled they were at what they said.

They said that they tried to reach out a few times but nothing ever came of it.

My cousins and even more extended family were warm and welcoming and apologetic and just amazing.

Inès and I became very close and she was like a big sister to me, so when everything back home started just before I went back again last summer I instantly told her.

She was the first person I admitted it to.

Instantly she tried to get me to tell my mam or someone but I just couldn't, not yet. Inès and my Versailles family felt like a dream and not real.

But my mam is real. She makes it real.

Once she realised I wasn't going to change my mind she said that she'd kidnap me and keep me there but as appealing as that sounded I couldn't do that either.

So she said, "Vous êtes seulement aussi courageux que vous vous laissez devenir. Et personne ne peut te briser sauf toi, et personne ne peut te recoller sauf toi."

Which basically means, 'You are only as brave as you let yourself become. And no one can break you but you, and no one can put you back together but you.'

Sadly, I took that like a grain of salt though.

But now I just want to put the past behind me, get to MIT, and not have to hide or keep secrets anymore.

"So, how's school going, Mads?"

I look up from my pizza. "Huh?"

Mam looks at me, "School. How is it?"

"Oh, right. Yeah, it's good. Classes are fairly easy and the teachers are alright. People are chill though."

"Good." She looks at Riley and sighs, "Riley, babes, you have to put the food in your mouth to eat it not have it all over your clothes."

Riley looks down at their top. "Oh crap, sorry."

After we clean up the dinner mess we all sit down on the couch and turn on Dirty Dancing (1987).

Ri falls asleep halfway through but mam and I stay up and finish watching it.

"Nobody puts Baby in the corner." We both say with Patrick Sawyze as he takes Baby up onto the stage.

We have watched this movie at least three times a year together since I was 9 I think. We love it.

Mam looks over at me, "Mads?"

"Yeah?"

She fiddles with her wedding ring, "About the trial–"

For fuck's sake.

"Mam. No. I don't want to talk about it."

"But–"

"No, that's enough."

"Madeleine, listen to me. Séan went on the news."

I turn away from her, "I don't care."

"He's saying this is all made up and fake and he's being discriminated against."

I gape at her, "What? He's being discriminated against? He thinks this is about him! Are you fucking joking me!"

Riley stirs at the shouting, "What's going on?"

I sigh, "Nothing, Ri. C'mon let's get you to bed."

I walk them into their room and tuck them in.

I sit back down beside mam and curl into myself.

She touches my hair. "Maddie."

"Just give me a second."

Séan Johnson was my first love, my first kiss, my first relationship and I thought that I loved him and that he loved me.

But I was wrong.

Because someone who loves you doesn't treat you the way he treated me.

I exhale, "Tell me."

"He has been going around telling everyone at your school, in town, anyone who will listen basically that you're lying for the attention and for one last big hurrah before you moved. And that you're just discriminating against him."

"What?" My voice breaks.

She pulls me into her arms, "Maddie, nearly everyone is on your side for this. Basically the whole country is."

"The whole country?"

"Because of who his grandparents are and the loud noise he's making, this has been on the news a few times and there have been a few articles too."

"Oh my god." I start sobbing.

"Maddie..." She strokes her hand through my hair and holds me. "It's going to be okay."

No it won't.

"How come I haven't heard about any of this?"

"I got Riley to block any of that stuff from your phone and I asked Aebhín and Ciara to not say anything until I told you."

They've kept this from me, this whole time?

This whole time they chose not to tell me about all of this.

"I want dad." I whisper.

"So do I, baby. So do I."