I'm Here

Chapter 24: Showtime

“You’re a liar. The fact that you would say such a thing is ridiculous.” I stood my ground. There was no way that Louis would be against me. He wouldn’t do that.

Mary chuckled. “What makes you so sure? How do you know that he hasn’t been helping me?”

“Because I trust him, and why would he even help you in the first place?” I asked her. Even though I knew he wouldn’t help Mary at all.

“It’s like I said before, Sophia. Family comes first.”

Family? “Louis isn’t your family?” I said more like a question rather than a statement. “He couldn’t be.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “What do you know about Louis’s family?”

“He has four half-sisters. His mother is engaged and they all live in England.” I said what I knew.

“You’re missing a small detail. I guess you don’t know everything.” Mary said while taking a step forward, trying to intimidate me.

That’s all I remembered from what Louis told me. I thought deeply for a second to try and recall every single thing he said. “He did say he had another sister, but-“ 

I stopped cold midsentence. Could it be? I stared at Mary to look for similarities. They had the same hair color and their eyes were practically the same. She looked like she could be his sister, well, half-sister. “You’re…”

She evilly smiled. “Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner! It took you long enough.”

“Wait,” I was confused and trying to gather my thoughts.

“I really thought you were smarter than this, Sophia. I thought you could’ve gotten this hours ago. Well, I guess you really are stupid.”

“But, but,” I was stuttering on my words.

“But, but, but what?” Mary said mimicking me. “Grow up. Life is filled with surprises.”

“Louis wouldn’t do this.” He couldn’t have helped. Sure, he could be her brother, but there was no way he could go against me, right?

Mary laughed. “Believe what you want, princess. Remember when it was your birthday and he took you out on that nice date in the park? I hear things got pretty heated, but that was all me. Him driving you to school every day, that’s me, too. I needed to find out more about you and your life, so he was the perfect assistant.  All you have to do is ask him. Of course he’ll lie to you because he’s actually starting to like you. What a wuss. But yes, you’ve been used and now, here we are.” She smiled like this was funny. She’s treating all of this like a game.

I was still at a loss of words. I knew what kind of person Louis was, but this all sounded like it could be true.  I really didn’t want it to be, obviously, but I felt conflicted. Mary knew about Louis’s family life and there’s no way she could’ve known that unless she was a part of it. She could be his sister, but that doesn’t mean he would help her hurt me. She could be lying just to fuck with me, but I wasn’t so sure.

During my thought process, Jack ran over to me.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” He motioned between Mary and I. I rolled my eyes, “but we’re up in less than a minute.” Then he went back to get ready.

I felt nauseous and my legs started to shake.

“Aw, little Sophia has to go perform now. Well, I’ll leave you to it. Good luck out there.” Mary said in a condescending tone.

Mary walked away and I was left standing by myself.  I was still taking in the information that may or may not be true, but it sounded accurate and then I had to go on stage and pretend that nothing was wrong. Perfect.