Chapter 63 A Fog of Confusion

Chapter 63 A Fog of Confusion

“Abby?”

The sound of my name felt distant, like it was being called through water.

“Abby?”

I barely registered it. My mind was spiraling too fast, dragged backward against my will. Nina’s voice echoed in my head—cold, precise, final.

‘Disappear.’

‘Never return.’

The words had been carved into me like a commandment, like a curse. I had obeyed. I had crossed an ocean. I had erased myself. And yet she was here. Standing in front of me. In this house. In this city. In this supposed new life.

My chest tightened painfully.

This isn’t possible.

That was the only thought I could hold on to. It had to be my mind breaking under the weight of everything I’d buried. Grief did strange things. Guilt did worse. Maybe this was what finally losing it felt like—seeing the face of the woman who had controlled my fate standing calmly at a dinner table like nothing had ever happened.

I wondered, briefly, if this was what madness felt like. Quiet, polite and smiling.

“Abby?”

Eddie’s voice cut through the fog, sharper this time, pulling me back like a hand gripping my wrist. I blinked hard, once, twice, my vision refocusing. Everyone was looking at me now. Eddie. Laila. Joseph. Their faces were open, curious, unconcerned. No fear. No tension. No recognition of the earthquake that had just split me open.

“Yeah?” The word came out too fast, too high. I looked around, suddenly aware of myself, of how stiff my body felt, how tightly my fingers were curled into my lap. Heat rushed to my face. “Uhmm… I’m so sorry, I zoned out.” I forced out a small, awkward laugh. “I tend to always do that…”

It sounded flimsy even to my own ears, but they didn’t question it. No one frowned. No one pushed. They simply accepted it, like normal people did.

“It’s okay,” Eddie said easily, brushing it off like it didn’t matter. Then he turned slightly, smiling with that same casual warmth. “So… meet my sweet mother.” He paused for half a second, then gestured toward her. “And mom, this is Abby. The lady I talked to you about.”

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I looked at her again, really looked this time. The same sharp features. The same posture. The same eyes that once made my skin crawl because they always seemed to be calculating something I couldn’t see. My stomach twisted so violently I thought I might be sick.

Why does she look like her? I was confused.

My thoughts scrambled, tripping over each other. Was this some elaborate trap? Had Nina followed me? Had she lied about letting me go? Was this her way of reminding me that there was nowhere on earth I could truly hide?

Then she smiled.

Not the thin, knowing smile I remembered. Not the one that carried threats beneath politeness. This one was… warm. Open. Almost motherly.

“Nice to meet you, Abby,” she said kindly. “Call me Tina. You’re welcome to stay for as long as you want.”

Tina.

The name landed slowly, like something fragile being set down between us.

Not Nina.

My breath released in a shaky exhale I hadn’t realized I was holding. My body still didn’t relax—not fully—but something inside me shifted, still confused and cautious. The resemblance was uncanny, unsettling enough to make my pulse race, but the voice, the tone, the ease of her presence didn’t match the woman who had torn my life apart piece by piece.

She took her seat at the head of the table, completely at ease, like this was just another ordinary night with family and food and laughter.

And I sat there frozen, my heart still racing, my mind still trying to catch up. It felt like my brain cells were disconnected.

If this wasn’t Nina… then why did fate have such a cruel sense of humor?

I lowered my gaze to the table, my hands trembling slightly as I tried to ground myself. You’re safe, I told myself. You’re far away. This is different.

But no matter how many times I repeated it, my chest still felt tight, because some faces weren’t meant to be seen again—and some ghosts didn’t need to be real to haunt you.

Then a realization hit me so hard it felt like someone had struck the inside of my skull with a blunt object.

Kevin’s voice replayed in my head, uninvited and cruelly vivid. Something he had mentioned once, almost unsure in the club basement, like it wasn’t important enough to linger on. Nina had a twin sister.

Tina.

His mother. Who's believed to be long dead, buried, and gone.

My stomach dropped.

If Tina was standing in front of me—breathing, smiling, ladling food onto plates like this was the most ordinary evening in the world—then that meant only one thing. A truth so big and so wrong that my mind struggled to hold it.

Kevin’s mother was not dead.

She was alive.

And she was right here, in front of me.

My pulse roared in my ears. I felt dizzy, like the room had tilted slightly off its axis and never quite righted itself. So many things suddenly felt unstable, like carefully stacked blocks knocked loose by a single touch. If this was a lie, then how many other things had I accepted as truth without question?

I swallowed hard, my throat dry.

“Uhmm… thank you, ma’am… uh—Tina…” My voice betrayed me, stumbling awkwardly over the name like it didn’t belong in my mouth yet. “For letting me stay.”

I hated how small I sounded. How flustered. How exposed.

Eddie gestured for me to sit, oblivious to the quiet implosion happening inside me, and I did, moving on instinct more than awareness. My legs felt weak as I lowered myself into the chair, my body acting normal while my mind lagged somewhere far behind.

“You’re welcome,” Tina said warmly as she began dishing out the food.

Her hands were steady. Familiar. Maternal.

And I couldn’t stop staring.

I knew I was staring too long. I could feel it, the way my gaze clung to her face as if I might uncover something if I looked hard enough—a crack, a mask, anything that would reconcile the impossible contradiction standing in front of me. She looked exactly like Nina. The same eyes. The same bone structure. The same presence that once made me feel trapped in my own skin.

And yet… she wasn’t her.

There was no sharpness in her movements. No cold calculation in her eyes. No sense that every smile carried a threat beneath it. Tina moved like someone who belonged here, who had lived a quiet, ordinary life full of dinners and family and routine warmth.

That was what unsettled me the most.

How could two people look so identical and feel so fundamentally different?

It felt alien. Unnatural. Like looking at a reflection that didn’t move when you did.

I watched her laugh softly at something Joseph said, watched the way Eddie leaned toward her without hesitation, the easy affection of a son who had never feared his mother. My chest tightened painfully. Kevin had never talked about his mother like this. Never with warmth. Never with presence. Only with absence.

Dead and buried.

The lie—because it had to be a lie—sat heavy in my stomach.

I looked down at my plate when it was placed in front of me, my appetite completely gone. My hands rested in my lap, fingers curling into themselves as I tried to slow my breathing, tried to convince myself not to unravel at the dinner table of strangers who had welcomed me without knowing the storm I carried with me.

I was supposed to be gone. Hidden. Safe.

And yet somehow, without trying, I had walked straight into another truth that threatened to rip everything open again.

Kevin had said that Nina had a hand in his mother's death but clearly, his mother is still alive. Kevin doesn't know that but I wasn't sure if Nina knows.

But it was clear that Nina was the one who had decided that her sister should be dead to the world. Then again, I didn't quite know what to think at moment. Whether or not Nina knows her sister is still alive.

I lowered my gaze, my thoughts racing, one question pounding louder than all the others:

If Kevin’s mother was alive… why did she decide to stay hidden all these years?