Chapter 3
My mom, Margaret Wesley, was young and gorgeous.
She always said that being called "Mom" made her sound old, so she insisted I call her "Ms. Wesley".
She'd take me out to catch frogs in the fields, and if another parent ever tried to mess with me, she'd go toe-to-toe with them without hesitation.
I loved her more than anything.
However, I always wondered if secretly calling her "Mom" in my heart was the reason, because she seemed to age so quickly.
But Margaret had this thing about school—she was always saying how her life would've been totally different if she'd just gone to college.
When I was little, I always thought she was just bragging.
If Margaret really was the top student in the whole county back in high school, how did she end up so down and out?
She was so strapped for cash that every winter, she'd just stand there, staring at those half-price gloves for ages.
She'd stand there so long that the shopkeeper would finally come over and urge her to leave. In the end, Margaret would just stare at her hands, red and swollen from the cold, and tell herself, "Just hang on until spring comes."
Years later, it finally hit me. I was the worst thing that ever happened to Margaret.
To her, it seemed that the warm spring of her life ended at eighteen, leaving her to face an unending winter.
While I was getting picked on at school for hitting puberty, Margaret was at home, fighting through her own sickness.
The day after she saw that Polaroid, she finally came clean to Logan's wife, Fiona Rivers.
Fiona really was a good person. She took me in, made sure I was fed and warm, and used the Rivers family's clout to shut down the bullies who'd been messing with me.
On my very first day living the good life, Margaret downed a handful of sleeping pills and ended it all.
She had cancer, but treatment was out of reach for her.
So, she traded her terminal diagnosis for my ticket into the Rivers family.
Those sleeping pills were the priciest dinner Margaret ever had—at age thirty-four.
In her final letter, she told me to live my life well, never become someone's side chick as she did, and that she'd be looking out for me from above.
All she left behind was a passbook with exact balance of 11225.11 dollars.
Margaret made sure everyone else was okay, but she forgot about herself.
Memories kept haunting me, refusing to let go.
Although I was a ghost, the pain was so real it felt like I couldn't breathe.
Did I mess up by not listening to Margaret?
Was that why I couldn't even see her again?
All I could do was haunt Charlotte, stuck by her side as a ghost.
As a ghost, I couldn't dream. I hadn't seen Margaret in two years.
Charlotte reached out, almost ready to tear up the Polaroid, but in the end, with her eyes rimmed red, she just tucked it away at the very bottom of the bookshelf.
The day I lost my mom, Charlotte lost her dad.
After getting exposed, Logan didn't even bother to hide his new mistress anymore—he just flaunted her in front of everyone.
Back then, I was twisted up inside with hatred.
Because the Rivers family took away the only mom I ever had. So I took it all out on Charlotte.
That was why I started stealing everything from her—her jewelry, her admirers, anything she had, I wanted it for myself.
Exactly one year to the day, Charlotte lost her mother, too.
Charlotte had every reason to despise me, yet life unfolded in its own unexpected way—time and again, she was the one who pulled me back from the brink.