Her voice trembled slightly. "I don't have a father who's a businessman. No one is going to take me back to Backlund. My mother was just a lowly prostitute, and I'm just a bastard she had with who knows whom..."
"All of it was something I made up to deceive you, just so I could feel a tiny, ridiculous sense of superiority over you..."
"Now... you all know."
There was no expression on Isabella's face. Only a lifeless emptiness remained in her eyes.
Lilith lowered her head. "I'm sorry..."
"You don't need to apologize. This is my punishment for lying to you... If I hadn't told you all those lies and kept showing off that photograph, you wouldn't have remembered it, and none of this would have happened today..."
She stared straight at Lilith. "I... should be thanking you."
Lilith felt even worse, but she didn't know what to say.
Her little head was a complete mess. Suddenly, she missed Edward terribly and wanted him to appear beside her right away. He would surely know what to do.
But in the end, she didn't ask Phoenix for help.
"Actually..."
Bit finally worked up the courage to speak. "Actually, we already knew. We knew that everything Isabella said was made up."
"I... did too," Alisa said timidly.
The other boy, Tim, scratched his head.
Isabella froze. "So, so you... were laughing at me all along? So every time I mentioned my father and said I'd take you back to Backlund, you... were laughing at me inside?"
"No!" Alisa shouted.
She ran over and hugged Isabella. "We know you didn't make those things up to feel superior, Isabella. You just wanted to give us hope."
"We know you've always been protecting us, Isabella. We want to protect you too, and even more