Written by MichaelAugust 12, 2020August 18, 2020

Episode 1031

Previously…
– The birth certificate in Henry Bishop’s safe revealed that Diane was actually his daughter with Therese DeLuca, and an enraged Claudia confirmed the news.
– Travis consoled Tempest after Samantha took Jaq to Sun Valley instead of her.
– Jason and Sabrina agreed to give their first date another shot.
– Landon pleaded with Tori to leave Zane for her own good, but she shut him down.

The drapes in Diane Bishop’s living room flutter gently as an evening breeze flows into the condominium. To Samantha Fisher, however, those drapes have never sounded as loud; maybe it is because, despite all the years she has spent in this condo, it has never felt as oppressively silent as it does right now. Samantha looks to her mother, who is perched on the arm of the sofa, still clutching the faded and creased birth certificate with both hands.

“I’m sorry,” Samantha offers. It pains her to see Diane turning inward like this, her shock and devastation clear.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” It takes Diane another few seconds to drag her gaze away from the birth certificate. “Thank you for finding this and for bringing it to me.”

“I know it can’t be easy, though. Finding out that your mother is actually someone other than Grandma Claudia, and that they kept it from you your entire life…”

“I should’ve known.”

“You had no way of knowing this.”

“I guess I always did, in a way,” Diane continues, a distant look in her eyes. “She never treated me like a daughter. Not really. It was like I was this… this stray she had no choice but to take in. And that’s what I am.”

“And that’s her problem,” Samantha says. “Grandpa Henry was your father, and he raised you–”

“He deferred to her, every step of the way. He was one of those fathers — well, you saw it — one of those fathers who called himself ‘hands-off,’ didn’t want to get too involved. He could have stood up for me. He could have fought for me. Instead he let her take control.”

Samantha walks over to Diane and places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Remember that you overcame all that,” she says. “You grew up, you made a life for yourself…”

“Damn right I did.” Diane lingers for another moment and then places the birth certificate on the coffee table. “No thanks to any of them.”

She stands up, causing Samantha to take a step back.

“I can stay over tonight if you want,” Samantha says.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind. I can make something for dinner, or order takeout, whatever you want.”

Diane shakes her head. “It’s okay. I think I’m just going to have a snack and go to bed. I need to let this all sink in.”

“Mom, I’m happy to stay. Really.”

“Thank you.” Diane squares herself toward her daughter and places her hands on Sam’s arms. “But you just got back from an insane 24-hour road trip, all to help me out. And I’m okay. I promise. I just need time to…”

She trails off, but Samantha nods with understanding.

“I get it,” Samantha tells her. “But I want you to call me if you need anything. Okay?”

“Okay.” Diane pulls her into a hug. “How did a mess like me get lucky enough to have a kid like you?”

“You aren’t a mess.”

“Sure feels like it.”

Samantha gives her mother a squeeze. “You aren’t. And no matter what happens next, I’m here for you.”

—–

Landon Esco inserts his key into the lock as quietly and slowly as he can. He turns the knob just as carefully and then inches the door open, hoping that he can make it to his bedroom undetected.

“Home so soon?” Travis Fisher asks before Landon even has the door fully open.

His shoulders slumping in defeat, Landon steps inside and closes the door. He looks over at his roommate, who is positioned on the couch with a box of Triscuits as a baseball game plays on the television.

“What do you mean?” Landon asks.

“I thought you were out driving for a shift.”

“Oh. No. I just, uh, had plans to get coffee.”

“Get coffee?” Travis lifts one eyebrow. “Sounds like a date.”

“It was not a date,” Landon groans.

Travis sets aside the Triscuits. “Was it a bad date?”

“I said it wasn’t a date!”

“Okay. Jeez.” Travis leans back into the couch and studies his roommate for a moment. “Are you okay? You seem…”

“I’m okay. It’s nothing.”

As Landon kicks off his white Air Force 1s, however, his conversation with Tori from earlier bangs around in his head:

“I thought I could talk to you, Landon.”

“You can!”

“Not if you’re gonna lecture me and make judgments about my relationship. This was a mistake.”

He cringes at the memory. He has long believed that her being with Zane is a mistake, but he never felt that it was his place to speak up, especially after everything she has had to go through. But when she called him specifically to meet and talk today, he thought things might be different; all he managed to do was upset her and send her storming out.

“You sure?” Travis asks more gently. “Dude, what’s going on?

Landon’s lips part, wanting to confide in Travis — not only for his own sake, but because Tori is Travis’s cousin. Still, Tori swore him to secrecy, and he can only imagine how much angrier she might become if he were to tell Travis, and Travis were to tell someone else in the family that Zane reacted badly to the news of Tori’s new job…

“I’m feeling out of it, that’s all,” Landon says. “I swear. Everything’s cool.”

Travis hesitates and then says, “Okay.”

Without another word, Landon rushes to his room. He closes the door and plops on the edge of the bed, hating how the painful image of Tori walking away from him continues to play on a loop in his mind.

—–

The elevator door creaks open, delivering Tori Gray to the floor of her apartment building. The one unreliable — or perhaps most reliable — lightbulb flickers overhead as she heads down the hallway and unlocks the door to her and Zane Tanaka’s apartment. When she opens the door, she freezes in her tracks.

A moment of complete stillness passes before Zane, who is standing at the counter, sets down the knife he is using to spread peanut butter on a piece of bread.

“Hey,” Tori finally says.

“Hey.” He regards her with a cool, impenetrable stare.

“I’m surprised you’re here,” she says after waiting another beat for him to give her something, anything, to work with.

“Finished work.” He resumes making the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich with a focus that feels more about ignoring her than about the food.

Tori closes and locks the door.

“Where did you go last night?” she asks. “I was worried.”

He looks up sharply. “I was fine.”

Tori waits, holding her purse strap with both hands in front of her. “I figured you needed space, but when you didn’t answer my texts…”

“I went to the station and slept a few hours there before my shift this morning,” Zane says as he assembles his sandwich.

“Okay.”

She can practically see the anger emanating off him in cartoon fumes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the job sooner,” she says, unable to handle the silence any longer. “I wanted to do it in a way that we’d have time to talk, not just drop it on you.”

Zane noisily retrieves a plate from the cupboard. He places it on the counter with a loud clank.

“Do you understand why it felt like you were going behind my back?” he asks.

She nods, cowed by the plainness of the statement.

“And yeah, I have concerns about your family,” Zane continues. “I know I haven’t been perfect, but both your parents have pulled some really manipulative shit on us. Don’t you get why I’d worry that your aunt might be another pawn for them?”

“I get it. I really do. But I need a job, Zane. I can’t sit around here all day feeling worthless.”

“You aren’t worthless! Not to me. But the thought of you being taking advantage of, or– I don’t know, them using this job to exert some kind of control over you — that kills me.”

“I promise I’ll keep my eyes open for that, okay?”

Another lengthy moment drags on before he finally nods.

“Okay,” he says. “And the lying — the hiding things from me — that has to end. Is that fair?”

“Of course.”

“Good.”

Leaving the sandwich on the plate, he comes over and wraps his arms around her.

“I want you to have a job you love and to succeed in it,” he says. “If this job is gonna make you happy, I’ll do my best to support that. But that doesn’t mean I’m automatically gonna trust your family, either.”

“Okay,” she says, savoring the feeling of his strong arms holding her.

“To second chances,” Zane says before giving her a peck on the forehead.

Tori exhales, relaxing for the first time since their argument. “To second chances.”

—–

The water of King’s Bay glistens beneath the fading sunlight. Jason Fisher and Sabrina Gage hold ice cream cones as they stroll down the strip of land from which the town’s piers stretch out into the bay.

“I don’t even really know what cardamom is,” Sabrina says.

“It’s delicious, that’s what it is.” Jason takes another lick of his rapidly melting ice cream. “It’s, like… kind of citrusy, but a little spicy?”

Sabrina giggles. “See? You don’t even know!”

“I know it’s damn good!”

She shakes her head and swipes her tongue over the rich pink cream stacked in her own cone. “I’ll stick to the classics. There’s nothing like some strawberry on a summer evening.”

They walk in silence for a few yards, each breathing in the fresh air that the breeze is carrying in from the water.

“I’m glad we’re finally doing this,” Sabrina says.

He smiles over at her. “Me, too. I thought doing something less formal than a fancy dinner might be a good idea.”

“It is. Thanks.” She is about to say something more when she notices her ice cream dribbling off the cone and hurries to lap it up.

“I knew I should’ve grabbed some napkins,” she says, frowning as she tries to wipe the streaked ice cream off her face.

“Here. Let me get it for you.” Jason reaches over and rubs his thumb over her chin, swiping away the trail of pink ice cream.

“Now you’re just going to have sticky hands,” Sabrina says. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He stares into her eyes. “But I don’t think I got it all.”

She instinctively touches a hand to her face. “What? Really?”

“Yeah. Hang on.” Without breaking the eye contact, he leans forward and touches his lips lightly to hers.

“Is that okay?” Jason asks, their faces still mere millimeters apart.

She swallows hard, nearly melting herself now. “Yeah. It is.”

“Good.”

He kisses her again, this time with more passion. Sabrina follows his lead, her lips following the rhythm of his, their mouths softly pressing together as the ice cream cones fall to their sides, all but forgotten.

—–

“Are you sure you don’t want to come shopping with me?” Claire Fisher asks as she enters the living room of the apartment that she shares with Tempest Banks.

Tempest, who is lying lengthwise on the couch watching The Last Dance on Netflix, swivels her head. “Nah, I’m good. But thanks. Besides, it’s not like you and I can really shop together…”

Claire laughs at the accuracy of that comment. “Fair. But even if we don’t go to the same stores, we can go to the same mall.”

“It’s okay. You go enjoy buying your cardigans and yoga pants and stuff,” Tempest says with a hint of a smirk.

Claire can’t help but chuckle again. Then she softens and tells Tempest, “I just want to make sure you’re okay. If you want to get out, we can do something else.”

Grabbing the remote, Tempest pauses the documentary. “I promise, I’m good.”

“Have you heard from Samantha?”

“Since she blew me off last-minute and took Jaq to Idaho instead? Nah.”

“I’m really sorry that happened,” Claire says. “I know it has to hurt.”

“Shows me how she really feels, I guess. And that I’ve gotta stop fooling myself.”

“Fooling yourself?”

Tempest pulls herself up into a sitting position. “I told myself we could be friends. And I really thought we could. But if Sam can’t even treat me like one…”

“Maybe you guys just need to talk this out,” Claire suggests.

“No point.” Tempest shrugs. “I don’t need to waste my time or my energy being pressed over this. Truth is, part of me was hoping we’d get to be friends, then get back together.”

Claire winces at the pain evident in Tempest’s voice.

“But she’s with Jaq. She picked Jaq over me, and she was shitty about it. So whatever.” Tempest shakes her head. “I don’t need that mess.”

Before Claire can respond, Tempest’s phone, which is sitting on the arm of the couch, lights up with an alert. Both women’s eyes instinctively go to it. Tempest grabs the phone, and Claire watches as her entire demeanor transforms.

“What’s wrong?” Claire asks. But Tempest remains focused on the phone.

Claire waits a few seconds and then presses, “Tempest? Who’s that from?”

“Alex,” Tempest says, her mouth agape as the chilling message washes over her.

—–

“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” Travis says as his half-sister leads him into the kitchen of their father’s house.

Samantha looks back at him as she opens the refrigerator. “We spent the night there and turned right around in the morning. Of course, it basically all blew up in my face, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighs and hands him a can of sparkling water. “My grandma figured out that I’d lied about being in Sun Valley for work and hopped a flight to King’s Bay. She caught me at my mom’s place right as I was showing my mom what I found.”

Travis’s finger, hitched on the can’s tab, stops mid-movement. “Which was?”

Samantha hesitates before telling him, “I’ll explain later. I’m not sure if my mom wants me telling people yet.”

He raises an eyebrow at that but otherwise quietly accepts it.

“Anyway, what was so urgent that you had to come over?” she asks as she takes a seat at the kitchen table.

“It’s actually about your trip,” Travis tells her. “I got drinks with Tempest.”

Samantha’s face turns ashen. “Oh.”

“She’s pretty hurt that you brushed her off and took Jaq instead. And at the last minute like that. What the hell were you thinking?”

After chewing on her lower lip in thought for a few seconds, she says, “I was thinking fast. Tempest was supposed to come with me, and then Jaq showed up all ready to go because she got the weekend off work, and I… I don’t know. I panicked.”

“So you didn’t want Jaq to know you were gonna bring Tempest?”

Samantha bows her head in shame. “The way it happened, it just… I knew Tempest and I were only going as friends, but I didn’t know if Jaq would see it that way. I thought it might be better…”

“To make Tempest feel like crap?”

“No!”

Travis leans against the counter. “You have to get how this looks. Especially to Tempest.”

“I know. I do. And I feel terrible about it.”

“Were you really just planning to take Tempest as a friend?” he asks.

“Travis! I’m not– that’s not–” Frazzled, she pauses and pushes her glasses up on her nose. “I’m with Jaq now. It’s taken a long time for Tempest and me to get back on solid ground, but I really do think we can be friends. Or I thought that, until this trip. She’s really mad, isn’t she?”

“I’d say hurt more than mad, but you know how she is.”

“Hurt basically equals mad.”

“Right. I’d say you owe her an apology, at minimum.”

“I know I do,” Samantha says.

“Good. And on top of that,” Travis says as he finally pops the top of his can, “I think you owe it to Tempest — and to yourself — to be totally honest about how you feel.”

—–

Diane tucks the birth certificate into the top drawer of the desk in her bedroom. She goes to her bed and falls on top of the plush duvet. The soft bedding soaks up some of the tension from her muscles and bones, but she remains unsettled as she lies there, staring up at the ceiling.

Ann Marie DeLuca.

She cannot fathom how she made it this far in life without even knowing what her birth name was — or that she had one. She cannot fathom how she could have a mother whom she will never meet. There have been very few times in her life when Diane Bishop has felt she didn’t know who she was… but this is one of them.

She grabs the throw blanket tossed across the foot of the bed and pulls it over herself, her gaze still fixed on the white of the ceiling as if it might help her to make sense of any of this.

END OF EPISODE 1031

What will Diane do now that she knows the truth?
What message did Alex send Tempest?
Is Samantha being honest about her feelings?
Were you cheering for Jason and Sabrina’s first kiss?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

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