My heart flashes with a quick ache. I never knew they were close, but as things go around here, I don’t know much of anything.
I move down the hallway and pause in the doorway of Olivia’s room. Her light is on and she’s tracing a picture in a photo album.
“I lost a son once,” Olivia says without looking up. “His name was James. He was restless living in Snowflake and died in an accident in Louisville. He never met his own son. Never knew that a woman was pregnant with his child. In a sad, pathetic tribute, we named your elephant after him.”
She removes a photo from the album and holds up the one she had shown me when I first arrived. It’s of me and her and pink, fuzzy James.
“You sent me on this bizarre scavenger hunt so I could find out that your surviving son is an attempted murderer.”
“No. I did this so that you and Oz would end the vicious cycle and stop making the same damn mistakes of the generations that came before you, me included.”
“My mom left. She broke the cycle. Me returning here, it’s messed everything up.”
She slams the album shut. “All your mother did was run and all she’s taught you is to run. Running is still running. It doesn’t matter if it’s a physical move from one place to another or if it’s to within yourself.
“Yes, her leaving Snowflake, marrying Jeff, placing you in a padded bubble of a world did give you opportunities you would have never had here, but it didn’t get rid of the problem. You’re still doomed to repeat the same mistakes your mother and your father made. You do it now. You ignore the truth, the world around you, in order to keep your illusions of safety. That’s not living, Emily. The only way for you to break free is to understand the past so you don’t continue to follow in their footsteps.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “So Mom was in the wrong on this? She was wrong to run from a man who tried to kill her brother?”
Olivia closes her eyes and I’m reminded how sick she is when she presses her fingers to her forehead. My stomach completely drops. “I still don’t want you to die.”
A bitter smile pulls at her lips. “I still don’t want to die, either. There’s more to the story and I’m praying that Eli will tell you before you leave.”
Of course there is and of course she won’t tell me and part of me understands why. I’ve lost respect for my parents—my mom and my dad—and they’re going to have to work to get that trust and respect back. The three of us have time, but Olivia, she doesn’t.
“Go to sleep.” This time I’m the one flinging the orders.
I push away from the door and Olivia stops me. “Emily Star?”
“I love you, too.” I glance over my shoulder to catch her placing a hand over her heart.
My throat tightens. Because I can’t handle any of the emotions colliding inside me, I walk back into my room. The clock is ticking down until I return to Florida and I have no one in my corner who will tell me the truth.
I change out of my clothes and into a pair of jeans and new shirt. A brush of my hair and I tie it into a ponytail at the nape of my neck. A slide of my finger across the cell and I pray that the internet isn’t having temper issues. It isn’t and I do something it never crossed my mind to do before: I type my mother’s maiden name, Nader, then Kentucky into a search engine. A ton of listings pop up.
If I want the truth, then what better place to get it than from the source, but to make that happen I need a first name and I need a ride.
I slink into the living room and crouch by Violet at the end of the couch. Her eyes snap open and I bring a finger to my lips. Olivia is more right than she can imagine. According to Violet, her mother once drove my mother out of Snowflake and my goal is to force history, in this case, to repeat itself.
“You once said you could get me out of here undetected.” I raise my phone to her line of sight and she reads my internet search.
Violet peeks over at Cyrus as she slowly sits up. “We’ll have to go through the woods.”
I yank on the ends of my hair as the urge to vomit overwhelms me. Dad said this visit was about conquering fears. It appears he wasn’t wrong.
Oz
I ROLL OVER and inhale the smell of the beach. Emily’s scent did transfer to the pillow. My eyes open and rays of morning light highlight the empty spot beside me. This bed never felt solitary before. Never felt like a deep, aching pit.
I’ve dozed, not slept, and a low murmur of conversation beyond my door causes me to slip out of bed. I snatch my shirt off the floor and rub a hand over my chest in an attempt to wake up.
Mom’s on the couch with her feet tucked underneath her. Dad’s beside her holding her hand. They’ve been a couple since they were sixteen and have loved each other through parents who smacked the hell out of them, an unplanned pregnancy, the years they could never make ends meet and then through the years where they blamed each other for life being tough.
They love each other and somewhere along the way, they learned to love me.
I shrug my shirt over my head and straddle the chair I had dragged into the living room over twenty-four hours ago when I had talked to Emily. I rest my forearms on the back of it and look at Dad. “Are they kicking me out?”
“You hit another brother.” Dad scratches the back of his head and Mom presses her other hand over their joint fingers. “Even if he was a prospect, the club doesn’t tolerate violence toward one another.”