“Wedding?” He turns away, shaking his head. “This is what you want to discuss? My wedding to your sister?” His tone is spiteful, and I expect him to say more. To explain himself more. I want that.
But instead, he pulls the doorknob and walksout, leaving me stunned and alone. I thought he’d fight more. I hoped he would. Feared it as well. But he just walked away.
I take a long, hot shower and pull on the clothes I found in the smallest closet I’ve ever seen. Picked out by my sister, I’m sure of it. She’s always been the girliest girl one could find. The most comfortable thing I find are black lacy shorts and a white silk top without sleeves. I look down at my body and notice how much I’ve tanned. No amount of mud can truly save my skin from the wild local sun.
I don’t have a suitcase or any clothes of my own. Nor do I have any money. I came here to beg for it. I can’t ask any of my family for money. The only thing I do have is Noah’s card. Without any other choice, I’ll have to use it to buy myself a ticket and get back home.
Wait.I pause.Home? Where’s that now?
I plant myself on one corner of the bed.Where will I go? I have nothing. Absolutely nothing left.
Looking around me, I see that even if I had any stuff, I wouldn’t have a place to put it. This room reminds me too much of the tiny shoeboxes I’ve been living in these past five years. It’s the farthest room from the main path with no walkway to it. Chickens have made a nest right underneath it, making it impossible to even hear myself think because those feathery creatures are so loud. A queen-sized bed takes up the whole space. With only one nightstand on one side, the other side of the bed is pushed against the wall. I’m not sure who would ever want to spend money on something like this, but I was given this particular room—the farthest from them and possibly tiniest of them all. This is how they’ve always thought of me.
The ringing stationary phone brings me back to the present and the urgency of escape. I ignore it. But it keeps ringing. At some point, it becomes obvious that it’s for me. Hesitantly, I answer it.
“Hello?”
“You’re thinking about running away again, aren’t you?”my sister’s voice booms through the line.
“Bea, I?—”
“Yeah, I know. You’re good at it.”She sniffles loudly.“But at least you could help me deal with the aftermath of everything.”
“Bea, the wedding is happening.”
Her sad laughter is my only answer.
“Stay at least for tonight to talk to our parents.”Her voice drops.“You owe me that much.”
My heart breaks at her pained tone.
“Okay,” I whisper back. “I’ll stay for tonight.”
I’ll stay to become the center of the inevitable disaster, but she’s right. I owe it to her not to leave her alone.
27
Maeve
“Oh, dear, what have you done to your hair?”
This is the first thing my mother says to me after five years of not seeing her daughter and a week of thinking I was dead.
“This color looks so cheap,” she continues, taking a lock of my hair into her hand instead of enveloping me into a motherly hug. “It makes you look like you’ve never listened to all those lessons I gave you. Your appearance is your everything, honey.”
“I’ve missed you too,” I reply sarcastically, making her squint her botoxed eyes. They almost don’t shut anymore. Has she had surgery? To think of it, I don’t recognize her much. I’ve probably been gone too long, and a lot more things have changed. Have I changed so much too?
“Don’t get that tone with me.” She tries furrowing her eyebrows with no success. “You made us all worry.”
“Apologies about that.” My voice is dripping with sarcasm. “I shouldn’t have gotten stuck on that island.”
“You really shouldn’t have,” my father chimes in, walking toward us with two glasses of amber liquid in his hands. They both look like they are going to a golf course. “We wanted the whole family for the announcement.”
“Which announcement?” I ask.
“Bea’s engagement, of course,” Mom explains with a smile, accepting the glass from my father and lifting it in the air toward Ezra who is standing with his brother by the table. “Your father’s associate is going to become a new member of our family.”
A sudden arrow to the chest would have been less painful. If I nursed some stupid hope about Bea forgiving me and moving on before, now I know it’s just a dream. If the whole world knows now, there’s no way this wedding can be stopped. My parents would kill the groom and drag his dead corpse to the altar before calling off the whole thing.
