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“Eloise,” he starts, squatting down. I can smell him, can feel his warmth. Can envision a world where I stand up and let him take me away from here.
Through the curtain of my hair, I can see his hand reaching for me, and I jerk away. “I held up my end of the agreement.” My words are quiet enough that he can hear them amongst the humming of the cicadas.
“Fuck the agreement,” he grits out, pushing himself to stand like he didn’t deliver a deadly blow.
His words are an attack I wasn’t ready for. Pure emotion is my only response.
“You swore!” I scream, my hot tears unyielding. “You promised!”
Without the agreement, there’s nothing to protect me. Nothing to protect my store. Nothing to protect my actions.
“Eloise—”
If he’s going to renege on our deal, he gets the feel the weight of my rage.
“I hate you,” I cry out, keeping my face turned from him. He stands there a moment, and when he turns to walk away, I sob, wishing I’d never introduced my heart to Ezra. Wishing I’d let the bookstore fail so I could’ve left and never looked back.
He drives past me, slower than I want him to. I kick up dust at his car from my place on the ground. I refuse to let him revel in my defeat.
But I wish I could hate him.
I pray for it as the witching hour passes me by, and I walk back to my empty house.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
SET ME FREE
ELOISE
My bed sinkswith the weight of a visitor. I blink at the pale light coming through the window and wonder if I dreamed it all.
A foolish wonder.
“Kitty called. Said you haven’t gotten up in days,” Sophie whispers, her voice lighter, softer than I’m used to.
I turn to face her, and she runs her fingers through my hair the way our mother used to.
She looks so much like her in the dim morning light.
I nod and wiggle my body so I’m deeper in my warmth, even though it’s already hot in my bedroom.
“I need you to just tell me you want something else for your life. I need you to say it,” she tells me, and her plea sounds full of a desperation I’ve never heard from her before. Not even when she left me.
I shake my head as she carries on.
“I can see it, but goddamnit, Lucy, just say it!”
“I’m not going to be responsible for monopolizing someone else’s future the same way mine was, just because I may not wantto stay.” My words are muffled a little against the mattress, but I mean them.
She has to know my truth, even if it contradicts her own. Even if she was just trying to survive. I was a casualty in her desire to be free.
“Well, I don’t want to go back to the city. I want to stay here. I’ve already been in touch with my superintendent. My contract was up.” She takes a moment before she speaks again and I look over at her, wishing I could see her eyes clearer. “I was trying to dodge you for as long as I could. I had a dream before Mom and Dad died, and I guess it died with them. And somehow my dream became your burden because I wasn’t grown up enough to carry it yet.”
Her words shock me almost as much as they frustrate me.
“None of us were grown up enough!” I sit up and huff out a breath, pushing my hair from my face. “But I did what I could. You were here...but you weren’there. And then, all of a sudden, you were gone.”
“Mom always wanted to talk about our feelings, and it’s like, when she died, I was scared to. She wasn’t there to tell me my feelings were okay. So, I ate them up. I drank them away. I fucked them away. I tattooed them away. We were both so locked up, and Kitty was just a little girl.” She spreads her arms out, as if she’s finally unloading her own burdens. “I have ideas. I have plans for the place. I’ve had plans for the place for a while, but I was so goddamn scared to share them with you.”
