Page 208 of Always: A Legacy Novel

Catherine plucked up the little pill.

She tried to remember what she had already taken in the last twenty-four hours from her own goddamn pharmacy. Something to sleep, something to breathe, and something to make her mind happy. Wine, too.

“You want it, or not?” June asked.

Catherine tossed back the pill, swallowing it down dry.

“Let me know if it works for you. We all have to get through this shit show somehow, right?”

Right.

“Catherine, are you listening to me?”

She blinked across the large dining room table, seeing that almost all of her family’s eyes were turned on her, but it was her father’s she wanted to shrink away from. His familiar green gaze was searching her face, looking for a problem, reaching into her mind and pulling out truths without her needing to say a thing.

“Are you okay?” her father asked.

Her gaze skipped over the faces of her cousins, her mother, brother, his wife, and her aunts and uncles. Even her grandparents were watching her like she was a baby deer ready to bolt.

“I’m fine,” Catherine said.

Why did her voice feel like an echo?

“You sure?” her brother asked. “Because you’re a little out of it, Catherine.”

“Tired, that’s all.”

“Are your classes keeping you busy?” Dante asked.

“Yeah, classes.”

“When is Cross getting back?” Andino asked, from four seats down.

Catherine shrugged. “Soon.”

He’d called again—a week after his last call. The service was better. He talked. She listened.

Catherine was high the whole time.

He didn’t even know.

She cried herself stupid when he let her go.

“You don’t know when he’s getting back?” her father asked.

“Soon,” Catherine repeated, getting irritated.

“Lay off the wine a bit,” her mother said, reaching over to snatch Catherine’s glass.

“I’m fine, Ma,” Catherine said. “Leave my glass alone.”

Catrina cocked a brow. “You heard what I said, Catty.”

They didn’t mind her drinking wine at dinner.

She started having glasses at celebrations when she was sixteen.

Now they wanted to fight her on it?