I’m not sure if it’s anger at her sending Gram to that attorney’s office or my old desire to make my mom happy that drives me to accept the call, but I do. She doesn’t start the conversation like she normally would—in that soft, sweet voice she uses whenever she wants something—she’s already advanced to spitting fire.
“You little bitch,” she hisses. “How dare you try to turn my momma against me?”
Scrambling off of Lucas’s lap, I frantically work my finger over the volume button so the conversation isn’t as loud. Lucas is already leaning forward, working his long fingers over his bottom lip in concern.
Turning my back to him so he can’t see my face, I take a cleansing breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She releases a growl deep from the back of her throat. “Don’t try that with me, Sienna, I see right through you. Always have. You’re trying to warp her mind against me, and it’s not right.”
I pinch my fingers over the bridge of my nose. Leave it to my mom to bring on a headache. “What exactly did I do?” I ask in a muffled voice.
“She told me she was ashamed that I wanted your boyfriend to help me out. That she won’t ever—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Gram shouldn’t feel even an ounce of shame over that. You should. You don’t even talk to me, and the first thing you do after reading something in a gossip article about me is call me expecting—”
Now it’s my mother’s turn to cut me off, and when she does, she’s bellowing into the phone. “You wrote me a letter offering.”
“Mom,” I breathe, hating the way my chest burns when I call her that. “Don’t do this crap.”
There’s the sound of shuffling paper on her end of the line, and then, in a clipped, shaking voice, she reads the letter aloud for me. It’s short and to the point, telling her that I would have Lucas pay for her lawyer if she wanted to take me up on the offer. Even for my mom, making up something like this is a little far-fetched.
Once she’s done reading, Mom says something that wraps a layer of ice around my heart. “Sent three weeks ago—postmarked from Atlanta—so don’t sit there and lie to me.”
“Where did you say it came from?”
She makes a strangled noise. “Are you deaf? You heard me. Don’t worry, I don’t want or need you or your boyfriend’s help. But if you ever, ever, try to turn my mother against me again, I’ll knock you on your ass the second I get out of this place.”
She hangs up then, not giving me the chance to get in another word—but really, what the hell would I say after everything she’s just told me? Placing my phone on the countertop, I stare down at it blankly until I feel strong arms wrapping around me.
“Your mother?” he asks, and I nod slowly, trying to catch my breath. “You didn’t let her push you around, Red. I’m impressed.”
But all I can focus on is what she had told me. That I had sent her a letter postmarked from Atlanta.
Atlanta.
Where Samantha Wolfe lives.
Lucas spins me around to look at him, turning his head to the side so he can examine my expression. “Did she say what she wants?”
“She wanted something from me that I can’t give her.”
Because he knows that the phone call had at least something to do with him, he holds my face between his hands. “Do you need my help?”
A bubble of hysterical laughter rises in my chest. “No. Absolutely . . . no. I don’t want to give my mother anything.”
Yanking me to him, he holds me against his chest for a long time until my breathing has calmed down. By the time he lets me go, and I sink down on the couch, I’ve managed to regain some semblance of control.
Lucas kneels down in front of me, massaging his thumbs against the backs of my calves. “I’ve got an errand I need to run with David, but if I need to—”
I shake my head quickly. “No, you do what you need to do. If I shut down every time my mom ripped into me, I’d still be twitching on the floor.”
As he gets dressed, I pace the bus, anxious for him to leave. The moment he’s gone, I grab my phone and go outside the bus so Sin won’t hear me. As I wait for Gram to pick up my call, I wrap my arms tightly around myself, afraid that if I let go, I’ll fall apart.
“This is early for you,” Gran answers warmly.
Pulling in a harsh breath, I cut to the chase. “Have you gotten anything strange about me?”
“Sienna, what’s this—?”
“Have you? Any letters or anything since I came out here on this tour?”
Gram’s silence seems deafening, and it tells me everything I want to know. I feel like the breath has been ripped out of my chest. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it just came yesterday,” she says, her voice defensive. She takes a tremulous breath before continuing. “I ripped that cruel trash up a moment after I read the first line. Do you think I’m going to tell you when someone sends a nasty note to tell me what they think of you, just because they don’t like whom you’re dating?”
“I—” I look down at the asphalt, glaring at a piece of broken glass a few inches away from my feet. “Gram, I’m so sorry someone send something like that to you.”
Not just someone. Samantha. I am almost one hundred percent sure that she is behind the note both Gram and my mother received.
As my grandmother tries to assure me that everything will be fine, I come to a conclusion that makes my nauseous.