Chapter Thirty-Three
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
SET ME FREE
ELOISE
My bed sinks with 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 want to 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’t here . 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.”
“You don’t have to be afraid to show yourself to me. We were both in the same position during such a fragile time in our lives. You should’ve been experimenting with everything and going away for college and having the time of your life. But you didn’t just run away from your problems. You ran away from me .” I find relief in my words, in speaking so many of them that they free me.
So, I continue. “I was left behind with this idea that if I put my all into this place, I wouldn’t feel like I was wasting my life away. But I’ve failed at all of it. Miserably.” My head hangs with shame. Shame for it all. For the things I’ve done and didn’t do.
For the way I managed to save it, giving myself to a man for a price.
No one’s heard from Ezra. There are no whispers of him taking the bookstore, but I still feel dirty over it all. I still feel like someone’s going to barge into my bedroom, a copy of my filthy contract in their hands.
“The store wouldn’t be here without you. It would have been sold off a long time ago if it was left in my hands. I would have let Mom’s dream be sold on the courthouse steps as I swallowed my grief. I never told you how much it meant to me that you kept it afloat while I was gone. And not just gone from Cherry Cove.” She places her hand on her heart. “Gone in here.”
“I can’t stay here anymore, Sophie.” I sniffle with my confession, trying to push the tears away before they even have the chance to fall. “I judged you for leaving because it was the one thing I wanted to do. I’m sorry. I can’t stay any longer.”
This time, my truth will set my free.