Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ten Years Ago
The day they decided to leave Daytona, Isla was sixteen and worried about what she would do once she aged out of the system, and Eden was eighteen, grieving the death of her mother.
She was now just as alone as Isla was. They had been like sisters ever since the day they met.
Eden’s mom was like a mom to Isla; their home was her pseudo foster home.
Theirs was a place she could get away to when her days at the group home were too much.
They’d planned their getaway while sitting in the back booth while Isla was on break during one of her shifts.
After Elise’s funeral, Isla hadn’t seen or spoken to Eden for a long while.
She’d wanted to give her space, but she was terrified she’d lost the only real friend she had.
After nearly two months of barely any communication, Eden showed up at Isla’s job like nothing had changed, ordered her usual, and told Isla she’d be leaving.
“I can’t be here anymore, Isla. Not with my mom gone. I need to get far away.”
Isla tried to keep her composure, because she was at work and her manager was watching her with hawk eyes from behind the counter. Eden had said she was leaving. But she’d said nothing about where Isla fit in. Isla asked her where she planned to go.
“To LA to become a theater actress.” She grinned dreamily, dunking her fry in her milkshake. “Just like a cliché. But I don’t care. I’ll try to make it big and also start a new garden like my mom used to keep.”
The idea of Eden leaving left Isla in a panic. She couldn’t imagine staying back in Daytona alone again. Knowing her had made life interesting, given Isla hope of a decent future once she left the home. Knowing there would be one person who really cared about her. Who knew she existed.
She swallowed her disappointment like she’d trained herself to do years ago. After her dad had been killed, her life had been one disappointment and rejection after another. She guessed this would be another, but this one hurt the most. This one she had truly wanted.
“Well,” she started, praying her voice would hold steady. “Good luck with all that.” She got up to get back to work even though she had fifteen minutes left.
“What do you mean?” Eden asked. “You don’t want to come with me?”
Isla’s heart and breath froze. She didn’t dare hope Eden was being for real.
She asked, “Seriously?”
Eden nodded, looking quite pleased with herself.
Isla dropped back onto the bench because her knees had gone wobbly. “Okay.”
Eden raised an eyebrow, fry in midair. “Really? Because I’m deadass serious. What about Westin House?”
Isla thought about it. There were so many kids coming in and out and too few staff—who were overworked, underpaid, and with limited resources—to pay close attention to all their caseloads.
“I can figure out a way. No big deal, as long as you’re really serious. If you say you’re leaving, we really gotta leave. You’re eighteen and I’m not. It would be illegal and shit. Question is, are you cool with that?”
Eden snorted. “That’s the least of my worries.”
“Then what’s the biggest?” Isla expected her to talk about the loss of her mother, but Eden was taking the death in stride. Better than Isla had or could.
“Unfinished business I have to take care of in Virginia with those people. Things I wish I had done differently and now have to set right. Then I’m free and clear.”
Isla got it. There were plenty of things she wished she had done differently.
Like telling her dad not to go when she felt in her gut that something bad was going to happen.
Like waiting too long, until the cops came for her.
Maybe if she had called the cops when he’d left in that car, they’d have found him in time.
“Then it’s a plan. We go to Virginia so you can do whatever, and then we get far away to LA.
You’ll become a big-time star, and I mooch off you like a proper little sister.
” That got a laugh out of her, first Isla had heard in a very long time.
Isla wished she’d known that it would be the last time she would hear her laugh like that.
She wished she’d known a lot of things, like that when they arrived in Charlottesville, and then Eden left Isla at the motel to handle her unfinished business, that would be the last Isla would see of her.