Chapter Nineteen
My phone dings waking me up in the process. I open my eyes, blinking a few times and reach for my phone to see a text from Emma.
Emma: Emergency. Can you meet me at the pier? Alone. Please don’t tell Dad.”
I throw on clothes and drive to the pier in the pre-dawn darkness, my mind racing through possibilities. Emma is sitting on the furthest bench, knees pulled to her chest, staring out at the gray ocean. Even from a distance, I can see she’s been crying.
“What happened?” I ask, settling beside her.
“I called Mom last night to tell her about meeting you.” Emma’s voice is raw, like she’s been crying for hours. “It didn’t go well.”
“How bad?”
Emma pulls out her phone and hands it to me. The screen shows a text conversation with someone labeled “Mom.”
EMMA
Dad and I came to California to meet Olivia. She’s amazing, Mom. She’s exactly like I imagined having a sister would be.
Mom
You went behind my back. After everything we discussed.
EMMA
I’m 17. I don’t need permission to meet my sister.
MOM
She’s not your sister.
EMMA
Yes she is. You can’t control who I have relationships with.
MOM
Watch me. Your flight home is tomorrow at 3 PM. I’ve already changed your ticket.
I scroll down to see more messages, each one escalating in tone.
MOM
Your father has filled your head with romantic nonsense about family reunification. But that girl represents everything that went wrong in our lives. She’s a reminder of the worst period in our family’s history.
EMMA
Her name is Olivia. And she didn’t do anything wrong. She was a baby.
MOM
Don’t be naive, Emma. People don’t change.
EMMA
Yes they do.
MOM
Your father barely calls anymore since this started. He’s more interested in playing catch-up with his other daughter than maintaining the family he actually has.
I hand the phone back, stunned by the venom in Lilly’s messages. “Emma, this is… wow.”
“It gets worse.” Emma scrolls to the bottom of the conversation. “She called me after these texts.”
“What did she say?”
“That if I get on a plane back to Michigan today, we can pretend this never happened. Family therapy, some ‘healing time,’ and everything goes back to normal.” Emma’s laugh is bitter.
“But if I stay here another day, if I keep pursuing a relationship with you, she’s cutting me off financially.
No more college fund, no more car insurance, no more anything. ”
My stomach drops. “She’s blackmailing you.”
“Pretty much. And the thing is, I need that college money. I’ve been accepted to Northwestern, but without Mom’s financial support, I can’t afford it.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing yet. I hung up on her and spent the rest of the night crying in my hotel room. Dad doesn’t know about the ultimatum; he went to bed early with a headache, and I didn’t want to stress him out more.”
I watch the waves crash against the pier supports, trying to process the situation. “Emma, you can’t sacrifice your future for me. We’ve known each other for less than a week.”
“But you’re my sister. That has to count for something, right?”
“It counts for everything. But Northwestern is your dream school. I’m not going anywhere; we can build our relationship over time, even if it’s complicated by your mom’s feelings.”
“You don’t understand.” Emma turns to face me fully.
“This isn’t just about you. This is about Mom thinking she can control every aspect of my life by threatening to take away anything that matters to me.
If I give in to this, what happens the next time I want to do something she disapproves of?
What about when I want to date someone she doesn’t like, or choose a career she doesn’t support? ”
She has a point. This is bigger than just our sister relationship.
“Have you talked to Jeremy about it?”
“That’s the other thing. My mom said if I tell Dad about the ultimatum, she’ll make his life hell through the custody arrangement. She’ll restrict his time with me, make it harder for him to see me. She’s basically threatening to punish him for my choices.”
“So you’re supposed to just disappear? Pretend this week never happened?”
“According to Mom, yes. She wants me to tell Dad that I realized pursuing a relationship with you would be ‘too disruptive to my senior year’ and that I need to ‘focus on my future instead of dwelling on the past.’”
“And you’re considering it.”
Emma is quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to fight her, to tell her she can’t control who I love. But the practical part of me knows that without her financial support, my options become really limited.”
My phone buzzes with a text from Jeremy:
Jeremy
Emma’s not in her room and isn’t answering her phone. Have you seen her?
I show Emma the message. “He’s worried about you.”
“I know. I should go back. But I needed to talk to you first, to figure out what I’m going to do.”
“What do you want to do? Forget about the practical stuff for a minute. If money wasn’t an issue, if college was guaranteed, what would you choose?”
Emma doesn’t hesitate. “I’d tell Mom exactly what I think of her manipulation tactics, and I’d spend the rest of senior year getting to know my sister.”
“Then maybe we need to find a way to make that possible.”
“How?”
“You could go to school with me,”
“You mean move here? Leave Michigan entirely?”
“I’m just saying it’s an option. You could finish senior year here, apply to California schools, just an idea,”
“That’s a huge decision. I’d be giving up everything I’ve known.”
“I guess,”
Emma stares out at the ocean, clearly wrestling with the possibility. “What about Dad? He’d be losing me either way; either I go back to Michigan and cut contact with you, or I stay here and Lilly makes his life hell.”
“Maybe it’s time to tell him what’s really going on. Let him make his own choice about how to handle Lilly’s threats instead of protecting him from the truth.”
“You think he’d support me staying here?”
“I think he’d support you making your own choice about your relationships and your future, regardless of what it costs him personally.”
Emma pulls out her phone to text Jeremy back:
“I’m with Olivia at the pier. We need to talk. Can you come here?”
While we wait for Jeremy to arrive, Emma and I sit in comfortable silence, watching the beach come alive with morning joggers and dog walkers. The normalcy of it feels surreal given the life-changing decisions we’re discussing.
“Can I ask you something?” Emma says.
“Of course.”
“Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like if our parents had handled things differently eighteen years ago?”
“All the time. But I’m starting to think that wondering about alternate histories is less important than deciding what to do with the reality we have now.”
“Very philosophical for seven in the morning.”
“I’m full of wisdom at dawn. It’s my superpower.”
Emma laughs, the first genuine laugh I’ve heard from her since I got here. “I’m really glad you’re my sister, Olivia.”
“Even if I might be about to help you make a decision that completely changes your life?”
“Especially because of that. For the first time in years, I feel like someone is encouraging me to think for myself instead of just do what’s expected.”
Jeremy’s rental car pulls into the pier parking lot, and we watch him get out and walk toward us. His face is tight with worry, but when he sees Emma is safe, his shoulders relax slightly.
“You scared me,” he says, settling on the bench beside Emma. “What’s going on?”
Emma takes a deep breath and hands him her phone. “I need to show you something. And then we need to make some decisions about what happens next.”
As Jeremy reads through the text conversation with Lilly, his expression grows darker with each message. By the time he finishes, his jaw is set in a way that suggests he’s holding back a lot of anger.
“She threatened to cut off your college funding?” he asks quietly.
“Among other things. And she said if I tell you about the ultimatum, she’ll make it harder for you to see me through the custody arrangement.”
Jeremy is quiet for a long moment, staring out at the ocean.
When he finally speaks, his voice is calm but firm.
“Emma, I need you to understand something. I will not let your mother use me as leverage to control your decisions. Whatever consequences come from you choosing to have a relationship with Olivia, I’ll handle them. ”
“But what if she follows through on her threats? What if you lose time with me?”
“What matters to me is that you get to make your own choices about your relationships and your future.”
“Olivia suggested I might be able to finish senior year here. Maybe look at California colleges instead of Northwestern.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows rise. “That’s a big change. How do you feel about it?”
“Scared. Excited. Like maybe it’s exactly what I need to do.”
“Then let’s figure out how to make it happen.”
It’s not going to be easy. Lilly will be furious, there will be legal and practical complications, and Emma will be giving up everything familiar to start over in a new state.
But for the first time since this whole situation began, it feels like we’re making choices based on what we want rather than what we’re afraid of.
And that feels like progress.