Chapter 41 Willow
WILLOW
The next several days are a blur of schoolwork and dealing with the aftermath of my adoptive mother’s death.
There are more questions to answer, and the funeral to plan, which of course falls to me.
It’ll be a small, basic affair—because truth be told, there aren’t a lot of people who will come to mourn Misty Hayes.
I half considered not doing anything at all, but it feels like her death needs to be marked somehow, even if it’s just me there to do it.
It feels weird to be going to school and doing normal things in the aftermath of Misty’s death, but I guess life really does go on for the living.
A few days after my mom’s overdose, April approaches me as I’m leaving class. I tense immediately, old habits flaring up. She’s been nicer to me lately, but it’s hard to forget the times when almost every interaction between us involved her saying something horrible to me.
“Hey, Willow, I’m sorry to hear about your mom,” she says, and she actually does look remorseful.
I blink, surprised that she even knows about that. Although I guess I shouldn’t be. She clearly thrives on gossip and knowing what’s going on with people at our school. And now that I’m on her radar as someone who “matters,” I guess she’s keeping tabs on things in my life too.
“Thank you,” I murmur quietly, then keep walking before she can say anything else.
It’s nice that her bullying has stopped. Between whatever April has told people about my new family connections and the fact that Colin DeVry isn’t on campus at all this summer, things at school have gotten a lot easier.
But even so, I feel weird about the fact that things have shifted so drastically between us, when nothing has really changed except the fact that I now have a wealthy family.
I go about my day, trying to focus on my classes despite the to-do list for my mother’s funeral that keeps cycling through my head. I still need to pass my summer classes if I want to be ready to dive in when the fall semester starts.
That is, if I end up going to school in the fall.
I still haven’t given Olivia an answer about whether I’d like to accept her offer and start helping her manage the estate. I spoke to her the day after my mom died, but of course it didn’t come up then, and she didn’t ask about it.
I’m glad she’s giving me time to think about it, although with so much going on, I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and think through what I really want for my future.
There’s still time, I tell myself. Just get through the funeral first, then go from there.
As I head across campus after my last class of the day, I catch sight of April again. She and some of her friends are clustered in a little group near the quad. They’re on the other side of a line of trees, so they don’t see me as I walk up the path, but their voices reach me as I approach.
“If that was my mother, I think I’d have died instead,” April is saying, her tone lofty and cruel.
“That woman was clearly druggie trash, and I bet Willow is just like her. Now she thinks she’s so fucking elite, but she was always trash to begin with.
Watch, Olivia Stanton is going to regret taking her in and making her part of the family when Willow shows her true colors and ends up dead in a ditch somewhere from an overdose. ”
Her friends all laugh, and I stop in place, my eyes burning.
Anger fills me, and my hands curl into fists.
At the end of the day, I don’t give a shit what April Simms thinks about me.
She doesn’t know me at all. But I hate how fucking two-faced she is.
That she would tell me she’s sorry for my loss one minute, then turn around and talk shit behind my back the next.
Her words of sympathy ring hollow now, and it makes me question all over again whether I can really survive in the world of the wealthy and well-connected. I’m not as good as April is at hiding my feelings or playing the game.
Will I ever really fit into the high society life? Do I even want to? Or will I always be a target for people who look at me and see nothing but my past and the way I was raised?
It sounds exhausting, and it makes my heart hurt.
I don’t want to live a lie. I feel like I wasted too much time doing that already, denying things about myself just because I was afraid they would mean I was too much like my mom.
Fuck that. And fuck April too.
Shaking my head, I keep walking, leaving April and her cronies to their shit talking session. I don’t want to hear anything else they have to say.
I let my anger carry me across campus to the parking lot, then get in my car. My fingers wrap tightly around the steering wheel as I leave campus, still fuming over what a two-faced bitch April is.
I need to get a dress for Misty’s funeral, since I don’t have anything appropriate in black. Really, I just want to go home. Or go to the brothers’ place and have them take my mind off things, but I need to do this, so I pull into a shopping center not far from my place.
As I get out of the car, I pull out my phone and call Victor.
Things have actually been okay with us since the incident in the kitchen, and I’ve been relieved to find out that Malice was right when he said I didn’t totally mess things up.
Neither of us has mentioned what happened, but at least we’re still talking and Vic isn’t hiding from me or anything.
He answers after three rings like usual. “Willow. Is everything alright?”
“Yeah.” I nod, then blow out a breath. “I’m just pissed off, and I needed to hear a friendly voice.”
“What happened?” he asks. I can hear the soft clack of a keyboard in the background, and the sound is soothing, making me think of the quiet dimness of his room.
“There’s this girl who goes to my school. April. We’ve never gotten along because she always acted like she was so much better than me. But of course now that I’m Olivia Stanton’s long-lost granddaughter, she’s turned over a new leaf—to my face, at least.”
“Of course.” Vic hums. “That’s how it always goes.”
“Yeah, apparently so. She’s been talking to me more and more, and it’s not like I want to be her friend or anything, but it was nice to not be tormented all the fucking time.”
“Let me guess. She had a change of heart?”
“Not even!” I burst out. “She came up to me today and said she was sorry about what happened with my mom. But then just as I was leaving campus, I heard her and her friends saying my mom was trash and I’m going to end up just like her.
It’s just so fucking stupid. I didn’t need her sympathy in the first place.
She could have just said nothing. But because of who my grandmother is, she thinks pretending to be nice is going to get her family an in with Olivia or something? I don’t even know.”
Vic is quiet for a second, but I can hear his breathing on the other end.
“People like that aren’t worth your time,” he says finally. “You’re worth a hundred of her, and you would be even if you didn’t have a penny to your name. I hope you know that.”
“Thanks,” I murmur, the tightness in my chest unwinding a little. “You always know what to say.”
“Not always.” He pauses, and there’s a note in his voice that makes me think he’s thinking of what happened between us in the kitchen. “But I’m glad it helps,” he adds.
“It does. A lot.”
“Are you still on campus?”
“No, I need a dress for Misty’s funeral, so I’m out shopping. I figured Nordstrom would have something that will work—not that I’ve ever been to a funeral before. Got any advice on what I should get?”
I see the department store up ahead, with a crush of shoppers heading toward it. I make a face, because I really don’t want to have to wade through a sea of people to get to where I want to go, so I cut through a little side alley between shops, trying to go around to the other side.
“You’ll be fine in basic black,” Vic assures me. “Do you want—”
Whatever his next words are, I don’t hear them.
Someone grabs me from behind, knocking the phone from my hand. Fear explodes in my chest, sudden and sharp, and I open my mouth to scream, but before I can, a heavy cloth bag is dropped over my head.
Everything goes dark, the bag muffling the sounds around me and disorienting me.
I lash out, trying to strike the large, muscled body behind me with an elbow, a fist, a foot—anything.
But none of my blows land well enough, and a thick arm wraps around my throat, keeping me from screaming as I’m lifted off my feet.
Memories of being kidnapped by Ilya surge through me, and terror floods my limbs as my wrists are bound and I’m shoved into a small, tight space. There’s a heavy slam, and when I hear the rumble of a car engine, I realize they’ve pushed me into a trunk.
“No! Help!”
I scream, but the sound is drowned out by the roar of the engine as the car peels out.