Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
BLAME IT ON THE WEATHERMAN — B*WITCHED
Molly’s room is an absolute disaster.
Clothes are draped across nearly every surface—most with price tags still sticking out the back—and a trio of suitcases is sprawled open on the bed, with more gauzy, sparkly fabric slithering over the sides.
I peek at the dress Molly wore the first night, the only one hanging in the closet, and my jaw practically unhinges when I spot the tag.
It’s a seven-thousand-dollar dress.
“Holy shit, Molly,” I whisper incredulously.
It’s normal for contestants to buy a wardrobe of designer clothes before coming on the show—a new outfit for every cocktail party, dinner date, or excursion—but the ones who keep the price tags on usually only do it for one reason.
Because they’re not here for love. They’re here for the prize money.
As I look around the cramped space, the messiness gives me the sense that, despite her cool exterior, things for Molly have been more turbulent than she’s been letting on. She wasn’t exactly a neat freak when I knew her, but a room this messy was uncharacteristic.
After twenty minutes of poking around her stuff, I don’t find much of anything that might give me a sense of where she’s gone. I slump against the wall, next to a pile of Lululemon leggings.
“Where are you, Molly Spencer?” I murmur to myself, allowing a groan to escape my lips as my head falls back to rest against the wall.
I stare just above the bed at a massive framed photo of a solitary ship sailing across an expanse of sparkling blue water.
The sea beyond the ship’s hull darkens as the cresting waves fade away.
It makes me feel…alone.
I miss Kyla.
I miss Dad desperately.
But in my defeat, most of all…I miss Mom.
I close my eyes and try to conjure the sound of her voice, or the image of her long black hair and the complicated knot she’d tie it into at the nape of her neck. “To keep grabby hands away,” she would say with a laugh, giving Kyla a little tap on her nose.
But tears begin to well and overflow when I realize I can no longer coax these small details to the surface like I used to.
Slumped against the wall in that messy room, I mourn the parts of my mother that are gone, like I would a magnificent tree that’s been chopped down at its base.
I grieve the protection and shade her limbs offered, the beauty that would leave me in awe, and the fruit that sustained us.
But I realize, now, that despite her absence…
her roots are still here. Even if I can’t recall the physical traits that made her real, I can still feel her.
Even now, the thought of her makes me feel safe and loved.
And it reminds me that I have another piece of her here, still.
I let the tears dry up and pull my phone from my pocket, tapping the first person on my speed dial, and the last connection I have to my mother—Kyla.
“Chloe? What’s wrong?” Kyla’s sleepy voice answers on the second ring. She’s only six hours behind me, but I’m not surprised she’s still asleep, even though it’s early afternoon in Toronto.
“Shit, I’m sorry—I forgot that you still sleep like a teenager. I should have texted first,” I say, and I can hear her moving around on the other line, as if she’s sitting up in bed.
“No, no, it’s fine. I was dreaming about you, anyway,” she says, and I can hear a smile in her tone.
“Oh, yeah? About what?”
“I dunno, it’s all garbled now. I guess I just knew you were thinking about me. Is everything okay?”
I frown. The note of concern in her voice is like a knife to my heart. I’m supposed to be the big sister, the strong one. But right now…I feel the opposite.
“Kyla, I messed everything up.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice is alert now, like she’s all-in—ready to hear anything I have to dump on her.
And before I can stop myself, the words are spilling out of me, unstoppable, until there’s nothing left to say.
I tell her about Glen and his shitty reason for hiring me, and Molly showing up out of nowhere.
I recount what happened on Mount Etna, and about wonderful Nolan with his smile like sunshine… and how I probably messed that up, too.
It all comes out. Everything that’s happened, everything I’ve felt, and when I’m done, I’m empty. Like I’ve dumped out a bucket of filthy water and am watching it sink into the ground at my feet.
“Oh, Chlo,” Kyla says, and I can feel the comfort in her voice halfway across the planet. “Hey—everything’s going to be okay.”
The shame that’s been eating away at me for the last couple of hours suddenly feels sated by my sister’s words. I laugh quietly through new tears.
“What? What’s wrong?” Kyla asks.
“I’m supposed to be the one comforting you, not the other way around.”
“Since when?” she asks, and I wipe my damp eyes with the back of my hand.
“Since always.”
She hums in consideration, and there’s silence on the other end for a few beats.
“Maybe… But it shouldn’t be that way. Being a sister is a two-way street.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, brows pressing together as another long stretch of silence has me second-guessing whether the call has dropped.
“You never let me see these parts of you, or talk to me about what you’re going through. But…I don’t ask either, you know? I’ve let you take care of everything for so long, and it’s only been over the last three weeks while you’ve been gone that I’ve realized how heavy that must have been for you.”
I’m taken aback by her words. I’ve kept the rawest pieces of myself hidden for so long because I’ve never wanted Kyla to feel like she doesn’t have someone who will be there for her, no matter what, like I know Mom would have.
I didn’t want her to feel like she was missing out on having a mother.
So, I tried to just…become one, instead.
“Kyla, I—”
“No, no. Wait. L-Let me finish,” There’s a nervousness to her words that makes my chest tighten, but I keep my mouth shut and let her continue.
“I didn’t know Mom. But I have an idea of who she is just based on how you and Dad talked about her.
I think she’d be really proud of the person you are, Chloe.
But I also think she’d want you to let me struggle a little bit, to figure things out on my own. ”
I chuckle softly, because she’s right. If I really think about it, Mom—endlessly optimistic Mom—would tell me to relax, that things always work out like they’re supposed to.
And the harder I tried to be Mom, I think maybe…
the less like her I became. She had never shied away from being her true self or from showing the messiest parts of her heart.
She could apologize when she was wrong and laugh at her own mistakes.
Her strength was in her vulnerability. I don’t know why I thought my strength should be measured by the walls I built around myself.
“I should have been a better sister,” Kyla continues, when I don’t respond. “And I’m sorry for that. I should have tried harder to make you feel heard, and important, and taken care of, too. But I’m going to be better. I promise. Starting with helping you solve your missing persons case.”
“You have a plan for finding a woman, with no electronic devices or wallet on her, who has disappeared into the Sicilian countryside?”
“Okay, well, first of all—do you want to fix this?”
I pause for a second, completely baffled.
“What do you mean? I have to.”
“Why?” she asks earnestly. I shake my head, somewhat annoyed. For someone so keen on taking care of herself for once, she seems to pretty quickly forget things like rent and bills, and how they need to be paid with money earned from a paycheck.
“Uhhh, so I don’t get fired and lose out on the next few weeks of pay? So we don’t get kicked out of our apartment? So I don’t have to resort to filming even more promo videos for Toned by Tony?”
There’s a deep sigh on the other end of the line.
“Okay. So, we are absolutely going to address the Tony thing later, because…wow. But just tell me, hypothetically—if we didn’t have to worry about rent, would you still want to fix this situation?”
“But that—”
“Oh my God, Chloe, I’m trying to tell you that I got a job.”
I open my mouth to respond, then shut it again like a dumbfounded fish.
“Uh…what?”
“I got a job!” There’s an excitement in her tone that I haven’t heard in a long time, and I shift the phone to my other ear, gripping it tighter.
“When? How? I mean…holy shit.”
“I should have told you right away. I wanted to wait until the bonus officially dropped into my bank account…but I realize now how stressed you’ve probably been, and, well… I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry.”
“Oh my God, Kyla, a job! That’s incredible!
” A swell of pride practically swallows me whole, and I choke back a sob.
I had spent so many years feeling responsible for her.
Taking care of her. And yes, part of that was my fault for not giving her the reins to her own life sooner.
But I also saw her as incapable of being an adult.
And I should have given her more credit.
I should have believed in her. It would have probably made it easier to let go. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, sissy,” Kyla says with a sniffle, and it’s such a contrast to the last time she was crying on the phone to me, begging me to send her money as soon as I could.
Now the tears are because she has been able to make things happen for herself—and she’s proud.
“So, rent is covered for the next month, and… Well, we may not need to pay rent after that, depending on what you decide to do.”
“Me? Why?”
“The job is in Germany.”
My heart nearly stops beating. Well, that’s how it feels, at least. Because that is a bomb I was not expecting her to drop.