Chapter 18
“Why the hell does she still have all this stuff here?” I mutter to myself, cursing my sister as I pull box after box out of the top of her old master bedroom closet. Alana has long since moved into her family house with Warren, and yet she still has all this crap here while I’m shoving my clothes into two tiny drawers in a dresser.
This morning, the one day off from the restaurant until tonight that I’ve had in forever, I decided to make my current living space a little homier. Living out of suitcases is not what I had planned when I left Mom and Dad’s house, but I simply haven’t had time to do anything about it.
Which is why I’m currently trying to de-clutter my hoarder of a sister’s closet. I’ve gotten a good chunk of my clothes hung up on empty hangers, but my suitcases are still littering the floor and need to be stacked at the top of this closet.
Not only that but staying busy when I’m not going into the restaurant this morning is something I desperately need. After that creepy-ass motherfucker scared August in the driveway last night, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling of dread ever since. Seeing how white her face was when I carried her inside, how much the shaking rattled her bones, made me want to light the world on fire and burn that guy with it.
Why the hell is she now responsible for her mother’s fuckups? It’s not fucking fair, and nothing about that guy seems to be on the up and up. August’s mother landed her in a dangerous situation, and there is no way I’m letting her go it alone … except I don’t see a way in which she’ll let me help.
If August is anything, it’s steadfastly independent and stubborn as hell about that. She doesn’t think she can trust a soul and believes she must accomplish everything on her own.
This is different, though. This is a whole new level of scary, and she shouldn’t be navigating these waters without a life raft. Someone, maybe the police, need to look into this guy. I know Cass and Alana have used a private investigator in the past for other dangerous situations, and maybe it’s time to get that guy involved.
August will kill me for interfering like that, but we’re already in a stand-off of sorts from the other week at Lily. Me looking out for her can’t damage us further when we’re already so off track, right?
I’m considering grabbing my phone to call my sister when a box falls from the top of the closet, nearly knocking me in the head.
“What the hell?” I curse, scooping up its contents off the floor.
That’s when I start to read the papers it contains.
Bank accounts. Correspondence with an admissions department. And a bunch of instances where August is mentioned.
If there are a few things I know about August, when I had enough time to pay attention to anything regarding her back then, it’s that her mother was awful. She worked her ass off at the restaurant. And that my family was so damn proud when she’d won a full ride scholarship to the university of her dreams.
Except … the evidence in front of me would prove that theory completely wrong. Because thumbing through this paperwork that details transactions and secret conversations about August Percy and her financial aid says that someone else was involved. That someone, namely my sister, is solely responsible for sending August to college. And if I had to guess, Warren’s fingerprints are probably all over this, too.
Maybe August knows. Maybe this paperwork was just kept for bookkeeping’s sake, knowing my brother-in-law. Or maybe … not. Like I said, August is steadfastly stubborn about doing everything on her own.
If I had to take a wild guess, I’d assume she knows nothing about this.
That thought has a nauseous lump dropping down my throat and into my gut. I don’t want this information. I curse Alana for unexpectedly having me be the one to discover it. It was hidden up there for a reason.
She never wanted August to know. And now, I have this information, and it’s not like I can keep it a secret. After that night at the Laura Inn, after going to Lily, I promised I wouldn’t keep knowledge from her. She doesn’t deserve to be in the dark about something like this.
But with all the bad shit already piled on top of her, this might bring her to her knees. I don’t want to deliver a blow, but maybe that’s what she needs.
Why did my sister and Warren feel the need to do this in the first place? It was because August probably refused and refused and refused their help. All her life, she thought she had to do things alone when there were people more than willing to step up. So instead of rustling her cage, they went along with her pigheaded demands.
And instead, went behind her back. It’s time for the people in August’s life to confront her head-on, to make her listen to rational sense.
She’s already pissed and avoiding me as it is, what’s one more thing?
At least all the lies and secrets will finally be out on the table.