Page 72 of Switching Graves

“It’s not like that, Sonny. God, I knew you’d act this way. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“What way? As someone who genuinely cares about you and doesn’t want to see you get taken advantage of?” My voice is a high-pitched scream at this point.

She lowers her voice. “They aren’t scamming me. I’ve told you a thousand times, these people are cool.”

“They don’t seem cool to me.”

“Like you would know . . . ” she scoffs.

My mouth pops open at that insult. Regardless of how different we’ve always been—and how antisocial I am—she’s never once said a cross word about it.

“I’m going to hang up before you say something you can’t take back. Pick a date and find a way to get home, so you can tell your mother before she flies out here to find you. It’s not just your ass on the line for this, and I’d appreciate it if you took the situation more seriously.”

I end the call before she can respond, then throw my phone across the couch. My mind is racing with thoughts as my furytoward her grows the more I replay our conversation. I hate getting caught in this angry cycle, but it feels impossible to navigate my way out of the spiral.

As if my thoughts conjured a distraction, there’s a knock on my door that pulls me out of my head enough to realize it’s past three, and I stomp over to find Ava, Beatrix, and Jonah waiting on the other side.

“Oh, right. It’s Sunday,” I grumble, opening the door wider for them to walk in. We had plans to hangout, and I completely forgot.

“Is this a bad time?” Beatrix asks as she takes slow, tentative steps past me.

“No,” I bite out, slamming the door behind Jonah.

“What crawled up your ass?” he asks boldly, quickly hopping away when the heavy door almost catches his foot.

“I’m fine. I just need a second.”

I need more than that. I need to scream into a pillow and slam my fists into a wall, but I doubt they’d understand if I admitted that.

I can’t believe Poppy is being so selfish.

I can’t believe I’ve put myself in such a vulnerable position with someone who genuinely doesn’t care how her actions affect me. Because we’ve tangled our lives together so tightly,everythingshe does has a direct impact on me at this point.

“Are you sure? We can go . . . ” Ava starts, pausing in front of my couch with her hand pointing toward the door.

“I promise, I’m fine,” I say a little softer. Guilt settles over me as I notice that all three of them have kept their coats and shoes on, as if they’re ready to run out. “I had an argument with my cousin and it threw me off.”

Beatrix falls onto the couch first, leaning back into the cushions like it’s hers. “We love family drama.”

Ava follows, sitting on the edge with her back ramrod straight and her purse tucked into her lap. “Yeah, tell us all about it.”

Jonah plops down beside Beatrix, frowning as he reaches beneath him and pulls out the journal I threw earlier.

Shit.

“What’s this?” He scrunches his nose in disgust and holds it up with two fingers, as if it’ll bite him if it gets too close.

“It’s nothing. Just a thing I need to read for a research project,” I lie, lunging across his lap to snatch it from his hands.

“What are you researching? Psychological disorders of the colonial era?” he asks as he swipes his palms across his jeans.

Beatrix chuckles. “Seriously, that thing looks ancient. Where did you get it?”

“I found it in Whitlock’s office.” Not a lie.

But Ava, the obsessed history nerd, sits up even straighter. “Can I see it?”

“Um . . . ” I try to think of a reason to decline, but my mind goes blank. After way too long of a delay, I finally say, “it’s really fragile.”

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