Page 75 of For The Record

“Oh, please,” she says. “You and I both know Isabelle wanted something provocative to launch her career. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did it on purpose. I bet she was asking for it.”

Asking for it?

Isabelle’s received her fair share of scorn for what she said about Antonio. Is this—my mother—really the woman I wanted to care about me? Or is it only that I wanted some other version of her to show herself, some maternal, caring, loving version that maybe never existed at all?

Mouth open, tears stinging my eyes, I push past her and her ugly Chanel purse and keep walking. “I never want to see you again.”

“Skye!” she shouts, marching after me in her Louboutins. “Skye, come on. That is no way to talk to your mother.”

“Well, you’re not my mother,” I snap. “No, mother leaves her children when her youngest child is nine years old and never comes back. No mother chooses fame over her family or says cruel things about her oldest daughter!”

“Your father and I had a very messy divorce,” she says, not even bothering to keep her voice down. I guess she wouldn’t mind if people were filming our confrontation since publicity is all she cares about. “I understand that it was difficult for you, especially when he remarried, but—”

Rage boils my blood. I’m done keeping quiet and hoping she’ll want me. I’m finished with it.

“I cried myself to sleep every night, thinking that you chose acting over me,” I say, pointing my finger in her face. “I know you may not understand human emotions because you’re nothing more than a bloodsucking vampire hungry for fame and eternal youth, but I do. And you made yourself very clear, every day when I was growing up, that everything in your life was more important than raising your own children. You can hate on Dad all you want and hate on Heidi all you want. But at least they were there for us.”

Even in his own way, Samuel Holland was there. Even if it wasn’t how I would have wanted, he was there.

“Skye, I’m your mother no matter what you want to say,” she says icily. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

I walk away, flip her the bird, and Poppy and I double over laughing.

Chapter 36: Leo Perez

The drive to Skye’s apartment goes by in a flash, blurred out by grief and memory. Sitting in the parking garage, I stare at the concrete walls and try to breathe deeply. Tiny alterations weave through my life, from living with Raina for the first time since I was seventeen, to the stockpile of food in my freezer. Buenas Noches was a sombre occasion this year, followed by a New Year’s spent in front of the TV watching the ball drop. All of it is just a painful reminder of what is missing. I shut off the ignition and make my way to the front desk.

“Skye Holland’s apartment,” I say to the security guard.

The man nods; I’ve come here often enough that I recognize the guards and vice versa. “Miss Holland, Leo Perez is here to see you. Should I send him up?”

I hear her tinny affirmation muffled by intercom static.

When her apartment door opens, she’s standing there in a white cotton tank top and matching shorts, bunny slippers, and a silky-looking green kimono, loosely tied around her waist. I shove my hands into my pockets. “Hi.”

She rubs her hands over her arms, looking suddenly small, despite her five-foot-six frame. “Hey. Come in. Poppy is at a family thing with Ryder.”

“Oh.” I shuck off my shoes after closing the door behind me. The moment the door clicks shut, I reach for her, but she steps back. Stomach twisting into knots, I wait for the moment of judgment. When she says, it’s over. This is too much. It’s been fun while it lasted. It never comes.

“I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?” My brows furrow.

“Your dad… I ran into him at work a few days ago,” she says in one breath. “He told me he wanted me to tell you to talk to him.”

“What did you say?” Obviously, she didn’t agree, since we are having this conversation, but curiosity pricks at me all the same.

“That he would go to hell,” she says with a bitter laugh. “I should have told you earlier, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. "

“I guess it’s the time of year when unwanted parents come out of the woodwork,” I comment wryly.

Her eyes light up. “No kidding. I had the same thought when I saw my mom.”

“Your mom?” I ask. I didn’t know her mom was back in her life or even that they ever met for that matter. There’s a lot I still don’t know about her, and sometimes I’m afraid of not having enough time with her.

Solemnly, she nods. “I saw her on Black Friday, at the mall. It was nothing. Nothing worth mentioning.”

“Well, at least we have great minds,” I say, pulling her into my arms, one hand fiddling with the loose ends of her robe tie.

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