Page 40 of Poison Vows

Before I can stop myself, I start crying.

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” she asks softly. I almost spill my guts about everything that has happened, but I know I can’t.

Not just because of the contract between Emmett and me but because I would rather die than break Grammy’s heart again.

She can’t know about Beverly.

How can I tell her that the daughter she and Gramps lost is out here living large, has another daughter that she kept when she abandoned me, and doesn’t even care for her mother?

No, this is my agony to bear… even until death.

So, I just whisper the only truth I have for now.

“I… I just miss you, Grammy.”So much.

Grammy is silent for a beat, then she hums gently, just like how she did when she’d wrap me in her arms, soothing me back to calm.

“Whatever it is, everything’s going to be all right,” she says softly, maternally, loving me despite the mess I put myself in. “I’m here, waiting for you.”

“I know,” I whisper. “I’ll be home soon, Grammy.”

“Good! Now, tell me. Do you really want to study in that city? I think you should reconsider your other options.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, are you having a good time in New York so far?”

I pause.

“Your silence tells me everything I need to know,” she says. “I need to go but, Ivy, you need to choose who you want to be from now. Either someone who lives in the shadows, hoping and lamenting over the past and flimsy imaginations, or someone of substance, forging her own path, letting go of everything that has tied her down. It’s up to you.”

Her words strike me like a wrecking ball to the chest.

“Grammy?”

“Let the past go, Ivy. That’s all I want for you and this next season of your life,” she says seriously. “There are some things that we don’t need answers for, nor will the answers help you with anything.”

“Does that also include whatever feud is there between us and the Eastons?”

Before I can stop myself, the question is already out there.

To my surprise, Grammy doesn’t miss a beat.

“Yes, including that,” she says seriously. “That boy… Ivy, whatever must be, will always be.”

I know the boy she’s talking about.

Unlike my brother who has been vocal about me staying away from Emmett, Grammy just wanted me to have a sound mind and not be led by my emotions.

“You’re brave, my baby,” she says sweetly. “Braver than even myself, but I also want you to be smart. Now that you’re older,use that intelligence of yours to see the whole picture. Don’t rely on what people say, watch what they are doing.”

I’m so speechless that I can’t even think of a response.

Somehow, her words spark something in me that by the time we hang up, I’m riddled with so much guilt and sadness that I feel angry.

At myself mostly.

Grammy is one hundred percent correct.

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