Page 159 of The Silent Note

I keep my tortured gaze on the ground, my hands frozen as fists, my mouth zipped closed. I stand there while she throws her purse at me again. While she finds more missiles—her shoes, a tube of lipstick, the glass cup on the counter and, finally, the paperweight on the credenza.

“Ah!” I cry out when the heavy object hits my recovering wrist. A perfect bulls-eye.

Pain throbs, flaring out through my body.

My shout of distress shakes Marion from her craze. She pauses with a basket over her head, poised to throw it at me.

Slowly, painfully, she drops her arms and the basket rolls across the ground.

For a split second, our harsh breaths are all that can be heard in the cavernous mansion.

“Please,” she begs, as her shoulders slump, “let… her… go.”

I cradle my wrist and look into the face of the woman who has every right to hate me.

It’s time to leave.

“Call someone. You shouldn’t be alone right now. Grey wouldn’t want that.”

The pain in my wrist is excruciating, but something tells me Marion is in even more anguish than I am.

“She won’t care,” Marion whimpers. “She chose you.”

I freeze.

“In the principal’s office, I told her that as long as she was with you, she would never see or speak to me again.” Marion stares at the ground as her bottom lip trembles. “She stormed out. She chose you.”

“I’m sorry,” I breathe out, but I’m not sure if I’m apologizing to Marion or Grey.

“Sorry won’t change her mind. She’s made her decision. So it has to be you who gives her back to me.”

That will never happen. I keep walking to the door.

“Nothing good will come if you stay with her!” Marion yells at my back.

I pause in the doorway. Turn my head slightly. “No. Nothing good will come if you try to take her from me.”

Chapter Forty

GREY

I spend all of lunch surrounded by people who have never once been friendly to me. Normally, I’d find a way to excuse myself, but the pasta served at the cafeteria is so amazing that I literally black out.

“Did you enjoy lunch?” Cadence asks, catching up to me after I leave the teacher’s bathroom.

“It was amazing.” I pat my belly. “I knew Redwood’s chefs were top-tier, but someone put theirfootin that.”

“Their foot?”

“Oh, it’s a saying my mom…” I falter. Talking of mom reminds me of that plane ticket she sent and the big fight we had. Walking out of the principal’s office today was a choice that I made for myself and for Sloane. But that doesn’t make it hurt less.

Mom is stubborn. She won’t be reaching out to me first, especially after promising that if I stay with Zane, I’ll never see her again. Her pride won’t allow her to take the words back or apologize.

I have my pride too but, more than that, and my mission won’t allow me to stop now. My relationship with mom is in pieces, but we’re still family. Even if we don’t speak to each other. All I can do is hope that in a few weeks or a few months or a few years, when the wound isn’t so fresh, we’ll be able to communicate again.

“Grey?” Cadence asks, gently touching my arm.

I clear my throat. “I’m okay. Really.”

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