Page 108 of Tempting Promises
I’m doing just that.
“Thank you.”
“Right.” Aurora is clearly pissed. “I have to get going. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and tell you I love you.”
There is only one person in the world who can piss me off this much and then make me feel like shit about being pissed, and that’s my sister. Immediately, I hate that I hurt her and snapped.
“I’m sorry, Aurora,” I say, needing to smooth things overbecause, if I lose the farm, I’m going to need her help. And then I blurt out what I’ve been holding in for so long. “I’m under a lot of stress. The farm is in trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
I tell her everything. How the investment to go fully organic was great, but then we’ve had a series of issues. Bills that have just been piling up and the truck needing to be fixed, all of it.
I wait for an offer of help. For some elder sister’s advice because, surely, she knows a way out of this that maybe I just haven’t seen.
“So, you’re going to lose our family farm?” Aurora asks with disappointment.
“I’m trying not to.”
She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Yes, but you might?”
“Yes, Aurora, I might. I’m doing everything I possibly can to avoid that. If I get this contract, all of this will be fine.”
“How did you get this far in debt? How did you not see that you were drowning? This was Mom’s farm, Charlotte. It’s where she grew up, Granny and Pop always wanted it to stay in the family. You were the one who convinced me to sell my half.”
My eyes widen at that one. “Are you kidding? Like, are you kidding me with this?”
“No!”
“Well you should be, Aurora! You ran from this farm. You left to go back to the damn city, and I stayed here! I’ve been killing myself for the last year to get out of this godforsaken hole I’m in. I’ve worked nonstop, gone without any luxury or fun, which you continually tell me to do!”
Aurora jumps in. “I didn’t know we were about to lose the only thing we have left of Mom!”
Tears that I have withheld fill my vision, making her blurry. “You think this is what I want? That this is at all part of my plan?”
“Well, it’s the reality we’re facing.”
Those hovering tears start to fall. I’m so angry, so hurt, so many emotions that I don’t even want to name. I wipe them away and let it go because I am too emotional right now to keep it inanymore. “Oh, now it’s we? Where has the ‘we’ been for the last two years? You’re so worried about losing the farm that you haven’t come home a single time because of a guy who didn’t even like you! Tell me, Aurora, did you even catch him cheating? Because I don’t think you did. I think Rowan told you that he didn’t want to date you because he didn’t want to dateanyone, and you lost your shit because for the first time the pretty princess didn’t get what she wanted. So, you packed your shit and ran.”
Aurora gasps. “Wow, that’s what you think of me?”
I’m not answering that.
“Tell me the truth. Did Rowan do what you claimed?”
I think we both know the truth. This whole time, for all these years, me and everyone else who believed her have treated him like a piece of shit, and it wasn’t true.
“I know what Rowan did,” Aurora says, and I want to reach through the phone and slap her.
“He did nothing. You’ve villainized him, all because he didn’t want whatyoudid. It’s always this way with you. You get what you want or everyone suffers.”
Since our parents died, she’s done this. She played games to make herself come out as the victim, and I always took her side. I’m done now.
“You are so obsessed with Rowan now. Why? Because he was nice to you? That’s what he does. He worms his way into your heart and then breaks it.”
I roll my eyes. “I can’t do this. I have actual problems to focus on. I hoped that telling you would maybe lead to a civil conversation. One where you’d...I don’t know...help. Instead, you’ve managed to make me feel worse than I already did. Go have fun on your dinner and date. I’m going to do what I can not to further disappoint you.”
I sink down in the stall, my back against the wood wall, and let the tears fall. All of it is too much to hold in anymore. I’m so tired of the weight on my shoulders and carrying it alone. I thought, God, Ihoped, my sister would understand and maybe support me like I did her when she left.
