Chapter 20 20
ARIELLE'S POV
“I’m going to my room,” I muttered, and retreated, leaving them in the living room. The climb up the stairs felt longer than usual.
I didn’t slam my door. I just closed it gently and sank onto the edge of my bed, staring at nothing. The confrontation, my mother’s raised hand—it all played on a loop behind my eyes.
They didn’t leave me alone for a long minute. A soft knock, and then Granny and Quinta let themselves in. Granny sat on the bed next to me, the mattress dipping under her slight weight. Quinta took the armchair by the window, her cane propped beside her.
“You know,” Granny began, her voice a soft murmur, “your mother doesn’t hate you. Even though she scolds you more than she… acknowledges you.”
Quinta nodded from her chair. “It’s the weight she carries, child. The pack, your father… it has made her hard where she used to be soft. But the core is still there. She bleeds for you, even if she doesn’t know how to show it.”
I looked between them, these two women who represented the only softness in my life. “Then I guess she’s always been like this for ages,” I said, a statement, not a question.
They looked at each other, and a strange, shared chuckle passed between them, a sound of dismissal. “No,” Quinta said, her old voice firm. “Serena was never this cold. Not in the last.”
Granny nodded, her gaze drifting to the window, seeing a different time. “That’s true. She used to be so loving. So full of light. It was your father who was the stern one, and she was the laughter that balanced him.”
There was a brief, heavy silence, filled with the ghosts of the people my parents used to be. I broke it. “But why does she restrict me from going to certain packs?” I asked, the morning’s mystery pushing to the forefront. “I only went to Dead Moon to see a friend. Mandy. She just moved there. And Mother made a huge fuss about it.”
I looked between them, pleading for an answer that wasn’t just ‘because I said so.’ Their faces did a subtle thing then. The openness was closed off. Granny’s smile became placid, and Quinta’s gaze dropped to her hands. It was a withdrawn look, a curtain being drawn.
“I hadn’t gone there to cause trouble for her, Granny. Quinta, I swear,” I insisted, feeling the frustration bubble up again.
“We understand, dear,” Granny said, but her voice had a finality to it. “But don’t just go to that pack again.”
“Why?” I pressed, leaning forward. “Give me a solid reason. A real one. Other than what Mother says about it being ‘dangerous.’ What’s so dangerous about it?”
They became mute. Stone-faced. The kind of silence that isn’t empty, but full of things deliberately not said. Great.
“I’ll go get you something to drink to cool off,” Quinta said abruptly, heaving herself up with her cane. It was so clearly an escape, an avoidance of the question, that it was almost funny. She shuffled out, leaving me alone with Granny.
I opened my mouth to press Granny, to beg for a crumb of truth, when a new sound cut through the house—rapid, approaching footsteps on the stairs, followed by a voice yelling my name with a force that was pure, undiluted Sheila.
“ARIELLE! ARIELLE!!!”
My bedroom door was forced open without a knock. Sheila stood there, her chest heaving, her face a picture of dramatic outrage.
“You got hurt and I’m the last to—!” She slammed to a halt mid-yell, her eyes landing on Granny. All the fury melted into sheepishness in a blink. “Hello, Granny.”
“Hi, dear,” Granny said, her eyes twinkling with amusement. She looked from Sheila’s flushed face to my startled one. “What were you saying about Arielle?”
Sheila forced a loud, fake laugh, waving her hands. “Nothing! Well, I was just blabbering. You know me!” She giggled, the sound high and nervous, her eyes screaming at me from across the room.
Granny shook her head in fond resignation. “You children. Your mother was never this loud, Sheila.”
Sheila bit her upper lip, a habit she had when she was processing something, though she rarely processed anything deeply. “Yeah, I know,” she said, recoiling a little. “But I guess I took after my dad.”
Granny’s face softened into a real frown. “No, dear. That’s an insult… to your father.” With a last, meaningful look at me, she patted my knee and left, closing the door quietly behind her.
The second the latch clicked, Sheila launched herself across the room and dropped onto the bed beside me, grabbing both my hands. “That dumbass, two-timing, dick-for-brains, waste-of-oxygen fuckboy cheated on you last night!” she hissed, her voice a furious whisper. “Why am I the last one to know?!” She groaned, throwing her head back. “Mandy just informed me before I came here, which means she got to know about it first!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, a real apology. Sheila and I had been friends since we were toddlers chasing each other through the gardens.
“Really?” she demanded, turning her fierce gaze on me. “We’ve been friends since we were in diapers, Arielle. I’m your best friend. Sure, I’m a year younger, but I’m still reliable and I can keep a secret and… and…” She paused, seeing the genuine exhaustion on my face.
She inhaled sharply, her anger deflating. “Okay. It’s not about me. I’m sorry.” She exhaled in a long whoosh. “How could he? How could he cheat on you? I’m so pissed just thinking about it.”
A dry, humorless laugh escaped me. “Really? Well, I wasn’t so pissed when I saw him fucking Angel.”
Sheila went perfectly still. Her eyes widened until I could see the white all around her dark irises. Her grip on my hands turned vice-like.
“What?” The word was a strangled whisper. Then her voice rose, trembling with a whole new level of outrage. “He cheated on you with ANGEL? That backstabbing, plastic-faced, soulless, SLIMY BITCHHHHH?!”