Page 37 of Sorrow & Strangers

I shake my head. “It should have been me.”

“No,” Alice says, her voice firm. “Connor wouldn’t have allowed that.”

“He was so good,” I repeat. “And I’m⁠—”

“You’re you, and you are deserving,” Alice interrupts. “Connor is gone, but you are not, and it is so selfish for me to ask this of you, but . . . I need to ask you to live. Beg you to live.”

I whimper, the pain somehow worse now.

“I know you don’t want to, but—” Her voice cracks. “I need you, Summer.”

“He was everything that was good about me. He and you, and now he’s gone.”

Alice shakes her head. “He’s still a part of you. You remember how it was before? He softened you to love. To affection.”

“I miss him,” I say on a soft sob.

“I know.”

I open my hand again and look down at the ring, the now-tainted ring. “She took it from me.” I shudder at the memory of seeing it on her finger, watching her admire it. “Wore it as she tortured me. Wore it as she ­murdered—” The words get stuck in my throat, too awful to speak out loud.

Alice closes my hand again, looking at me. “And you are fucking reclaiming it.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Summer

Istare at Alice, unsure how to do that. How do I reclaim something that was taken from me so violently? That ring used to be a sign of my future, of belonging, of love, and happiness. It was a beacon of hope that someday I might achieve the peace the Almighty had promised me. Now it only reminds me of what could have been.

“I want to call my mom.” I’m not sure where the need comes from, but it’s somewhere deep inside me. There is a warmth attached to my desire to hear her voice that I’ve never felt before, and I know deep, deep down that speaking to Farrah will help me in this moment. I’d honestly love nothing more than to be back in Eden, inside the warmth of ‌her hugs.

Alice nods and pulls back to grab my phone from my drawer. I look at the screen and see I’ve missed multiple messages from Alice, asking where I am, and a school notification about evacuating the end of Manananggal Hall, where the headmaster’s office is.

I ignore them all and tap on Farrah’s name. It starts to ring, and just the anticipation of hearing her soft, caring voice soothes me.

Farrah picks up after two rings. “Darling? Are you okay?” she asks by way of greeting, and I can hear the suppressed panic in her voice.

“Mom?” I whimper into the phone, emotion swelling inside me.

“Summer, what’s wrong?” she asks, her voice steady but insistent.

“Mom,” I sob. “I just . . . I don’t know if I can do this.”

Alice rubs soft circles on my back, soothing me.

“Do you want to come home?” she asks, and I can hear her moving, probably going to get Uriel to send him down to collect me.

I exhale a shaky breath, and it takes everything in me to decline her offer, and if Alice weren’t sitting beside me, I probably wouldn’t be able to. “No. I promised Connor I would stay. But I just . . .” The words are lost, trapped inside by my grief.

“Oh, my darling girl. I know how much you miss him. I do too.”

Choking back my sobs, I open my hand, looking down at the ring again. “I have the ring back,” I say with a sniffle.

There is a beat of silence, and then Farrah says, “I’m glad it’s back where it belongs.” The soft compassion in her voice tells me she now understands what brought about this meltdown. Relief eases me a little more, and I realize that there was a tiny part of me that wondered if she would ask for it back, if I would be faced with cruelty. I should have known better because that is not her. She loves me.

“Mom?”

“Yes, darling?”