Page 58 of Gilt

If only this were about sunscreen. I sigh and pick up the bottle of SPF 50 she sets out for me every morning. Slathering it on my legs, I’m careful to avoid the cuts that are still healing from the incident, as she calls it.

It’s only 10 a.m., but I’ve already reapplied twice. That’s Palm Springs for you. If you don’t melt in the sun, your sunscreen will. In some ways, the desert city is a lot like Vegas, particularly when it comes to their heat indexes. But what had once been the exclusive playground to Hollywood is now more of a retirement community.

There isn’t much to do here, which is why I like to visit. It’s a break from the frenetic hustle of Las Vegas. But given the circumstances of my early exodus to my mother’s house, she’s been constantly hovering. It’s like having a bodyguard without the perks of being a rock star. No sex, drugs, or rock-n-roll under her watch.

Lying back on the chaise, I shut my eyes tightly to the sun, which is creeping steadily toward the center of the sky. I can still feel its heat as its blazing light burns through my eyelids.

Palm Springs is my place to relax—at least it usually is. But Zen is in short supply these days. On the glass table next to me, my phone buzzes. I don’t have to look at the message to know who it’s from. There are only two people in the world who would bother to text me, and one of them used his one phone call weeks ago to reach someone else. I can’t exactly blame him. After he was arrested for assaulting my father, the police had held him while they continued to investigate his father’s murder. Without a law degree, I’m useless to Jameson West. It’s been even harder to be supportive since my mother whisked me from the hospital straight to California. Between my absence and my paranoia that he might be a murderer, I’m a shoo-in for girlfriend of the year.

My dad didn’t object to the rearrangement of custody, but he’d been avoiding me since our last father-daughter brawl. So I know the text is from neither of them, which only leaves Josie. Pushing myself up, I catch the strings of my bikini top and tie it tightly around my neck. I grab my sunglasses and my phone, but as soon as my feet hit the searing heat of the cement, Mom’s face appears from under her hat.

“Drink some water,” she advises.

“I will,” I promise, forcing myself not to sound too sarcastic. If she doesn’t ease up, I’ll make good on that promise by drowning myself. The weight of the water would be a lot less oppressive than her nagging.

She’s scared, a small voice in my head reminds me.

That makes two of us, another retorts.

Great. Now my inner monologues are fighting, too.

I pause near the sliding glass doors, and for a second, the sound of shattering glass and the sharp sting of shards piercing through skin overtakes me. The memory overrides the present until I shake it off.

“Everything okay, Emma?” Mom asks.

I swallow before I nod. “Everything is fine, but I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She abandons Oprah’s latest book club pick and turns to face me. “Yes?”

“It’s just…I promised Dad that I would be around this summer…” I begin, leaving out that I no longer feel obliged to keep that promise—not after I’d been the unintended recipient of his fist. I self-consciously stroke the yellow remnants of the bruise he’d given me. He might have been aiming for Jameson, but he got me. Conveniently for him, no one questioned where the injury on my stomach came from after the accident that night. “So I think I need to head back to Belle Mère.”

Her lips purse as if my words taste funny, and she shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. With everything going on there–”

“That’s exactly why I need to go back,” I interrupt. She had to know this was coming. I’ve never stayed at her resort in Palm Springs longer than two weeks. As of today, I’ve been here for almost a month. “I’ve been here a lot longer than usual.”

“And you spent the first week on narcotics,” she reminds me.

“I’m fine now.” I cross my tan arms over my chest, my golden skin serving as further proof that I’ve spent enough time lounging poolside.

“And you haven’t outstayed your welcome,” she says as if that’s the reason I’d feel obliged to go.

“Look, Josie needs me. The shop needs me—” I stop myself before I add Jameson to that list. Mom doesn’t need to know that he is also pulling me home, not after what happened at his house. Honestly, I’m not even certain he wants me to return to Belle Mère.

And my Mom may not want to admit it, but the strange events plaguing my small community concern her. It doesn’t take a degree in psychology to know she’s choosing to avoid the reality of the situation.

She pulls off her hat and wipes sweat from her damp forehead, then turns the full intensity of her gaze on me. Meeting her cold, emerald eyes is like staring into a mirror. “Hans and I have been talking. We think it would be best if you transfer here for your senior year.”

“Here?” I ask in disbelief. “What happened to ‘I need to worry about college’? Does Palm Springs even have—”

“Here as in California. There are plenty of options in Los Angeles,” she stops me.

“Los Angeles?” I explode. “No way. You might not like it, but I have a life back in Belle Mère.”

“A life you almost lost,” she says flatly.

“It was an accident,” I remind her, even as a shiver ripples up my spine. I’d been too freaked out to tell her the truth, so I’d gone along with the story that Monroe West had concocted about that night. Leighton had been drunk, and when she stumbled, she took me with her, falling through a plate-glass window a few feet to the patio below. I’m certain it was easier to buy off the cops to overlook the underage drinking and partying than it would’ve been to undermine an investigation into something more sinister. No one has questioned the story, even though Leighton is still in a coma.

But I can’t deny the truth to myself: we’d been pushed. Mom didn’t know that. Theoretically, Monroe didn’t either, even though she’d conveniently fed a story to the paramedics.