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“I don’t know. I’m not sure anybody does. But I’m worried about him, Celeste. We all are.” She toyed with the hem of her sweater. When her eyes finally lifted to mine, I saw a flicker of regret there.
“Chloe?”
“There’s something else,” she said. “But I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Okay.” I braced myself for it.
“Your mom told Harleigh to stay away from you.”
My eyes grew to saucers “She did what?”
Chloe nodded, reaching for my hand. “I don’t know the specifics, but she told Harleigh to back off and leave you be.”
“I… she really did that?”
Another nod. “Harleigh told Nix that it was your dad. But she confessed to me that it was your mom. She’s trying to keep the peace.”
I don’t know why I was surprised. Mom had taken an instant dislike to Harleigh the moment she had moved in with us. But it cut deep knowing that my own mother would rather see me sad and lonely than let me have a relationship with my sister.
“Mom has never been an easy woman to navigate.” I sighed. “But this is… I can’t believe she did that.”
“Harleigh loves you, Celeste. She just doesn’t want to get in the way of your life, your future.”
“I don’t care about any of that.”
Chloe’s brow crinkled. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“I want to go to college and get a degree and a good job, but not at the expense of who I am and the people I care about.”
“You’re a good person, babe. And I’m so fucking angry at Zane for pulling that shit with you.”
“We’re too different.” Pain coiled around my heart. I’d tried more than once to show him that I cared—that the fact we were from different worlds didn’t matter to me. But it wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t enough.
“Do you really believe that?” Chloe smiled but didn’t reach her eyes.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe because he does. He believes it, Clo.” And there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to give up?”
“I don’t know what else to do.” I threw my hands up in defeat. “I kept telling myself that he lashed out because he was scared, but you didn’t hear the things he said to me, Clo.”
Shame washed over me. He’d said some truly heinous things to me. Things that deserved my anger. But I couldn’t just switch off my feelings so easily.
“Boys are fucking clueless at times. The fact that he didn’t tell Kye and Nix about what he was going to do speaks volumes. Zane really thinks he had to deal with this alone and that’s bullshit. We all love Grams. She’s family. God, I hate this.”
“What will happen… with the loan shark?”
“I don’t know.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, letting it pop. “But it’s never a good idea getting tangled up with somebody like Leo D’Angelo.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.”
“Nothing. I didn’t come because I thought you could fix it, Celeste. I just thought you would want to know.”
“Thank you. I’m guessing no one knows you’re here?”
“What do you think?” She gave me a small knowing smile. “But the way I see it, you’re one of us too, Celeste. Screw what anyone else says.”
