: Chapter 28

DELILAH WAS WAITING outside the Kaleidoscope Inn, something like worry coalescing in her chest at how late Claire was in picking her up and the three unanswered texts Delilah had sent her, when her phone rang. Already gripping the device in her sweaty palm, she slid her finger across the screen, relief filling her up at the sight of Claire’s name.

“Hey,” she said, pressing the phone to her ear. “Are you okay?”

“Hi,” Claire said. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Where are you?”

“We’re . . . well, we’re heading over to Wisteria House.”

“What?” Delilah frowned, hitched her camera bag higher on her shoulder. “Why?”

“They broke up. Astrid and Spencer. About thirty minutes ago.”

“Oh.” Delilah sagged against the inn’s exterior brick wall. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Apparently, he bought a house in Seattle without telling her, showing her pictures, anything.”

“And that was the straw, huh?”

“I guess so.”

Delilah nodded, even though Claire couldn’t see her. She waited to feel relieved, happy, even. This was what she’d wanted, what they’d all wanted, though Iris and Claire had different motivations from her. For Delilah, she could go back to New York now, get ready for her show at the Whitney. Fifteen grand richer, too. Per her contract, she still got paid in the event of a cancellation, and Isabel would fork over the money without a blink. Her stepmother would be too busy losing her shit on Astrid anyway, the called-off society wedding of her perfect daughter and a bona fide golden boy the stuff of Isabel Parker-Green’s nightmares, no doubt.

Delilah was done.

Free.

She never had to set foot in this town again if she didn’t want to.

So why was her back glued to this red brick wall like it was the only thing holding her up?

“What happens now?” Delilah said, her voice embarrassingly small. She cleared her throat, like a little bit of phlegm was the only reason for the near-whisper.

“Iris and I are going with Astrid to talk to Isabel,” Claire said.

“Yeah. Sure. Astrid will definitely need help with that one.”

“We thought so too.”

A silence pressed between them, and Delilah hated it. If this was going to end, best end it quickly, like a beheading. Painless and fast.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess I’ll—”

“Come with us,” Claire said.

Delilah blinked, then pushed off from the wall. “What?”

“Come with us,” Claire said again.

“Astrid doesn’t want me there.”

“You know how Isabel is. Maybe you could help.”

Delilah laughed, a bright, bitter sound. “Isabel definitely doesn’t want me there.”

“Well, I want you there.”

Delilah closed her eyes. “Claire.”

“Please. Just come, okay? I want to see you. And Astrid’s your family. The only one you have, right?”

“You know it’s more complicated than that.”

“I know. And don’t you wish it wasn’t?”

Delilah frowned, at a loss for what to say to that. Sure, she wished her relationship with Astrid and Isabel was simpler. And once she went back to New York, it would be, nearly nonexistent, just like it always was between visits. But even as she thought this, something else nudged at the back of her mind. A different wish. One where family meant more than awkward encounters and avoided text messages. One where friends meant more than an acquaintance or a colleague or a one-night stand. One where home meant more than a fifth-floor walk-up and IKEA furniture.

But it was too late for that.

Wasn’t it?

“Please,” Claire said again, and goddammit, Delilah didn’t want to say no to her. And if she was being honest, she didn’t want to leave without seeing Claire one more time.

“Fine,” Delilah said. “But meet me outside, okay? I don’t—”

“Want to walk in alone. I know.”

Delilah’s eyes felt suddenly wet. She ended the call before Claire could hear the tears in her voice.

CLAIRE WASN’T THERE to meet her, though Iris’s car was in the driveway. Still, Delilah stood frozen as her Lyft drove away. She should just turn around, go back to the inn, and book her flight home. She didn’t belong here, and she never would.

And yet.

Delilah had taken her time getting to Wisteria House. She’d gotten a coffee at Wake Up, then walked slowly through downtown until she was sure Claire would already be at Wisteria.

She had stopped in front of River Wild Books, gazed through the window at all the colorful spines, the bare walls Claire couldn’t decide how to fill. Brianne, Claire’s manager, waved at Delilah from behind the counter, a bright smile on her face. Delilah waved back, found herself smiling too, which just made all the confusing feelings gathering in her chest like a storm swirl even thicker.

Now, standing in front of her home, she couldn’t make herself turn away. For the first time since her father died, she wanted to go inside.

What the hell had Claire Sutherland done to her?

This wasn’t okay. She needed to leave now. What did she care if Astrid was upset, if Isabel’s perfect fairy-tale wedding was dissolving behind her parlor doors?

She didn’t. Delilah Green didn’t care. Because they’d never once cared about her.

She slumped against the door, pressed her forehead to the thick inlaid glass. Not caring was fucking exhausting.

Before she could stop herself, she twisted the thick brass door handle and stepped inside, lavender and bleach assaulting her senses like always. It was cool, nearly cold, and just as she suspected, the parlor doors to her left were closed, voices murmuring behind them. Once, the room was her father’s office, filled with squashy leather couches and a huge oak desk Delilah used to curl up under with a book while her dad worked. Now, the room looked like something out of Versailles, settees and chaise lounges and fainting couches arranged just so. She walked up to the doors, placed a palm against the wood.

“. . . any idea how embarrassing this will be?” Isabel was saying.

“Embarrassing for who, Mother?” Astrid said, her voice thick and watery-sounding. Delilah had never heard her voice sound like that. “For you or for me?”

“For the both of us,” Isabel said, her voice completely calm. She didn’t scream or yell. She never had in all the time Delilah had known her, but Christ, that woman could spit out an invective like no one else, her tone always measured and cold, which, honestly, made everything worse. More than once growing up, Delilah had tried to rile her stepmother into a frenzy, if only so Delilah wouldn’t be the only one losing her shit.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Astrid said. “But for once, just once, I need you to—”

Astrid’s voice cut off, silence filing the space. Delilah pressed her ear against the door. She thought she heard “It’s okay” in Claire’s soothing tone, but it was so quiet she couldn’t be sure. There was some sniffling, some shushing.

“Oh for god’s sake, Astrid,” Isabel said. “Stop crying. If this is upsetting you so much, call your fiancé and fix it.”

“He’s not upsetting me, Mom, you are,” Astrid said.

“I beg your pardon?” Isabel said, her voice like a knife.

“Just once, please,” Astrid said, “put me first.”

“I have done nothing but put you first your entire life, young lady.”

“No. You haven’t. You’ve put your image first. Your money. Your social standing. And I’m tired, Mom. I’m tired. Delilah’s tired.”

Delilah jolted at the sound of her name. Her heart thrummed, adrenaline flooding her system hot and then cold.

“Don’t you dare talk to me about that girl,” Isabel said. “She made it very clear a long time ago how she feels about this family. You think I don’t know she pushed poor Spencer into the river? And that debacle at Vivian’s, my god. She’s like a barn animal. I don’t know where I went wrong with her.”

“Mom, stop.”

“If you ask me, this is her fault,” Isabel said. “You were perfectly happy marrying Spencer before she came back to town. I warned you she’d just stir up trouble, but no, you just had to have your sister at your wedding, didn’t you?”

Delilah frowned, blinking at the door and trying to process what she’d just heard. Even after all these years, Isabel’s indifference toward her still stung. She wished it didn’t, told herself it didn’t matter, but she couldn’t help it. Some childish, desperate need for love always rose up inside her when it came to Isabel. She said she didn’t care, but the truth was, Isabel was the only mother she’d ever known, and the woman hated her. Or worse, felt nothing toward her.

Isabel didn’t love Delilah Green, and she never would.

And she hadn’t wanted Delilah at Astrid’s wedding. She hadn’t hired her as the photographer. She hadn’t guilted Delilah into coming, indicating her father would’ve wanted her there. She hadn’t offered her a ridiculous amount of money she knew Delilah needed.

Astrid had done all that.

Astrid had wanted her here.

Delilah shook her head and stumbled back from the door. She didn’t want to hear any more. She couldn’t. Her chest tightened and her eyes stung. She turned toward the front door, ready to flee, but she didn’t want that either.

She wanted Claire.

She even wanted Iris.

Without thinking, she let muscle memory take over. Her feet moved her to the right and took her up the vast staircase, hand sliding along the oak bannister like it had done so many times before. Upstairs, she stopped in the doorway to her old room, but there was nothing for her to remember there. All of her things were gone, shipped to New York a month after she’d left Bright Falls at eighteen, when it was clear to Isabel she wasn’t coming back. Her old space was a guest room now, white linens with gray-blue piping, bland paintings of rivers and waterfalls on the wall, sheer white curtains framing the window.

She moved on to the next room. The second she opened the door, she felt like she was walking into a museum of her past. Astrid’s cavernous room looked exactly the same as it had when they were teens. All of Astrid’s favorite books were still on the shelves, her duvet the same delicate lavender and yellow swirls, her white-wood vanity still sporting that Cinderella jewelry box she’d gotten when she was eight, the one Delilah secretly coveted but could never figure out how to ask for.

The only thing different was the few plastic tubs on the floor filled with various childhood items, notebooks and old school folders, award ribbons and medals from all of Astrid’s accomplishments, movie ticket stubs and yellowing programs from the Portland ballet, stuff that had been sitting in Astrid’s closet, forgotten, since she went to college.

Delilah stepped farther in the room and sat on the bed. Growing up, she hadn’t spent a ton of hours in here. She and Astrid were never those kinds of sisters, of course. Still, there were times when she’d darkened the doorway and Astrid had waved her inside to borrow a book or watch a movie on the little TV that sat on Astrid’s dresser, particularly when Isabel was hosting one of her parties and they were both dressed in ruffles and lace, tired of putting on a show and ready to simply be young girls again.

Long-suppressed memories curled through her, fuzzy as though she was waking up from a dream. She peered inside one of the tubs, which was filled with leather-bound books. Astrid’s journals. Her stepsister was always scribbling in these books growing up. Delilah never asked what she wrote, but she was sure if she opened them up right now, she’d see an entry for every single day of Astrid’s life. Delilah wondered if she still kept a journal, what she’d write for today, tomorrow.

She lifted the top book from the tub. It was dark brown leather, embossed with flowers and vines twining over the cover. Flipping it open, Astrid had written her name on the first page—Astrid Isabella Parker—along with the relevant dates, the first of which placed the start of this journal about three months after Delilah’s father died when the girls were ten years old.

Delilah fanned the pages through her fingers, the paper crinkling from age and disuse. Astrid’s neat scrawl, always in dark blue ink, blurred through her vision. She had no intention of reading the journal. This was Astrid’s, filled with her private thoughts, and even Delilah Green wouldn’t cross that line. But then, as the letters rolled by, her eyes snagged on a certain word.

Her thumb caught in the middle, and she opened the book on her lap, flipping a few pages and scanning for her name again.

It was everywhere.

Not on every page, but on a lot of them. She blinked down at the writing, knowing she should close the book and walk out of the room right now, but something kept her there. Something childish and curious, a little girl looking for something to ease this knot in her chest.

Or, maybe, to pull the knot even tighter.

She swallowed, took a breath, and started reading on a page where her name appeared several times.

Delilah set the book in her lap, lungs pumping hard, her memory reaching back, back, back for this time, mere months after her father’s death made her an orphan. She remembered Astrid asking her to watch TV or do homework together every now and then, but this . . . this . . . longing that seemed to fill Astrid’s writing, the worry and wonder and even hurt . . .

That was new.

That was . . . impossible. Astrid never felt like this. She never actually wanted Delilah to be a part of her family. After Delilah’s father died, Delilah was just a burden, an orphan, a strange girl messing up Astrid and Isabel’s perfect life.

Wasn’t she?

She flipped forward a few pages, landing on an entry dated that next spring when they were eleven.

Delilah slammed the book shut and tossed it onto the bed next her. Then she dived into the tub at her feet, searching for another journal. Her hands were shaking because none of this was right. It couldn’t be right.

She grabbed a hunter-green journal a few books down in the stack. Opening it, she found the date, placing it when she and Astrid were in high school, ages fifteen to sixteen. A quick scan of the first pages filled her with relief—her name didn’t litter the writing—until she got to the middle, where Delilah seemed to appear every other word.

Delilah dropped the book into her lap, the blue letters blurring and swirling in her vision. Her chest felt tighter than it ever had before. She had to get out of here. She needed out, right now.

Standing, she let the journal fall from her lap and onto the floor. She rushed to the door, but before she could make her way through it, Claire appeared, her wide eyes softening when she spotted Delilah.

“There you are,” she said. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to meet you. I was watching out the window, but then Isabel—” She froze, her expression shifting back into worry, even alarm as she peered at Delilah. “You okay?”

Delilah nodded, tried to smile, tried to do anything that felt like herself before she walked into this house. No, before that. Before she came back to Bright Falls.

“Bullshit.” Claire said the word so softly, so sweetly, even though it was a swear, Delilah felt herself crumple. Her mouth twisted and her eyes burned and she didn’t know what to say or how to think about anything anymore, not Astrid, not herself, not her entire childhood.

“Hey,” Claire said, reaching out and taking Delilah’s hand. “What’s going on?”

Delilah shook her head, but her fingers gripped Claire’s. She swallowed over and over. There was way too much spit in her mouth. Maybe she needed to throw up. She was suddenly dizzy, her core thrown off-balance.

Claire read her like a book, leading her to the bed and guiding her to sit down. She rubbed slow circles on Delilah’s back, and Delilah inhaled, then let her air out slowly.

“What happened?” Claire asked, fingertips trailing down Delilah’s neck.

Delilah eyed the journal on the floor, then bent to pick it up. “Do you . . . What was I like back when we were kids? Do you remember?”

Claire frowned. Clearly, this was not the question she was expecting. “Um, yeah, I remember.”

“And?”

Claire slid her hand down Delilah’s back. “You were quiet. Sad. You . . . didn’t seem like you . . .” She rubbed her forehead with her free hand. “I don’t know.”

“Just say it.”

Claire sighed. “You didn’t seem like you cared much about anything. About anyone here. Making friends or getting to know people. But you were just different, and I don’t think anyone knew how to—”

“And Astrid? How was I with her?”

Claire winced. “What is this about?”

Delilah ran her hand over the journals. “I just . . . Have you ever wondered if you got it all wrong?”

“Got what wrong?”

“I don’t know. Something big. Like maybe you just missed all the signs, or you didn’t know how to interpret them.”

“What do you mean?”

Delilah shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean.” She thought about those first months after her father died, how alone she’d felt, how abandoned. Isabel was nursing her own grief, Astrid too most likely, so there was no one to help ten-year-old Delilah through the night, no one to hold her hand or wrap her up in their arms or tell her it was going to be okay. She remembered feeling invisible, lost, like maybe her body wasn’t even real. By the time Isabel got it together enough to be a presence in the house, Delilah was already gone. In her mind, anyway. She knew she wasn’t wanted. She knew Isabel never planned on raising a kid who wasn’t even her own blood. A strange kid, at that.

And Astrid . . . Had she tried with Delilah? Did she actually want a sister and Delilah simply didn’t know how to be one? How to be anything to anyone as a little girl who’d just lost the only person who’d ever made her feel wanted?

“It’s okay,” Claire said, pressing her lips to Delilah’s temple. “Whatever this is, it’s okay. Just talk to me.”

Delilah turned to face her, searching Claire’s brown eyes. All of that loneliness from childhood, all of those feelings of being unwanted, a burden, something to be tolerated, she didn’t feel any of that when she looked at Claire.

She felt the opposite.

She had from that very first night in Stella’s, before Claire even knew who she was and Delilah turned the whole thing into a hilarious joke, a twisty little revenge scheme. Even then, something pulled her to this woman, and she didn’t want to miss it.

She didn’t want to misinterpret or ignore or shut down.

Before she could think through it further, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to Claire’s. The other woman gasped in surprise, but then relaxed, cupping Delilah’s face in her hands, her lips parting to let Delilah in. The kiss was slow and desperate at the same time, exactly what Delilah needed. She let the journal fall to the floor again, wrapping her arms around Claire’s waist. They fell back onto the pillows, tangled like a knot. Delilah didn’t want to come up for air to talk, knowing Claire would listen and understand and accept her. Right now, she just wanted to feel Claire’s body pushing against hers, her fingertips drifting down Delilah’s cheek like she was something precious.

“Hey,” Claire said against her mouth, framing Delilah’s face and pulling them apart a little. “Delilah, I . . .” She paused, doubt flickering in her eyes.

“What?” Delilah asked, bottom lip bumping against hers. She didn’t like that doubt. She wanted to excise it like a tumor. “You what? Tell me.”

Claire ran her thumb over Delilah’s brow. “I . . . I don’t want you to leave.”

Delilah pulled back a little farther. “What?”

“I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want this to be casual or just sex or whatever we agreed it would be. I hate casual. Casual sucks. I don’t see how anyone does it.”

“Claire, I—”

“I know you live in New York and you need to be there and I need to be here, but I don’t care. We can figure something out, can’t we? We can tell Astrid about us. Iris too. I just . . . I think, I don’t want—”

Delilah pressed her finger to Claire’s mouth, cutting her off. She stared at the other woman, trying to parse this feeling in her chest, but it only took a second for her to figure it out.

Relief.

A little spark of fear that felt pretty normal for something this big.

Happiness.

Before right now, when was the last time she felt really and truly happy? She couldn’t remember. Getting the email about the show at the Whitney, maybe, but that was different. That was . . . success. This was blood-warming, bone-settling, brain-fogging happiness.

But she couldn’t put any of that into words, not yet, so she pulled Claire closer, slid her hand up her back and around her nape, thumb swirling over her soft skin as she kissed her, pouring everything she didn’t know how to say into every touch, every press of her body against Claire’s.

Yes. Kiss. Yes. Kiss. Yes. Kiss.

Claire laughed against her mouth and wrapped one leg around Delilah’s hips. Delilah slipped her hands under Claire’s shirt, feeling her soft skin, completely forgetting where they were, why they were there. This moment was all that mattered, all she cared about, and—

“What the hell is this?”

For a split second, the voice, the angry tone, the words felt like a dream. Like a movie left on a TV no one was watching. But then Claire sucked in a breath, scrambled away from Delilah, and Delilah found herself alone on the bed as a tear-streaked Astrid Parker stared into her childhood bedroom, her mouth hanging open in shock.