Page 132 of Saint Céline
“Then why not tell her?”
Because my mother had already rebuilt her life once from the wreckage he left behind. Because every time she looked at the Montgomery house, I knew she still remembered arriving there with nothing but me and a few bags and the relief of a door Daniel did not have a key to. Because if I told her he had found me, she would stop sleeping. She would start looking over her shoulder again. She would hear his voice in every strange man’s footsteps, and I would have dragged her backwards into a life she had worked too hard to escape. Because some selfish, childish part of me did not want to see fear return to her face and know I had put it there.
“I’ll tell her if he contacts her,” I said.
“That’s not good enough.”
“It has to be.”
Anya crossed the room and sat beside me, close enough that her knee pressed against mine. She did not touch me otherwise. I appreciated that. I felt too full of nerves to be held properly.
“Okay,” she said, with forced calm. “Then we make a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Yes. Rich girl crisis management. Sophia and I were born for this.”
Sophia did not smile, but something in her expression softened.
“First, you do not answer unknown numbers.”
“I know that.”
“Second, you send us screenshots of everything he says.”
“I can handle—”
“No,” Sophia interrupted, still gentle but immovable.
“You are not handling this alone.”
The words hit strangely. I could not remember the last time someone had said something like that to me without wanting ownership in return.
Miss Astoria jumped into my lap suddenly, all soft weight and offended dignity, and curled against my stomach as if she had decided I was done moving for the evening.
Anya looked down at her. “Even the cat agrees.”
“She agrees with whoever has the warmest lap.”
“That is a valid political ideology.”
Sophia stood and picked up my phone from the coffee table. “Third, tomorrow morning you are going to the university health centre.”
I looked up sharply. “No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sick.”
“You had a panic response.”
“I had a normal response to a bad phone call.”
“That may be true,” Sophia said. “You still need help sleeping and calming your nervous system before you try to overthink this while exhausted.”
“I do not need a doctor because my deadbeat father made a phone call.”
“No,” Anya said, quieter now. “You need a doctor because your hands haven’t stopped shaking in twenty minutes.”
