“And I’m supposed to be her daughter.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. For a moment there was only the sound of Savannah breathing on the other end of the line.
“You always make everything about you,” she eventually hissed.
Something in me went very still.
I wasn’t angry. Or at least it wasn’t the hot, explosive kind of anger I could categorize. All I felt was … ice. Ice spreading through my chest, pumping through my veins, making me go numb.
For most of my life I would have apologized by now. I would have backtracked, softened my tone, and tried to smooth over the tension like it was my responsibility to make sure everyone else felt comfortable.
Instead I found myself sitting there in Sasha’s oversized shirt, looking out over an ocean thousands of miles away from home, realizing something that felt both obvious and completely new.
I was tired of this charade.
“I worked three jobs last year,” I said slowly.
Savannah went quiet.
“I opened the bakery every morning at six after Dad died because someone had to,” I continued, my voice calm in an almost surprising way. “Then I closed the café at night because we needed the money. Then I delivered groceries on weekends because the bills kept coming even after the customers stopped.”
“The business was failing long before Dad died—”
“I know.”
“Then why are you acting like you were personally responsible for saving it?”
“Because someone had to try.”
Another stretch of silence.
I could practically see Savannah standing in her pristine kitchen, which I’d only ever seen pictures of, her phone tucked against her ear, her expression tightening the way it always did when a conversation drifted outside the neat boxes she preferred.
“You’ve always been dramatic,” she snapped.
I let out a quiet laugh. “Right.”
“Adelaide—”
“You know what the funny thing is?” I interruptedgently.
More silence, but I plowed on anyway.
“I thought you were calling because something had happened to me.”
Her voice sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m actually no longer in Florida,” I said simply. “I haven’t answered my phone in days. I stopped texting. I basically dropped off the face of the fucking earth.”
“What?”
“And the first thing you thought wasn’t concern about my well-being, it was accusing me of being selfish.”
Savannah exhaled sharply. “You’re twisting this.”
I scoffed. “Am I?”