The Ariatless Chronicles Book 2 - Shattering Secrets (Second Edition) Excerpt
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...It wasn’t fair. Her Mom was completely out of it and today was her idea: some lame mother daughter day…
“Maybe I’m only twelve—but I’m not stupid.”
Andrea Andretti reigned in her exasperation and the prickling aggravation that this conversation always triggered. Her daughter had every right to be angry with her—and to assume that Andrea was mentally missing in action because of an impromptu act of torture executed by her ex-husband.
“Honey we’ve been through this. What your Dad did, he did to me. He never meant to hurt you.” Andrea stirred her milkshake with her straw. It was too thick to drink so it wasn’t serving it's purpose as a distraction or an excuse for silence. She didn’t want to be having this conversation right now. This wasn’t the place: the mall cafeteria was an inappropriate venue to start airing dirty laundry.
Andrea watched her daughter’s face, on the lookout for the traditional temper tantrum. She was surprised by the wirey girl’s dull reply, “He did it to both of us. You know how?”
The return of petulance to the girl’s voice was almost a relief. Andrea wasn’t prepared for her daughter to start making life altering connections, not when they could potentially destroy the child's normally happy nature.
“Are you going to tell me?” Andrea leaned back, eyes flickering toward the exit just beyond the movie theatre, waiting. She felt bad enough about tonight as it was.
Tight brown curls curtained forward, a shield that Andrea’s little girl established to hide from difficult confrontations, or from expressing her own emotions. She had her mother’s complete attention—for the first time all night. The girl's voice was quiet, angry and disappointed at the same time, but not just in her father.
“By making me think it was all your fault.”
“What?” Andrea’s arms uncrossed, hanging stunned by her side. The man was the devil’s disciple. She’d had no idea he’d been filling their daughter’s head—despite what he’d done to their family, Andrea still believed that a sliver of the man she'd married was left, and if she couldn’t trust that man with the welfare of his own daughter…
Andrea didn’t know how to respond. She wanted to grind her ex-husband to dust—but that would be no different than what he was apparently doing to Andrea. Except he wasn’t doing it to Andrea—he was doing it to their daughter. She was the one being hurt.
“Sweetheart, I—”
Andrea didn’t get to finish.
“Andrea!”
At the sound of the angry greeting, both Mother and daughter jumped in their grated cafeteria seats.
Andrea resisted the urge to shrivel under her daughter’s withering glare. She hadn’t told her that Holly would be picking her up for the evening. It was just supposed to be the two of them.
“I want to talk about this—ok? Can we talk about this tomorrow?” Andrea half stood, balancing against the table top, but the girl’s arms were crossed in a striking rendition of her mother’s traditional angry pose.
“You said this was supposed to be our night!”
“I know, it—”
“Andrea! You can’t call me out of a workshop like that. You knew I had a class! I had to ask Cindy to come in.”
No one wanted to give Andrea a chance to talk tonight. Her sister was just as angry as her daughter—maybe more.
“Ok. One minute. Just one minute.” Andrea held up a finger, imploring her daughter to have patience before pulling her twin sister Holly off to the side, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it this time. What’s the emergency, Andrea? No—let me guess, you can’t tell me.”
Andrea refused to let her shoulders slump. Holly had every right to be angry too. It was getting to be too much: all these secrets. They didn’t just weigh on Andrea. They were crushing her family, suffocating the little bit of life she’d managed to maintain. “Holly, please. There’s something I need to do tonight—and it’s more important than a class, or milkshakes…it’s a matter of life or death.”
Holly wasn’t backing down. Andrea had aged more quickly and Holly appeared to be the healthier of the two these days. She didn’t care. Holly wasn’t going to be to be used, “This matter seems to crop up a few times every year. You know as well as I do that something’s wrong with this…” Holly gestured, at a loss for words, flustered by the combination of anger and worry that she’d been living with for two years. She and Andrea were twins. They used to share everything. But it seemed like Andrea had done almost everything in her power of late to test that tie, “…with everything. But I told you, Andrea. I told you not today. And you called anyway.”
“I know.” Andrea wouldn’t defend herself. There really was no excuse. She felt bad as it was. But this couldn’t wait, it couldn’t be any other day and she couldn’t ask Stephan to take her daughter, not without more questions. Andrea was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She kept telling herself that someday Holly would forgive her.
“Please. You’re here. Just take her. I’ll pick her up later tonight.”
Holly stared. For a minute she couldn’t believe this was her sister: this was the woman she’d grown up with, whose face she knew as well as she knew her own. Andrea was a stranger. Holly had half a mind to treat her like one. Instead, the woman squared her jaw, disbelieving, “You’re not going to tell me anything.”
Andrea took a deep breath and shook her head decisively, “No, Holly, I’m not.”
“I see.” Holly turned her gaze toward her niece who sulked all alone, refusing to look over at them. Andrea noticed the twitching veins in her sister’s jaw and held her breath. This was the moment of truth. Holly could decide to hang her out in the cold and Andrea wouldn’t blame her. She’d deserve it. Or, Holly would decide to accept what Andrea could never tell her.
There were no clues in Holly’s expression when she turned back.
“Fine. I’m here and I’ll take her. This time.”
Andrea’s relief was short lived. Holly turned her back without giving Andrea a chance to say anything else, “Let’s go, you’re gonna come back to the studio with me for a little while, sound good?”
No. It didn’t. But Andrea’s daughter didn’t have anything left to say. She stood up, grabbed her cross body bag, and stormed toward the automatic glass doors.
“Wait, Holly…” Andrea grabbed her sister’s arm. She might not have another chance, “I need you to do something else for me.” There was no turning back now.
“Something else?” Holly was incredulous.
“If…something happens to me—ever, if anything ever happens to me…I need you to take her. I don’t want Ryan to have her. It’s you—or Stephan. She can’t live with Ryan. Promise me.”
Holly thought she would always know what was coming when it came to her identical twin. She was wrong. For two years Andrea had been running Holly down to the wire, scaring her on a regular basis. Holly didn’t doubt that the occasions were legitimate. Right now, she didn’t care. That fear couldn’t be expressed. Holly was helpless to change it so it diverted into biting anger, “You should damn well marry Stephan, Andrea—give him some real legal standing. Let him adopt her. You’re cruel stringing him along like this. He'd do anything for you and that little girl. What are you doing? You’re putting everyone you love through the wringer. Make a decision Andrea.”
But Andrea couldn’t. The woman stood for as long as she could, watching her sister and her daughter walk out, before sinking back down into the wire booth. Andrea couldn’t make that decision—not yet. Not while there was still a chance that Adrianne might be alive.