“You’re right. It’s not.” Anne-Sophie glared at her in challenge. This was it. This would be the defining moment of their relationship. “I suppose it would be more fair to say all you ever do is run away from your problems instead of facing them, and you don’t care who you hurt in the process.”
“That’s not true.” Juliette’s voice trembled. She could barely defend herself against her sister’s accusations because, honestly, what was there to say? She’d done all of those things exactly. Instead of shoving them away and ignoring them, Anne-Sophie was calling her out for all of her mistakes.
“Anne-Sophie,” Adrienne warned firmly but softly.
Everyone was listening. Their eyes may have been averted, may have been focused on the clay they were trying and failing to form, but they were completely tuned into the argument. Even Erin stepped back and let out a low whistle while she pretended to tidy up the shelves of pottery waiting to be fired in the kiln.
Anne-Sophie pointed one accusatory finger. “It is true. You left to get away from Mama, but you abandoned us. You turnedyour back on us. We’re your sisters, Juliette. And you treated us like we had somehow wronged you. Ineededyou and you left me.”
Juliette struggled to find the right words. To make her sister understand. But she was speechless.
“Do you have any idea how she treated me after the accident? After I almost died? She was suffocating, I could barely breathe without her noticing. She never let me do anything, I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t leave the house. You were supposed to be there for me, you promised me you’d never leave me.” Anne-Sophie was yelling now. Frustration and anger colored her cheeks a vibrant shade of pink.
Anne-Sophie shoved up from the wheel, and clay flew in every direction. She gathered up a handful and launched it at Juliette.
It splattered against Juliette’s sweatshirt, staining the gray to a muddy, orangey brown.
“Soph!” Juliette shrieked.
She collected another fistful and heaved it in Juliette’s direction. This one smacked her in the face. Cold, wet clay smothered her skin and she gasped.
“Anne-Sophie!” Vivianne cried.
Clay clung to Juliette’s hair and lashes. It stuck to her cheeks and nose. Furious, she grabbed her own clay and launched it at her baby sister. “Stop being so immature!”
Her aim struck true, and the clay was a direct hit on Anne-Sophie’s designer sweater, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even blink. She was full of fire and refused to be put out. “I’m glad Rodrigo left you. Now you know what it feels like to be forgotten. To be unloved.”
A collective gasp sounded throughout the room. Blood rushed in Juliette’s ears. Ringing. Deafening. She sucked in a breath but it was hollow. Her chest ached, like her broken hearthad been sliced open, carved from the inside out, gaping and empty. Tears of mortification brimmed along the edges of her eyes, and she hastily blinked them away.
Adrienne stalked across the room and grabbed Anne-Sophie by the arm. “That’s enough.”
Juliette shook her head. She had to get out of there. To get away. Before any more damage was done. She snatched her coat off the back of the chair, struggling to see through the burn of tears.
Her watery gaze found Erin. “I’m sorry for the mess. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come.”
“No, Jules.” Erin reached out, but Juliette dodged her grasp. “Please stay. It’s just clay. It’s meant to be thrown down?—”
“She’s right. She shouldn’t have come here.” Anne-Sophie sniffed and flicked a bit of clay from her shoulder. Her eyes were red. “She shouldn’t have come here at all. Not to Lovely Mud. And definitely not back to Mystic Cove.”
“You willneverunderstand.” Juliette turned away from them. She had to get out of there.
“There you go,” Anne-Sophie called after her. “Running away again.”
Juliette whirled around on her sister, spreading her arms wide. Her voice pitched high, full of despair. “What do you want from me, Soph?”
“I want you to apologize! I want you to admit you were wrong.” Anne-Sophie’s words trembled as they fell from her lips. “I want you to say you’re sorry for leaving me behind.”
And there it was. There was the real reason for all of her baby sister’s anger and resentment.
Juliette had left her behind.
Tears slid down Anne-Sophie’s face, mixed with the clay on her cheeks, and turned into tiny waterfalls of mud.
“I know it wasn’t your job to raise us. It wasn’t Gabrielle’s either. We have a mother.” Anne-Sophie rolled her shoulders back, and a breath shuddered out of her. “But I think everyone here can agree she could’ve done a better job at it.”
Murmurs of assent sounded softly, and then Miss Bobbie stepped forward. “Now, Anne-Sophie, your mother loves you girls. She wasn’t the same after?—”
“After the accident, I know.” Anne-Sophie’s face crumpled. She was the only one to survive the car accident that killed their father.
