"Her name was Olive," Mom says suddenly. "My friend. And the man she married... his name was Nicholas Crawford."
The world tilts.
Crawford.
Crawford.
The name echoes in my head like a death knell. My blood runs cold, ice spreading through my veins until I can't feel my fingers.
What arethe chances that this is the same family?
"The Crawford family," Mom continues, unaware of the bomb she's just detonated. "They have an estate in Maui. Olivelives there with him. Or she did, last I heard. They had a son named Phoenix. We haven't spoken in years."
I can't breathe.
Phoenix Crawford.
Son of Olive and Nicholas Crawford.
The man I just slept with. The man whose bed I just crawled out of. The man who sent me a check and flew me across the country and?—
Oh God.
"Jade?" Mom's voice sharpens. "What's wrong?"
I open my mouth, but no words come out. How can I tell her? How can I possibly explain that the man she's warning me about, the pattern she's begging me not to repeat. It’s already happening. History isn't just rhyming. It's repeating, word for word, beat for beat.
Nicholas sent Olive a check. Phoenix sent me a check.
Olive went to Hawaii. I went to Malibu.
Nicholas controlled her. Phoenix is controlling me?
Like father, like son.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I say, my voice strangled.
"Come home." Her voice is steel wrapped in velvet. "Right now. Get on a plane tonight and come home."
"I can't."
"You can. You just won't."
Something cracks inside me. All the years of following her rules, of living by her principles, of letting her shape me into who she thought I should be—it all comes rushing to the surface.
"No," I say, and my voice doesn't shake. "I'm an adult. I make my own choices."
"Then you're making the wrong one."
"Maybe—" I take a shaky breath. "Maybe what you taught me waswrong."
The silence that follows is devastating. I can almost see Mom's face, the hurt that must be carved into every line.
When she speaks again, her voice is barely a whisper.
"Then I've failed you."
The line goes dead.
