But for right now, life was going to suck.
Chapter
Twenty
“Christian, I only have a minute.”Angelica gripped the handle on her purse tightly as she pressed the phone to her ear. “I’m about to get on a plane.”
Her heart steadied, but it was rare for her brother to call. Usually it was texts and emails that she never actually answered.
“It’s Mom.”
Cold rushed through Angelica. She stilled, staring at the gate that was in front of her, the escape she’d already been begging to take from filming for the one night that she could get away before flying back into the chaos that had been this season so far.
“What about Mom?” She really didn’t want to ask that, but Christian wasn’t giving her any more information. In fact, he sounded like he had struggled just to get those two words out. She could be patient, even when it was about her mother, because this was for him and no one else.
“It’s bad, Ange.” He choked again.
Angelica glanced up at the gate desk with her phone in her hand—ticket on that phone—and knew she’d have to rush this along. “I hate to push, but I’m about to get on a plane. What’s going on?”
“She’s in the hospital. It’s… they don’t expect she’ll make it. She’s really sick.”
“Sick with what?” Angelica shifted her stance, easing the tension that entered her right hip from how she’d been leaning.
Christian didn’t answer immediately, which set the hairs at the back of Angelica’s neck standing straight up. She clenched her jaw and swallowed hard.
“What’s she sick with, Christian?”
“I don’t know. She won’t tell me, and she told Dad not to tell me either.”
Angelica sighed heavily. Leave it to her mother to still try and manipulate people on her deathbed. If she even was on her deathbed. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Angelica closed her eyes and centered herself. “Why are you calling me?”
“I thought you might…” he paused, as if realizing what he was going to say out loud and then backtracking a bit. “I thought you might want to see her one last time.”
Oh no, he just went there, fully.
“We talked about this, and you can either respect my decision or not. But I’m not going to see her, I don’t want to speak with her, and if she dies with just you and Dad, then that’s who she dies with. It doesn’t concern me.” Angelica’s heart pattered wildly. Why was it always so difficult to talk to Christian like this? Normally she had no issues keeping her boundaries in place and making sure that everyone understood where she stood on a matter.
But this…
This was so much harder than that.
“She did ask for you,” Christian started.
“I don’t care if she did or didn’t.” Angelica was firm in this. She’d ended her relationship with her mother more years ago than she cared to count, and she wasn’t about to be thrust back into one when she didn’t want it.
“I know you don’t. I’m just telling you that she did ask for you.” Christian sighed heavily.
This did have to be hard for him. He was the one dealing with everything on his own because their father would be absolutely useless against her like he always was.
“She just wants to find another way to get under my skin and convince me to go there so she can abuse me again. And I’m not going to play into her hand, Christian. Not again, not ever.” Her shoulders were so tight that they hurt. “I really do hate to cut talking to you short, but I’m the last to board already and I need to go. I’ll call you when I get to LA.”
“LA? I thought you were filming.”
Angelica sighed heavily. “We are filming. But I’ve been called back to LA for some emergency meeting and well… it sounds like a better place to be than in Virginia with Hope right now.”
“Why?”
“Just search my name in Google, and you’ll find out. It’s been wild and crazy, and I need a break from it. Really, Christian, I have to go. Talk to you soon.” She didn’t even wait for an answer as she hung up on him.
