It was the first time I’d heard Gabriella crack a joke, and I had to admit, as far as wisecracks went, it wasn’t a terrible one.
“And you wouldn’t have done that, either. Why would you? You won Cruz. He was yours. And you’ve put up with so much of our… our… behavior,” she seemed to settle on a word, “over the years, it seemed out of character and out of place for you to pull something like that all of a sudden. Not to mention, I told you at least three times I didn’t want peanuts in my sundae, and you knew things could go south. You would never do that to your son.”
Something cracked in me when she said it. The acknowledgement from her that I was a decent mother made my heart go to her. I swallowed hard. She continued.
“That left me with only one suspect. My mother. I knew she’d been upset with me for losing Cruz. She was livid and beside herself when I told her we broke up. And then when the rumor you and he were together hit her ears, she lost it completely. She had the motive, the passion, and the proximity to me to pull it off. So I went to confront her yesterday.”
My stomach rolled all of a sudden. Mrs. Holland was insane. She’d basically poisoned her daughter. Put her life at risk.
And for what?
The town’s hottest bachelor?
As much as I mourned the problematic relationship with my own mother, I was pretty sure she was above trying to kill me to make a point.
Ninety-six percent sure, anyway.
“What’d she say?” I managed.
“She said, and it’s a quote—‘Nothing happened to you, though, did it? Now why don’t you go back to Dr. Costello and try to seduce him the old-fashioned way?’”
“Wow.” And I’d thought Trinity was bad for smacking my head into the… well, no, that was also awful. Just not…this.
“Yeah.” Gabriella plopped on a seat by the dining table, peeling the water’s label.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea your mother was so…” Insane. Sick. Sociopathic. Marvel-villain-esque. “Ambitious.”
She snorted out a laugh. “She’s not ambitious, she’s a bitch.”
I made a face. “We don’t curse under this roof. It gives me the hives. Can we just call her a bleach or something?”
“Oh, Nessy, you’re so weird. It’s really hard to hate you, do you know that?”
Her eyes were glassy with tears. I didn’t dare move. I didn’t even dare breathe. It was still too surreal for me to handle.
Gabriella Holland.
In my house.
Talking to me about her crazy mother and out-of-control plans to steal Cruz.
“The worst part is, I wasn’t even that into Cruz.” She sniffed.
“Now, I don’t know if I believe—”
“It’s true. I saw him at a dinner party a few months ago and realized who he was. I knew my mother would be delighted if we started dating, so I hooked up with him and kind of bent his arm into going out with me. I think we both did it because we were supposed to make sense. I was the town’s it girl, and he was Fairhope’s best. But that affair never took off. And when he broke up with me, I mostly wanted to save face. Then when y’all came back and it became clear he was running all over town trying to make you his, that was when I really lost it. I guess my mother’s not the only bleach in our family.”
“This is not a new development, Gabriella. You’ve been horrible to me for years.” I pushed off of the counter, sitting next to her. “Why?”
Gabriella rubbed the bridge of her nose, fresh tears filling her eyes again. She finished off her water bottle, then grimaced.
“Are you actually asking me this?”
“Yes.” I pushed my unopened bottle of water across the table for her to drink. “I’ve never done anything to you. In fact, growing up, you used to come over to our house all the time to hang out with Trinity, so you knew firsthand that I wasn’t the horrible person everyone made me out to be.”
“I was never going to go against the grain for you,” her voice turned to steel. “You were Messy Nessy, and I was your sister’s best friend. I had to make sure people knew I was not affiliated with you. I couldn’t afford to be clumped in with you in the same category. I didn’t believe the rumors about you, but I did nothing to stop them. And it didn’t help that you always looked like you didn’t care what anyone thought—”
“I did care.”
I do care.
“I know that now. But I didn’t before. Your exterior is pretty tough. It took something radical like my mother trying to poison me for me to get my head out of my a—”