Delilah Green Doesn't Care(Bright Falls #1)(93)

“I beg your pardon?” Isabel said, her voice like a knife.

“Just once, please,” Astrid said, “put me first.”

“I have done nothing but put you first your entire life, young lady.”

“No. You haven’t. You’ve put your image first. Your money. Your social standing. And I’m tired, Mom. I’m tired. Delilah’s tired.”

Delilah jolted at the sound of her name. Her heart thrummed, adrenaline flooding her system hot and then cold.

“Don’t you dare talk to me about that girl,” Isabel said. “She made it very clear a long time ago how she feels about this family. You think I don’t know she pushed poor Spencer into the river? And that debacle at Vivian’s, my god. She’s like a barn animal. I don’t know where I went wrong with her.”

“Mom, stop.”

“If you ask me, this is her fault,” Isabel said. “You were perfectly happy marrying Spencer before she came back to town. I warned you she’d just stir up trouble, but no, you just had to have your sister at your wedding, didn’t you?”

Delilah frowned, blinking at the door and trying to process what she’d just heard. Even after all these years, Isabel’s indifference toward her still stung. She wished it didn’t, told herself it didn’t matter, but she couldn’t help it. Some childish, desperate need for love always rose up inside her when it came to Isabel. She said she didn’t care, but the truth was, Isabel was the only mother she’d ever known, and the woman hated her. Or worse, felt nothing toward her.

Isabel didn’t love Delilah Green, and she never would.

And she hadn’t wanted Delilah at Astrid’s wedding. She hadn’t hired her as the photographer. She hadn’t guilted Delilah into coming, indicating her father would’ve wanted her there. She hadn’t offered her a ridiculous amount of money she knew Delilah needed.

Astrid had done all that.

Astrid had wanted her here.

Delilah shook her head and stumbled back from the door. She didn’t want to hear any more. She couldn’t. Her chest tightened and her eyes stung. She turned toward the front door, ready to flee, but she didn’t want that either.

She wanted Claire.

She even wanted Iris.

Without thinking, she let muscle memory take over. Her feet moved her to the right and took her up the vast staircase, hand sliding along the oak bannister like it had done so many times before. Upstairs, she stopped in the doorway to her old room, but there was nothing for her to remember there. All of her things were gone, shipped to New York a month after she’d left Bright Falls at eighteen, when it was clear to Isabel she wasn’t coming back. Her old space was a guest room now, white linens with gray-blue piping, bland paintings of rivers and waterfalls on the wall, sheer white curtains framing the window.

She moved on to the next room. The second she opened the door, she felt like she was walking into a museum of her past. Astrid’s cavernous room looked exactly the same as it had when they were teens. All of Astrid’s favorite books were still on the shelves, her duvet the same delicate lavender and yellow swirls, her white-wood vanity still sporting that Cinderella jewelry box she’d gotten when she was eight, the one Delilah secretly coveted but could never figure out how to ask for.

The only thing different was the few plastic tubs on the floor filled with various childhood items, notebooks and old school folders, award ribbons and medals from all of Astrid’s accomplishments, movie ticket stubs and yellowing programs from the Portland ballet, stuff that had been sitting in Astrid’s closet, forgotten, since she went to college.

Delilah stepped farther in the room and sat on the bed. Growing up, she hadn’t spent a ton of hours in here. She and Astrid were never those kinds of sisters, of course. Still, there were times when she’d darkened the doorway and Astrid had waved her inside to borrow a book or watch a movie on the little TV that sat on Astrid’s dresser, particularly when Isabel was hosting one of her parties and they were both dressed in ruffles and lace, tired of putting on a show and ready to simply be young girls again.

Long-suppressed memories curled through her, fuzzy as though she was waking up from a dream. She peered inside one of the tubs, which was filled with leather-bound books. Astrid’s journals. Her stepsister was always scribbling in these books growing up. Delilah never asked what she wrote, but she was sure if she opened them up right now, she’d see an entry for every single day of Astrid’s life. Delilah wondered if she still kept a journal, what she’d write for today, tomorrow.

She lifted the top book from the tub. It was dark brown leather, embossed with flowers and vines twining over the cover. Flipping it open, Astrid had written her name on the first page—Astrid Isabella Parker—along with the relevant dates, the first of which placed the start of this journal about three months after Delilah’s father died when the girls were ten years old.

Delilah fanned the pages through her fingers, the paper crinkling from age and disuse. Astrid’s neat scrawl, always in dark blue ink, blurred through her vision. She had no intention of reading the journal. This was Astrid’s, filled with her private thoughts, and even Delilah Green wouldn’t cross that line. But then, as the letters rolled by, her eyes snagged on a certain word.

    Delilah



Her thumb caught in the middle, and she opened the book on her lap, flipping a few pages and scanning for her name again.