“Bayla...” She sat up straight, ready to take the book.

I quickly grabbed the copy and slipped it into the large belly pocket of my dark pine green Vanderwood hoodie.

Mum's eyes widened.

“Who gave you this book?”

“My English professor,” I admitted meekly, without mentioning his name.

“What's your English professor's name?” she asked me tensely as if she had forgotten the letter from a few weeks ago in which he had already appeared once.

I was silent for a little too long. “Um...” And I hated that I was so bad at lying. “Professor Copeland?”

Mum's face filled with horror.

With my hands up, I jumped up and stepped back.

“I know you want me to stay away from the Copelands. But the professor is actually quite nice, and we had a conversation about books... And he said he knew you...”

My attempt to talk my way out of it had failed. I had only made it worse.

“Give me the book!” she said, demanding as if the professor had given me forbidden literature.

“No, Mum, it's a special copy, and the professor wants it back, and besides...”

“No, not besides. If he wants it back, he shouldn't have given it to you.”

She stood up and came toward me.

“Mum!” I gasped, overwhelmed by her sudden change of mood.

“Bayla Adams! I said, give me the book! Now!”

I was startled by her harsh tone and the way she spoke to me. It was another one of those sudden personality changes and it upset me.

My headache came back.

I didn't know what to do, so I just let it out.

“No, Mum!” I replied in a sharp voice. I was sorry to have to talk to her like that, but she couldn't always dictate the world to me. “You can't always make decisions about me. I'm an adult, and you shouldn't care who I talk to and whose books I borrow!”

Mum was about to say something when the front doorbell rang.

“You have your life, so respect mine too!” I snapped at her, my anger growing.

Mum's eyes had become a little watery, and I immediately felt sorry that I had spoken to her like that. Ready to apologize, I wanted to go to her and hug her, but she just walked away, leaving me in the living room to open the front door.

Chapter 53

Larissa

“Good evening, Diana,” I said with my best smile to my friend's mother, whose jaw dropped.

She seemed upset, which certainly wasn't my fault. The last person who could make Diana emotional was me.

When it came to the feelings I triggered in her, the list was still very long. It ranged from anger to worry to mistrust. And it had been like that ever since the day I had turned up on her doorstep without Bay, even though I had gone to the playground with her. I didn't know if she still hadn't forgiven me for that, but hey, I'd been eight years old and shit happened.

“Larissa,” she said, a little taken aback. “What are you doing here?”

“Picking up Bayla. We wanted to meet up.”

That was such a lie.

And then Bay appeared in the doorway.

“You look like hell,” I said as I eyed my best friend, who was standing there in a Vanderwood hoodie and gray sweatpants. Her hair looked thinner, and her face was ashen. “You should get out in the sun again, sweetheart.”

I grinned, and she looked at me with a sideways glance that said something like: Very funny. Do you see any sun here?

“Why are you here?” Bay and her mother asked at the same time, both meaning something different.

“I was longing for your daughter and decided without a second thought to study here too.”

I knew I was being spontaneous. Diana knew it too. And only one of us liked it.

“And you put on something proper before we leave,” I continued, pointing at Bay's outfit. “I'm not taking you with me like this.”

“Leaving?” Bay looked confusedly at me, Ms. Adams at my black Kawasaki H2R in her front yard.

“Come on, it'll be dark soon,” I warned, even though that had been my plan.

Bay wanted to say something else, but thankfully changed her mind and disappeared back into the house. Her mother stayed behind, still not seeming to have regained her composure.

“How did you get here?” she asked me, and I pointed to the motorcycle behind me, which she had just been eyeing with suspicion.

“Didn't you have a scholarship for...”

“Yes, but it wasn't that important,” I lied again.

Of course, I thought day and night about the photography scholarship from the university that Bay and I had actually wanted to go to. But mourning something that was no longer there anyway didn't get me anywhere.

Diana just nodded as if she was an overworked robot.

At this point, she had to know me. After all, she had seen me grow up, even if not entirely by choice.

Bayla and I had met for the first time on the playground, and I had quickly realized that I could have a lot of fun with her. She wasn't such an annoying bigwig kid, like those upscale rich kids from the neighborhood where my former housemother had always sent us girls to the luxury playground. The place Olivia had lived with her father.

And even though Diana Adams earned a pretty penny, she knew how to raise children into decent young adults and didn't spoil her daughter with too many things.