Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
At the thought of Mirabelle, she felt a pinching sensation under her breastbone and unconsciously brought her hand up to massage away the pain. She missed her. Still. She’d been the only real mother Sienna had ever known, her own an alcohol-drenched shell of a woman who had been generally unaware of Sienna’s existence. The woman who had passed on her green eyes and her golden-blonde hair to Sienna and—thankfully—not much else had died five years before. When Sienna had learned the news, she’d felt little more than a passing sadness that might accompany the knowledge that any wasted life had ended.
She’d sent her father a check to help with the cremation costs and made a donation in her mother’s name to a local charity that helped drug and alcohol addicts find recovery. It was enough closure for her. And while her father had very promptly cashed the check, she hadn’t spoken to him since.
She’d left this mobile home park eleven years before without saying goodbye to either of her parents. The ache in her heart had only been for Mirabelle. At the time, that particular ache had been drowned out by a greater one, though, and it was only in the aftermath that she had realized her grief had layers.
She stared, unseeing, in the direction of what had once been her home. Her mind cast back.
Mirabelle pulled the door of the trailer open, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Sienna? What’s wrong, sweet girl?”
Sienna let out a quiet sob, allowing Mirabelle to usher her into the trailer, where she led her to the plaid sofa and sat her down. Mirabelle took a seat next to her, turning so they were knee to knee, and took Sienna’s hands in hers, squeezing gently. Lemons and lilies met her nose, and the scent served as comfort before Mirabelle had even uttered a word. She took a deep, shaky breath. “I got invited to Amybeth Horton’s birthday party, and my dad said he’d bring home some money so I could buy her a present, but he didn’t, and now I can’t go.” Truth be told, her father hadn’t necessarily forgotten. He’d likely never intended to at all or even thought twice about her request after she’d made it. He’d come home drunk that afternoon, and she hadn’t “reminded” him, as it was best to steer clear entirely when he’d been drinking. He was mean in general, and liquor only enhanced that attribute. Sienna’s face screwed up, the disappointment of having looked so forward to something, having been included, and then being let down—again—by her parents bringing all her misery to the surface. She couldn’t go without a gift, though. That would be humiliating. The other girls Amybeth hung around weren’t rich by any stretch, but they had more than Sienna’s family. In every conceivable way.
Sienna wished she weren’t so hyperaware of that, but she was fourteen, no kid anymore, and it was just her personality. She noticed everything. She always had. Not like Gavin, who was perpetually happy go lucky and didn’t seem to care what anyone thought. He was observant, too, when he wanted to be, but his observations didn’t seem to constantly hurt him in some way or another the way hers did.
Gavin wasn’t currently at home. She knew that, and it was the only reason she’d come. She didn’t want him to see her cry, but she’d needed a mother. She’d needed Mirabelle.
Mirabelle frowned, wiping Sienna’s cheek with her thumb when a tear spilled from her eye. “Oh, darling. I’m so sorry.” An expression flitted over her pretty face, part sadness, part anger, but then she set her lips together, tilting her head as she thought. “When is the party?”
“Today,” Sienna said, taking a deep breath as the sharpness of the misery lessened. She still felt disappointed, but she was here, in Mirabelle’s neat and orderly trailer, being listened to as though her pain mattered. She’d only come to her for comfort. She knew Mirabelle didn’t have a lot of money either. She worked as the assistant to a magician named Argus, a kindhearted Greek man who called Sienna “Siennoulla” and brought homemade baklava to Mirabelle sometimes in a white box with a black ribbon, which Sienna and Gavin gorged themselves on until their stomachs were stuffed and their lips were coated in honey. Their show wasn’t that popular, though, and barely paid the bills. But Argus said that the joy it brought to their audiences was worth far more than riches.
Sienna knew that to be a little white lie since he let Gavin, who was amazing at cards, play online poker under his name and split the profits, a fact they kept from Mirabelle. Sienna didn’t like keeping secrets from Mirabelle, but she also knew that the extra money Argus told her had come from ticket sales and put into her earnings lessened Mirabelle’s stress and allowed them to pay all their bills, even if there wasn’t much left over at the end of the month.