Forbidden Vines

Chapter Three: The call

I'm sitting on the floor of my new room at five in the morning, back against the door, phone pressed so hard to my ear it hurts, because if I hold it any looser I might actually start crying.

"Say something," Priya says. "You've gone quiet on me and I hate it when you go quiet."

"I'm here."

"You sound weird."

"I'm fine."

"Sophia." Just my name, but she says it the way only Priya can, like she's already seen straight through whatever I'm about to try and sell her. "How is it there?"

"It's a vineyard, Priya. There's grapes. It's very rustic."

"That's not what I asked."

I close my eyes. Down the hall I can hear the house waking up, faint footsteps, a door somewhere. I don't have long.

"It's fine," I say again, quieter this time, because I know she can hear the lie even through a phone screen and three hundred miles.

"You don't have to do this, you know. Move in with some random rich guy because your mom decided this is happening."

"I didn't exactly get a vote."

"You always have a vote." Her voice cracks a little, and that's worse than anything she could've said with an even tone. "Soph. You know what happened with the last one. I was there. I picked glass out of your hair, remember? I sat with you in that waiting room until three in the morning while your mom tried to figure out which lie to tell the nurse."

"I remember, Priya. I was there too."

"I know. I know you were." A shaky breath on her end. "I just don't understand how she gets to keep doing this. Meeting someone, deciding he's different, uprooting everything, and you're just supposed to smile and go along with it."

"Because I don't have a choice, Priya." My voice breaks on the last word before I can stop it. "That's how it works when you're the kid. She decides, and I pack a bag, and I show up wherever she says show up. That's the whole deal. It's always been the whole deal."

Silence on the other end. I can picture her exactly, sitting cross legged on her bed the way she always does when she's trying not to say the wrong thing.

"I'm scared for you," she finally says. "That's all. I'm not trying to make you feel worse."

"I know."

"Is he like your dad? The new guy? Because I need you to actually answer this one, not deflect."

"No." That part, at least, is true. "Richard's fine. Distant, but fine. He's not the problem."

"And the son?" There's real concern in her voice now, the kind she can't hide even over the phone.

I think of Sebastian in the kitchen doorway, the almost-smile he keeps almost letting me see. I think of him crouched next to me in the dirt, hovering over my hand like he wanted to grab it and didn't let himself.

"Complicated," I say, which isn't a lie exactly, just not the whole truth either.

"Complicated how? Complicated bad or complicated you're-not-telling-me-something?"

"Both, maybe. I don't know yet."

There's a knock at the door before I can answer, three sharp raps that make me jump so hard I nearly drop the phone.

"Sophia." Sebastian's voice, muffled through the wood. "Harvest starts in ten minutes. You're already behind."

"One second," I call back, wiping my face fast with the back of my hand even though nobody can see me do it.

"Is that him?" Priya asks.

"I have to go, Priya, I'm sorry."

"Sophia.."

"I love you. I'll call you tonight, I promise." I hang up before she can say anything else, before I can hear whatever else is sitting in her voice that I don't have the strength to carry right now on top of everything else.

I sit there another second, phone in my lap, forehead against my knees, trying to breathe the way you do when you're determined not to let a person see you've been crying. It doesn't work especially well. It never does.

I open the door and Sebastian's standing there, already dressed for the fields, looking at me with an expression that's harder to read than usual. His eyes go to my face, just a beat too long.

"You've been crying," he says. Not a question.

"I have allergies."

"At five in the morning. In your bedroom."

"They're very aggressive allergies."

Something flickers behind his eyes, and for one full second I think he's actually going to push, going to ask who I was talking to and why my voice sounds like it's been through a wringer. He looks like he wants to say something else, something that isn't about the harvest at all, and for a moment neither of us moves. Instead he just steps back, giving me room to pass, jaw tight like he's deciding something and hasn't landed on an answer yet.

"Rosa's waiting," is all he says, voice flat, but he doesn't move right away either, like he's waiting to see if I'll say something first.

I follow him down the hallway, down the stairs, out into the gray almost dawn, grateful he doesn't push further, hating a little that some small stubborn part of me almost wishes he had. The house is quiet around us, that early kind of quiet where even the walls seem to be holding their breath.

We're halfway across the yard, boots crunching on gravel, morning cold enough that I can see my own breath, when my phone buzzes in my back pocket.

Not Priya. Not my mother.

A number I don't recognize, local area code, the message sitting there like it's been waiting all night just to ruin this one.

**I found you. Did you really think you could hide forever?**

I stop walking so fast Sebastian nearly collides with me.

"What," he says, "is it."

I can't make my mouth work to answer him.