Amal > Recent Status Updates

“I looked past her to the writing on the tombstone she’d just stepped away from. There was no name on the cross, no year, but an inscription had been added.
May her memory be eternal.”

☹️

“The last time I was here,” I said, making a mental note to kill my mom for bringing us into this unprepared, “there was only one tombstone.”

DID LILLIAN DIE

“Sadie-Grace took off her scarlet robe and placed it around Lily’s shoulders. “Just remember,” she cautioned, “what we’re about to tell you doesn’t change who you are. It’s just like musical chairs, but with parents.”

WELL THANK GOODNESS THEIR NOT HALF SIBLINGS OMG

“Daddy didn’t know,” Campbell said decisively. “You were his favorite. You’re still Mama’s favorite. . . .”
“She told me that she loved me extra—in case he didn’t.”
Campbell took a moment to recover from that and then shrugged. “In that case,” she said, pivoting, “Lily, we have slightly less devastating news for you.”

“Trust me,” Victoria told him, “you’ll be very glad once this secret is out. Very. Glad.”
“Fine.” “I’m a bastard.”
“This again?” Campbell asked. “I thought you got all of that pesky self-loathing out of your system last year.”

“Oh, God, I thought suddenly. Walker and Lily.
If Lily was Ana’s baby, then her father was Sterling Ames. And if Lily’s father was Sterling Ames, that meant that Campbell was her half-sister.
And Walker was her half-brother.”

OH MY GODD. Sawyer why would you remind us💔

“Kaci,” Lillian stated, exasperated, “I will do no such thing.”
The name—Kaci—froze Aunt Olivia in her spot.
“Kaci?” I repeated.
“You know.” Aunt Olivia’s voice shook, like Lillian knowing her real name was somehow more unfortunate than the fact that she’d been caught holding us hostage at gunpoint.”

SHE KNEW

“Ellen said she didn’t take a dime from the people who adopted Ana’s baby,” I told Aunt Olivia. “Ana got paid, but Ellen didn’t.” I paused. “Ellen wouldn’t take your money.”
“Wait a second,” Campbell interjected. “Are you implying . . .”
That Lily is Ana’s baby.”

I KNEW IT

Wait so does this mean JD was in love w the real Olivia?

“My mom knew,” I said. “She might not have known known, but she sure as hell knew you didn’t feel like her sister anymore.”
“That wasn’t my fault. I wanted to be a good sister to Ellie, but she just made that so impossible! I had to keep her at a distance, and she never forgave me for that. J.D. could never quite forgive me, either. And that, sweetheart, is how this family ended up with you.”

“It was an accident. I could hear Lily’s father saying those words on John David’s recording. I could hear him telling Aunt Olivia to say her name.”

“Watch his foot, Liv. Don’t trip.
The silent warning went unheeded, and Liv—popular, fearless, privileged Liv—went over the ledge.”

I KNEW IT

“Who’s the best shot in this family? That was something I’d heard Aunt Olivia say to John David, my first day at Lillian’s house.
Ellen’s daughter has been playing the role of Olivia Taft for at least a year, I realized. I didn’t say that out loud. I didn’t say anything.
I was too busy looking at her gun.”

“Aunt Olivia called Ellen “Mama.”

WAIT SO THEN OLIVIA IS ELLENS KID

“You brought this on yourself, young lady,” Aunt Olivia told me. Then she turned to Ellen. “Thank you for your assistance, Mama.”

OH MY GOD??
I’m not shocked at Aunt Olivia but I am shocked at Lillian helping

“Want to know a secret?” Sterling asked her, nodding toward the ledge, where Liv sat side by side with the townie girl. “I brought her here to make you jealous.”
“Want to know a secret?” Charlotte murmured back. “It didn’t work.”

“Damn Nick. Damn him for being right—and for being the one person I wanted to call. But he’d told me not to come back.
I assumed that meant he wouldn’t pick up the phone.”

“Okay, well… I’m just saying. I’ve known your so-called kidnapper my entire life. She doesn’t have it in her to use the wrong fork at the dinner table, let alone drug a couple of Debutantes and throw them in a hole.”

So it’s aunt Olivia

“tracks.
“I know you don’t love Mama.” Lily couldn’t stop now that she’d started. “Maybe you never did. But did you ever even love me?”
I could see the shell she’d retreated into these past weeks starting to crack.
“More than anything on the face of this earth,”

☹️

“I’m not going to chase you,” he told me. “If you’re too damned scared to let this be real, if I don’t get to matter to you, if I have to let this be nothing for you to stay—then go.”
Go.
He called after me as I fled. “I’m done playing, Sawyer. If you’re too much of a coward to stay? Don’t come back.”

“I don’t care,” I said.
“That’s strange,” he replied. I could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “Because you definitely cared when Jessi showed up, before you realized she was my sister.”
He sounded just satisfied enough about that, I had to turn around. “Asshole.”

“But Victor Gutierrez just saw Ana. She said something to him. He’s staring at her now. He’s taking a step forward. He’s smiling.
This was going surprisingly well—right up until the moment when Victoria’s eighty-something-year-old father placed a loving hand on Ana’s cheek and keeled over.
Dead.

WHAT

“
“What’s your name?” I asked her right before we left.
“Ellen,” she replied, and then the set of her features softened, just for a second. “Lil used to call me Ellie.”

“You have the look of our family about you,” she said, assessing me.
I barely heard a single word, because all I could think was She has Lillian’s face.”

New family 😝?

“Walker leaned toward her. “Vee.”
Vee? I was glad Lily wasn’t here. No matter how okay she claimed to be, no matter whose idea breaking up had been—hearing that nickname on Walker’s lips wouldn’t have felt good.”

“Don’t overreact, but Walker invited a friend over.”
He and Lily had just broken up. “What friend?”

This bitch

“Everything okay?” I asked her, deciding that the What are you doing here? was probably implied.
Lily flipped onto her stomach. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “I just wanted to catch some sun.” She turned her face to the side and closed her eyes. “And,” she added, as if it was of no particular import, “I just broke up with Walker.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “About your brother.”
Nick locked his eyes on the horizon. “He’d be a hell of a lot better at this than me. The parties. Playing nice. Jessi.” I assumed that was his younger sister’s name, but didn’t get the chance to ask before he continued. “You.”

“I saw someone milling on the outskirts.
Nick.
My phone buzzed again: a fourth text. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it: spend the afternoon with him.”

“You’re not going to tell anyone the truth, Olivia. You might have, once. But now? I don’t think so.”
Aunt Olivia replied, “Maybe you’re right. And maybe you should consider that I don’t have to tell anyone your oldest, darkest secret to ruin your life. All I have to do to destroy your world is tell Lily the truth about Sawyer.”

This is where she founds out doesn’t she