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Mom
That is enough! We are worried sick.
Mom
If you don’t call us, we’ll go to the police.
That had been only a few minutes ago, along with three more calls. I winced and knew I couldn’t put this off any longer. They needed to know where I was.
“Thank God,” Mom said when she answered on the first ring. “I’ve been worriedsick. What’s going on?”
“Where are you?” Dad asked. “We couldn’t see your location since your phone was off.”
“I’m fine. I just needed some space after Trevor and I got into a fight.”
“A fight? You got into a fight?”
I opened my mouth to tell them about it, but another voice answered before me.
“Don’t worry, Maribelle, it was nothing serious. I’ll talk sense into her.”
My stomach dropped. Was that Trevor? Was he at their house?
“Good,” Dad said back. “Now we just need to know where Mollie is, and we can get this all sorted. Mollie, where are you?”
My throat closed up. Why was Trevor there? I’drun.I didn’t want to hear his voice.
“Mollie?” Mom asked after I heard rustling on the phone and a sigh from Dad. “Are you okay? Why aren’t you answering?”
“I’m fine,” I said slowly. I closed my eyes and knew I’d have to get this out before it went any further. “I needed some space. I’m in Strawberry Springs.”
“What?” Multiple voices asked loudly at the same time. I had to pull the phone away from my ear.
“You should have never gone,” Mom said. “That’s not—the farm is ...”
“Being run by a farm manager? Yeah, I figured that out pretty quickly when I broke into his house. Or, my house, technically.”
“This is why I didn’t want you doing this,” Trevor said. “You could have been hurt.”
Did he really care if I was hurt? I wanted to ask him that, but my usual fear made its way into my stomach.
Apparently, I wasn’t totally cured of being Trevor’s Mollie.
“Nothing happened,” I explained. “He was shocked to see me, and I had questions about the farm. Namely, where the profits went.”
“The profits?” Dad asked. “Why would you worry about that?”
“Because the farm produces income. Where is it?”
“We used it to pay for your college,” Mom said. “And the rest we saved for when you sold it.”
“So I’ve had an income since I was eighteen and I didn’t know?”
“It’s a farm, Mollie,” Trevor said. “It’s not as much as you think.”
It wasn’t a kind thing to say, but it was far gentler than how he’d been when I was at the apartment this morning.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Sometimes, when I’d talk to my parents about Trevor, I didn’t think we were talking about the same person. To them, he was kind, hardworking, and dedicated.