Page 78 of The Blood we Crave

I hear one last time as I finish the section, completing the piece and the dance all at once. My eyes reopen, reminding me I am indeed in my bedroom with my grandmother still standing across from me in awe.

A comfortable silence remains until May speaks again.

“Every time I hear you play, I think about how much joy it would’ve brought to your mother.”

I remove my fingers from the instrument, tightening my jaw as I shake my head. With ease, I stand up, moving back towards my bed to go through my mail in order to escape this conversation.

“I know you don’t remember her much, but your mother loved you very much. You were the only reason she didn’t leave and return to Russia,” she continues as I walk towards the bed, searching for the mail in order to distract me from this conversation topic.

“For that, I apologize,” I say sharply over my shoulder. “She might still be alive had she left.”

I rest on the edge of the bed, scooping up the mail just in time for her to point an accusatory finger in my direction. Suddenly, I feel like I’m a child again. Rarely was I reprimanded, but occasionally, she would pull out that finger and wield it as some sort of magic wand to keep me in place.

“Don’t do that,” she scolds me. “The last thing she would have done is blame you for her death. Her staying was a decision she made with love in her heart for you. Don’t make it anything else but that, Alexander.”

I pick through the letters, tossing my father’s to the back of the pile. Medical school letter, trust inquiry, credit card application—ah, there it is. My fingers pull at the manila envelope addressed to my grandfather from a private detective service in Washington.

As I toss the rest of the junk beside me, something catches my eye. It slides from the pile, a square envelope that is solid black. My eyebrows furrow as I pick it up, rotating it to see my name in scrawling white letters.

No address or sender, just my name.

I furrow my eyebrows, pulling at the lip of the envelope. “Can we talk about this another time? I have something I need to do.”

When I pull the white sheet of paper from inside, there is a simple note written across it in awful penmanship.

Ponderosa Springs only has room for so much evil. If you don’t leave now, you’ll never get out alive. Leave before it gets worse.

-X

What the hell is this?Pretty Little Liars? Have we really resorted to anonymous threats now? Alistair is going to love this, just as much as Rook is going to enjoy lighting it on fire.

I scoff, just before I hear the clicks of heels across the floorboard. I look up to see May resting by the door, ready to leave.

“You know I don’t enjoy talking about them. Can you please stop hurting your own feelings by bringing them up?”

The harshness in my tone is more than I wanted; the words, however, are true. But I still regret speaking them to her when I know she has no ill intent.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Yes you did. Don’t apologize on account of me. You’re man enough to say them. At least own up to it.”

A smirk hits my lips, knowing my witty tongue came from the woman standing in front of me.

“We—”

“Do you know why you love the piano so much?” May interrupts me, her arms crossed in front of her chest. I don’t have to look to know she is giving me theDo not talk back to me, boyeyes right now.

“Because it requires structure and talent, both of which I am supremely gifted with,” I say with a little snark. “That’s verbatim from my music teacher, if you forgot.”

May gives me a tired grin. She knows I give the same reaction every time she tries to wiggle in conversation about either of my parents.

One is a stain that I’d like to forget, and the other is a stranger.

Neither have a hold over me anymore.

“Besides your charming overconfidence,” she chides. “Talia used to keep classical music on in your home. It would ring through the halls day and night. She’d been a ballerina when she was younger. You were only two when she sat you down on the bench to play.”

The smirk that I once wore is gone as a sharp tightness wraps around my gut. A coldness I’ve never known before settles into my shoulders as I try to shuffle through my mind to find the truth in that, but I come up empty.