Page 39 of Secrets in the Deep

“Well, of course I did. He didn’t answer.”

Emily turned to look at her mother, phone still in hand. It was a different cell than the one she’d owned five years ago, but the account was the same. The numbers. The messages. “You were the one who gave me my phone when I woke up.”

“Thank God the police on the scene found it. Imagine all the contacts we would have lost.”

She studied her mother’s eyes. “Did you do something to his number?”

“What?”

“He didn’t get my calls, Mom. He didn’t get the calls that you told meyoumade, either. The only reason I can think of for that is that you lied. You didn’t call him.”

“Why would I?—”

“Because you didn’t want me to turn down that role. Because you blamed him.”

Her mother had pushed her into acting from the time she could walk. Sometimes she felt she was living her mother’s life instead of her own.

Emily stood. “Mom. I need the truth. Did you do something to my phone to make sure we couldn’t contact each other?”

For a few seconds, her mother just stood there, completely silent and unmoving. And in that moment, something surfaced in her eyes. Something quick and unguarded.

Guilt.

Emily stepped back. “Mom…what did you do?”

“I did what any good mother would do—I saved you from yourself.”

“You think yousavedme?”

Her mother stepped forward, finger pointed and an angry scowl on her face. “You were so close to having everything we’d ever dreamed of. And you were going to give it all up for some boy you’d dated forfive months. So yes, I blocked his number, bought a burner phone, and changed the number under his contact to that. I stopped using the burner a year later.”

Nausea hit her so hard, her stomach rolled. “All these years, I thought he ignored every call and message. He didn’t. You just took away any chance we had of fixing things. Youhurtus.”

“Hurt you?” she scoffed. “Emily, look around. The whole world knows your name. You can have any role you want. You’re the highest-paid actress of your age! You haveeverything. And everything I’ve done has been to get you here. It’s all been for you.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t lie. None of this haseverbeen about me. It’s all for you. It’salwaysbeen about you. You didn’t get to live your Hollywood dream, so I had to live it for you.”

“I didn’t get to because I got pregnant withyou.”

“Oh, I know. My entire life, you’ve made sure that I’m absolutely aware that getting pregnant with me forced you to step out of the limelight at the worst possible time.”

“So stop being an ungrateful brat!”

Her mother was yelling now. Speaking to her likeshewas the problem. Like she was the one who’d meddled in someone else’s life.

“You are the luckiest woman in America, and that’s thanks tome. I putyoufirst. I put you before me andmycareer. I made the hard decisions so you didn’t have to.”

Hard decisions…that was what taking away the love of her life was, a hard decision.

A part of Emily wanted to scream back. To call her mother out on every one of her lies. But it wouldn’t change anything.

Melanie Prior truly believed she was the good guy here. That she was a saint. And no words, no argument from Emily, would ever change that.

“You made decisions that weren’t yours to make. You’vebeenmaking decisions thataren’tyours to make. And I’m done.” Emily spun and grabbed the keys to her car rental.

“What do you mean, you’re done?”

“I’m going out.”