Chapter 67: No Candy
Chapter 67: No Candy
Vivian’s POV"Mom?"
The second the word left my lips, the other line went completely silent. For a breathless heartbeat, I thought maybe the call had dropped, until I heard the sound. A soft, choked sob that shattered something deep inside me.
"V-Vivian? Is that really you?" Her voice trembled with disbelief and aching hope.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. My throat tightened. "Yeah, Mom, it’s me," I whispered, barely able to hold myself together. Just hearing her voice brought on a wave of homesickness so strong it felt like it might drown me. I’d missed her, of course I had, but nothing could have prepared me for how much hearing her would hurt and soothe me all at once.
"Oh my god, my baby girl!" she cried. "You probably don’t have much time, go ahead, speak quickly. Where are you? Who took you?"
Her questions made my heart twist. For a moment, I didn’t understand. Then it hit me. She thought I’d somehow managed to make a call while still being held captive. That I was in danger. To her, I was the kidnapped daughter calling home in secret.
I blinked away the burn behind my eyes and took a breath. "No, Mom. It’s okay. I can talk to you for as long as I want." I glanced at Zaliver, momentarily forgetting he was even in the room. When our eyes met, I silently dared him to try and take the phone from me. But he didn’t move. He just stood there watching me, eyes unreadable, head slightly tilted in thought. I turned back to the call.
"There are things I should probably explain," I murmured, already unsure of how to even begin.
"Wait, are they making you say this?" she asked suddenly. Her tone shifted, sharper now, on the edge of panic. "If I went to the store, what would I see first? Skittles, Snickers, or Hershey?"
I let out a shaky breath and couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped me, even as my chest ached. Of course she remembered that.
When I was younger, I’d been a little different. Anxious, maybe, in the way certain kids are, the ones whose imaginations run faster than their ability to separate real from possible. I constantly convinced myself people were out to get me and insisted we needed an emergency code in case I ever got kidnapped. I remembered sitting at the kitchen table with a box of crayons, completely serious, laying out the whole system for my mother with the gravity of a field general. She’d been washing dishes, and she’d turned around, dried her hands on a tea towel, and looked at the paper I’d pushed toward her. She’d humored me, eventually, after I’d thrown what I could only describe as a very passionate and well-reasoned tantrum about the reality of kidnappings in the modern world.
Skittles meant I was out of state or out of the country.
Snickers meant I recognized my kidnapper.
Hershey meant I was being forced to speak.
I’d been eight. My mother had kept it anyway.
"I can’t believe you remembered that," I whispered, smiling despite everything. "That was such a long time ago."