You Looked Down on Me Once Now You Look Up (Patricia and Oliver) novel Chapter 232

Patricia glanced over at Sara, her eyes cool. “You really don’t get how deep someone’s hatred can go.”

“Nina loved Theo so much that everyone he cared about automatically became her enemy. Especially Ruby—she was his one and only, his forever crush. Of course Nina saw her as a threat.”

Jackson kept his hands on the wheel and chimed in. “And Ruby wasn’t exactly innocent either. She’d push Nina’s buttons every chance she got, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not.”

“You have no idea how cocky Ruby got once things started going her way,” he said. “If you actually knew her, you’d see what kind of person she really is. She’s the type to bite the hand that feeds her.”

“Our Miss here always felt sorry for her, treated her like a real little sister ever since they were kids, bought her everything. And how did Ruby pay her back? By stabbing her in the back. She basically raised a thief under her own roof.”

Sara listened to Jackson’s rundown, shaking her head as he finished. She let out a short laugh. “People who come from nothing and suddenly get everything are the scariest.”

“If this was my Uncle Oliver, Ruby wouldn’t have lasted more than two episodes,” she added.

No one really had the words to explain just how ruthless Oliver could be—not even Sara.

Patricia had never seen that side of him herself. Three years of marriage, half a year living together up on Cloud Peak, and the only time she’d seen him close to losing control was when he snapped at Sara. But even his quiet pressure, the way he could make everyone around him tense up, was intimidating enough.

“Your Uncle Oliver’s really that scary?” Patricia asked.

Sara smirked. “He can talk someone into ending it all with just a few sentences. How’s that for ruthless?”

Patricia stared, at a loss for words.

Jackson glanced at Colton in the rearview mirror, clearly wanting to hear more.

“Back then—”

“Ahem—” Aiden, sitting in the front passenger seat, suddenly started coughing.

Sara got the hint and instantly shut up.

Jackson rolled his eyes, finally losing his patience. He reached over and smacked Aiden’s arm. “If your throat hurts, go take your meds. Try coughing again and see what happens.”

She’d refused, like she always did.

That was in the morning.

By midday, her parents were both gone.

Sometimes Patricia wondered—if only she’d said yes, if she’d just accepted that peach from her mom that morning, would things have turned out differently?

South Valley peaches were her mother’s favorite—crisp and sweet.

The fresh, sugary flavor filled her mouth, and a single tear slid down, splashing onto her laptop’s touchpad.

She held the peach in one hand, her other hand moving over the touchpad, tears falling as she typed out just one word:

Why