“You don’t always need to be in a hurry,” she gently chides me, smiling like a benevolent goddess while she passes across a piece of toast already spread with butter and dabbed with marmite, just the way I like it. “Surely, the point of all this needless luxury is to stop and enjoy it.”
I smile, remembering the first day when I happily told Arnold if I owned this house, I’d never work, content to just stare at the view.
My smile falters around the edges as it always does, thinking of the man who caused such harm to the people I love. Myself included. Then it reappears as I claim the memory anyway.
If I let Arnold continue to taint things with his poison, he’ll win.
“Sit,” Mum insists, kicking the chair out as an added inducement. “Christian tells me if I connect more deeply with the people around me, it’ll lessen my intrusive thoughts.” She pouts. “And you don’t want your mother having intrusive thoughts, do you?”
I snort with amusement, taking my seat, bowing to peer pressure and happily passing it along as Drake wanders down, seeking more sustenance than when he dined out on me.
Christian is the trauma counsellor that Victim Support Services connected her with. A man whose advice might sound more persuasive if Mum hadn’t seduced him within the first three sessions, deciding he made far better partner material.
A change of tactic that offers her the best of both worlds.
Advice and a thoughtful man in her bed.
Five months and she is absolutely wrapped with her taboo boyfriend—not only in a patient therapist way, but he’s also closer to my age than hers—and his advice didn’t stop working just because he crossed an ethical line.
Given she ignores outside offers of help, him whispering sweet nothings accompanied by practical steps to improve her well-being is a fantastic solution.
And if it doesn’t work out, who cares?
Not the lady with a half-million dollars of engagement ring on her finger.
She takes it as proof that, beneath the madness, anger, and gross entitlement, Arnold really cared.
In my view, the only things he cared about were appearances, but that thought stays safely behind my sealed lips, a debate that doesn’t help anyone.
“Not a word about speed,” Drake warns when I hop into the passenger seat. “It’s my civic duty to get you to class on time and as you know, I take my duties seriously.”
A claim belied by his broad grin and the way he kisses me goodbye half a dozen times when we arrive at the community hall, miraculously on time.
“Cadence, over here,” Elaine calls to me, waving, and I hurry over to greet her. “Thank goodness you came. I had horriblethoughts of teaching a class full of strangers, judging and finding me wanting.”
“And now you’ll know one of them.”
She frowns then bursts into laughter, bumping my shoulder while her hands crisscross over her stomach.
“How’s the book coming?” I ask, trying to distract her. From the moment she signed on to take the community journalism course, her nerves have been breaking through her aura of calm.
“The editor had lovely things to say, then returned it with so many notes that I’ll probably still be drowning in revision hell a decade from now.”
“Going well then?” I interpret and she scrunches her nose.
“As well as can be expected.”
We file into the hall, and I sit in the front row, a marked change from school. The two-hour lecture is crammed full of so many interesting discussions, I’m shocked when it ends and can’t wait for the next session.
Outside, I sit on the stone steps, the winter sun warming my bones, waiting for the boy I adore to collect me.
He pulls the car to a stop. I look at him, and he looks at me.
And when our eyes meet, neither one of us looks away.
THANKS FOR READING!!!
If you enjoyed this story, you might also enjoy SPOILSPORT
My school bully is back, and he won't stop until he reveals my darkest secret.
When I fled home for the safety of an expensive boarding school, I thought my bully couldn't afford to follow me. I never expected him to earn an athletic scholarship—one which lands him in the room next door.
Now, he's everywhere I go. In my classes, smirking at me across the cafeteria, turning up to torment me at the school health clinic… where I have another nasty surprise in store.
I would do anything to be rid of his anxiety-inducing presence. Anything except tell him the one thing he wants to know.
Why I destroyed his family.
