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Her father sounded like a piece of work—hell, he hadn’t protected his own daughter from someone who wanted to hurt her. But given her defensiveness about it in the plane yesterday, I kept that opinion to myself for now.
‘Difficult?’ I asked.
‘When I say I look like her, I mean I’m the spitting image of her.’ There was a certain sadness in her eyes that made me tighten my grip on her hand. ‘Mum also loved dresses and make-up and all kinds of girly things, and after she died, he was so upset that I just...thought it was easier if I didn’t look so much like a girl.’
‘You wanted to protect him.’
She sighed again. ‘He was so lost without her and he doesn’t do emotion. He couldn’t deal with losing her and I wanted to help him.’
‘And what about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘Did anyone help you?’ I didn’t know what made me ask. Maybe it was that sadness in her eyes, or the way her fingers had tightened around mine. The sense that I knew the answer to that question already: no one had.
The lights from the city outside glided over her face, a flash of something raw in her eyes, and I felt my chest constrict. ‘No,’ I said, annoyed with myself. ‘Forget I said anything. You don’t have to answer.’
She gave me a long look, then said eventually, ‘I had my brothers. But they were all older than me. And Dad had no idea what to do with a seven-year-old girl. So...no. I guess I didn’t have anyone.’ She smiled, but I’d never seen anything so forced. ‘Anyway, it was fine. I coped.’
Of course she had. Because she was tough—at least on the surface. But underneath she was vulnerable, I could see it in her eyes. Hell, I’d seen it up in the plane yesterday, too.
I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb, trying not to give in to the anger I felt on her behalf. She was loyal to her family, but it made me wonder if they were as loyal to her.
Certainly there were issues with her dad and his handling of the harassment problem. I got the feeling that he blamed her for it, which was so wrong I wanted to hit something. Hard.
‘It wasn’t fine,’ I said roughly, not liking how sh
e dismissed herself and her own needs so easily. And with a smile that was in no way natural. ‘I’m sure you did cope, because you’re tough. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t need anyone to be there for you.’
Her forced smile faltered. ‘Dad didn’t like fusses. He didn’t know how to deal with them.’
‘Well, as you probably know by now, I don’t mind a fuss.’ With my free hand, I gently brushed a finger along her lower lip. ‘But what I really don’t like is pretence. You have a beautiful smile, pretty thing. You don’t need to fake it.’
She blinked and the smile slowly disappeared. Her hand tightened in mine. ‘What about you? Did you have anyone?’
I didn’t want to talk about me. But then, it was my own fault. I’d introduced the subject and this was where the conversation had ended up. And I couldn’t not tell her now, not after what she’d told me.
‘I had my mother,’ I said, somewhat reluctantly. ‘My father wasn’t part of my life in any way. He got rid of Mum once he found out she was pregnant and wouldn’t pay a cent towards helping her with anything. The only time was when she begged him to pay for my schooling.’ I stroked my thumb over Ellie’s skin. It was very soft against mine and very warm. ‘I tried once, when I was thirteen, to get something from him myself. Mum was having difficulty covering rent and I thought I might be able to convince him to help us. But...’ I didn’t know why I was telling her this story, not when it ended in nothing but humiliation. Nevertheless, I found myself going on. ‘I went and stood outside his house, and when someone eventually came to the door—I don’t know who it was, but not Dad—they told me he didn’t want to see me. That I wasn’t his problem.’ Even now, the anger of that moment burned inside me, no matter how many years went by. How I was dismissed. As if my mother and I meant nothing and were nothing to him.
The slight pressure of her fingers around mine made me realise that she was squeezing my hand. As if I was the one who needed reassurance this time.
It made me want to put some distance between us, but I couldn’t pull away. Not without hurting her and I didn’t want to hurt her.
‘It’s fine,’ I said brusquely. ‘It was a long time ago.’
She gave me a small, shy smile. ‘Now you sound like me.’
‘It’s not quite the same. You lost your mother. I still have mine.’
‘But you did lose your dad in a way, didn’t you?’
Something shifted inside me. An ache. I ignored it. ‘His loss. Anyway, you can’t lose something you never had.’
She gave me a searching look. ‘It’s the potential though, isn’t it? The potential for there to have been something more.’
The ache deepened into pain and I gritted my teeth hard. ‘There was never any potential for something more. I wasn’t good enough for Dad. I wasn’t his problem.’ The words sounded bitter, like something a petulant teenager would say, which was galling. ‘But like I said,’ I went on quickly, before she could say anything, ‘that was years ago. Anyway, we weren’t talking about me. We were talking about you.’
Ellie scowled. ‘I don’t want to talk about me. I’m bloody boring.’
