AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So, what exactly is it that you do, Indigo?” asks Sandra, as the waiter who she just called in serves her a tall glass of red.
“I teach yoga,” I reply. “And I’m training to be a breathwork facilitator.”
“Awhatnow?”
“Breathwork is… using the power of your breath to essentially calm your nervous system. It’s a form of meditation.” I glance at Grey with a slow blink, remembering what his version of breath play was. “I’m no expert, but… I’m in training.”
I catch his father’s gaze after I say it and watch as his unrelenting glare makes it from my eyes to my lips.
“And I run my own Kirtan classes twice a week.”
“Kir—what?”
“Kirtan. It’s…” I pause, realizing that Grey barely got the concept even though I gave him a live show of it. “It’s basically call-and-response chanting in Sanskrit. It’s really uplifting. I have over thirty people turn up to my classes now.”
“How very bizarre,” smirks the mother.
“She’s very talented,” says Grey to her obvious scorn.
“I guess we learn something new every day, don’t we, darling?” she adds, addressing her husband.
“Indeed,” he replies, his voice as deep as the first cracks of thunder.
“And all these things you scrape together pay the rent?”
Out of my peripheral vision, Grey’s frame stiffens as his hand squeezes mine under the table so strongly that it almost hurts. I can’t tell if it’s because he wants to reassure me that he’s there and that he’s hearing her disdainful questions or whether he’s trying to stop himself from upending the walnut dining table.
“I…” I lift my chin in a rare moment of defiance which I decide to latch onto before it disappears as quickly as the wine I can’t seem to drink enough of. “I’m also in the process of bringing out my own skincare products—all with natural organic ingredients, like sugar and oils and essential oils… and herbs. I've found a commercial kitchen I can rent to make them in and submitted the forms so I’m just waiting for them to get back to me,” I add, realizing I’m now adding unnecessary facts as I babble away like a freight-train out of control. “I've got the packaging all done. And I already sell a lot to family and friends and stuff.”
“Is that legal?” she asks, tipping her head to the side, her dangling ruby earring tipping along with her.
“I… I guess not, technically. It’s just… a few people close to me, so…”
“Hmm.”
“And I volunteer a lot. Me and some friends work with agencies to rehome rescue animals and wild horses who’ve been placed into captivity. It’s not for profit but it’s… very fulfilling.”
This time, she doesn’t dissimulate the contempt, sniggering under her breath.
“Is that what the hair’s about?” she asks as I contemplate telling Grey that if he squeezes my hand any tighter, it will go numb, my flesh will die and gangrene will start setting in. “Is that the obligatory cherry on the cake of your social justice warrior uniform?”
Grey dips his head a little, his chest expanding and contracting as if he’s trying to control his breathing.
I contemplate saying the safe word,Wolfman, to let him know I want to leave, but apart from the fact that I have no idea how I’d fit it in without sounding like I needed to be checked over by a psychiatrist, if I storm out now, that’ll be giving them what they want.
And then what? I’ll be his dirty little secret? His little fling with some impoverished hippy with her head in the clouds? A woman not good enough to be around his family…
I decide to stick it out, resisting the urge to tell her that if I were wearing that deep-fried brassy blond bird’s nest on my heavily-tanned head, I wouldn’t have the nerve to judge other people’s salon choices.
“Of course not,” I reply, trying to relocate my voice. “I’m not a…social justice warrior, whatever that even means. I just like dying my hair sometimes. It’s good therapy,” I add, trying to sound upbeat. “You just wake up one day and need a change of energy and bam, you get it. And the great thing is, in a few months, the color has more or less gone. You can redye it change color or—”
“It’s such a pity you’ve developed this bad habit, Indigo,” bitch mom interrupts. “You are indeed a very arresting woman.Physically, that is.” She almost spits the compliment out. “The pink is a distraction. It dilutes your beauty instead of enhancing it. And it’s certainly not something we see in the circles that we or our son”—her glacial eyes jump to his—“frequent. I suspect it would not go down well at the kind of events our family attend. Though I doubt you’d have much knowledge of families of our standing.”
“Oh, I think Indigo knows a lot more about these types of events than you think.” The boom of Landon’s elegant voice sucks the air from the room. I sweep my gaze over to him to find him leaning back in his chair, his eyes fixed on me alone. “From what I've learned, you come from quite a prestigious family yourself, Indigo.”
His words stun me, rendering me mute and dissolving my body as suddenly the resolve I had to just grin and bear their assholery vanishes into the ether. I haven’t even told Grey about my mom and stepfather—well, at least not about their wealth.
I glance up at Grey who frowns in confusion. “He didn’t hear that from me,” he growls, searching my eyes as if wondering if what his father said is true.
