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CHAPTER16
SUMMER
Having successfully escapedto the house following Clary’s uncharacteristic passive-aggressive questioning, I’d sought out the sanctuary of my old bedroom. I can understand she wants to protect her son, but it still stings.
The fact that they don’t know the whole story weighs heavily on me as I push my old door open to find everything is exactly the way I’d left it fifteen years before.
A sob catches in my throat. Both the culmination of defending myself outside and the sorrow I feel at finding my room to be kept in an almost shrine-like state.
My bed is made, and upon taking a seat on the old pink bedspread, I find it’s freshly washed, meaning Clary and Sutton upkeep the space in my stead. The lump in my throat is almost too big to swallow past as my eyes rake around the room, finally landing on my old hiding place underneath the dressing table.
I’d found it quite by accident. A loose floorboard near the architrave, where I’d stored all my most valued items.
Before I realise it, I’ve dropped to my hands and knees to dislodge the board. It takes some nudging, but with a little persistence, it pops off.
There is still a multitude of handwritten notes from Cade and a couple from Layla. A pink and purple woven friendship bracelet she’d made for me when we were ten. The stubs from our first trip to the cinema. A pressed daisy from one of our many afternoons in the meadow talking about the lives we had compared to the lives we dreamed of.
Noise from downstairs hits my ears with force, and I unintentionally jerk upright, only to bash my head off the bottom of the dressing table.
“Christ!”
I ease myself out from underneath the table carefully this time, rising to stand while I rub the throbbing area on the back of my head. When I catch sight of myself in the mirror, I use my free hand to scrub it down along my make-up free face in an attempt to remove all signs of emotion. My red-rimmed eyes and flushed cheeks remind me of my annoyance at dinner, and I use both thumbs to wipe beneath my lower lids, brushing away all signs of my frustrations.
When something isn’t in the cards for you, you learn to be grateful for the life you’ve been given.
Words that I’ve fed myself more times than I’d care to admit.
Words that drove my resolve to stay away.
Words that eventually strengthened my need to come back.
My phone chimes from the pocket of my maxi skirt, and I tug it out.
Vaughn
Tut tut, sweetheart. I thought your trip home would see you flying under the radar, not trending on TikTok.
I narrow my eyes at my boss’s usual ribbing before shooting him back a middle finger emoji.
Caden’s raised voice downstairs draws my attention from my phone.
“What could havepossiblymade you think you’d bewelcomehere?”
Without conscious thought, my feet move from the room and towards the stairs leading to the foyer. Blood rushes in my ears, and my heart threatens to escape the confines of my chest when I stop at the bannister at the end of the hallway.
Gathered on one side of the foyer with their backs to me are Caden, Sutton, and Bree. All three stand tall, Sutton’s and Bree’s darker heads flanking Caden’s blonde one as he bristles with anger, facing my old friend.
“I want to see my daughter, Cade. You can’t keep me from my child.” Her eyes are narrowed as she tosses her long poker-straight black hair over one shoulder before bracing her feet apart to stand her ground.
Caden’s growled response sounds like it’s been ripped from his voice box. “Over my dead fucking body, Layla. You need to go through the courts. I know your solicitor told you, so don’t try to play dumb.”
She opens her mouth to speak, hands flying to her hips in indignation, but Caden cuts her off before she gets a word out. “I’d never keep my daughter from her mother, but you need to prove you can be the mother she deserves.”
He takes a faltering step forward, and when he speaks again, I need to strain to hear his hoarse words. “I’m not blameless, Lay. I’ll hold my motherfucking hands up there. I’ve always loved you. That’s never been the problem. I was neverin lovewith you, and that’s on me. I’d have happily played my part to give our girl the life I had with a caring, loving family…but,Christ, after you exposed her to—”
“I neverexposedher to anything, Caden. I kept her locked in her room. I fed her. Gave her water. She didn’t lack for anything—”
“She lacked yourcare, or can you notseethat?” Caden’s words ricochet off the walls, and my eyebrows meet my hairline when his bellow hits me right in the chest.
