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I’m stunned.
Landon called her?
I try to interrupt her tirade to defend myself, but she keeps up with the shrill stream of abuse, every word tightening the vise around my insides, and my food rises in my throat. So I hang up. I block her number.
Then I call Landon back.
“You called my mother and told on me? Really?”
There’s a moment of guilty silence. “I wasn’t telling on you. I was communicating. I’m just concerned for you, that’s all. You’ve been acting different lately.”
I feel as if the very air shrinks around me, squeezing me till I can’t breathe.
Part of me wants to apologize, to smooth it over, to call back my mother and beg for her forgiveness—the forgiveness she’ll never give.
What would I tell one of my patients if they brought this to me?
I would tell them to identify what I’m really feeling. I’m not sorry. I’m angry. And if I don’t stand up for myself, nothing will ever change.
I would tell them not to get married with major, unresolved issues hanging over their head.
“No, Landon. Not acceptable. You and my mother talk about me far too much. You’re marrying me, not my mother. You know exactly how she is. You know how she judges me. You and I have talked about this.” I force the words from my mouth even though I’m afraid they’ll choke me. “Yet you called her up with something that was guaranteed to set her off. You don’t have my back at all when it comes to her, Landon, you never do.”
“You’re overreacting, don’t you think?”
A humorless laugh escapes me, making me sound unhinged even to my own ears. I take a deep breath, and when I’m calmer, I say, “I need a few days to myself. Please don’t call or text me, and I swear if you call my mother back and tell her I said that…” I hang up before I can say anything else.
Pandora walks over to me and holds out a cupcake. “It’s on me. Looks like that was a bad phone call. Wish we served alcohol. You could probably use a double right about now.”
I manage a smile. “It’s just as well. I’d be staggering back to work reeking of tequila and telling everyone what I really think of them.”
Work’s already stressful enough. A month ago, one of the patients who I see on my volunteer day filed a false accusation against me, claiming I offered to cure his homosexuality by having sex with him. He was young and handsome, and very convincing, and I was suspended from my job for two weeks with pay until they finished their investigation. Thank God my mother and Landon never found out about it.
But I have absolutely no wiggle room for error at work now.
I walk back to the office, holding the cupcake in my hand and struggling to keep down the half a sandwich that feels like a brick of lead in my stomach.
Things can’t get worse. Right?
CHAPTER7
Bastien
The early morningair holds a slight chill as I trot through a thickly wooded area in a public park in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia.
Camille is close to me. So very close… Philadelphia borders Virginia. The fact my family has roots here, and Camille’s an hour’s plane ride away… is that some kind of sign? Is the universe nudging me toward her, telling me to take my vengeance at last?
I’ve been in America for four days now. Simon and Antoine are in the process of setting up the local branch of Cyber-X, and on weekends, Simon manages Dark Desires. He’s a kinky bastard, so he loves it.
I visited them when I first got here, showed them my new face. Freaked them the hell out.
Welcome to my world.Every morning when I shave, every time I pass a reflective surface, I burn with anger at the depth of my parents’ betrayal.
They didn’t just lie to me my entire life—they stole my face. The new one might be handsome, but it’s notmine.It’s an utter, shocking violation, and if my father were in the same room as me right now, I don’t know if I’d be able to refrain from beating him as bloody as a raw steak. The fragile bridge between us which they tried to rebuild over the years has been dynamited and blown to smithereens.
They’re dead to me.
So I told Simon and Antoine that for reasons I can’t explain, they are not to talk to my former parents. If my parents contact them, they are to say they haven’t heard from me and have no way to get in touch with me.
