Chapter Twenty-One Liv’s Flat
Chapter Twenty-One
Liv’s Flat
Liv was spending most of her waking hours thinking about the offer Amelia had made. She’d actually run into her sister at the bookshop in Orkney, a rare occasion as Liv rarely went shopping in the High Street.
Liv was buying a copy of The Orcadian and a notebook to record her thoughts. Rab from her AA meetings had told her it was a lifesaver. He wrote in his journal every day and said it kept him sane.
Evie looked effortlessly elegant in a mustard-coloured checked shawl over a caramel jumpsuit. She’d just had her hair done and was laughing at something the shop owner had said. She looked classy, happy and golden. Liv was pea green with envy.
She tried to make a quick getaway, but Evie had spotted her and called her name, asked how she was doing with a big smile and approached her for a hug. Liv mumbled that she was fine and went as stiff as a board as her sister awkwardly embraced her.
Evie always made her feel grubby. She realised her fingernails were chewed down to the quick and she had a hole in her black tights.
“Come by and see me anytime, Liv. You know you are always welcome, and Freya would love to see you. And I’d really like to show you around the gallery and tell you all about how it’s doing.”
Part of Liv ached to accept the invitation, but she hardened her heart. Evie had inherited the family house under her father’s will and turned it into a beautiful home complete with her own art studio and Liv still felt cheated.
She was the eldest. The house should have been hers or at least she should have been given a half share.
And she still hated the fact she owed Evie money for that stint in rehab.
There it was again. The feeling of being cheated of her father’s love and all because of Evie. The feeling of not being good enough.
She turned on her heel and almost ran out of the shop in her eagerness to get away from her kind-hearted and infuriatingly decent sister.
In the days and weeks after she returned from rehab, Liv had often thought about visiting Evie and trying to make amends, but something always stopped her.
She could hear the voice of her calm, reasonable therapist saying that one of the ways to recovery was to apologise to those you had hurt or wounded and make peace with them whenever possible.
Liv knew her behaviour towards her young sister was unfair, right from the moment her parents brought her home from the hospital. Liv had loathed her, and the more Evie trotted after her on her tiny little toddler legs and held up her plump arms for a cuddle, the more Liv shoved her away.
Evie was the golden child, adored by her father and Liv felt rejected and neglected by him.
She had come to realise that her damaged mother could never truly love anyone, and she used Liv as a weapon to beat her husband, always making excuses for Liv’s bad behaviour and then giving her money to try and buy her affection.
Growing up, she pretended she didn’t care that Duncan was so besotted with Evie, who he called his Teenie, but it broke Liv’s heart and made her hard as nails, at least on the outside. He had called Liv a monster, so she had vowed to behave like one, but inside her heart was breaking.
Liv knew she owed so much to Evie and her friends who had tried to help her, but just couldn’t bring herself to say sorry to her sister.
There was too much bitterness and resentment.
She flatly rejected Evie’s kind offer to come with her to rehab to help her settle in, and to support her at the AA meetings.
Liv curtly told her that she’d rather do it on her own but had at least managed to mumble her thanks, and when she had come back, had taken the trouble to travel to Inganess beach to watch her sister and all the Selkies swimming in the sea from afar.
She had been tempted to walk down to the shore and speak to Evie, but she’d experienced a flashback to the trauma of Brodie’s drowning and instead waved solemnly from the top of the hill, turned away and walked home alone.
Since then, she had made a point of avoiding Evie, not all that easy in a small place, but they moved in very different circles and Liv made sure their paths never crossed.
Sometimes she would see Freya bustling up and down the high street, greeting everyone with a cheery wave and taking hours to get from one end of the town to the other because she kept stopping to admire babies, ask after mutual friends or just exchange some gossip and a cheery chat.
Liv had shut herself out from that world and her life was low key. There was work, her AA meetings and then time at home on her own. She thought she was doing fine until Amelia dumped a big massive turd of a dilemma in her lap and brought back all those feelings of jealousy and being second best.
Liv knew she was at a crossroads and couldn’t decide which path to take.
On the one hand she was getting her life back together, and holding down a steady, albeit poorly paid, job.
But then, despite everything that had happened and how her sister had come to her rescue, there was her ingrained resentment of Evie and this was a chance to get her own back.
She was well aware that Evie had not only helped her to get into rehab but also to rent this flat. On top of that, her sister had stuck by her promise not to tell anyone what had really happened the night Brodie had died, but if Liv was honest, she hated feeling beholden to her.
Liv knew if she agreed to help Amelia – this strange malevolent woman who looked so much like her sister – it could lead to disaster not just for Evie but also for herself.
Right now, Liv was clean. She had no desire to drink or take drugs, but if this plan backfired there was a chance she would relapse and sink once more into that black hole of despair and her life would spiral out of control again.
Amelia was very persuasive, and Liv was all too aware she was being played like a violin; but there was this persistent little voice inside her head that would not quieten down and kept telling her that this new life she was leading was dull and boring and a bit of excitement and getting her own back wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing.
There was a lot to weigh up and time was running out. Amelia wouldn’t wait for an answer much longer. Liv sat outside her flat chain-smoking cigarette after cigarette, before making up her mind.