ONE #4
And then, when Jessa and I were in year eight at Northridge Academy, she died: just like that.
Lincoln ditched sixth form and took off, joining the army straight after our mother’s funeral.
He ran the fuck away so he wasn’t faced with the silence her passing left behind.
Linc’s abandonment put a wedge between us for a while, and then, eventually, Maisy’s birth brought us all back together again.
She was like the glue that held the family together.
We were all overwhelmed by Mum’s death, and it knocked our lives off kilter. I was surprised that Jessa and I achieved the GCSE grades we did.
Supposedly, Cameron met Vanessa Blair after our mother’s funeral.
None of us liked the woman at first. She was that kind of nice that you knew had to be a fucking act.
I remember her picking us up from school one day, and I called her a slut.
She had been so shaken up, yet she’d never told my father, even to this day.
I still saw that as an attempt to get me onside.
And it wasn’t long before she was pregnant. After only a year together, Maisy was born, and my father put a ring on it.
And then things changed, and as much as I hate to admit it, for the better.
The new stinky little bundle that came into the Rook house spun my world on its axis.
And the relationship between Vanessa and me normalised itself to a degree.
We were civil with each other most of the time.
Yes, there were ups and downs too, but we never aired our dirty laundry in front of her kid.
Maisy had to be protected at all costs. Which brought my mind back to Amelie Thorn.
How was bringing a fucking stranger into our home going to ensure that we continued to do that?
From what I had heard, the Thorn kids didn’t have the best start in life, not with a drunk for a father.
The girl we were taking into our fold could be a psycho for all we knew, unhinged.
I thought about everything I had dug up about the Thorn situation after my father’s bombshell that one of them would be staying with us.
When Vanessa’s estranged sister had been arrested with her husband, a real class act, her kids went into social care before being shared out, like fucking sweets.
As Cameron said, the youngest had a life-changing illness, and the brother, who was nineteen, had chosen to emancipate. I couldn’t understand how you could do that with no job and no money, but I decided that was his business.
And that meant we were left with the other girl.
A sweet, seventeen-year-old, doll-like waif, if Lexi and Louis were to be believed.
Yeah, more like a fucking intruder. I really didn’t give a shit about her story.
Did I feel sorry for her? Of course. But did I want her anywhere near my family?
Fuck no. Vanessa had suggested Amelie would join us at Northridge Academy.
Probably not the best move considering it was her old man that put one of the students there in a fucking coma.
It was still uncertain whether Rebecca Blake would ever wake up.
I didn’t know her personally, but her brother, Aaron, was on the same basketball team as me.
Once the new hit campus, Amelie Thorn would have a massive target on her back if she came to our school. Fact.
Weariness began to seep into my bones. I so hoped I slept well that night.
If what Jessa said was true, I had a bone to pick with Cameron.
If I didn’t get to the bottom of what was going on with the pool house, that would sit with me all day: festering.
The self-contained annex was the only place that didn’t reek of Vanessa’s perfume or Cameron’s crap.
Annoyance bled through me; I needed to say my piece ASAP and get that fucker in the bag.
A car door slammed, and I walked to the window and ripped back the blind.
As expected, Lincoln had just returned home from the gym.
He spent too many hours knocking the bejesus out of the punching bags and bench-pressing way above his weight.
I spotted him when his army buddy Moses was on tour, and he was like a machine.
He’d changed since he came back from the armed forces.
Lincoln was colder and smiled less. I still loved him.
He was my brother, and I knew he always had my back.
Linc was staying at the house until the sale of his new apartment went through.
Reaching behind my shoulder, I pulled my tee off over my head and threw it onto the mountain of clothes in the laundry basket.
Flopping down onto my bed in only my sweatpants, I let my mind wander to Amelie Thorn.
The “stray” who would be coming to live with us.
As if the house needed another broken soul rattling around its halls.
In a household full of tortured memories and imaginary monsters, Amelie was the one variable I couldn’t predict.
And in my experience, it was the things that you couldn’t see coming that left the deepest scars.