Chapter 25 #5
Paris blinks at me, visibly thrown. She lifts a hand halfway, like she’s about to adjust it herself, then lowers it again.
“I didn’t—I didn’t realize i-it was… off.”
I let a smile ghost my face. “You look nice today. The clip suits you.”
She fumbles with her bag strap. “That’s no—that’s n-not what we’re talking about.”
“But it could be,” I reply, still watching her.
Paris narrows her eyes. “You’re deflecting.”
I raise a brow. “Am I?”
“Yes,” she says. “You always do this.”
“That’s a very cynical take, Paris,” I muse, shifting my weight a little against the locker. “Almost sounds like you’re accusing me of something.”
I glance at the silver clip again, then at her eyes. “It really was crooked.”
Paris lets out a long, quiet sigh. “Y-you’re not taking this seriously,” she says.
I exhale, only mildly amused. “If I took everything seriously,” I murmur, “I’d need a therapist and a priest.”
That gets the faintest flicker of a smile from her, which she immediately tries to smother.
I tilt my head slightly. “Where are your outstandingly insufferable friends today? Why are you on your own again?”
Paris shifts, adjusting the strap of her bag again. “They’re n-not really… my friends. I don’t really have any.”
“Oh yeah?” I glance over at her. “What do you call me, then?”
She frowns like she wasn’t expecting the question and looks at me with a bewildered look on her face. “You’re… different.”
I hum at that. “Different,” I repeat, letting the word roll off my tongue as I glance at her curiously. “Does that mean I’m your best friend?”
“You’re my only friend,” Paris says softly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Only?” I murmur, leaning closer to her. “Now that’s a dangerous amount of power to give one person.”
Kym
I stand at the counter, stirring the pot of spaghetti bolognese and watching as the water bubbles.
I take in the scent of tomatoes and simmering herbs, wondering what I used to like so much about it.
It makes me sick now. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I always make it for Pete and Annie, or that it’s Pete’s favourite.
Annie’s too, or at least that’s what she always says.
I know she’s just saying what Pete wants to hear.
My parents, but not really. I’ve never called them “Mum” or “Dad”, and I don’t think I ever will without wanting to spit the words out or throw them up. Pete isn’t even my biological father, just the man Annie married out of necessity or convenience.
A decision I can neither understand nor forgive.
My hands tremble as I reach for the plates, and I will myself to stay steady. Everything has to be just right. The plates set perfectly, the silverware lined up straight. If he finds anything out of place, he’ll have an excuse.
Not that he needs one.
I catch the gleam of headlights slicing through the grey outside. The familiar growl of Pete’s car pulling into the driveway. Too soon. He’s early. My heart kicks, a wild, frantic thing caged inside my chest.
I’m not ready.
The door creaks open, a groan that makes my stomach twist and my heart stop in my chest. I don’t turn around. I focus on the plates, my hands shaking as I adjust the fork, just slightly, just enough. It has to be perfect.
I feel each of his steps, the soles of his shoes grinding against the floorboards. A ticking time bomb. My pulse quickens, a frantic flutter beneath my skin. He wants me to hear him. He wants me to wait.
I keep my eyes on the pot, my hands steady, my body tense. I hear him stop in the doorway, his presence filling the room, making the air cold. The house greyer. The air thinner.
“Smells good,” he says, his voice low, casual. I feel his eyes linger on me, tracing the line of my back, the curve of my neck. I feel them like fingers, pressing down, heavy and cold. He smiles, but it’s a thin, empty thing, stretched tightly across his face.
“You made my favourite,” he murmurs, his breath warm against my neck. He leans in, his chin just grazing my shoulder, his chest brushing my back. I force myself to stand still, to keep breathing. He’s testing me, seeing if I’ll pull away. If I do, he’ll take it as defiance.
I swallow, my throat dry. “Yes.” My voice comes out flat, dull. I hate how weak it sounds.
His fingers press into my shoulder, a subtle increase in pressure. Not enough to leave a mark. Not yet.
“It smells lovely.” The words themselves are soft, gentle, but it’s what’s behind them that makes them so terrifying.
His hand tightens just enough to make my bones ache, and I stand there, rigid, waiting for him to release me. Waiting for the test to end.
After a moment, he lets go, his fingers trailing down my arm, and I suppress a shudder, forcing my muscles to stay still.
He moves away, slowly. He knows I’m watching him out of the corner of my eye, tracking his every movement. I have to. Not that tracking him makes any difference.
No amount of preparation can ready you for the tragedy bound to occur.
I thought I was prepared. I thought after experiencing this kind of abuse for so many years, I would be ready for it to happen again.
That if I stopped hoping, it would lessen the pain.
That’s what my past taught me. That hope is a dangerous, cruel joke the universe plays to keep you hanging on.
So I don’t hope anymore. I expect the worst so when it finally comes, I’m ready.
Little did I know I was in a lose-lose predicament. And whether I hoped or not, my outcome wouldn’t change. I realized that when I first met Pete. I remember it like the memory itself was written onto my brain in permanent ink.
I remember Annie bringing him one day, and I looked into his eyes then, searching for something different. Something kind. But as he stared back at me, his gaze cold and spiteful, I knew. Oh god, I knew—I’d have to endure it again. But I was too tired to scream, too numb to cry.
All that was left was the silent horror that hell was my home once more.
So, when Will had left with my biological father, I thought it would finally stop. And it did. For a little while. But it seems our Annie has a disgustingly specific taste in men. If you could even call them that.
That’s how it is with my family. It’s perfectly ugly. No matter how much I tried to convince myself it would be okay. Eventually, I realized their love was never coming. Because you can’t get blood from a stone—or love from those who’ve forgotten how to give it. In my family, there was no love.
No warmth, no comfort. Nothing soft. Nothing safe.
There was only pain. Pain that soon became a part of me.
I carried it with me, hidden beneath my clothes, beneath my skin.
I learned to live with it, to breathe through it, to swallow it down.
I learned to smile with broken ribs, to sit straight with bruised vertebrae, to walk without limping, without wincing, without showing the pain.
I learned to survive.
But I never learned how to live.
I sigh and turn back to the stove, my hands moving on autopilot, stirring, serving, plating. Everything precise. Everything perfect.
I reach for the salad bowl, but his voice stops me. “Sit down.”
My heart stutters. There’s no anger in his tone, no sharpness. But that’s what makes it terrifying. His self-control, his calm, that’s his weapon. You never know when he’ll snap, but you know he will eventually. Can see it in his eyes.
I sit, my back straight, my hands folded neatly in my lap. I make sure my feet are flat on the floor, my posture perfect. I don’t look at him yet, though I probably should.
He sits across from me, his chair scraping against the floor. I finally look at him and watch as he leans back, his body relaxed, his fingers drumming lightly on the table. But he isn’t looking at the food, he’s looking at me.
At my face. At my eyes.
I hate my eyes. I didn’t used to. Once, I loved them. They were the only thing about me that was different. The only part of me that didn’t look like them. Everyone in my family has deep, dark brown eyes—so dark they were almost black. Shadows. But not me.
I have my grandmother’s eyes. Amber, golden, bright, clear. Too bright. Too different.
Nikolai, my biological father, hated them. He said they made me look strange, like I didn’t belong to him. Like I didn’t belong in his house, with his wife and his son who all looked the same. White hair, dark eyes. Identical.
That’s what they were known for. How they were identified on the street, or by the paparazzi.
I didn’t look like them. I never would. And I loved that. I loved how my eyes separated me, marked me as something other, something apart. I loved that he hated them.
But Pete loves them, always has. Which makes me despise them even more.
One night, after my brother and Nikolai had left, I stared at myself in the mirror, at the pale strands of my hair shining in the harsh bathroom light. It looked wrong. It looked like them.
I didn’t want to be like them.
I dyed my hair then, a dark brown. I wanted to be unrecognizable. I wanted to look as different as I possibly could. But I missed a spot.
My incompetent, fourteen-year-old self had actually missed a spot. A large one too. Leaving a streak of white amidst the layers of brown.
I should have dyed it again. I should have covered it up.
But I didn’t. I never did.
I’m not sure why.
“How was your day?” he asks, his voice perfectly even. Almost pleasant. A question without curiosity.
I swallow hard, keeping my gaze fixed on my plate. “Good,” I say, because for the time being, it’s the safest answer. But also, because I really don’t feel like talking to him.
His fingers keep drumming, a sound that actually manages to echo in my skull. “Did you get your test results back?”
My pulse stumbles, panic tightening in my chest. My mouth goes dry, and I fight to keep my face blank, my voice steady. “No.”