Chapter Thirty-Six – Thea
Chapter Thirty-Six
Thea
Within a week of my return, I was out of my parents’ house. I couldn’t live with them anymore. No, it was more than that. I couldn’t look at them, talk to them, exist in the same room as them. I didn’t tell them about me and Taran because, frankly, they didn’t deserve to know. What they deserved was zero access to me, to what I thought and what I did. So, I cut them off.
And my father threatened to cut me off, but here I was, in my new apartment, living on my own for the first time in my life, and my debit cards still worked. He and my mother probably thought it was a phase. That I’d go back home when I’d had some time to think and forgive them. As if I could ever forgive them.
It wasn’t even about them trying to marry me off to Soren Sinclair. They hadn’t known he was a cult leader. Fine. Whatever. As pissed off as I was about it, I was willing to move past it. What I couldn’t move past was what I found out from my father when I told him about what had happened to Taran. More specifically, to Taran’s then girlfriend, Rune.
His reaction had shocked me.
“This again?”
“What do you mean?” I’d asked.
“Taran Sylvan, you said.” We were in his office, and he was smoking a pipe.
“Yes. He’s the bodyguard you hired for me.”
“I thought I’d heard his name before.”
“What do you mean, Dad?” I was losing my patience. All I’d asked was how could someone die – Rune, in this case – without anyone doing anything about it?
“Look, it was a bit of a mess. Five years ago, I got a visit from the police. Someone had filed a report, accusing Everhart Furniture of murder. Now I remember. That was the first time I heard the name Taran Sylvan. He was accusing me of killing his friend.”
“Oh my God! What happened?” Taran hadn’t told me any of this, and I found it odd. After all, a crime had been committed. A living, sentient creature had been murdered in her sleep. Granted a leshy’s slumber wasn’t the same as a human’s obligatory eight-hour sleep.
My father shrugged. “Nothing. It was ruled an accident. This creature looked like a tree. And I mean, exactly like a tree. How were my men supposed to know? It didn’t move, it didn’t say a word. Hell, if it was alive, it should’ve let the loggers know, right? Scream, or something.”
“Not it. She. Her name was Rune.”
“Okay, she.” He looked at me strangely. “And the bodyguard told you this story? Why would he? What happened was no one’s fault. Actually, I’d say it was her fault. Rune, you said? Instead of living with her kind – apparently, these leshy monsters live in some sort of communities – she hid among regular trees, camouflaged herself, and then, tell me, whose fault was it that she was cut down with the forest? I had a permit, of course. I’d done nothing illegal.”
This conversation took place the next day after I said goodbye to Taran, and the second I realized there was no reasoning with my father, no convincing him that what he’d done was wrong, I stormed out of his office, got on my laptop, and found a place to rent.
The apartment was in a good part of the city, it was a two-bedroom with a nice balcony, and it was stylish. It felt good to be on my own for once. At first, I was so mad that I’d called Fiona and told her I didn’t want anything to do with my family anymore, including their money. Fiona, the good, patient friend that she was, let me vent for an hour, then gently told me I would’ve been stupid to not take their money. Yes, it was blood money, but I’d suffered for it, too. Plus, I could do good things with it. I could help.
“How?” I’d asked her.
“Let’s start an NGO together. I’ve been thinking about doing something, you know? Contributing somehow? Let’s work together and start an NGO with the main goal of replanting the forests your father’s company has cut down.”
It was a genius idea. I was grateful to have her as a friend. When I was too stressed and too angry to even think, she’d come up with the perfect solution. And she was right. My father wasn’t going to change anything. Everhart Furniture was still going to expand and make the family wealthier and wealthier. It would’ve been stupid to not take the money that was rightfully mine and use it to enact change. Fiona then told me that through the NGO, we might even be able to put pressure on Everhart Furniture to respect the sustainability laws and do less damage to the environment.
I was drinking my second coffee of the day at the small table on the balcony, poring over the plan Fiona had sent me and trying not to think about how cruel my father had been to Taran when he’d tried to seek justice for the death of his girlfriend. Not to mention that he forgot his name, and five years later hired him to protect his daughter. How self-absorbed could a man be? How could my father sleep at night knowing that his loggers had killed someone? I knew one thing for certain: I was never going to talk to him again. Ever. For the rest of my life. I would keep in touch with my mother, because she was my mother, but to me, my father didn’t exist.
My phone was sitting next to my elbow. For days, I’d been fighting the urge to pick it up, call Monster Security Agency, and ask to speak to Taran. But what would I tell him? It would’ve been offensive to even try to apologize for what my father had done. This whole terrible story proved to me once more why we couldn’t be together. Certainly, Taran had known who my father was when he was hired by him. Did I want to know why he’d accepted the job? My father had forgotten Taran’s name, but for sure Taran hadn’t forgotten his.
It was better to leave the past in the past. What I’d had with Taran had been incredible, and I knew I’d never find a love like that again. But there was no way we could build something from the chaos around us. Then there was the simple fact that our bodies didn’t fit together. He couldn’t give me his seed, and I would never be able to have his children. No matter the angle, a relationship between us wasn’t possible. It defied the very laws of nature.
I just hoped he was okay. I was not okay, but I was doing my best, focusing on the project I’d started with Fiona. I felt like we could do some good, and that fueled me. My father had caused so much damage, and I wasn’t going to bury my head in the sand and use the excuse that I was heartbroken.
The sound of the buzzer made me jump out of my skin. It was going to take me a while to get used to it. Back home, I didn’t have to concern myself with who came in and out. That was the maids’ job. I got up and pressed the button, asking who it was. I wasn’t expecting visitors.
“Hey, Sis! It’s me.”
My heart skipped a beat. Matthew. I buzzed him up and opened the door, bouncing on the balls of my feet, waiting for the elevator doors to open, so I could see his handsome face that I’d missed so much. He was carrying a flowerpot and a big smile on his face, and I squeaked and threw myself in his arms.
“I can’t believe you’re here! Why didn’t you call?”
I led him inside, then hugged him again.
“I wanted to surprise you.” He offered me the flowerpot, and I looked at it confused.
“I’m not sure I know how to keep this thing alive. Also, why a flowerpot? You know I’m not into plants.”
“Oh, shoot, I didn’t realize. You’re right. Why did I think this was a good gift?”
He looked at me with a sheepish smile, and even if my enthusiasm waned a little, I couldn’t be mad at him. To be fair, my biophobia was completely cured. Even though I didn’t know how to keep a plant alive, I wasn’t scared of it. I could touch it, care for it, water it. But it still stung a little that Matthew had forgotten that plants made me feel uncomfortable. He of all people should’ve paid attention to me. I guessed he was my father’s son, after all.
“Thank you. It’s lovely.”
That made him relax, and I was happy that he was happy. Today, I wasn’t going to split hairs.
I made him a cup of coffee, and we went to the balcony together. I showed him what I was working on. He looked over the plan for a minute, then nodded.
“This looks solid.”
“I’m glad you think so. Because it’s happening.”
He took a sip of his coffee, and I felt it when his mood changed. From happy and relaxed, he became tense and... embarrassed?
“Thea, I want you to know how sorry I am. I fucked up, and you almost paid for it. The worst part is that I had no idea. Dad’s immediate reaction was to send me to rehab, cut me off from the world, from you, and he didn’t say a word about how he was going to fix the problem. I had no idea he went to you and asked you to marry Sinclair, so the bastard wouldn’t run the story in his paper. I would’ve never let that happen.”
My back was straight and so tense that it hurt. “I had a feeling you didn’t know.”
He shook his head. “It’s insane. A cult leader? He sent assassins after you?”
“He didn’t. They acted on their own.”
“Dad said they were arrested.”
“Kyla and Markus?”
Matthew shrugged. “If that’s their names, yeah.”
I nodded. “Good. What about Sinclair?”
“Do you live under a rock?” He nudged my shoulder gently. “The scandal is all over the news. Orgies in the woods. Cult leader makes his followers have sex with trees. And, wait for it... Everyone is asking if the trees consented.”
He laughed, but it didn’t seem funny to me, so I drank my coffee in silence. He noticed my discomfort and cleared his throat.
“Sorry, it’s stupid. I mean, it’s not stupid, it’s horrible.”
“What about your story? The one Dad wanted killed so badly?” I didn’t tell him that I knew what he’d done.
He shrugged. “That came out, too.” He gave me a look that said he knew that I knew, but we weren’t going to talk about it.
“And?”
“It doesn’t matter what Sinclair says or publishes now. He’s done. No one believes him. He thought he could hurt our family by publishing that trash, but all he did was dig a deeper hole for himself.”
I nodded. “Good. So, this means it’s over?”
“Yes. And all thanks to you. Showing everyone that video was a genius move. There were more than a hundred people at the resort, and many of them filmed the screen. They filmed the commotion, too, Sinclair’s reaction... it was epic! The authorities are involved now, a few of his people were arrested, not only those two who tried to kill you, and he’s under investigation.” He paused, looked into my eyes, and took my hands into his. “You saved the day, Thea.”
I smiled. “I don’t know...”
“For real. Thank you. Without you, I don’t know what would’ve happened.”
“I mean, I was just trying to survive.”
My words wiped the smile off his face. He pulled me into a hug. I was the first to pull away, feeling like I wanted to be alone all of a sudden. I was glad he’d come to see my new place and talk to me, I was happy he was well, but he’d brought all that nasty stuff into my space again. He was my brother, and I loved him, but I could see his shortcomings now, and it hurt.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” I looked at my empty cup. “I need more coffee.” I got up, and he got up, too. He followed me into the kitchen.
“You’re not okay,” he said.
I shrugged. On the way from the balcony to the kitchen, it struck me why I was hurting, and they weren’t. I’d changed. They hadn’t. Matthew was still Matthew, and my dad and my mom were the same people, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t the Thea they’d known all their lives, and it hadn’t occurred to them yet, but I knew it deep in my soul. I was never going to be that Thea again, and I would never go back to them so we could be a happy, entitled family. It hurt now, but I was going to heal and come out of it stronger.
I poured myself more coffee and gave Matthew a smile. It was big, this time. Genuine. Because I knew I was doing the right thing. And it didn’t matter what they did, what they thought... All that mattered was that I was on my way to becoming a person that I actually liked.
“I’m okay,” I said. “And I’m happy you’re okay, too.”
We talked for a few more minutes, then I walked him to the door. We hugged, and I knew we weren’t going to see each other every day, or talk every day, and that was fine.
“Take care of that plant, Sis.”
“I will.”
I closed the door after him, then took the pot to the balcony. My very first plant. Failure was unacceptable. I was willing to do anything to keep it alive.