23. Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
Toni
My hand didn’t move when Jack ordered me to dial. His did. The harsh ring of the phone yet again connecting me to my father. So many patterns repeating over and over in my life.
Jack was as good as admitting he had my father’s phone number memorized, and I was pinned with fear when the line connected.
“Jack,” My father’s terrifying voice barked.
Every possible word felt trapped behind a brick wall in my throat.
“Jack?”
“Speak,” Jack mouthed. I swallowed, unsure why I was obeying the director right now when every cell in body wanted to run, “No, father.”
“Antoinette, my darling! To what do I owe this pleasure?” His poisonous happiness slithered through every word. The sound of his voice, the knowledge that nothing good ever came of making my father happy, made my whole body start to quiver.
“Tell him your brother will be heading home for a few days,” Jack whispered, coming closer. Probably hoping to overhear my father’s reaction.
I repeated his words.
“Hmmmmm,” my father sighed, “A few days, he says?”
“Yes.”
Again, I parroted the words.
“Thank you, princess,” I heard but was too busy gagging to say anything back, “Please pass the phone to Jack.”
I flung the phone to the Director and bolted. The last words I heard on the way out the door were Jack’s, “Just until everything calms down.”
I didn’t give a fuck if Jack wanted more from me, or if Riley and Brennon thought I was crazy. Both of them were still seated at their desks as I bolted past, but I needed to get the hell out of there.
As I fled from his office, I thought of every hug I’d ever given Jack Walker, and it made me ill all over again.
In fact, it brought back that desire to purge every ounce of fluid from my body, even though I knew there was nothing left.
I couldn’t tell you when that became my default setting.
I knew exactly how bad it was, how unhealthy, but every time my life spun out of control or every time the past was fired back at me like a weapon, I couldn’t seem to help it.
The need to purge was there. Burning, cleansing, controllable.
That whole conversation was a reminder of how many pieces of this fucked up puzzle we were still missing.
Even when we thought we were getting closer to finding out what happened to Rachel, another heaping pile of shit got flung our way.
To make matters worse, we hadn’t had the time or opportunity to discuss it.
Other than that day on the dock, our quiet swim, and a few kisses, we hadn’t been able to talk, let alone be together.
Since then, every time his eyes caught mine across the dining hall during a meal, or at senior staff meetings, I could see my own longing mirrored in their hazel depths.
Tomorrow, though, with the break from the usual day-to-day schedule, I hoped we’d get our chance.
Chance is for suckers and luck stopped being on my side ages ago.
I don’t know why I thought today would be any different.
Abbi and I did eventually get a chance to prep our togas, and we weren’t alone.
At breakfast, it was easy to pick out all the different members of staff because we were all wearing bedsheets as clothing.
All except Xav, of course. I had to laugh, because my man never was a joiner, so when I sat down at the staff table to eat, there he was, wearing nothing but a red kilt-like skirt and a cardboard sword.
When I giggled, he looked up and noticed that I wasn’t the only one wondering about his state of undress.
The nurses, Michele, and others around the table were all looking at him, too.
“I’m a gladiator,” he grumbled before returning his attention to his cereal.
Everyone else returned to their breakfasts, too, except me.
It was hard to drag my eyes from Xavi’s exposed shoulders, the muscles across his taut chest, and every lickable inch of his torso.
He must have felt my stare. He kept his head low, eating, but his eyes tilted up to mine.
Then, the left corner of his mouth crooked into a devilish half smile.
He took one more bite, swallowed and mouthed, “I’m going to eat you later. ”
I’m not sure if anyone, other than maybe Mich beside me, caught my blush, and thankfully, no one at the table could tell the heat those words elicited between my legs. But that was also the closest I got to him from the rest of the day.
After breakfast, Cole and Abbi gathered the full staff team, other than cabin leaders, of course, and issued instructions for all of us.
Not unexpectedly, I was stationed on the beach all day, leading one cabin at a time into a legendary battle against the sea god, Neptune, and his army.
Neptune, in this case, was one of the junior staff, Mika, who also taught swimming lessons, and his ‘army’ were actually a bunch of pool noodles we’d spent the previous evening tying to anchors around the beach area.
Meanwhile, I was forced to watch as Stephanie, clad in the smallest, borderline inappropriate, gladiator costume she could have possibly managed, dragged Xavier after her, toward the Activities Field where they would be co-leading chariot races for the afternoon.
From a distance, I couldn’t see much, and I certainly couldn’t hear anything, but I could make out all the times she sidled up to him, and each time he, in turn, repositioned himself across the field from her, only to have her trail after him again.
It was like watching a game of cat and mouse, except I wanted to stomp over there and grab the cat by her blonde ponytail and yell at her to back the fuck off.
When Bella’s cabin arrived at the beach, she must have noticed how distracted I was. After I explained the rules to her girls–who all looked adorable with their own tiny, decorated gladiator swords–and they began to chase their way through the water towards Mika, Bella approached me and whispered,
“Try not to let it bother you,” her eyes rolling towards the field behind us.
“I’m trying. But it does make me want to slap her.”
“I know,” she paused, “It must be even worse because you two have been keeping your distance lately. We were starting to wonder if something went wrong.”
“We?”
“Yeah, we, girl, as in, your friends, who care about you and your happiness,” she then punched me playfully on the shoulder.
I snorted, “Okay, okay, yes, we’ve been keeping our distance but it’s not because anything’s wrong- welllll…” I stopped mid-sentence because that wasn’t quite true. Nothing was wrong between Xav and I, but there were a hell of a lot of wrongs going on around us.
“Maybe there are a few things wrong. And maybe I owe you all a bit of an explanation.”
Bella’s eyebrows popped up and she tried to crack a joke, “Like what, you’re hiding from your other billionaire parent? Wasn’t one enough.”
I couldn’t help but flinch. On paper, my father was a both wealthy and kind, and I knew plenty of people, definitely people in Mom’s neighbourhood, who would have traded places with me in a heartbeat, knowing it meant never having to worry about where the next paycheque was coming from.
And sure, my clothes were nice, and my sheets were softer, but in his house, I was also trapped.
A creature in a zoo, where I was forced to perform, smiling for the cameras while my jailor held the prod at my back.
I shuddered even thinking of that pink hellhole.
Bella stared me down, “Okay, seriously, what is it?”
“It’s a few things,” I answered, scanning the beach. Her girls had just finished defeating Mika’s army–or should I say, Neptune’s–and were racing back toward the sand, and us, so, just like with Abbi yesterday, spilling my guts was going to have to wait, but only a little while longer.
As her kids gathered their towels from the sand, and slid wet feet back into shoes and sandals, I pulled Bella in and whispered, “Later. The whole truth this time.”
“You promise?”
“I promise,” I nodded solemnly, feigning bravery and confidence I did not have.
Other than with Xav last summer, the last time I talked about my father’s abuse was in a courtroom when I was fifteen, and that hadn’t exactly been a stellar experience.
Since then, I had ignored it at every opportunity, shoved that ugly shit into a dark corner at the back of my mind so that I could get the fuck on with things.
That was harder to do when I was surrounded by my father and brother, and weirdly, it was even harder to do here, where Xavier and my friends kept rallying around me.
Ignoring it is easier. Talking about it is hard. Fuck hard. It’s downright painful. But it didn’t sit right with me to leave the people I cared about in the dark either, not anymore. Especially considering Jack’s involvement.
Bella rounded up her twelve campers with a rallying cry, “Iris Girls! Time for our next station. Are you all ready for chariot races!?”
The girls hooted and hollered. Their high-pitched excitement was contagious. I waved Bells off with a smile and a quick shout, “After dinner!” making sure to wave at Alison, too, who had snuck her hand into Bella’s while the rest of the girls ran towards the Activities Field.