Chapter 9
LANEY
I didn’t think that the girl who had haunted my teenage dreams would be such a brat. The way she came into my private space and demanded I listened to her. I could forgive that she was new, but I couldn’t stand an ego. I would show her.
“Do you want to hang out tonight?” I said to Neenan across from me in the barracks’ mess hall. Can’t ignore a knock if I wasn’t there to hear it.
Two plates of chilli con carne sat between us, perfectly untouched, as I build the courage to dig in. Being in such a remote location meant our food was often made from cans and grains. My father, top management and I usually received the limited fresh produce we could get. Yet, I ate the mess hall food more often than my mother probably would’ve liked, but sometimes, the plain food was exactly what I needed—comfort food.
“Did they change cooks or something?” He continued to look at his plate with disgust.
“I don’t know.” I spoke fast. “But we could watch a film or sneak out in the woods, start a fire,” I wiggled my eyebrows.
“Yeah, right. You mean I start the fire, while you hide under a blanket and then paint our nails.”
“I’ll make sure yours are very pretty, rest assured.” I gave him my best doe eyes. “Pretty please.”
“Are you even allowed outside?”
“Allowed? I’m not a teenager.”
“I don’t know, man. The woods are scary, who knows what is out there? Or worse…who is out there?”
“I’ll bring knives,” I defended.
“As if you don’t have one strapped to your thigh right now,” he said, daring to shovel a mouthful of rice into his mouth.
“And on my ankle.” I smiled.
He grimaced at that moment, leaning forward, and sputtering over the table.
“Are you okay? Oh my God!”
He swallowed a couple of times before he could speak again.
“Can we go to your kitchen? I’ll let you paint my toenails.” Father and I had our own kitchen and supplies hidden in the dimmest corner of the manor. It had once belonged to the service men and women in the seventeenth century when the house and the home were two separate spheres, but it meant that it was always quiet. Out of sight, out of mind. I sometimes snuck Neenan down there as a reprieve from the outside world. It didn’t hurt that the cupboards were filled. Everyone needs a block of chocolate every now and then. “But not my fingernails, okay!”
I laughed as we stood.
“Keep an eye out for anyone looking,” I told Neenan, while I checked over my shoulder periodically looking for long dark hair. Since Kenna’s visit to my office, I’d been on guard. It had spooked me, not because it was her, but because I was so vulnerable in front of her, and I hated it. I had to spit my words out to be heard. Her proximity stifled me, and I couldn’t give her the power. It would drown me. I had to show her I was stronger than that, and not just at the whims of my feelings.
He nodded to my request, glancing around each new hallway we passed. If he was suspicious, he didn’t show it, even when I suddenly reached my hand out to stop him in his tracks as I saw a person with a leather jacket in the distance. One look at the person's hair, and my chest deflated. It was short. Not her.
“Are you hiding from someone?” He asked.
“No,” I denied too fast. “Just thought I saw something.”
He gave me a sceptical look but said nothing and continued to the door of the private kitchen. When the door clicked shut, Neenan was done being quiet. We’d basically lived parallel lives, he recognised a shift in the air before I could even release my next breath.
“Why are you hiding from Kenna?”
“I’m not,” I insisted, looking inside the fridge for something to eat. I saw Red Leicester cheese and grabbed it immediately. As I grabbed the block of cheese, another red food caught my eye and caused them to glaze over.
Red velvet cake. It was still there. I gulped, thickly. I miss you, Til.
He came up behind me and placed a light hand on my shoulder. I tried not to shudder. Unsuccessfully. “It’s okay to be paranoid. With the attacks on your family and the fact that Dylan–”
“It’s not that.” I said. Next, I opened a cupboard in search of crackers. Cheese and crackers were a meal, right? It's basically a sandwich. “She scares me.”
“So, it is about Kenna,” he said, chuffed.
“That’s not what I said.” I kept my gaze on the cupboard, away from Neenan, but I still didn't see the crackers. A whack of a cupboard shutting startled me from my daze as I felt a solid rectangular thing in my hand. Crackers.
“Thanks,” I whispered to him. We sat at the breakfast bar, without plates, peacefully munching on cheese and crackers sandwiches but I sensed the silence was temporary.
“What did she do?”
“Nothing,” I shook my head, but eventually accepted that it was futile to deny. He already knew. The words left me with a sigh. “She lied to me.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “About what?” he coaxed.
“It’s not important, she’s not as I remembered.”
“So, it’s her. Really her?”
“Yeah,” I said sadly.
Out of all the people on this estate, Neenan was the only one who truly knew the effect that the bathroom incident meant to me. Well, besides Tilly but…yeah. I’d never been comforted like that before. Physical touch was hard. An aloof father, an absent mother and a life of secrecy on what was basically a military base meant that the only touch I knew was harsh. Not necessarily aggressive or abusive, just cold. Unaffectionate. And very heavily male.
To be touched by a woman. A nice woman. Was everything .
I held that experience close to my heart, daily. Now, I knew I had to let it go.
Yet, amongst all the grief, I can’t take another loss.
“What was the lie?”
When I thought back to the moment, I saw her in the hallway the day she arrived, I was filled with hope that maybe I was deserving of this fantasy. That it could be real. But her denial of knowing me felt like a betrayal. “She told me she was homeschooled. That it couldn’t be her.”
“And you’re sure she doesn’t have a twin?”
“It’s her,” I said with absolute certainty. Her features were not the only similarity; it was her voice—husky and reserved. “I’m sure.”
Pulling me into a side hug, Neenan breathes the words into my hair. “I’m sorry, Laney.”
For a long moment, the only sound that could be heard was the crunch of crackers. Neenan was eating like he had been ravished, but I couldn’t stomach another bite.
“You know,” He started, “It could be innocent. You were at that school for what? Two weeks–”
“Four. It was four weeks.”
“Okay and do you remember all the people you saw there?”
“Well, no, but–”
“Maybe she just didn’t remember what you looked like. If I remember the story as you told me, you guys barely even spoke.”
“She says she’s homeschooled, Neenan.”
“You were homeschooled too.” I started to argue but Neenan raised his hand to my face. “If someone came up to you right now and they asked how you were educated, what would you say?”
“That I’m homeschooled.”
“Yes!”
“With a stint at public school.”
Neenan’s face fell. But he was undeterred. Really, I wished to talk about anything else besides Kenna and her lies. “Okay, okay, but what if she did the same? And just said homeschooled to simplify it.”
Making sure to fully face him, I moulded my expression to reflect the ridiculous conspiracy that he was concocting. “Can we just set up the fire pit?” I said, exasperated as I looked away again.
“No.” Neenan grabbed my chin, his eyes bored into mine. “It doesn’t have to be a personal betrayal. She might not have known that it would hurt you so.”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Anger simmered under my skin, but I refused to let it boil. I needed the subject to change right now. “I’m sure we still have some marshmallows here somewhere,” I said, jumping up from my seat and rummaging through various cupboards and tins. “I’ll grab the nail polish after we get set up and everything.”
His eyes were wide as he took in my frantic movements but thankfully, he let it go. “Yeah, they’re by the kettle. Forrester likes marshmallows in his hot chocolate.”
“Really?” I laughed, grateful to disperse some of the tension in my body.
“Really, really. Has done so since I was a kid. He made me drink hot chocolate before tea. Very un-British of him.” He jokingly scolded.
I grabbed the marshmallows and got some skewers before we went to the backdoor.