30. Adaline
Dad still hadn’t shown his face. Whether that was because he was avoiding me or hereally was busy, I wasn’t in a rush to answer.
So, at the table, it was just me, Goldie, and our mom.
The overly long rectangle glass table didn’t help with the awkwardness that mingledwith the salt air. Goldie was to my left, about two metres away from me. Mom was to my right, opposite Goldie and still quite far away. Then the empty chair, the furthest away from me, belonged to Dad when he showed up.
Ifhe showed up.
And then I remembered…
“Mom?” I called to her, as she twisted her head, wine glass just grazing her mouth. “Iforgot to mention earlier, but, do you remember Nate? Nate Patricks?”
Her face dropped, as did the wine glass from her lips. “The one you’re doing the moviewith, right?”
I nodded, brows furrowing. “And the one we grew up next door to…”
Again, her face turned stony. Odd, considering she’s been nothing but smiles all evening.“Yes, I do. What about him?”
“Well,” I choked out the word. “I invited him to dinner. I hope that’s okay?”
“Sure,” she says, stretching her neck. “Maddie?” A second later appeared a woman, only a fewfeet away, placing glasses before us as she glanced towards my mother. “Bring out an extra chair, would you?” Maddie nods, before scurrying back inside. “I’ll make sure to get a selfie with him whilst he’s here, that should keep them buzzing for a while?”
“Keep who buzzing?” I asked, as both Goldie and Mom said, “The press.” at the sametime.
“Things have been quiet recently, nothing notable to be said about us all at the moment.”
As my mom took a generous gulp of whatever white wine was swimming in her glass, I heard Goldie mutter under her breath, “Not like your firstborn is starring in the biggest movie of the year or anything,”
I had to disguise my giggle with a scoot of my chair.
As she brought the glass back down to the table, the smile we’d been subjected to allnight beamed on her face. “But that’ll all change when our news about the London project gets out!” she glowed, like she was blissfully unaware of what this little project meant for her daughter.
“Yeah, about that—”
“Adaline?” My dad’s voice called from the glass doors.
I shifted in my seat to face him, taking in the salt and pepper hair, blended throughstrands of auburn, that he didn’t have the last time I saw him, as well as the few more creases on his forehead.
His complexion paled, odd for a man who could pass for Caspar the ghost. “What are youdoing here?”
Before I can speak, my mom butts in. “James, I told you she was coming for dinner thismorning. She’s in town for a movie.”
His eyes flick to me. “Oh… I see.” He started to walk over to me, my heart rate picking upwith every step he took. Anticipating a hug, I scoot back on my chair and hold my arms open, only to look up and be met with his outstretched hand.
Now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I hugged my dad.
I had to stop myself from shuddering at the thought, as I lazily put my hand in his,shaking it like I was some casting director he’d just signed me over to me.
“We’ve missed you, Adaline.” My dad says down to me, the ocean breeze swayingaround us.
“I didn’t think you’d notice I was gone, to be honest, not when Goldie replaced me themoment I left.”
My dad pulls his head back, shaking it and rolling his ocean eyes. “Never did masterturning off the dramatics once the cameras were off, did you?”
And before I can say anything, a little bell sounds out from behind my dad, a flurry ofkitchen staff with silver dishes and carts ready to feed us.
We treat our stares like a standoff, sizing each other up before he backs away from me,gesturing to the kitchen staff to start unloading the food onto the table. Within minutes, there’s a spread of sushi across the table, and if I loved sushi, then my mouth would have been watering, but I don’t. Never liked it. And I can tell, as I take a glance at Goldie, that she wasn’t fond of it either.
Once they’re done, the kitchen staff leave, my dad now in the seat opposite me, as mymom goes to raise her glass, her filled lips popping open with a sigh.
“Well, I’d like to toast this long overdue family dinner.” She tilts her head to my dad,then to Goldie, and then remembers me. “I hope we can do more of this, going forward…” she glances at me. “I hope we can be happier, like we used to be.”
Were we ever a happy family?
I raise my glass, giving a tight smile to my mom, then one to my dad, who was burning ahole into his plate with how hard he was staring at it. Then we dig in.
The only sound that invades the table is that of the waves in the distance, and the tappingof gold chopsticks that were laid out for us. The lack of distraction gives me time to remember the empty seat that was placed next to me.
For Nate.
I glance at the chair. Where is he? He might’ve decided not to come, which I would notblame him for. I wanted to leave myself, and if it weren’t for the long overdue conversation regarding how they control my little sister, I’d get up and never come back.
But not yet. I couldn’t just start screaming at them. Maybe after dessert.
In the meantime, I fill my plate with the kind of sushi that looks like it has the least rawfish in it, the one smothered in what I’m hoping is a spicy mayo, anything to overpower the raw fish taste.
I pop one in my mouth, pleasantly surprised, then another, all the while sneaking glancesat the other members of the most awkward, staged family dinner in history.
I look over to Goldie first, who looks like the food spread across the table may as well berotten. Her lip is curled, her eyebrows slightly strewn together, and before I break the silence, I make a mental note to sneak her out and take her to InOut later.
I clear my throat, a warning call for the others. “I uh… I didn’t know you liked sushi,Gold’s.”
Her eyes sparkled for the first time since we sat down, her head tilting and lips pryingopen—
“Oh, she loves it! Don’t you, Marigold.” Mom calls to her, not taking her eyes off the tunasashimi laid neatly across the plate in front of her.
Goldie turns to me, her face deadpan. “No.”
I feel my lips tug in the corners at the monotone way that came out of her, but at the sametime, if I ignore the waves for a second, I can hear my heart crack, and fracture in the places it already had this evening. It was bad enough that they didn’t listen to her about acting, but the fact they didn’t even know her favourite food?
I felt my blood boil.
“It’ll grow on you, darling, trust me. It’s oh so good for you!” She sings, shoving moreraw fish into her mouth. I shake my head at her, but she doesn’t notice.
Then I glance towards my dad, who is still in a staring competition with his plate, onelonely California roll sitting in the centre. My being here has obviously made his vocal cords shrivel up, which I didn’t expect.
He was always the talkative one out of my parents, always had something to say. Whichwasn’t a bad thing, I welcomed him being the chatty father figure on the rare occasions they’d ask me about school, or ask what I wanted for my birthday. It was only when they’d remind me about the week of auditions I had to go through to see if I warranted the birthday present I wanted, or go to the school dance I told them about that I wished they”d shut up.
I didn’t expect to see him so quiet tonight. I’d not seen them for years, because I left,because of how they’d treated me like a shiny trophy-child to show off to the world. I’d expected some resistance, some animosity, anything other than blissful ignorance and stony silence.
I open my mouth, to say… I don’t know what I was going to say, something to break theice, when my mother beat me to it.
“Adaline, darling, you seem to be enjoying those dragon rolls!” she beams, and I take thelightheartedness to smile and be kind about them— “Maybe go easy on them though…” My ears started to hum. “Here,” she smiles, reaching over to the plate stacked with perfectly cut fish. “Try the tuna, it’s just to die for, surprisingly low in calories too!”
I felt my ears grow hot, the steam that was surely about to burst out of them simmeringunder my hair. “What did you just say?” I ask her, my face the replica of my dad’s.
Emotionless. Dead.
She shakes her head like I’m being silly. “Just a suggestion, Adaline. No need for theferocity.” she reaches for another slice of sashimi with her chopsticks before settling back in her chair. “You look beautiful, of course you do. It’s just that these dragon rolls will go straight to your thighs—”
“Mom.” Warns Goldie, our mother dishing her a quick glance before her eyes land backon me.
“—Which are looking… rather…”
“Beautiful.”
I could tell you whose voice that was even if I couldn’t hear it. Just from the way itrattled my bones, and set my skin on fire, I knew who was speaking.
Which is why I don’t hesitate to twist my body around to face him.
He looks proud of his entrance, which makes me just as proud of him. His eyes glide overto me without a second thought, a glimmer of a smile gracing his face, lit up by the final minutes of the golden hour. A white linen shirt and deep blue jeans cover his body, his hair imperfectly styled, and white Converse adorning his feet.
“Nathaniel? Is that you?” My mother calls, the warmest I’ve ever seen her greet him.
A distraction was what I heard them call him once, after I stupidly decided to go to herafter he kissed me. She blabbed, told Dad everything, and before I could take a breath, they told me to cut down my time with him.
And after what she told me before, that the only good thing about having him here wasthat it’d keep the press happy, I knew that happy tone was nothing but synthetic.
“Mrs. Moore. Lovely to see you again.” He nodded towards her, before his eyes slid tothe left of me, his head tilting as my sister screamed from beside me.
“Nate!!” She was out of her chair like a flash of sunlight, bounding towards him andwrapping her arms around his waist.
He wasted no time in bending down slightly, mirroring what she was doing with him.“Hey, little one!” He mumbled, and for the first time in forever, I saw a flash of his full smile.
She pulled away a second later, looking up at him. “I’ve missed you! I haven’t seen yousince you came by that day—”
“It’s been forever. I know.” He beat her to it, his smile not faltering. “I promise not to letanother seven years go by before seeing you again.” He promised her, before she gave him one final squeeze, and headed back to her chair, pulling out his as she went past.
But before he moved, or looked down at me, he called to my father. “Mr. Moore.”
I glanced over at Dad, who had finally stopped staring at his plate, his eyes wider than I’dever seen them. “Nate Patricks. What are you doing here? We haven’t seen you since you left for—” My dad looks at me, and I can see the night he picked me up from the pier, tears staining that ivory dress, pan across his mind.
He looks back at Nate. “College.”
Nate shuffles on his feet. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Sir.” He nods his head slightly,before finally daring a glance at me. “Hi,” he smiles, before walking behind me and claiming the empty seat next to me.
The last time he stole the seat beside me was when we signed our contracts. His face wasthe polar opposite right now, there was a glow about him, his tanned skin glistening… like he was happy to save me.
Turning my head, I watch him, as the legs of his chair scrape across the stone terracebeneath us, his eyes darting between my parents. There’s something different about him. I can’t tell what exactly, but it’s something. Something about the way he came in and took control over the moment, carried himself with a confidence that I’d only seen him act out.
It’s only when his eyes flick to Goldie, growing warm, that I remember he was there theday I found out she was leaving, and suddenly his warning glares make sense.
“So Nathaniel,” My mother started, her wine glass wedged between her lips again. Shealways called him Nathaniel when we were younger, and every time she did, I reminded her that he hated it. But that was my mother. “Congratulations on the movie with Adaline. Who’d have thought that you two rugrats would have grown up to be in the same career, and just as successful. It’s really wonderful when you think about it.”
It was, I suppose. If you had told the Nate and Addy who were sitting on the pier, readingand existing under the sun, that one day they’d be two of the most well-known actors in the world, we would have laughed and told you to leave us alone.
Then we probably would have sat in silence.
Addy would dwell on the fact that she was still stuck in the career she’d hated from theday she was pushed into it.
Nate would deny it, convincing himself that he’d never get over his anxiety enough tobarely speak in public, let alone be broadcast across every movie theatre in the world.
I never did ask him, come to think of it. Why someone who had tried to help me leavethis life had wandered into it himself?
There was so much to ask him. So much to catch up on that we hadn’t spoken about. AndI was tired of not talking to Nate Patricks.
“—Oh you two were just precious!” The end of my mom’s sentence rang in my ears, as I shook my head and brought my eyes into focus.
“I suppose we were,” Nate said back to her, reaching over the table to pick off a few ofthe dragon rolls I’d been eating.
My dad steals my attention then, the clearing of his throat and the way his eyes areburning through Nate prepping me for—
“So you two are fine now?” He blurted, his voice all low and sunken, so many questions intertwining his words.
“We were always fine.” I lie through my gritted teeth.
Finally, my dad sinks the California roll into his mouth, at the same time he scoffs andsays, “Yeah, sure you were.”
My mom looks over to him. “Darling, what do you—”
“Mom, it’s nothing. Lets just… get back to…” I nodded a few times at the table, hoping that would somehow switch the subject.
But it’s no use. “No, no, if I remember correctly, you told me you hated him. Youremember, the night he never came back from college—”
“You hated him? Since when?” Goldie asked, a humorous snort weaving through herwords.
Things had gone from zero to one hundred so fast I couldn’t keep up. Silence wasswitched for screams and my head became a speaker, echoing every word.
I look back at my sister. “I don’t, Gold’s, just ignore—”
“Don’t tell her to ignore me when I’m telling the truth!”
“Dad,” I warned, not liking the way I felt Nate stiffen or the way my dad was throwingdaggers at him. Or that I saw Goldie’s ears prick up. She couldn’t find out—
“No, Adaline. I want to know why this boy who made you cry and broke your heart iseating at our table right now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Goldie asked, her innocent eyes darting around thetable before landing on me. “When did he make you cry?”
“We’ll talk about it later—”
“When he left her all alone by the pier, that one not too far from here, because he was off fucking some college slutinstead.”
I know it should shock me, my dad seemingly caring about his daughter’s heart for thefirst time in her life. But it doesn’t. That night was probably the closest we’d been since I was a baby. He let me cry on him, as we pulled back into the driveway of our old house and he pulled me in for a hug.
It was one of the only times he was a father. Not a manager, or businessman; but a father, cradling his daughter through her first heartbreak.
But I couldn’t hold back the gasp after he”d said that.
“Dad, stop it!” I warned again.
“Addy, what is he talking about?”
“Marigold, don’t get involved, darling.” Mom hushed to her.
“Mom, if Goldie wants to say something, then let her speak. She’s not a baby.” I warnedher.
“Watch your tone, Adaline.”
“She doesn’t need to watch anything, she can say what she likes.” Nate glances at me fora second, before turning back to my dad. “And to answer your question, Sir—”
“Nate,” I grabbed his forearm. “Don’t.” My eyes fell to Goldie, before landing back onhim.
I felt him settle when I told him everything with one look.
She doesn’t know about what happened. She thinks we’re still friends, my drawn-togetherbrows and head tilt told him.
Okay, not a word, his nod and slow blink replied.
After a few moments of silence, I watched as Goldie threw her chopsticks back down onthe table, groaning with anger. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
I shook my head at her, dreading the way I could feel myself welling up. “Goldie, I’ll—”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you.” My dad starts, and my heart plummets to my toes. “That littleasshole sitting there is the reason we haven’t seen your sister in so long. He broke her heart and she ran away.”
“What?” Goldie’s eyes, doh-like and glassy, turn to me.
“James, language!!” My mom cries.
“That’s not true,” Nate says for me, eyeing up my dad. “Do you want me to fetch you amirror so you can see the real reason why your daughter left? Because you should know that you,” he glances at my mother. “Both of you, are the reason she finally left.”
“I beg your pardon?” My mother gasps. “How dare you say such things.”
“I mean, it’s very obvious, and if you didn’t come to that conclusion yourselves, you”remore self-centred than I knew you were when I was fourteen.”
I could practically feel the adrenaline pulsing off him as he stood up, dominating theconversation.
“In fact, it’s clear you don’t see it, because the second Addy left, you replaced her with that girl right there.” He gestures to Goldie, whose eyes were wide with all types of fear and confusion. I dashed her a shaky smile, but she simply stared straight through me. ”And now you’re taking her away from everything she knows to the other side of the world. And for what? For a movie she doesn’t even want to do?”
A laugh that I’d never heard my mom let out before poisoned the air, mocking andpowerful. “That’s nonsense. Where on earth did you get that idea?”
I chime in. “Well, considering that Goldie has told you on several occasions that shedoesn’t want to do it, then I’d take a whack and say that’s where he got the idea from.’
Mom shakes her head, as though what we”d said was a joke. “No, she hasn’t.”
“Yes, I have!” My sister screams, the glass table rattling under her power. “You don’t listen!I tell you all the time and you…” The final piece of my heart shatters when she chokes on her words, emotion filling every syllable, the stream of tears I could see her holding back finally starting to fall. “You don’t listen.”
My dad stays silent, while my mom just stares through her, her lips pried open. “Goldie, darling, I just thought that you—”
“You thought I wanted to be like Addy.” She nodded the words, her rosy cheeks drenched with tears. “But did you ever realise that she never wanted that life either? Did you pull your head out of every casting director’s ass for long enough to see that she hated this life just like I do?”
She was stood up by this point, one hand on the glass table and the other firmly pointed atMom, who looked like she’d had her heart ripped out and stomped on right in front of her, bearing every emotion for all of us to pick at. Dad was staring over at Goldie, his cheeks red, hands gripping the sides of this chair. Nate was…
I hadn’t realised he”d left my side, and instead had walked over to Goldie, who was now sobbing.
I got up from my chair and ran over just as Nate reached her. I took her under my arm,letting her sob into my chest as I led her back inside. I didn’t think about anything else, only the couch I could see in the room, leading Goldie towards it to sit her down.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Maddie, who had likely come to find out what thewailing was for.
“Is she okay?” she asked, leaning on the couch.
“She will be. Could I get some water and a box of tissues, please?”
“Here, I’ll take her,” Maddie said, rubbing a hand on my shoulder.
“Goldie, I’ll come find you in a minute. I’m going to make this right, okay?” Goldielooked up, her eyes all red and sodden. “I promise.”
Maddie led Goldie upstairs, while I caught my breath and walked back out onto the sunterrace.
My mom had her head in her hands, my dad was now standing over her chair, rubbing ahand on her back.
I lost it. “Don’t you think it’s embarrassing that you’re consoling her over your daughter?The daughter you’re dragging to London for some stupid movie?”
My dad looked up at me, anger written across his face like a childish scribble in everyshade of red marker. “I think it’s embarrassing that you think that’s any way to speak to the people who gave you the life you lead.”
I throw my hands up in defeat, a weightless scoff forcing it”s way out of me. “You know, you’re right. You did give me this life. Andfor the most part, I’m thankful for it. I’m so grateful that I can live the way I live.” I look them both dead in the eyes. “But if you think for one second that it’s what I ever wanted, you’re idiots.”
My dad’s eye roll looked as though it had been waiting to happen since the moment Ileft. “Jesus, get over yourself, Adaline. You didn’t know what you wanted when you were six. No one knows that—”
“She did,” Nate says, stepping from behind me. “She’s known what she’s wanted since theday I met her.” The linen that clung to him brushed against the back of my dress—a thread of protection. “Care to take a guess?”
Both my parents go white as a sheet. I’d set alight all my manuscripts right this second ifthey could tell me what my dreams were.
“No.” I could tell he was shaking his head. “I didn’t think so.”
“Why are you even here?” My dad asked. “You broke her heart just as much as we did,apparently.”
“I’m here because she asked me to. I’m here because I was the person she’d come cryingto after both of you dragged her to an audition, or after a day of filming. She’d come to me, tell me everything, and she’d cry on my shoulder.” He looks at me. “And at the same time, she was helping me, in ways that she probably doesn’t know about.”
“If you hated it that much…” My mom’s voice dragged me away from Nate’s stare.“Then why did you never say anything?”
I’d lost all effort to pretend. “Because I was scared. Scared that you’d still force me to actanyway.” I point my finger at the house. “And I think I’m well in my right to think that, because your other daughter is sitting up there crying to the kitchen staff because she’s tired of telling you that she wants to go to college and never act another day in her life, and here you are forcing her to move to a different country for something she doesn’t want to do.”
Pathetic was too small a word to describe her sob. “She’d be giving up her dream life ifshe did that.”
“No, Mom. I think you’ll find that she’s giving up yours.” I turn to my dad. “And yours.”
My dad”s brows that matched his hair furrowed, one of his shoulders shaking. “So whatwas it you wanted to do then? Instead of acting.”
Before I answered, I tilted my chin up to catch Nate’s eyes, and like he knew what I wasasking when I fanned him with my lashes and searched his eyes, he nodded at me.
I turned back to face my parents. “I write books. I have ave done since I was ten. It was myway of coping after a day of auditions, when I didn’t know how else to get all my feelings out.”
I felt Nate shuffle closer to me. “And they’re good. Really good. I’ve read every single one of them.”
The man before me glared at Nate as he gritted out, “Are you still here?”
“Dad!”
“I’ll always be here for her.” His words have me meeting his stare once more. “Always.”
“Except for the one time she needed you the most, and you left her.”
My dad”s digs made my body deflate, as a thousand comebacks hiked to the roof of my mouth—
“I could say a million things to you, Sir,” Nate said, beating me to it. “I could tell youwhat an asshole you are, how you’ve never been a father figure to these girls. How self-centred you are for forcing your daughters into this life. But, instead, I’ll say thank you.”
“What?” Both me and my dad say in unison.
“Yeah, thank you, for moulding this girl into the best actress on the planet. And I’mthankful that for the last few years, she carried on in this life she was comfortable with… because that’s what crossed our paths again, what brought us back together.”
Those parts of my heart that had been chipped at over the course of the sunset seemed tomake their way back home with every word that slipped from Nate’s mouth.
My mom peeked up from her hands. “Adaline, darling, I’m so sor—”
“No, Mom. I think that apology is twenty years too late. I don’t want to hear it rightnow.” I took a breath. “What you should do, is console your daughter. Go into her room, both of you, and just look at the college brochures on her floor. Talk to her about her dreams. Not yours, but hers.”
That was enough. That was all I had to say to them.
I dragged my hands through the knots in my hair as my head dipped, the slabs of the sunterrace all I could see. It felt like a volcano that was well overdue an eruption and had finally collided with the tremor to cause just that… and regardless of the devastation it brought, it was needed.
The bad to bring the good. Hopefully.
“I’ll come by in a few days to see her.” I lifted my eyes to meet my parents, theirfaces shattered and hearts probably untouched. I didn”t want to think about whether all this had been worth it. Whether anything could come from the truth. Whether people could change that quickly. Not right now. “But I think this dinner party’s over for now.”
Without thinking, I grabbed Nate’s hand as I went to leave, and thankfully, he didn’thesitate when he followed behind me, back through the mansion with our hands intertwined. I marched over to the door and pulled it open, not a creak from the hinges as we left. We walked out into the courtyard, the shadows from the house blanketing the cobbles.
My head felt funny, like the inside of a static screen, with no answers or thoughts or beliefs orquestions. But as I spun around to face Nate, those green gems falling onto me and checking me over… everything became clear.
And like the world stopped spinning for a moment, like it didn’t want to miss the way Igripped Nate’s shirt and pulled his lips onto mine, the salt air calmed, the waves paused their crash onto the sandbank, the sun froze just as it reached the end of the horizon, all to watch as I kissed Nate Patricks.
And as he fell into me, and embraced me… the tides broke, the air whipped around us,and the sun glowed and showered us with light, twinkling us for the stars to see as they faded onto the pastel sunset.
The world… my world, it reset.
Strong hands gripped the back of my head, holding me in place as my hair flailed in thebreeze. Lips that had defended me just now caressed mine, powerful and graceful and completely spelling me to him in the ways I forgot I was.
His touch only polished those ties that I hadn’t seen for years. It dusted off the rope thathad been tied around us for longer than we could imagine. With each tug of his hands in my hair, every time he dipped my head and launched me further into the kiss, he was reminding me of the ways I’d fallen in love with him, that had become blurry, hazy memories.
Like water-damaged photographs that were finally drying out.
There was so much left unspoken between us. There were seven years worth of secretsand missed birthdays and memories to wade through. But right now, when I could see a version of us that I thought could last, dancing on the line where the ocean met the universe, wasn’t the time to talk about what he’d wished for when he blew out his candles, or why he never came back for me.
Right now was for me and Nate and the final moments of the day I remembered howmuch I loved him.
We eased away from each other slowly, my hands on his face, our noses brushing. I couldbarely find the strength to meet his stare, but I did, and I felt just as helpless as I did the first time I got lost in his aventurine eyes.
“I want to go,” I said, before realising I’d even spoken.
He stayed swimming in my eyes for a few moments, treading through the thoughts thatlived in them, before I felt his lips part against mine. “Where do you want to go?”
I shook my head against him. “Anywhere.” I caught my breath. “I don’t care where I goright now, as long as you’ll come with me.”
He nodded against me, his thumb skating across my jaw. “Wherever you are is where Iwant to exist to,”
I let a laugh slip out. “Even if I’m on Mars?”
“I fell in love with my best friend… travelling to Mars would be nothing compared tothat journey.”
And then… smiled like a woman who’d finally figured out what she wanted to do. “Take me to yourhotel room.”