Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
I pressed my hand to my mouth, stifling the yawn that felt as if it would split my head in two.
I’d hoped to sleep better last night after speaking with Jade, getting my questions answered.
I’d felt so much better having got the secrets out in the open – not to mention dealing with her phone – but as it had turned out, the moment I laid my head on the pillow, I had been hit with a thousand memories of Ryan, and a thousand more imagined scenarios that Jade might have lived through over the past few years.
She was a nervous wreck. I could see that she was still uneasy around me, and the conversation about that baby vest had done nothing to ease her anxiety, but I was determined to make her comfortable here.
She’d gone out on a limb to tell me the truth, and I was grateful for it.
It was going to take time for her to feel like she could really confide in me about all she’d been through, but I would wait.
There was something that might help her to trust me.
I had a secret of my own I could share. But no…
she might not understand, might not see my side.
The thought of her hearing what I’d done and taking it the wrong way, blaming me rather than seeing my confession as the olive branch it was intended as, made me instantly tense, and I knew I wasn’t ready to go there. Might never be.
He’s obsessed with you…
Her words from yesterday had played on a loop in my mind ever since she’d told me.
I hadn’t even been surprised. I’d known he would never forgive me for the way I left.
For winning, because I knew that was how he would see it.
But to have her confirm my worst fears had set my heart racing, my senses on high alert.
I picked up my mug of coffee, the fourth or fifth of the day, breaking my own rule of stopping after two, the caffeine keeping me going in lieu of sleep, and grabbed one of the chocolate muffins Aaron had dropped off yesterday.
Then I headed out to the back garden, down the stepping-stone path, past the array of bushes filled with songbirds and their chicks, to the little secret garden hidden right at the far end, where I planned to eat before heading out the front to resume my digging.
There was a wooden bench that ran in almost a full circle around the eight-foot clearing surrounded by tall golden privet, an ancient oak behind the hedge providing dappled shade – a respite from the blistering June heat.
As a child, I’d come here every day after school, sprawling out on the smooth wooden planks to learn my spellings and read, decompressing after too much noise, too many people.
And in part, I thought now, to get away from my parents for a while.
It had been years before I’d seen that my brother might not have been entirely unreasonable in his judgement of them.
That the reason I’d fared better than Thomas, avoiding the rows and conflict, was not in fact because they loved me more, but because I’d learned more quickly to shape myself into what they needed me to be.
Quiet. Unobtrusive. Agreeable. As a young girl, I’d flinched at the sound of raised voices and wished Thomas would fall in line, stop provoking the arguments that could be so easily avoided.
But where he had gone his own way, cutting Mum and Dad off the second he got the chance, I had stayed.
I had tried to make them happy. And I had studiously avoided the glaring fact that they were both textbook narcissists.
It was patently obvious to me now that all those years of people-pleasing had made me the perfect target for a man like Ryan.
It had been so easy for him to step into the role of my boss, my dominator.
To set me tasks he knew I couldn’t complete and get his entertainment out of watching me try nonetheless, the desperate need to please him fuelling my every choice. I’d been putty in his hands.
Sometimes I wished I could confront my parents with my accusation, explain to them how they’d turned me into a victim, stolen my voice and made me weak.
But they would never have accepted it. They would have turned it on me.
And , I thought, biting into the chocolate muffin, crumbs dropping onto my lap, I would have been the one to apologise in the end.
I envied Thomas his ability to hold his head high, keep his sense of self despite all they had done to erase it.
Even now, even knowing all that I did, I couldn’t help but miss our parents.
Love them, though I was sure they didn’t deserve it.
I was weak. Fundamentally broken. At least I had been until I’d reached rock bottom…
I thought again of that vest, the blood splattered over the cotton, stiff and rusty.
The mouthful of muffin wedged itself in my throat, and I coughed, then gulped back half the mug of coffee in one go.
Of course Jade hadn’t believed my story.
It was too ridiculous for words. I balanced the muffin on the paper case, pressing my hands to my face as I thought of the guilt I carried with me, and knew with every fibre of my being that he was dead because of me. That I had killed that baby.