TEN
AMELIE
The next couple of weeks flew by as I settled into a rhythm. School with Jessa, classes with Halo, and break times spent surviving introductions to the rest of the student body.
Lacey, Marie, Lexi and Louis, Abbie and Nancy, the list was endless, and I knew I’d never remember even half of those names.
At the house, I spent most of the time in my room or with Maisy. Jessa went out a couple of times and asked if I wanted to join them; them being her and Jordan, so I gracefully declined. I saw Kieran around school and at meal times, but he didn’t say much and hardly ever looked at me.
One evening, I heard him arguing with his father in the kitchen, the place where people spent most of their time. I had been in the middle of texting Sophie. She’d been in touch to say that Adam had been to see her and how rough he looked.
“What about golf?” I heard Cameron say, to which Kieran shouted. “Screw golf, find someone else to play.”
“You can’t commit yourself to anything, can you?”
“Oh, you’re a fine one to talk about fucking commitment.”
“We’re not done!” Cameron boomed.
At the sound of those raised voices, I slid my phone away and crept towards the noise. Before I even realised that I was listening in, Kieran stormed from the room, almost knocking me over. His face was red, and the veins in his neck stood out.
I jumped back a step as he glared down his nose, my back against the wall in the corridor.
“Get all that did you?” he grunted rudely.
“No, I wasn’t listening, at least, I didn’t mean to. Are you OK?” I questioned, raising a hand to touch his arm.
A strange expression flickered across his face before it was masked, and he drew away. “Just stay out of my way, Amelie.”
“I just wanted to talk to you about the other week. To thank you again.”
“I consider myself thanked, don’t worry about it,” he replied with a nonchalant shrug.
“You were so good to me,” I explained, hoping to encourage him to stay and talk to me. It didn’t work.
“Yeah, and as I said that night, don’t get used to it.”
With the wind well and truly knocked out of my sails, I made my way to follow him, not saying another word.
He clearly needed to be left alone. Kieran’s relationship with his father sounded as broken as mine was, but for very different reasons.
I imagined it would be hard to forgive your dad for cheating on your mother when she was dying.
Would they ever be able to move past it?
Attempting to blank out the music, almost rocking the walls from Kieran’s room, I pushed thoughts of boys and bad broken relationships from my mind and went to look at my school books.
I had only been at school a couple of weeks, but it felt longer.
I knew I had Halo and Jessa to thank for helping me through it.
Everything was still so strange and uncertain, but the last two tests I had taken in Maths and English hadn’t gone as badly as I thought they would.
As the next week flew by, things got harder, especially during the Thursday visit with my case worker.
My mother had been asking to see me and had written me a letter.
I took it from Kathy. But didn’t read it there and then.
After hearing how well Sophie was doing, I asked about Adam.
She explained that he hadn’t been in touch, but she was aware that he had a job at a local garage.
I couldn’t wait to tell Vanessa, as I knew she’d been worried about him.
She even asked if I would feel better if she and Cameron could find Adam and convince him to stay on the estate.
Vanessa explained that they had originally offered him the pool house.
It was a self-contained flat, but he’d been stubborn and had discharged himself from the centre, saying how he wanted to go it alone.
Adam had been through more than any of us. The beatings he had received from our father had made him wary of adults. And my aunt, being my mother’s sister, would not have given her any extra powers of persuasion.
After wedging the letter into the back of my diary and storing it away, I left my room, casting a glance at Kieran’s door.
We’d hardly said two words to each other lately, and I knew the boy I had spoken to in my room that night was probably gone for good.
Heck, I had been drinking, and so maybe I imagined the connection I’d felt.
Making my way downstairs, I couldn’t wait to tell my aunt that I had found out where Adam was. She was usually in the kitchen reading or painting with Maisy, and so I headed there first.
The thought of having my brother living on the Rook’s estate and being so close strengthened my determination to get my family back together again.
Once Adam was on board and settled with a job, they would have to give Sophie back.
Vanessa hadn’t turned her back on her other niece, I knew that now.
She’d explained that due to my sister's special needs, she was better off with an experienced family for the time being. And that was fine, I could wait, but I wouldn’t wait for long.
The daily conversations and the number of times Sophie had visited were not enough.
Not when we used to spend every day together.
Sliding my phone into the pocket of my jeans, I rolled my shoulders; the tension I’d felt earlier was still there.
Would I ever get used to sleeping in a proper bed like a normal person?
I decided to go back to my usual spot on the floor that night after speaking with my aunt.
I needed to be at my best to see Adam. Would he even recognise me without filth on my body and dressed in nice clothes?
“Kieran is a law unto himself, Nessa. You know that.” The sound of an uneven voice echoed through the hallway. Slowly creeping forward, I attempted to tread lightly, painfully aware of the squeak my tattered trainers made against the polished marble flooring.
Turning the corner and flattening myself against the wall, I could hear cupboards abruptly opening and closing.
Someone was looking for something in the middle of what I suspected was an argument about Kieran.
I moved over to the doorway into the kitchen, and being the nosiest of the Thorn kids, I stopped to listen.
I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t just walk away.
I’d spent most of my life being the last to know; the idea of being ahead of the game suddenly appealed to my inquisitive nature.
You would have thought I’d learned my lesson after being caught red-handed by Kieran, but nope, wild horses couldn’t pull me away.
Vanessa and Cameron Rook continued to talk about his son, none the wiser of my presence.
“I’m just saying, if he knew the truth, it would make things easier,” Vanessa was explaining, her voice sounding higher than usual. Truth? Truth about what?
“For whom?” Cameron bounced back; the sound of the fridge being pushed closed muffled the clarity of his voice.
“Both of you.”
A scoff burst into the air, followed by, “You think that destroying my son’s memory of his mother will improve things?” My curiosity continued its hike to a higher level.
“He needs to be told. I’m tired of seeing him punish you,” my aunt explained in a strained voice. Whatever they were talking about had been discussed before. I could tell by the intolerant tone in those words.
“No. He’s been through enough. They all have.”
“So, you’re just going to bury the truth, even though it’s destroying your relationship with him?”
“He’ll come around eventually.” I wanted to stick my head through the door and ask what in the Dickens, Kieran would ‘come around to’, but I remained where I was.
Vanessa exhaled. It was noisy and ragged, end-of-your-tether type of stuff. “It’s been five years, Cameron!”
“Please, Nessa, just let it go.” His voice was softer now, and I imagined them hugging it out. They did that a lot. I wasn’t used to seeing scenes of affection between adults, and it made me uncomfortable.
“I can’t, Cam. You act like everything’s OK and as if it doesn’t bother you, but I know you. You’d do anything to get your boy back. You said so yourself.”
“It would wreck his life all over again, Nessa.”
I felt the raw sadness in that tone deep in the pit of my stomach, in that place I held all my own secrets and horrors of my past. And then a sudden, sharp urge to know more rolled through me.
What truth? And how would it ruin Kieran’s memory of his mother?
Whatever they were talking about had to be pretty significant if Cameron feared Kieran knowing about it would turn his son’s life upside down. Several scenarios formed in my head, but before I could jump to my own conclusions, Nessa’s next words said it all.
“You were the injured party, Cam. The lies, Isobelle’s constant cheating, all of it. You should have left her sooner.”
“When? After she’d told me she was dying?” he threw back at her, his voice much sharper.
“Yes. She spent most of that time waving her affair with her doctor under your nose. He even came here to the house, a place she lived with your children.”
The air around me thickened, and I pressed a hand to my forehead, suddenly feeling hot.
A twinge of regret shot through me that I had uncovered a secret about Kieran’s mum, and I didn’t have a clue how to process that information.
I knew that Kieran blamed his father for having an affair when his mother became ill, but from their conversation, it sounded like it was the other way around.
Shit.
“She couldn’t have loved you, or she wouldn’t have done what she did.”
“What was I supposed to do? End it whilst she was throwing up in the sink. We agreed she’d remain at home for the children.”
“And Michael Astor?”
“I didn’t realise he was the man she had been seeing.”
“And yet you stayed with her, even after she’d confessed about all of it. Allowed the man into your house.”
“He wasn’t just her doctor slash lover; the man was in love with her, Vanessa.”
“She used her condition to manipulate you.”