Epilogue #2
But who am I kidding? He knew about me all along and still chose to stay with Isabella.
Skyla. They were his priority, not me. It was glaringly obvious.
And so my hatred grew. The need to make Isabella’s life a living hell consumed me.
This woman pining after Robin just the way Vicky was.
I hated — sorry, hate her even more than my dad, though he has proven time and time again just how pathetic he is.
It must run in the family. Harper’s no different.
She and Vicky have been friends for decades.
When Vicky decided she couldn’t handle being a parent, Harper helped her.
She worked high up in the adoption industry — said she knew people who would be great parents.
Somehow got the twins to go to James and Isabella, and when Vicky decided she wanted them back?
She played a part in that, too. Vicky forced her into telling her who had the twins, even though it was supposed to be strictly confidential.
Vicky knew too much about Harper — and that’s the trouble when people think they’re famous.
They’ll do just about anything to protect their reputation.
Perhaps I should feel sorry for Isabella.
Practically everyone in her life is against her.
Her husband, her sister-in-law, her colleague, even the man in charge of Robin’s case.
Most not by choice, but still, they were all so desperate to cover up their own wrongdoings.
They chose themselves over her, and that right there is the sad truth of human nature.
Even the nicest of people bend when it comes to the basic instinct of survival. Saints turn to sinners.
I watch Gary, notice his edginess, peering around the room making sure he’s not recognised.
No one wants to be associated with me, not Gary, not Harper, or Isabella, not even James, my own father.
And why? Because I’m Vicky’s daughter. I guess it makes them uncomfortable.
But I’m more than that. I’m Skyla and Robin’s little sister — and I know everything.
I know Robin wasn’t the perfect little girl everyone seems to think she was.
Smiling darkly at Gary, I see the limp tinsel strung over the mantlepiece glint in his eyes.
It’s amazing just how wrong people are about robins, thinking they’re these sweet, innocent little birds that sing and remind people of Christmas.
Of cheer and jolly good times. It’s laughable.
Robins are aggressive. Some even say the souls of the dead are in robins .
. . yet it’s ravens that tend to get the bad rap.
Robin was a horrible child. She never settled into living with us, whinged and begged for her mummy, for Bella, constantly.
They were my earliest memories. The fact I have memories from such a young age, memories of her pinching and shoving me over, making me cry, should speak for itself.
And my mum went mad with jealousy over Robin’s hysteria for Isabella, I swear she did.
Because Robin was hers. Robin just wouldn’t believe it.
She didn’t want anything to do with me, either, even though I was her little sister.
She always cried out in the night for Skyla.
And yet I was a much better sister than Skyla ever was.
I hated that she couldn’t accept that, either.
That we were her family, not the Rushmores.
After the day she choked on that grape, I tried to help.
I was so young I didn’t truly understand how serious it was, but even I could see the panic in her eyes as she clutched her hands around her throat and started to struggle.
I knocked and knocked on the bathroom door, but Vicky, I mean, Gabby, never came out.
She was ignoring us, the way she always did.
Trying to steal some time for herself, sitting in there on her phone, taking no notice of our cries.
You’d think she’d hear the difference; the hysteria and panic compared to our usual shrieking squabbles.
But she stayed shut away in there. I knocked and knocked frantically at the door, not knowing what else to do but knowing I had to do something.
Gabby had barged out, already red-faced with anger.
‘What have you done?’ she’d spat at me.
I’d pointed to my sister, Robin, already turning blue on the floor. ‘She’s choking,’ I cried, my tiny, underdeveloped brain struggling to understand the gravity of the situation.
I thought she was going to break Robin’s back, the way she started thrusting her about. She tried and tried, but eventually, she had no choice but to give up. Robin’s body fell to the floor with a heavy thunk.
I’d always wanted to be a twin, or to have a sister, at least. I hadn’t really known where Robin had come from in the beginning.
To me, it was as though Christmas had come early.
I was too young to remember Robin appearing in our lives, but I like to think even back then I’d have loved a twin or a sister, at least. Someone to be there so I didn’t have to be alone with Gabby any more.
I hoped we’d be close, but she never settled.
And then, just as quickly as she’d arrived, she was gone.
Gabby was sure I’d done something, like I’d physically jammed that grape into her throat and deliberately made her choke — and, maybe, because my memory is fuzzy, I did. Anyway, the resentment she already harboured for me only grew.
* * *
With my confidence shattered by Gabby’s rejection over the years, I tried my best to be invisible. My body, so brittle and bony, allowed me to slip through the smallest of cracks, my skin so sallow I was close to transparent. I wanted nothing more than to blend in, become one with my surroundings.
It went well, for a while. Home life was easy.
Vicky left me alone, focusing on men and the contents of bottles of whisky rather than on me.
She was too bitter, too angry with the outcome of her life to pay me any attention.
I glided by, unnoticed, hidden behind dog-eared, spine-broken books that smelled musty, with a slight hint of decay woven into the pages.
It got harder at school. I didn’t even do anything to attract attention, but somehow, constantly reading my chunky Harry Potter book, I became a target.
I’d be poked at, prodded, laughed at in front of teachers who either ignored it like I really was invisible or who seemed to take enjoyment from it too.
Simple tasks like leaving class to go to the bathroom became something to dread.
Boys in my year group seemed to congregate outside the weathered stone walls making hissing noises as I locked the cubicle.
They would chant and cheer, taunting me until I flushed and left, my face volcanic.
Even when I kept my eyes cast down to the ground, avoiding them, they’d force themselves on me.
Climbing up the trees at lunch became an escape.
The only way to get away from them. If I didn’t, they’d find me at their level, wrap their arms around my waist and dump me in the bins around the back of the school building.
Their laughter rang on long after it had finished, stopping me from sleeping, from living a semblance of a normal life.
And then as time went on, their focus changed.
Instead of tormenting me, they became interested in me, as though they’d forgotten the hell they’d previously put me through.
Years had passed and yet not a day had gone by that I didn’t remember the turmoil.
They’d stare now, not into my eyes, but down to my budding breasts as they’d ask me out, nervous and dallying.
Now it was my turn to laugh. Did they really think I’d be interested in them after what they’d done?
The most surprising of all was how it appeared they didn’t even remember the torture they’d made me endure — and that, while they stared hungrily at my body, only seemed to make me, and my feelings, more invisible.
That was the worst kind of invisibility, being so seen, so apparent physically yet so shadowed, so unacknowledged mentally.
I wish I knew why I had been the target of bullying — the bullseye to a dart.
They’d hit me, right in the centre, sharp, piercing, and it’s a good thing I never faltered in my inner strength.
Because I’m okay. Even though the men Vicky dated started noticing me too, some even trying things if ever they were alone with me.
The treatment I received from those around me hardened me, and through time I have grown far from invisible.
I’m shining, and no one can touch me. Not Bella or James, Skyla, Harper or even DCI Gary Quinn.
Because each one of them have secrets, and I know at least some of them that they wouldn’t want to get out.
I am the raven, the dark omen as some might say, with a hunger for chaos, and it’s going to erupt all around me. Just wait and see.
I smile maliciously at Gary now, my teeth knives that could so easily penetrate. He’s staring down into his empty coffee cup, saying nothing. There’s not much left to say for either of us . . . except maybe this:
‘I’ll always be part of your life now, you know? And you’ll do what you can to keep me safe, Gary.’ I wait for his eyes to come up and meet mine. When they do I can see the fear shimmering inside them. ‘If you don’t, the world will find out the kind of man you really are.’
He nods, a silent promise. Gary Quinn has no choice but to protect me, no matter what. And so now I know, I can get away with anything.
THE END