Chapter 30
THIRTY
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO
Camilla
After Reese and Victoria have left and I have thrown up everything that’s in my stomach, I drag myself back to the living room where the nachos are congealing and half-empty margaritas are sweating in the warm air, leaving ring marks on the coffee table.
I know I should clean up but I can’t keep my eyes open. Have I made a terrible mistake? I thought I had this figured out, but do I?
Dropping onto the white sofa, without caring about the possibility that I may stain it, I fall asleep in moments and only wake because I am sweating in the hot sun coming in through the living-room windows the next day.
Groaning, I sit up and drop my head into my hands. Get up, tidy up, I exhort myself over and over again until eventually I’m able to move.
Once the house has been restored, I stand in a hot shower with my phone close by. Reese hasn’t called and neither has Victoria. But I don’t need to hear from them. I’m waiting for Lawrence.
After an early dinner, I sit on Sophie’s bed with my phone in my hand and message Lawrence.
Hey, think you should know that I told Reese about us last night.
I don’t get a reply for half an hour and then it’s just two words, Fuck you.
He’s angry. Okay, I get that. Things are going to be complicated but he wasn’t the man for Reese.
I knew that and she knew that. He’s not a good person, that’s clear.
He would have destroyed Reese, erased her the way my mother has been erased.
But he can’t hurt me, no more than I have already been hurt, and he has money, so much money.
If he and I had gotten together, my dreams of studying at Cambridge could have become a reality. Do I love him? Absolutely not. Do I like him? Not really, he’s a true arsehole. But do I need him? Yes. And I’m capable of at least pretending I like him to get what I want.
I had no choice and I would like the chance to explain. I’ve always liked you Lawrence and I feel like we would be better together than you and Reese, I message him but he doesn’t reply to that.
For the rest of the day, I obsessively stalk Reese’s Facebook page and Victoria’s Facebook page, waiting to see if there are any pictures of the hen night put up.
I do that for the whole of Sunday as well but nothing appears on Reese’s page or Victoria’s and I think that’s because the hen night didn’t go ahead. Good.
I still haven’t heard from Lawrence on Monday and it makes me unfocused as I guide some old people around the museum, meaning I keep messing up and making silly mistakes about the exhibition, so much so that one man says, ‘Are you sure you should be in this job, girly?’
‘Yes,’ I snap at him. ‘And maybe if you moved faster we would be through this room already.’ That shuts him up but then I worry about him reporting me to Tina, who is the tour guide manager.
When I get home on Monday afternoon, I have a headache and I contemplate finishing the bottle of wine Victoria brought. I have stored it in the fridge, which I imagine would horrify her.
I lock the front door behind me and sigh with relief as I head to the kitchen.
I have just poured a large amount of the wine, which I hope is still good, into a drinking glass when there’s a clicking sound of a key being used in the lock of the front door.
My heart thrums as I go to open it because it might be Sophie or Lia and no one is supposed to know I’m staying here. But it’s not Sophie or Lia.
It’s my stepfather. He’s supposed to be in Europe for many more weeks but he’s standing here on the doorstep, his face scarlet with fury.
‘Get out,’ he says.