Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
EVIE
My chest heaves with fury as I stare at my friend, who’s being subdued by Kara. ‘She pulled my hair out!’ Imogen blubbers snottily, which does her Instagram-perfect face no favours. ‘She’s fucking mental,’ she screeches.
‘What were you doing up there?’ I scream, my own tears exploding with anger and frustration. ‘Were you planning to lie on the bed and open your legs for him? Was that it, Imogen?’ I snarl spitefully.
‘No!’ Imogen looks horrified. ‘Evie, why are you saying those things? I’m your friend.’
‘You’re a slut!’ I seethe. ‘You’re not my friend.
You’ve never been my friend. You’re using me.
It’s my dad you want to get “friendly” with and you fucking well know it.
’ Words spew out of my mouth like poisonous lava, and I hate myself for it, but I can’t stop.
The rage is getting bigger, building and building, until I feel it will consume me.
Imogen is a liar. She’s been flaunting herself and flirting with Aiden every time we see him, right in front of my face.
She knows I like him and she just doesn’t care.
‘I was waiting for you,’ Immy screams back. ‘Your dad said it would be okay for me to get my stuff from your bedroom.’
‘What stuff? There’s only your leather jacket and some tatty old jewellery up there.’ My gaze swivels accusingly to my dad as he hurries towards me.
‘Evie, for God’s sake, stop this, will you?’ he implores, circling his arms around me. ‘Just take a breath and try to calm down.’
I squirm away from him, my gaze shooting back to Imogen.
‘And you weren’t in my bedroom anyway, were you?
You were in Dad and Kara’s bedroom, spraying Kara’s perfume all over the place.
’ To cover up her own. ‘Why were you doing that?’ My gaze twangs back to my dad, my boiling anger now directed at him. ‘Why was she in there?’
‘Jack?’ Kara stares at him, her face white, her eyes frightened.
‘I told her she could go up.’ He looks desperate as he answers her, as if he’s willing her to believe him. Desperate and scared. My heart bangs.
‘But why didn’t you say she was up there?’ Kara asks, looking at him in bewilderment.
‘I forgot,’ my dad answers defensively. ‘You came in with Lina and…’ He stops, panic flooding his features as he notices Kara’s expression. Accusing. She doesn’t believe him. I can see she doesn’t. ‘For Christ’s sake, Kara, I forgot.’
His voice is almost pleading as Kara turns back to snivelling Immy.
She’s the cause of all of this. I didn’t want to believe it, but what I said was true.
Imogen has been lusting after my dad. She’s only friends with me, rather than bullying me like the shitty clique do at school, because she’s obsessed with him.
She’s always trying to attract his attention, flicking her hair back and licking her pouty lips with the tip of her tongue and sticking her boobs and arse out whenever he’s around.
‘Go and sit down in the kitchen, Imogen. I’ll take you home shortly,’ Kara says, steering her gently that way.
Once Imogen is through the kitchen door, Kara comes back. ‘Evie,’ she says, her eyes filled with apprehension as they search mine, ‘go into the lounge with your gran. I think she’s concerned about you.’
I glance towards where my nan hovers uncertainly in the doorway between the lounge and the hall. I note the kaleidoscope of emotion in her eyes. Fear and uncertainty. Most of all confusion. I don’t want her to be confused.
My nan casts a disdainful glance at my dad as she comes to me and wraps a frail arm around me. ‘Come on, sweetheart, come and sit in front of the fire with me. Everything’s going to be fine, I promise you,’ she says soothingly.
Is it? I don’t believe her. How can things be fine when everything seems to be turning to shit?
I wish things could go back to how they were, just me and my dad, there for each other.
Now, everyone wants a slice of him. Kara, who got pregnant so fast it was a wonder he had time to catch his breath.
And now bloody Immy, who’s supposed to be my friend, is trying to get off with him.
Nothing had happened. I can see by my dad’s bewildered expression that he’s telling the truth, but surely he isn’t that na?ve he can’t see she absolutely does fancy him?
That allowing her upstairs with no one else here was sending out all the wrong signals?
‘You need to stop encouraging her, Dad,’ I warn him.