Chapter 45
Quill
Dried Leaves
Two weeks full of law classes and practice sessions with Monica and Davian flew by, and I tried to avoid my father on campus. He was the only professor who didn't comment on my bandaged hand. The only one who glared at me when no one else was looking.
He couldn't ignore me, never would be able to. And it drove him crazy.
That made me all the more grateful for the afternoon with Lara, even though she had practically forced me to join her on this mall trip.
I avoided large places full of people, colors, noises, and smells.
Even as a toddler, whenever we had been out shopping, I would always have sat down in the aisle and started crying.
At the age of seven, I had had a panic attack while visiting a perfume shop with my Mama.
Two years later, she had taken me to the mall for the last time, where I had gotten lost, suffered another panic attack, and finally fled into a boutique window display, knocking over all the fashion dolls.
Expensive dresses had been ruined. Dresses that Mama hadn't been able to pay for, which was why she had been forced to call Papa because of me.
I will never forget the night he tore apart my only stuffed animal, a black horse. He had taken the beer bottle away from Mama, yelled at her that she couldn't take care of me, and poured all the alcohol in my room. Even three months later, it had smelled like beer in there.
I had been nine.
Dreams
The Cranberries
“Dad has his phases,” Lara sighed, and I tried to focus on her and not on the brightly lit window displays.
Davian had driven us here because he needed to get something at the mall himself.
“He is looking for tools, isn't he?”
Lara rolled her eyes.
“Dad always buys a bunch of tools when he decides to build something in the garden. In the end, he doesn't do it anyway because his job is more important.” She laughed. “You should see his workshop. The inventory is probably worth a fortune.”
I grinned and decided to pay a visit to his workshop.
Davian was hardly ever home, and Lara had explained to me that he spent a lot of time in his office. For the past two weeks, I had only seen him at university, at dinner, and afterwards, when he bandaged my hand.
I couldn't shake the feeling that he was avoiding me, and it manifested itself in the form of a painful tugging in my stomach. A tugging that I wanted to repress, but that I had to face if I wanted to take responsibility for my actions and make this friendship work.
I had no reason to feel that way. Davian didn't owe me any time.
“I think all he needs is a woman.”
My gaze fixed on Lara, who was absentmindedly looking around the mall as we walked past more shops, and I dodged two little kids who were arguing and throwing sucked-on lollipops at each other, my overwhelm setting in.
“What do you mean by that?”
I caught up with Lara again and uneasily looked around.
“Ever since he became my dad, he's been living only for the two of us. And I'm tired of him clinging to me and being afraid that I'll suddenly move away, because if I actually did, he'd be alone.”
She shook her head with a frustrated expression.
“And imagine. Whenever the good sir finds himself in a situation he isn't comfortable with, he loses himself even more deeply in his daily routine and his work.”
We turned into the only fashion store on Lara's list of suggestions that I had agreed to, but my focus was on Lara.
“But hey. Maybe it'll be my fault if he becomes a lawyer again and perhaps even starts his own firm in D.C.”
She turned to me and her expression sobered.
“No. Seriously, Quill. He needs a woman who will push him out of his comfort zone. One who will make him live again.”
I wanted nothing more for him. But the idea that another woman, older and more experienced than me, could offer him what I never could left a dull feeling in my stomach.
You're not what he needs. You never will be.
“Do you know that new online dating platform where you can meet people on the internet? I'm going to sign him up, whether he likes it or not. And I'm going to actively search for women who'd be a good match for him.”
The tension in my stomach grew overwhelming.
“What if he doesn't want a woman? What if he just needs to write again?”
Lara was about to continue walking, but she stopped, studied me, and for a moment I felt a facade crumble that was not supposed to crumble.
Lara narrowed her eyes, then grinned.
“I keep forgetting that you two write. Does he talk to you about writing?”
“Very rarely... when he and Monica aren’t busy forcing me to debate.”
Lara nodded.
“He usually avoids the subject completely. So don't be surprised if he evades it.”
She began browsing through the pile of clothes, leading us to a table with fall knit sweaters, where she immediately draped two over her arm.
“By the way, I'm surprised he seems to like you. I really thought he'd be holding a grudge, because he made such a big deal about all the times I came home late because of you.”
“He doesn't seem to hate me,” I replied absently, stopping in front of the pile of navy blue knit sweaters.
“Hate? Dad doesn’t hate anyone.” Lara laughed and added a rust-brown knit cardigan to the growing pile over her arm. “If you stay with us longer, which I hope you will, he might even get used to me seeing you as a sister.”
I forced a half-hearted smile, not wanting to get used to the idea of spending even more time with the two of them. I was already pushing my luck.
“I'm a financial burden on you two, which is why I'm currently looking for a job,” I confessed, dissatisfied with myself for taking so long to get my shit together.
I had already received the first rejections from four coffee shops this morning, but a position at a local bookstore had also become available, which I had immediately jumped at. However, I expected another rejection.
“Dad has sooo much money.” Lara walked over to a table with colorful fall socks and picked up the white ones with pumpkins on them. “And how many times have I told you? We love having you with us. If you think Dad wants you to leave, I can talk to him.”
“No, it's okay... Your dad is nice to me. That's not it...”
“You just feel like you're too much again.”
“Because I have been my whole life.”
I ignored her fixed gaze on me and, without further hesitation, grabbed the entire stack of blue knit sweaters.
The days of robbing Lara of her favorite fall sweaters – and returning them with ink stains or pools of blood – were now over.
“Quill... you...”
I turned away from her, unwilling to talk about my father, and Lara followed me immediately.
Luckily, it was only sweaters pressing against the now very thin bandage. This weekend, I would replace it with two post-operative dressings, hoping that at some point in the coming weeks, despite the pain of the healing wound, I would be able to write again.
I bumped into someone and all the sweaters slipped out of my arm.
Brass Tacks
Chrystopher Tyng
Startled, I looked up as the young woman in the fashionable black dress turned toward me.
“I'm sor...”
Brittany stared at my hand, looking equally taken aback.
Someone stepped up beside her.
Jessica McLoy.
“Look who's lost her way here. The Veritas bitch.”
Any remnants of my good mood now disappeared completely.
“Don't you want to pick up your sweaters?”
Jessica, dressed in a light brown shift dress and white coat, pointed her finger at the floor.
Hesitantly, I crouched down, trying to block out their stares, but I couldn't ignore the feeling of being humiliated.
By the time I straightened up with the seven knit sweaters – which I didn't even know how I was going to pay for without going into debt with Lara – my half-sister had regained her composure. At least there was disapproval in her eyes.
“I see you still don't care about fashion,” she snorted.
Jessica raised her eyebrows.
“You two know each other?”
Brittany waved her hand dismissively.
“Long story, not worth telling.”
Jessica looked between us, her expression becoming more suspicious.
Why was I still surprised that these two Klunker Ellies were spending time together?
Both were carrying Louis Vuitton handbags, gold necklaces adorned their necks, and the fifty shopping bags on their arms seemed to weigh more than their empathy.
Despite the many bags, Brittany managed to cross her arms.
“Don't you feel a little ugly from time to time? Always wearing the same sweater. People might think you never wash your clothes.”
“Come on, Quill, let's go,” Lara wanted to pull me away by the arm, but Jessica was faster.
“Oh, Dilara, sweetheart, how rude of me to always overlook you.”
Lara glared at Jessica fiercely as the latter pulled a bottle of yellowish liquid out of her handbag and held it against my chest.
“And Britt is right. You look neglected. Let me at least help you with your smell.”
She started spraying and I recoiled in shock, but she didn’t stop, continued spraying, on my neck and over my hair, so that perfume rained down on me.
“Even though you could probably never afford this perfume. Scholarship student.”
The sweet smell penetrated my nose and I immediately lost the battle against the cry for help from my throat and started coughing.
The two of them backed away.
“Ugh,” Jessica sighed. “Such a drama queen.”
With teary eyes, I turned away and let Lara pull me through the store to the checkout, where I put down the sweaters and the cashier immediately began scanning them.
However, my coughing fit did not stop.
“Are you okay, Quill?” Lara looked at me with concern. “They're always like that.”
“I know...” I managed to say and straightened up again.
“That'll be three hundred and twenty-nine dollars.”
My eyes widened in shock, but Lara immediately handed over her American Express card.
My feelings of guilt reached a new peak. I needed a job. Any job. To pay her and Davian back. Not to mention Monica.