Page 112 of The Fate Of Us

“Yes, I have!” My sister screams, the glass table rattling under her power. “You don’t listen!I tell you all the time and you…” The final piece of my heart shatters when she chokes on her words, emotion filling every syllable, the stream of tears I could see her holding back finally starting to fall. “You don’t listen.”

My dad stays silent, while my mom just stares through her, her lips pried open. “Goldie, darling, I just thought that you—”

“You thought I wanted to be like Addy.” She nodded the words, her rosy cheeks drenched with tears. “But did you ever realise that she never wanted that life either? Did you pull your head out of every casting director’s ass for long enough to see that she hated this life just like I do?”

She was stood up by this point, one hand on the glass table and the other firmly pointed atMom, who looked like she’d had her heart ripped out and stomped on right in front of her, bearing every emotion for all of us to pick at. Dad was staring over at Goldie, his cheeks red, hands gripping the sides of this chair. Nate was…

I hadn’t realised he'd left my side, and instead had walked over to Goldie, who was now sobbing.

I got up from my chair and ran over just as Nate reached her. I took her under my arm,letting her sob into my chest as I led her back inside. I didn’t think about anything else, only the couch I could see in the room, leading Goldie towards it to sit her down.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Maddie, who had likely come to find out what thewailing was for.

“Is she okay?” she asked, leaning on the couch.

“She will be. Could I get some water and a box of tissues, please?”

“Here, I’ll take her,” Maddie said, rubbing a hand on my shoulder.

“Goldie, I’ll come find you in a minute. I’m going to make this right, okay?” Goldielooked up, her eyes all red and sodden. “I promise.”

Maddie led Goldie upstairs, while I caught my breath and walked back out onto the sunterrace.

My mom had her head in her hands, my dad was now standing over her chair, rubbing ahand on her back.

I lost it. “Don’t you think it’s embarrassing that you’re consolingherover your daughter?The daughter you’re dragging to London for some stupid movie?”

My dad looked up at me, anger written across his face like a childish scribble in everyshade of red marker. “I think it’s embarrassing that you think that’s any way to speak to the people who gave you the life you lead.”

I throw my hands up in defeat, a weightless scoff forcing it's way out of me. “You know, you’re right. You did give me this life. Andfor the most part, I’m thankful for it. I’m so grateful that I can live the way I live.” I look them both dead in the eyes. “But if you think for one second that it’s what I ever wanted, you’re idiots.”

My dad’s eye roll looked as though it had been waiting to happen since the moment Ileft. “Jesus, get over yourself, Adaline. You didn’t know what you wanted when you were six. No one knows that—”

“Shedid,” Nate says, stepping from behind me. “She’s known what she’s wanted since theday I met her.” The linen that clung to him brushed against the back of my dress—a thread of protection. “Care to take a guess?”

Both my parents go white as a sheet. I’d set alight all my manuscripts right this second ifthey could tell me what my dreams were.

“No.” I could tell he was shaking his head. “I didn’t think so.”

“Why are you even here?” My dad asked. “You broke her heart just as much as we did,apparently.”

“I’m here because she asked me to. I’m here because I was the person she’d come cryingto after both of you dragged her to an audition, or after a day of filming. She’d come to me, tell me everything, and she’d cry on my shoulder.” He looks at me. “And at the same time, she was helping me, in ways that she probably doesn’t know about.”

“If you hated it that much…” My mom’s voice dragged me away from Nate’s stare.“Then why did you never say anything?”

I’d lost all effort to pretend. “Because I was scared. Scared that you’d still force me to actanyway.” I point my finger at the house. “And I think I’m well in my right to think that, because your other daughter is sitting up there crying to the kitchen staff because she’s tired of telling you that she wants to go to college and never act another day in her life, and here you are forcing her to move to a different country for something she doesn’t want to do.”

Pathetic was too small a word to describe her sob. “She’d be giving up her dream life ifshe did that.”

“No, Mom. I think you’ll find that she’s giving up yours.” I turn to my dad. “And yours.”

My dad's brows that matched his hair furrowed, one of his shoulders shaking. “So whatwas it you wanted to do then? Instead of acting.”

Before I answered, I tilted my chin up to catch Nate’s eyes, and like he knew what I wasasking when I fanned him with my lashes and searched his eyes, he nodded at me.

I turned back to face my parents. “I write books. I have ave done since I was ten. It was myway of coping after a day of auditions, when I didn’t know how else to get all my feelings out.”

I felt Nate shuffle closer to me. “And they’re good. Really good. I’ve read every single one of them.”

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