Page 23 of Quake
Pretty much, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. I wasn’t cruel—at least, I didn’t want to be—but the longer I stayed in Queensland, the more of myself I lost. To grief, to regret, to memories, to the constant barrage of media attention. I couldn’t tell Mum that was the reason I wanted to move. To get away from her and everything that reminded me of that horrible night.
“You know I got that job at Slattery,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I want to get into publishing, and it’s very competitive.”
“An assistant job? No daughter of mine, who was dux of her entire school mind you, should work as someone’s lap dog,” she hissed. “You’re too good for those people.”
“Mum,” I snapped, my control starting to fray. “It doesn’t work like that. I have to prove myself. No one cares that I was top of my high school. They don’t even care that I graduated Uni with honors. You know I have to work my way up from the bottom. I’m getting into this career later than I would’ve liked, and I can’t turn down any opportunity.”
“So now it’s all our fault?”
I could just envisage the pout on her lips and the tears in her eyes. I couldn’t say anything these days without upsetting her. Even when it wasn’t about her…it was about her. Why she even called when she knew she was never going to hear anything she liked was beyond me.
“Mum, seriously?” I asked, just about ready to hurl my phone across the room. “Not everything is about you!”
“Don’t you dare—”
“I lost her, too!” I yelled, tears of frustration welling in my own eyes. “I lost her, too.”
Silence greeted me on the other end of the phone. A long maw of nothing that stretched on and on until I heard the call disconnect.
With a cry, I threw my phone. It hit the carpet and bounced once before falling facedown.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t take another day of this shit. How could I face my own grief and fear if everyone in my life was so hell-bent on wallowing in theirs? Dad just ignored everyone, and Mum was marinating in negativity.
But I had Caleb.
The thought popped into my mind, bright and clear, and I sighed. He was just my trainer. Even as I tried to remind myself of the fact, I could feel my heart attempting to betray my mind.
I was attracted to him. I liked him. He’d been nice to me and shown an interest in helping despite my embarrassing stutter…and the first day I met him I’d run away like a fool, and he still didn’t back down.
Could I start something with him? Provided he was interested in a scared little mouse like me.
Anyway, how did you tell the guy you like your sister was murdered, and your life was turned into a media circus, so you changed your name and your looks and moved to the other side of the country to escape? It wasn’t something you just explained over a friendly cup of coffee. Not even a beer at the pub.
I liked him, but I wasn’t sure pursuing it was a good idea. If he found out all the things I’d been keeping hidden, he wouldn’t want to know me at all. He wouldn’t even want to continue our training.
I valued our time together. It was comforting after everything that’d happened, and I wasn’t ready to give it up. Especially for a little romp between the sheets.
I knew what Mel would say if she were here.Don’t be so uptight and uncross your legs. Not everything has to be a romance. Let go for once in your life, and fuck his brains out.
Six years without her.
Shit, Mel, I thought, staring at my phone on the floor.Why didn’t you go out that night?
10
Caleb
I’d been so wrappedup with Juliette over the past few weeks, I’d forgotten about my father and his list of demands.
His assistant had scheduled appointments—yeah, that was right, he couldn’t call me himself—and all of them had fallen through. I was just waiting for him to appear in a puff of black smoke when I least expected it because I couldn’t count on him turning up when he said he would.
So when he turned up on Monday afternoon?, his toned frame draped in what looked like his favorite style of Armani suit, I wasn’t surprised. With Juliette due in an hour or so, he couldn’t have picked a worse time to be a thorn in my side. It was like he had an inbuilt inconvenience detector.????
“Seven cancellations,” I drawled as he strode into the studio. “We were starting to take bets.”
“You’re a thirty-year-old man,” Dad said, narrowing his eyes. “Act like one.”
I wanted to say, ‘You’re my father. Act like it,’ but he had his no bullshit face on, and I knew better than to rile him up when he was on a tear about something. Dad was the kind of guy who stuck me in a boxing ring when I was a moody teenager and forced me to fight him as punishment. Needless to say, I never won. As an adult? It was hard to say what the punishment would be.
