Chapter 40

I am a little more alert than yesterday now anyway. Sleep has helped, so has being roughed up and I don’t feel so distraught today. In fact, I feel like yesterday was just one massive dream and the effects are yet to catch up. I trip on my slipper as I maneuver the bright room, table already laid for breakfast, and my mother sat in a robe, bleary-eyed and chipper is gazing at us fondly. Leila has obviously ripped us both out of bed, seeing as it is barely seven a.m.

“She threw me on the floor and threatened to break my nose.” I immediately point out as she sits at one end of the table, grabbing a croissant and jam as she does so. I know my dad is probably already up and showering for work and we won’t be seeing him anytime soon. He takes breakfast with him on the commute to his offices, about a thirty-minute drive away. Not that he needs to work, his company runs itself, and we are hardly poor.

“Leila … Don’t be harsh on your baby sister.” mom gives her a serious frown as Leila slides in at the table opposite her instead of the seat she had been hovering at a minute ago. I guess she figures close and cozy at one end of the table will make me more likely to spill my guts, or I will be close enough to assault with the butter knife.

“Momma, when you start beating her then I won’t need to.” Leila smiles cheekily and delves into the pile of pancakes being laid down by the new young housekeeper. I think her name is Olivia or something, we haven’t been introduced. My parents forget that the housekeepers are people too sometimes, and I happen to be around the same age as her. I smile her way and get a blush in return before she scurries off.

“I will never beat my children.” She says in almost sheer disgust, as though the very thought is abhorrent to her.

“That’s why we’re all spoiled brats who think alcohol is God’s answer to all our problems, Mom. God knows I could have used a few spankings in my time.” Leila smiles brightly and I curb the urge to say out loud that I am sure she has had many a spanking that Daniel probably still provides. “I’ll spank Sophie for you if you like?” She smirks my way, eyebrows raised in that ‘and I’ll like it’ sort of look she’s good at. I giggle, extending another middle finger because she is only confirming my thoughts on her sexual preferences.

“You will not. I won’t hear of any of you hitting one another.” Mom’s now buttering toast, small happy glances at my presence at the table, and of the familiarity of this unfolding scene, obviously making her joyful today.

“Too late.” Leila smiles as I stick my tongue out at her. Our mother snaps up in alarm as I raise my own eyebrows.

“She slapped my ass three times already. Pretty sure she has left permanent marks.” The childishness of my tattle telling only makes her sigh.

“Why is it my grown children behave like ten year olds when back under this roof? How do any of you function in the adult world?” She sighs and looks to both of her girls as we systematically shrug.

“Booze.” I offer as an explanation and sort of poking fun at myself.

“Men.” Leila nods. Knowing her poison had been a lot of sleeping around when she was pining for one ‘Daniel Hunter’ back in her early twenties. We both grin at each other and go back to eating.

“Yes, two words every mother wants to hear uttered from her innocent babies’ mouths.” She seems alarmed, resigned to the fact this isn’t new to her after raising six troubled children and carries on preparing her toast.

Everyone falls silent for a moment as we tuck into the food. I’m all too aware that we’re just delaying things. No one wants to burst this happy little pretend bubble that we are all okay and ask me anything. Even Leila has given the overbearing asshole act a moment of respite and seems wary about pushing me. I glance nervously at the two of them, heads down as they work on their food and realize the only way to get this over and done with is to rip it off, like a Band-Aid.

“I’m home to stay … For a while anyway. I have some stuff I need to work out, work through, and I promise I’ll be better after I get over it. I’m sorry that I’ve put you through hell, all of you. I was in pain and doing what I thought I needed to get through it. I know that it’s wrong and it isn’t how I want to continue living my life.” I keep my eyes averted as tears smart in the depths, willing myself not to break, and try to keep that stony-faced, sassy Sophie, which they are all used to seeing.

“It’s a man, isn’t it?” Leila cuts in as a matter of fact. “Some guy fucked you up and you have been out there trying to get over him, all on your own.” Leila is always too sharp, it’s crazily unnerving, and when my head darts up, it only confirms what Leila is saying. She shakes her head angrily. “Do I actually have to beat seven shades of shit out of some asshole that broke my baby sister?” She seethes, brows furrowed furiously, and that twitch is back in her brow. The nerves hit me low down, anxiety that she will figure this out, and I don’t want any one of them to.

“It’s more complicated than that.” I sigh. My poor mom’s wide-eye and staring at me with sheer desolation on her face. Mom has seen years of Leila going off the rails over the man she is now married to and knows only too well how the heart can send a girl over the edge when they have the same fire as we do. I’m like Leila in a lot of ways, and now I know I pretty much have been her for the past couple years, without even knowing it. Minus the sex. Leila was never sexually abused, so she had no qualms about screwing around.

I think my sister might be some sort of nymphomaniac, judging by Daniel’s constant grin.

“So, tell us.” Leila points her fork at me, lifts her eyebrow over a sternly fierce expression.

“I can’t, not yet. Maybe when I’m stronger and more able to put this to bed. Emma is arranging for me to go back to Mr. Thomson. to resume counseling for a couple of sessions, and she thinks she can help me get my act together again.” It’s not that I don’t want to tell them, it’s just, I never really have. My family was always the support but never the shoulder I used to cry on. That has always been Emma, and Arrick.

Arry got all the stuff I needed to let out and no one really expected me to vent anywhere else after I made it clear that wasn’t who I was. Leila and I are close, but not in the sisters who share all the details of their life way. There is silence at the table as they both ponder what I have said.

“What can we do?” My mom cuts in adoringly, reaching her hand out to me and smiling when I don’t hesitate to take it.

“Be patient with me, understand that I’m not doing this to hurt you. I don’t know where I go from here, and it may not be an easy ride, but I’m trying. Emma made me see sense, and I realize that none of you are to blame.” I hate the way a fresh tear rolls down my cheek and jump nervously when Leila stands up abruptly, sending her chair scraping back noisily and marches towards me like a woman on a mission. I recoil, a moment of hesitant fear washes over me that she may beat me, then jump, when Leila wraps herself around me in an awkward bear hug. Leaning over the top of me and buries her face in my messy long hair.

“You’re my sister. I love you, and I will literally kill men to protect you. Don’t shut me out, Sophs,” she sobs, and I’m helpless to do anything but hug her back, pushing down my own tears.

“I’m trying. I really am. I just need a little time to find my feet again.” I cry too, still clinging to my mother’s hand and wrapped in my sister. I take a deep steadying breath and try to push Arrick out of my mind’s eye, willing him to stop tormenting me for maybe five little minutes.

I will get through this, and I will move on without him. I have no choice. I need to be a better person for those that I love. I need to make amends for the shit I have put them through, and I need to get used to a future that he is not a part of, even if it kills me.