“Nice to meet you...” I lied in embarrassment, looking after Amara until she disappeared around a stand with her basket of greens.
I turned slowly to face Mum.
She must have recovered from her shock, because she looked as if this strange encounter had never happened.
“Do you have any more friends I should possibly know about?”
She looked around and lowered her voice. “Bay, there are reasons why I haven’t told you everything.”
Her excuse sounded lax and didn’t answer my question.
What else could I expect here, somewhere in the middle of nowhere?
Maybe I should keep asking, but somehow, I didn’t want to be intrusive, either. There had to be a reason why Mum was dealing with her past the way she was. Maybe something had happened back then that had caused her to move to the States. And this time, I wasn’t thinking about anything like a career. What if someone here had broken her heart? The thought that it might have been my father triggered an unsettling feeling in my chest. Because even if it made me curious, it was odd to think about someone I didn’t even know. Even more so, approaching my mother about it was a thought that didn’t make me feel good. She had never said anything or had always avoided me.
What if he hadn’t run away at all... but she had? What had he done to her?
I felt sick.
No... I shouldn’t think about something like that. Maybe it was really like she had told me. Maybe he was just an asshole who had never contacted us again.
Slowly but surely, I buried all hope of any answers.
I had to stop asking constant questions that bothered my mum and reminded her of something she might have successfully repressed her whole life.
From now on, I would keep quiet and focus on her future and mine. Because the worst thing I could do would be to open up old wounds. Wounds that had perhaps long since healed.
I decided it wasn’t worth all that. Because if there was one thing I knew, it was that I wanted what was best for my mum. She needed time. And I would give her that.
Chapter 8
Julian
My fingers glided over the keys, and the melody I elicited from them sent a shiver down my own spine. Dream was the first piece I had taught myself. At that time, I had learned it for only one person...
My fingers sped up, and my mind was still racing. Just the memory of that time scared me.
How had it come to this, that I was afraid of myself?
My head tried to suppress it, but deep inside, I knew that I could not escape it. It was inside me, a part of me. And it was just waiting to come out. But that would never happen again. Never again.
No matter what Emely or Nickolas said. I would prove them wrong. The last thing I wanted was to be like them. A unit with no free will.
I sat in my room, as I always did at this time of day, and had already been doing my favorite activity for five hours. At the piano, I simply felt better, and all the stress that threatened to crush me more and more every day disappeared almost completely. Here I could be more or less myself and also had my peace from my father.
“Julian...we need to talk.”
Speaking of the devil...
I looked up and interrupted the piano play. Only now did I realize that my fingers hurt. They were no longer bloodied, but you could see the many small cuts from the shards.
I sighed in annoyance.
After my outburst, Mia had disappeared to the Campbells, leaving me alone with my thoughts. She always claimed that everything was okay and that I wouldn’t scare her, but I knew for a fact that she was lying to me. I desperately needed to talk to her before I scared her off completely.
“This can’t go on.”
Dad snapped me out of my thoughts. One look at his face told me he had been crying.
Our grandmother had died recently, and he was still grieving. Every day, he would come home and try not to reach for the bottle. It was a hard struggle. You could see it in his face. But we all had to fight our battles somewhere. Some more, some less. I had to be a complete battleground.
“I understand that you had to go through a lot, but we all had to. Mia misses her too, and you can’t imagine how much I wish she were still with us.”
He contorted his face in pain. I knew for a fact that it wasn’t about Grandma.
My heart contracted painfully, like a sponge full of water that you squeezed until it was dry and empty.
I alone was to blame for my family’s suffering.
It was different to be responsible for your own mother’s death and live under the same roof with the people who knew the truth, but repressed it.
Dad was still looking at me, but I could no longer withstand his scrutinizing gaze. I instinctively looked out the window.
A white curtain. Nothing had changed. Bayla Adams still felt like I was watching her. Yet she had been the one secretly staring at me. Actually, the thought of that absurd encounter should have made me grin, but I could only continue to stare at the billowing curtain.
“Julian, I’m talking to you. You’ve got to change something, son. You’re just dragging yourself further and further down.”
How could he possibly think I was pulling myself down? I was already at the bottom, and I deserved it.
