I hated this. This miserable lack of self-confidence. I’d moved away from this as a kid because I’d had to — this mopey little girl stuff that ended up in self-hate and tears and insecurity. It’d had no place there and would have none here either.
“Nah,” Rebecca countered. “No way you were crap. He’d have pulled you up on it and made sure you learned your lesson. He did enough times with me.”
I felt a lump in my throat and I was sick of it. Sick of missing him. Sick of wanting him. Sick of the encroaching realisation that he really didn’t want me in any way in return.
This was really it now. Me up here in strangeville, listening to Mr Sinister’s harsh instructions from this point on and not anything from the man I’d fallen for under a pier in the dark on very first sight. Me doing the work of a cheap little whore who’d sold her body to make sure her sister had a better future.
That was the only thing I had left to focus on. Phoebe.
My own happiness had always been a stupid notion. The thought I could ever expect to find some kind of genuine connection with a man as powerful and potent as Brandon Grant was so stupid I should be laughing. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t laughing at all.
“Let it out,” Rebecca said, and put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s alright, chick. Letting it out is always better.”
That wasn’t what I’d been thinking my whole life. I’d done everything I could not to let anything out, ever. Keeping a lid on everything at every point in the road, just soldiering on regardless.
I guess it was the strength of the squeeze in her fingers. The friendship in her eyes as she stared hard at me.
So I did.
I did let it out.
The sobs came hard and wet. My admissions were nothing short of stammers as I spat out to my newfound friend how much I’d fallen for the man who’d bought me for sixty days straight. How much I wanted him. How much I’d come to crave him. How stupid I’d been for believing there really was something forming between us.
And she listened.
Oh, how she listened. Her own words were sobs themselves when they came out to soothe me. Her cheeks were wet with tears as she said she understood. That she fell pretty damn hard for him too. That he had the kind of effect on a girl’s heart that you never really felt you’d walk away from.
Finally, she pressed her forehead to mine and managed a giggle as I spluttered, and then she spoke again.
“He’d be loving this if he could see it right now, you know. Egotistical prick. Especially with us both fucking like it.”
I nodded, smiling at the stupidity of it all. “He’s already seen me begging him to come for me,” I told her. “I just know he was watching and would’ve known the words were all for him. He’s already got that to puff his chest out over.”
“Oh well,” she said. “He can save that one for the memories. You’re gonna pull yourself strong and together now and get through the rest of this shit for your poor sister. Pay out day will see a whole fucking world of therapists available for the trauma. I’m booking myself in too this time around.”
I tried to slow my breathing and think of my sister, focusing once again on how we could possibly have a brand new start, the two of us. Just like Rebecca was planning on having one with Carolyn.
“It’s a big world out there,” Rebecca said, as though she was reading me. “A big world that’s gonna be really bloody easy to explore with a decent figure in your bank account. I dunno why I holed back up locally and went back to the same old life with better shoes.”
But I knew.
At least I had my suspicion.
“You were wanting to see him again,” I said, and it wasn’t a question.
Her smile was bright and honest. “Yeah, I was. I think that’s why I probably ran my mouth off so much too. I was hoping he’d turn up and give me more punishment, even though I shit myself on the pier when he turned up in real life.”
I remembered sitting there, watching the action across the table. I remembered her holding her palm out for his cigarette. How she’d knelt so low for the man who was clearly a god to her.
How she’d called after him so desperately and screamed that she loved him.
“Do you still feel that way about him now?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“No. I don’t think so. Time, a bit more distance. I dunno.” She shrugged. “Probably would if I saw him, but I’m also not gonna be an idiot my whole life. He didn’t want me. Didn’t care a shit for me beyond me doing a good job on camera. Didn’t think anything of me past the goodbye at the end of our sixty days. I may have wanted the world from him, but he wasn’t ever gonna give it to me. I can harp on about that for the rest of my life, or I can put my attention back on myself where it’s really needed.”