New Family Required by Carmen Reid

Author:Carmen Reid [Reid, Carmen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

17

Somehow, it wasn’t enough to run upstairs to the bedroom. So instead, she ran to the back of the house, found the coat and boots she’d worn earlier and then let herself outside into the darkness.

Yes, it was cool, damp and calming, and she felt her breathing and her heart rate return towards some kind of normal again, but it was also still pouring with rain, so after just a few minutes, she had to turn and head back to the house. As she made her way through the downstairs hallway, she listened out, hoping not to meet anyone on her way up to the bedroom. If she did, she decided she would just blank them and walk straight past.

Lights were still on, but she didn’t meet anyone and couldn’t hear any talking as she passed the big reception rooms. Sasha went as quietly as she could through the hall and up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Then left and along the corridor and into the bedroom that she, Ben and LouLou were using.

It was such a relief to close the door behind her, not having run into anyone, and to see Ben checking on a sleeping LouLou in the little bed set out for her in the corner of the room.

‘Oh, hello, Sash,’ he whispered. ‘I’m so glad you’re back… I was about to go and look for you.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered back.

‘That was… very painful,’ he admitted. ‘I left pretty much straight after you and thought you’d have come up here. I think everyone else went their separate ways not long afterwards.’

‘I still can’t believe everything we’ve heard.’ Sasha kept her voice low, but felt a fresh wave of anger washing over her. ‘All that money to Adele… and two-thirds of it has just gone! I still can’t believe it… and £50,000 to Beau. I hope there’s some chance that he can pay it back.’

She tried to understand what was upsetting her the most. There right at the top was the old, nagging feeling of being excluded, of unfairness – the feeling of being second best. Her family had given her all those feelings for so long now, it was almost how she expected to feel and not just when she was with them. These feelings probably coloured much of her everyday life: the feeling that she wasn’t ever quite good enough.

‘Are you okay?’ Ben asked and put his arm around her.

Usually this would feel supportive and so reassuring. But tonight, her heart was bruised and broken and Ben, her beloved Ben, he’d let her down too, she remembered with a horrible lurching feeling.

‘I’m so angry about the bloody bamboo skis too, absolutely bloody furious. Bamboo freaking skis!’ she was shouting, but still in a whisper, so that their daughter couldn’t hear her.

‘I thought it was going to be such a good idea,’ Ben whispered back.

‘If it was such a bloody good idea, why didn’t you tell me all about it? Why didn’t you want to share everything about it?’

This whisper-shouting was killing her throat.

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