There was no we, he thought.
“It doesn’t matter. I got a call from my director. They’re getting ready to go into production.”
Liam opened his mouth to say something, but instead gave the slightest nod.
It was another lie, one that Nathan shot out so easily, but he realized the truth at its core. This story of theirs wasn’t meant to have a happy ending. He had dug himself into too deep a hole. He had messed with these good people enough. It was for the best that his stay here come to an end before he caused even more damage. Nathan was pure trouble, just as Pastor Fry had told him. He had come to New Zealand to find out why his mother abandoned him, and it was time to admit he’d gotten his answer.
Chapter 27
Nathan
“Tonight’s the night!” Franny charged into Nathan’s room two days later and paced back and forth.
“Nervous?” Nathan asked through the bathroom mirror in that artificially chipper voice that he’d been using since his fight with Liam.
“Nervous?” Franny repeated. “You’re never supposed to ask an actress if she’s nervous. You’ll jinx me! You just say ‘break a leg.’ I thought you knew this.”
“But what if you actually break a leg on the way to the theater?” Nathan quirked an eyebrow, which felt like a herculean task considering how he was feeling on the inside. He had to stay in character until he exited for good. He didn’t want to cloud Franny’s mind before her stage debut. Tonight, after the show, he would announce he was leaving.
Franny continued to pace, gaining so much speed she could start a hurricane off the coast of Maui. Nathan remembered what those butterflies felt like. When he was on stage, he wanted so bad to nail it, to make every line land with the audience.
He stopped her in her pacing tracks and looked her squarely in the eye. “Franny, you are going to amaze them. You are the dog’s bollocks.”
“What if I forget a line?”
“Improvise.”
“Nathan!”
He tucked a lock of shiny red hair behind her ears. Her red mane glowed in the sunlight, so much better than her attempt at going brunette. Her true self shined through.
“You’ve been practicing for weeks. You’ve been off book a week longer than your fellow cast members. YouareCinderella.” Her acting skills had vastly improved during the rehearsal process. Nathan loved coming in for nightly dinners and hearing her beautiful singing wafting from upstairs.
“You can do this,” he said. “Your mother would be very proud.”
Her smile held back tears. Nathan’s did the same.
“I couldn’t have done this without you. I’m so glad you came here. And not just for me. You’ve made all our lives better.”
Nathan felt a lump in his throat. He wasn’t used to such compliments. Usually he had the opposite effect.
“Uncle Liam really cares about you.”
Nathan tensed up. His feelings crushed his head harder than any hangover.
“We should get going. You don’t want to be late,” he said.
Nathan waited with Walt in the living room while Franny and Mark went upstairs to get her costume. Walt played a game on his phone.
“Walt, I want to apologize. I shouldn’t have asked you to keep a secret. That wasn’t right of me.” Nathan knew from his past rehab visits that this wasn’t a real apology. Not yet. He said he wanted to apologize, but he hadn’t officially done so.
This was a hard one. He’d apologized to friends and family members for stealing, saying mean things while drunk, stealing cars and boyfriends. Yet the litany of those bad deeds at this moment paled in comparison to the breach in trust he’d created with his little brother.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice trembling.
Walt put down his phone when he noticed how serious Nathan was being.
“It’s okay, Nathan.” Walt checked to make sure nobody was coming down the stairs. “You know how our remote control is broken?”
