But I ignored the guilt, choosing not to care. I swept past Fyfe. “Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out. Wasn’t coming back here, anyway.”
The class gaped, but there was freedom in suddenly not caring if everyone loved or hated, accepted or rejected me.
“Callie!” I heard Lewis call.
But he’d hurt my feelings. Abandoned me. Engaged in a drunken one-night standwith me. Returned to Ardnoch claiming to want me back, but when I said no because I mistrusted his love, he proved my mistrust was warranted by agreeing to date my friend.
I didn’t know him anymore. And honestly, I found myself asking all over again if I’d ever really known Lewis.
So, fuck him.
I was done.
Nineteen
CALLIE
By the time I’d gotten home after the class, my phone was practically on fire with missed calls and texts from Lewis. Obviously, Eilidh had given him my number. I immediately blocked him. Then Eilidh tried calling. When I didn’t answer, she’d texted:
What’s going on? Lewis says you’re mad at him for some reason.
I’d texted back I didn’t want to talk about it, and not because I was being huffy or melodramatic. But because I was done, and I had no more energy or headspace to deal with my ex. I wished he’d stayed the hell in London.
As the bakery was closed the next day, I got up to have breakfast with my parents and Harry before Dad left for work and Harry for school.
“Are you okay?” Dad asked. I could feel his penetrating stare as I sat down at the table with a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs he’d cooked for us all.
“Fine.” I shrugged. “Actually, I’m going to call Arro about the cottage. I was hoping I could move in there as quickly as possible.”
“You’re leaving?” Harry’s spoon fell into his bowl of cereal.
Surprised by the dismayed expression on his face, I nodded. “It’s about time I had my own place, don’t you think?”
My wee brother swallowed, glancing nervously from Mum to Dad and then back to me. “You’re not going because I was a dick to you?”
“Harry,” Mum scolded. “Language, please.”
He grimaced but repeated with some modification, “You’re not going because I was mean to you?”
“No, of course not,” I semi-lied.
Harry seemed to sense the lie because he stared guiltily at his bowl. “I am sorry.”
“Harry, I know that.”
Still not looking at us, he continued, “I, uh, I googled it. There are a lot of newspaper articles about what Mum’s stepmum tried to do and about your real dad and stuff.”
Shifting uncomfortably, I tried to unclench my fist from around my fork. Never, not once, had I been inclined to google it. Mum’s stepmum hiring Nathan Andros to kill Mum for her inheritance wasn’t ordinary news. Especially because my maternal grandfather had been a wealthy attorney to Hollywood stars. The trauma we’d experienced was played out as entertainment in the news, and I remembered the paparazzi arriving in Ardnoch to hound us.
Thankfully, the furor around the family drama had died down. It flared up again a year or so later when Mum’s stepmum’s and Nathan’s trials started. They were both sentenced to life in prison, the former for conspiracy to commit murder, the latter for kidnap, assault, and attempted murder.
Once all that circus died down, I’d never wanted to deal with it again. I hadn’t googled it ever. In fact, I liked to imagine that our story didn’t exist for strangers to read.
Harry reminded me that itwasout there. Anyone who was anyone could read my story. One saving grace was that most of the articles had our names as Sloane and Callie Harrow. Anyone who’d entered our lives in the last fourteen years wouldn’t think to google that name.
Harry finally looked up, and tears gleamed in his eyes. “The articles on the trial talked about what he did to you and Mum.”
“What happened to the parental controls?” Mum asked Dad.
