My eyes ache by the time I reach the end of his feed, but I click into tags, immediately clenching my teeth. There are so many girls, and none look the slightest bit like me.
This afternoon’s class probably meant nothing, just another bullying tactic from his armoury. Feeling me up against my will, expecting I’d be too shy to protest.
Even if he were attracted, it’ll probably be a fetish. Like Andrew ‘the human guide dog’ or Tommy, a university student who said ‘pure’ so many times during our short-lived acquaintance, the word still gives me the ick.
The door bursts open and I jump, iPad tipping forward as I whip the earphones from my head.
“Please tell me that’s homework, Ophelia,” Bryan says, sounding both tired and amused. He steps inside, frowning when I hunch over the screen. “If you can tear yourself off TikTok for a few minutes…” He lifts two steaming cups of cocoa, a nightly ritual.
My eyes widen with shock, and I check the time. Jesus. The evening slipped by without me noticing.
I switch off the iPad and slide it under my pillow, then take my cup. Bryan sits on my desk chair with a long sigh, running a hand through his thinning brown hair. Whatever physicalattraction Mum saw in him is fading, lines etching deeper into sallow skin.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ll need to call your mum about those glasses.”
He’d spotted the makeshift repair the minute he got home, even though by then I’d coloured in the tape with a black Sharpie.
I nod, hiding my distress with a large sip, and my lips twist at the cocoa’s bitterness. Probably another supermarket-brand substitution; in the past few months we’ve made plenty of those, saving dollars where we can.
Bryan’s chair creaks as he shifts, clearing his throat. “There’s just no way I can take on more overtime.”
Mum can easily afford the money for the repair, but… “She won’t answer.”
“Give it a try. She might surprise you.”
“We mightn’t have to pay. The boy who broke them—”
“I thought it was Chelsea.” There’s an edge in Bryan’s voice, but when I glance over, he’s just frowning vaguely at the ceiling corner. I squeeze the fragile mug tighter, a knot between my shoulders.
Bryan’s not even my legal guardian. Just the ex my mother had been living with before she took off, leaving herburdenbehind. A good enough man, he took me in when he didn’t have to, and her money might once have been an incentive, but the longer it goes, the less she pays. Out of sight, out of mind.
Now I’m eighteen, he could toss me onto the street any time he wants.
“She tripped me, but it was a boy who stepped on my glasses. Accidentally,” I blurt, instinctively covering for Damien who won’t care at all. “Anyway, he’s loaded, and said if I sent him a quote, he’ll take care of it.”
“Ophelia… it’s not just the glasses. You know how tight things have been lately.”
“I’ll call her, I will. Just…” I trail off into a shrug and swallow another mouthful. The drink is hot, but that’s not the reason my throat burns. “You don’t have to worry aboutthis.”
His heavy exhalation sounds irritated, but when he says, “Drink up,” his voice is warm, and he rests a reassuring hand on my knee.
This is the stability I craved through my chaotic childhood, dragged from one short-lived affair to the next, from party houses to private yachts, no one ever bothering to ask if I should be there.
I finish the rest of my cup in a few gulps, hiding a grimace.
“Thanks,” I say, handing it back to him. “I’m so grateful I landed here. Really, I am.”
He gives me a one-handed shoulder hug. “Me, too. ‘Night, Ophelia.”
“Goodnight.”
I absently pluck at a hole in my jeans for a few seconds, then change into my sleep shirt and slip under the covers.
When I first lived here, our cocoa chats would sometimes last over an hour, warm with laughter, teasing out information, forming a substitute father-daughter bond. He used to say Sweetheart, not Ophelia, when he said goodnight, but I can’t remember the last time I heard an endearment.
Probably when Mum stopped paying what she should.
I tap my phone awake. “Open contacts. Cruella.”
