SUMMER
Friday, February 4th (Present)
I woke up to Violet whimpering and crying in pain. It had been two weeks since he hurt her. She had started to heal, but last night he had shoved her and she fell into one of the wooden chairs and hurt her ribs all over again—and it was all over dead flowers!
Rose held a cloth on Violet’s forehead. It was only quarter past five in the morning. Poppy was still sleeping peacefully—I envied her for that. I pushed the cover off me and crept over to them. “How long have you been up?” I whispered to Rose.
She looked over at me, startled. “About half an hour. I’ll change her bandages soon. Hopefully she’ll wake up properly, and we can give her one of the pills. If not, I’ll crush it and put it in her water.” Violet’s breathing was fast and heavy. Her face scrunched up in pain and her hand clutched at her chest. She really needed painkillers, but we only had four that we accumulated. We needed to make them last.
I nodded and turned my attention to Violet. “Are you okay?” Her eyes flicked open and landed on me; after a few seconds they closed again. She shook her head and whimpered. “I’m sorry. You’ll be all right, though. We’ll look after you,” I promised her. No matter what happened, I would not leave her by herself again. If she tried anything like that again, I would help her.
“Hurts. It hurts,” Violet whispered. Her pain was clear through her strained voice.
“I know it does. We can give you something now, if you want? Do you think you could swallow a pill?” Rose asked. Shouldn’t she be healing better than this? Something wasn’t right.
Violet nodded and winced at the same time. “Here,” Rose said, holding the tiny white pill out. Violet opened her mouth; Rose popped it in and held the glass of water up for her. I hated that there was nothing more I could do to help her. Three pills were all we had left now and there was no way she would be healed by tomorrow!
She slumped back in her bed and hissed through her teeth in pain. Her eyes filled with tears, but the intense expression on her face told me she wasn’t going to let herself cry. Violet was so strong—much stronger than me. “What’s he going to do to me?”
Rose squeezed her hand. “Nothing at all. You’re going to be fine. It’s sorted, remember? He’s not going to do anything to you.” Was that really better? Living only meant living this “life.” If I didn’t have the tiniest bit of hope that I would see Lewis and my family again I would have let him kill me weeks ago.
Violet’s eyes flickered to me for a second. She was expressionless, emotionless, like there was nothing there. I had no idea what she was thinking, and I wouldn’t be able to find out until we were alone. I had a feeling she wouldn’t want to talk in front of Rose and Poppy. I sat with her for as long as I could.
Poppy woke up and one by one we had a shower and changed into matching outfits. I helped Rose clean Violet’s wounds and change the bandages. Her head wound looked bad, but at least the bleeding had stopped now.
“You’re going to be just fine,” Rose said and stroked a stray strand of hair from Violet’s face. “We need to start breakfast now, but we’ll come back after.”
I looked up at the clock. He would be down here in half an hour. My chest tightened at the thought of being around a table with him. I hated him so much it consumed me. Whenever anyone mentioned his name, I felt my blood boil. “Lily, just make sure you’re out here in twenty minutes, okay? We don’t want him to come in here looking for you,” Rose said and left us alone in the room.
“You gonna be okay?” Violet whispered.
“I’ll be fine,” I lied. “How are you feeling now?” I asked to shift the spotlight off me.
She shook her head and gasped in pain. “It hurts so much.”
“The painkiller will kick in soon.” I got her water and held the straw to her lips. I wanted to give her another pill but I knew I couldn’t yet—only when she really needed it.
“Is he really leaving me alone now?”
“I told you, yesterday was about the bloody stupid flowers! You know Rose convinced him that you were scared and just trying to protect us.” I looked down at the bed. “And that you didn’t mean to hurt him.” That part I hadn’t told her before.
“Didn’t mean to hurt him,” she repeated, her eyes widening in disbelief. “I wanted to kill him. I still do.” It was the loudest I had heard her speak in a long time. At least she had some fight left in her.
“Shh, they’ll hear you,” I hissed. “I know you do. I do too, but you can’t say that to anyone else. Promise me.” God, we had only just managed to get him to agree to let her live, there was no way he would agree again, especially if he knew the truth.
She looked away from me and stared up at the ceiling again. I didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t promised, but she knew she couldn’t risk doing something so stupid again. Violet still wanted to do something to fight back. Perhaps when she had healed we could plan something together. Poppy wouldn’t stop us; I knew that now. Rose might, but she would be outnumbered.
“Lily,” Poppy called from the doorway.
My breathing sped up and my heart felt like it was going to explode. He’s coming. I wanted to stay and pretend I wasn’t well, but I didn’t want him to come looking for me and see Violet. Sure, he had said he would leave her alone, but I wasn’t going to take any chances before she was better.
I very slowly pushed myself off the bed and walked out. “I’ll be back soon,” I said and closed the bedroom door.
“Why don’t you just sit down now, Lily?” Poppy said and smiled too sweetly. She was trying too hard. She never tried too hard. I did what she said and prayed he wouldn’t speak to me. He would, though, of course.
The cellar door opened, and I froze. He walked down with a huge smile on his messed-up face. “Good morning, Flowers,” he said.
“Good morning,” we replied in unison. It was like reciting a line in a play now. We said it automatically, without even thinking about it, as if he’d shouted action.
He kissed Rose and Poppy on the cheek and turned to me. I gripped the sides of the chair and clenched my jaw as he leaned down to kiss me. His lips pressed against the side of my forehead and my stomach turned. Every time he touched me, I wanted to scream and run, but of course that was impossible. It was something I would only do if I ever reached the point where I lost all hope of escaping and just wanted to end it.
Rose had prepared a big breakfast with pancakes and fruit salad—and I couldn’t face eating any of it. When he kissed me, I could feel his skin on mine, his smell surrounding me, and his dark, beady eyes that burned into me. I managed as best as I could to feel that separate from Summer, to keep Lily and Summer as two different people. But it was hard.
I felt guilty, as if I were cheating on Lewis. I knew I wasn’t, but it still haunted me. What would his reaction be? Angry, hurt, and sick were the obvious ones. Betrayed too? No, he couldn’t feel that because I never wanted Clover and I never would. He took it. Lewis wouldn’t feel betrayed. Would he?
“So, what have you got planned today?” he asked loudly, breaking me out of my thoughts. We’re going to look after the girl whose ribs you rebroke yesterday, you sick bastard!
“We think some reading; we haven’t done much recently,” Rose replied and flashed me a warning look. I wanted to slap her, but I readjusted my hard expression, forcing myself to smile.
“I’ll have to remind myself to purchase you some new material soon.”
Rose nodded. “That would be great, Clover, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I wanted to puke at their sweet little exchange. I stabbed the plastic fork in a raspberry and took a deep breath. What would it take for me to be able to act properly around him? I always felt as if I wasn’t hiding how much I hated him very well at all. I looked around the room, anywhere but at him. My eyes landed on the calendar—it was Lewis’s birthday in one week. Would we spend that apart?
He wanted to go to the horse races for his birthday. We went with our families before we even got together and both loved it. He always said he wanted to go again so we had planned to go for his nineteenth. I hoped he would still go, even if I wasn’t there. He wouldn’t, of course, but I wanted him to have fun on his birthday.
“I was thinking of having a movie night soon,” he said between mouthfuls of food. I almost fell off my chair. Movie nights were what normal people do, not him. “I’ve not spent much time with you recently, and I feel guilty.” Don’t worry about it, I wanted to say but bit my tongue.
“Sounds nice,” Poppy replied cautiously, biting her lip.
He smiled for a second and then his face dropped to his new nervous, edgy expression. “Good. That’s good.”
Was it? I popped another raspberry in my mouth and chewed, staring at my plate. Rose and Poppy ate quietly as well, watching him too often. Usually there would be some conversation, but that was becoming rare. It was like they didn’t know what to say to him now, or they didn’t know how he would react to the things they would usually say.
Clover chewed his food for too long, his eyes darting around the room occasionally. He put his fork down, scratched his jaw, and then picked it up again. Rose watched him out of the corner of her eye, her head slightly down.
I bit my lip. My heart fluttered with unease. I kept myself small, eating what I could silently. I felt like we were all waiting for a volcano to erupt.
“Nice,” he muttered under his breath and shoved a forkful of beans and sausage into his mouth. No one responded, because he hadn’t said it to us. I wasn’t even sure it was about the food. I was anxious to get back to Violet and away from him.
“Well, thank you for breakfast,” he said and abruptly stood up. “I’ll see you for dinner. Have a good day.”
Rose and Poppy busied themselves saying good-bye and getting up to clean. They were jumpy and moved too fast, as if they wanted everything to be clean doubly quick in case…what?
Deciding to skip the cleanup and not wanting to drive myself crazy worrying and overthinking why they were so on edge, I went straight into the bedroom and sat on Violet’s bed.
“Hi,” she whispered, her eyes flicking open.
“Hi. You okay?” She nodded, although she clearly wasn’t okay. She looked pale and her hair was messy and greasy. “Want a shower?”
She frowned for a second. I could tell she was desperate for one. “You mind helping me?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know I don’t.” Standing up, I held my hands out for her and helped her out of bed. She tried to hide her pain, but her eyes scrunched up. “We’re reading today apparently.”
“Fabulous,” she replied, making me laugh. If it weren’t for Violet, I didn’t know what I would be like. She kept me sane—well, as sane as you could be down here. She understood how suffocating it was because she was just as eager to get out as I was.
“There you go,” I said as I pushed the bathroom door open. “I’ll just get you some oh-so-glamorous clothes and a towel.”
Violet grinned and switched the shower on. “Thanks.”
I gave her a fresh towel and the clothes that matched ours and went back into the bedroom. One week until Lewis turned nineteen. His last birthday being a teenager. It was something I desperately wanted to celebrate with him. How many other birthdays would I miss? Taking a deep breath, I flattened my already perfect hair and prepared for another boring day. Everything will be okay.
Wednesday, February 11th (2009)
Theo answered the door. “Where is he?” I asked.
He smirked. “It’s ten in the morning, so Lewis will still be in bed.”
I scowled. “But it’s his birthday,” I said, tugging on the Happy Birthday balloon. I loved birthdays, anyone’s birthday.
Theo shrugged. “What can I say, my brother’s a lazy arse.”
“Well, I’m making him get up.” I strode in past Theo and stomped up the stairs. Who the heck slept in on special occasions? I pushed open his bedroom door and grinned at him sleeping with one arm thrown over his face. “Happy birthday!” I shouted and launched myself on his bed.
He gasped and jumped awake, looking around disorientedly. I giggled. He looked so funny when he was woken up. “What the…?” He groaned. “Sum, what’re you doing?”
I thrust the balloon string at him. “Happy birthday.” Flopping back on the bed, he groaned again. “Oh, no, you don’t. Get up! Come on, it’s your seventeenth! You can legally drive now. Well, after you pass your test, but you can learn.” I shook my head. “Anyway, what do you want to do to celebrate?”
“Sleep,” he mumbled, his voice muffled by the pillows.
“Wow, you are not a morning person.” I sighed and climbed on his lap. His eyes shot open. Well, that got his attention
“Hmm, I like this idea too.” Of course you do. He ran his hands up my thighs, biting his lip.
“I’m sure you do, pervert, but unfortunately for you, I’m not easy. Get up. Your mum’s making pancakes and they smell so good.” I leaned over and kissed him. My heart was doing somersaults. “Come on.” I hopped off him and stood at the side of his bed. “You want me to go down and get you some while you get dressed?”
“I love you, Summer,” he said, looking deep into my eyes and completely ignoring my question. My heart felt like it was trying to burst out of my chest. Sometimes I didn’t believe him when he said it. Actually most of the time. He was…well, him, all gorgeous, tall, dark, and unbelievably handsome, and I was just me.
“Love you too, birthday boy.”
He chuckled and got off the bed, pulling me into his arms. Whoa half-naked! He only had on cotton pajama pants and nothing else. I gulped. My hormones seemed to be in overdrive and my body burst into flames. Wow, wow, wow! I was secretly grateful for all the football and training he did because it did wonders for his chest.
“Now who’s the pervert?” he teased, smirking at me. I rolled my eyes and got up again, opening his wardrobe. “I kinda feel like a piece of meat.”
“Well, either get used to it or cover up,” I replied and threw a T-shirt at him.
He caught it just before it smacked him in the face and pulled it over his head. “Let’s get this over with then. And thanks for that,” he said, nodding at the balloon that was now stuck to the ceiling.
“You’re welcome. That’s not your present by the way.”
His eyes lit up. “Is my present you?”
I sighed, discouraged. “Downstairs. Now.” He saluted and marched out of the room. Following him downstairs, I grinned like an idiot to myself. I had wanted to be with him for years and now we were finally together. This was the first birthday we would spend together, where I could get him something decent because now he knew how crazy I was about him.
He stopped suddenly at the bottom of the stairs. “Did you know about this?” He questioned, gesturing his hand to all the birthday decorations.
“Of course I did. I chose most of them,” I said, smiling proudly. He frowned. “Don’t be a pain in the arse, Lewis. It’s your birthday and everyone’s excited!” Me mostly. Spending his birthday with him—properly with him—was like a dream come true so he could suck it up. Nothing was going to take away the excitement I felt, not even a grumpy arse.
“Fine,” he said and sighed dramatically. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he kissed me. “I know I said this like two seconds ago, but I really do love you.” He pressed his forehead against mine and smiled.
“I know I said this like two seconds ago, but I really do love you too.”