Escape: A Stepbrother Romance (27 page)

I waited upstairs for at least ten minutes. Hopefully that would be long enough for Gemma to forget what we were talking about or what we were almost talking about anyway. She’d come dangerously close to stumbling on the secret of Caiden and I. Perhaps she already knew, but I wasn’t ready to confirm that. I hoped she would understand, but I wasn’t ready to deal with the consequences if she didn’t.

Other than me, Gemma was the closest person to Mum, and if Gemma was disgusted by my relationship with Caiden then that would give me a good idea of how Mum would feel too. I wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.

I headed back down to the kitchen but realized I hadn’t printed anything off like I said I was going to. I quickly printed off a few pages that we already had downstairs just so I would have something in my hand when I went back down. I dashed down to the kitchen with the pages firmly in hand, but Gemma wasn’t there anyway. I assumed she’d gone to the toilet, but I’d walked past the toilet door and it was open.

Voices were coming from the living room. I walked closer to the door and heard Caiden and Gemma talking. Their voices were hushed and barely above a whisper, but I could tell the topic of conversation was not a pleasant one.

Either Caiden had decided to tell Gemma about us—which seemed unlikely—or Gemma knew the whole time and was questioning Caiden about it. She didn’t sound happy. She sounded upset. Was that how my mum would sound when she found out?

Maybe there was nothing to find out about anyway. Caiden and I would be over in a few weeks’ time and there was not much we could do about it. I still wanted to tell Mum though. Not telling her was like pretending it had never happened and this summer was something I wanted to remember for the rest of my life.

Gemma came back to the kitchen, closely followed by Caiden. Her face had turned a ghostly white and she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. She knew.

“Gemma, it’s not what it seems,” I began. “It started before we knew…”

Gemma held up her hand to stop me talking. “It’s okay,” she said softly. There was a red puffiness around her eyes that suggested she had been crying. “Caiden explained everything.”

“Are you disappointed in me?”

“Disappointed?” Gemma laughed as she spoke, as if the suggestion were ridiculous. “Of course I’m not disappointed. I can’t imagine being disappointed in anything you chose to do. I’m going to leave now; Caiden needs to speak to you about something important.”

“Don’t leave,” I pleaded. “We haven’t finished cooking the meal yet and you should stay to eat it.”

“I should go,” Gemma said. She looked like she was going to start crying again. “Vicky, I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I’m very sorry and I love you.”

With that, Gemma practically ran out of the house before I could say another word. I looked at Caiden for an explanation. Whatever he’d been discussing with Gemma must have been serious.

“Come with me,” Caiden said.

“What’s going on, Caiden?”

“Put on some sneakers. We need to go for a short walk.”

Caiden held my hand as we walked for about twenty minutes until we came to the park where I sometimes spoke to Mum.

“Why are we here?” I asked.

“Do you recognize this place?” Caiden asked.

“Of course I do. I grew up in this town, remember? It’s a nice park. I come here to speak to Mum sometimes.”

“Where do you speak to her? Do you have a favourite bench or spot where you like to sit?”

“There’s a bench I usually sit on, yes. What’s going on, Caiden?”

“Take me to the bench.”

We walked for another five minutes until we arrived at the bench I always sat on when I spoke to Mum. There was nothing special about the bench to distinguish it from any of the others, but this was where I had sat the first time, and my body just gravitated towards it automatically after that point. I plonked myself down on the bench right in the middle where I always sat and Caiden sat next to me.

“Is this all about you wanting to be introduced to my mum?” I asked. “Because today is not my day to speak to her.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“What is it then?” I raised my voice enough that a man a few hundred yards away glanced in my direction. I stared back at him. I didn’t like to be rude, but this was a public park. It wasn’t exactly unusual to hear other voices, and I didn’t need to be scolded by some old man right now.

“Is this the only place you come to talk to your mum?”

“This is the only place I sit when I come to this park,” I responded. Caiden’s questions were driving me insane, but I figured I’d get to the bottom of this quicker if I just answered them.

“But sometimes you talk to her from other places?” Caiden asked.

“You know I do. I told you I sometimes go to a shopping precinct that I like and talk to her from there. That’s the place I prefer to do it, but sometimes I speak to her here instead.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s because the shopping precinct is unavailable sometimes.” I frowned as I spoke, as if I didn’t believe my own response. That didn’t sound right, but as much as I searched my brain I couldn’t remember why I spoke to mum from two different locations.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Vicky. Why wouldn’t you be able to speak to your mum from a shopping precinct. It’s not like it’s ever closed.”

“I… I don’t know. I guess maybe it gets too busy sometimes. I like the quiet and the privacy I get here.”

“I want you to really think about it,” Caiden said. He placed his hand on my leg and squeezed it family. “It’s important, Vicky. Think about why you go to the shopping precinct sometimes and why you come here. There’s a reason why you do that, and I want you to think about it.”

“Why? You clearly know the answer already. I don’t understand what you’re doing or why you’re asking all these questions, but I’m starting to get pretty damn annoyed about it all.” I wanted to swear, but something about being in this place made me go back to speaking a little more politely.

I looked around. Other than the old man who had looked at me a few minutes ago, there was no one else in the park. Sometimes there were children here, but not today. That pleased me for some reason. It wasn’t that I minded the noise children made, it was just I didn’t like seeing them around here. Why wouldn’t I like seeing children in a park? There was something sad about seeing kids here, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“I’ll tell you, Vicky, if I have to,” Caiden said. “But I really think it’s better if you come up with the answer yourself.”

“Caiden, your scaring me now. I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t think I want to be here any longer. Something about this place is freaking me out.”

“Why?” Caiden asked, jumping on my comments like it might lead to the answer. “Why don’t you like being here?”

“I… I don’t know.” I felt a small tear in the corner of each eye, but I couldn’t for the life of me explain why. I was annoyed at Caiden, but there was nothing to be upset about. Why did I want to cry?

“Vicky, before I tell you, I want you to know that I am here for you. I know we haven’t figured this all out yet, but if you need me for anything, I will be there. And so will Gemma. If you need someone to talk to and I’m not there, talk to Gemma.”

I nodded and felt one of the tears drop from my eye and run down my cheek. Something life-changing was about to happen. My brain knew it was coming and knew what it was, but I couldn’t unravel the pieces.

“I still need you to work this out yourself,” Caiden said. “I can’t just tell you because you won’t believe me. I’m going to go slowly. If at any point you need to stop then just tell me, but I beg you to try and work through this. Be patient. Don’t run away. Please power through this. You’re brave and strong and I know you can handle this.”

I nodded again. “Let’s get this over with.”

“You’re sat on this bench for a reason,” Caiden began slowly. “You even sat in the middle of the bench for a reason. You sit here because of what is in front of the bench.”

“A rock,” I said. When I spoke the words, a rock suddenly appeared in front of me. It had been there the entire time, but my eyes had never registered it. There were plenty of other large rocks around the park as well.

“It’s more a stone than a rock in this context,” Caiden continued. “There’s writing on it. Can you see it?”

“Yes.” As soon as Caiden mentioned the writing my eyes picked up on the words carved into the rock. They been there the entire time. Why hadn’t I been able to see them before?

“I need you to read the words on the stone. Read them slowly.”

My eyes tried to focus on the words, but I couldn’t read them. “They’re too blurry. I can’t read them from here.”

“Yes you can. The words are very clear. I know you can read them.”

“I can’t.” Tears filled my eyes now and I could barely see anything in front of me, let alone read the words on the stone.

“Focus, Vicky. I know you can do this.”

“Why am I crying?” I wiped my tears on my sleeve and tried to regain my composure. I immediately felt myself welling up again, but I pushed the tears back inside until I could read the words on the rock in front of me.

“What do the words say?” Caiden asked.

I read the top line. “Stephanie Marshall,” I said, surprised to see my mum’s name carved into a rock.

“Keep going.”

“Stephanie Marshall,” I repeated. “Wife to…” I paused.

Caiden squeezed my leg to remind me he was there for me. I placed my hand on his and read the rest of the words on the stone. I knew what words were on the stone now. I stared at the words as they sunk in for the first time.

I took a deep breath before reading all the words on the stone in one go. “Stephanie Marshall. Wife to Royston Marshall and loving mother of Victoria Marshall. Born 23 March 1973 Died 17 November 2012.”

The look on Vicky’s face as she stared at her mother’s gravestone wasn’t one of surprise. There wasn’t the look of shock that you might expect to see when someone finds out their mom is dead. She’d known all this time. Somewhere, tucked away deep inside the recesses of her brain that she didn’t want to access, she’d known her mom was dead. Somehow Vicky had blocked it out and imagined she could talk to her mom every couple of weeks.