Above The Surface

by Akeroyd, Serena

  I licked my lips, unable to process what I was hearing, but Robert seemed to mistake what I was going through. I wasn’t sure what he thought he saw, but he murmured, “My lawyers are dealing with this situation as we speak.”

  “Which situation?” I rasped. The almost murder attempt, the marriage, or the adoption...apparently, there were three to choose from.

  He blinked. “The adoption, of course. It’s underway as we speak. Within the next two months, quicker if I can sway it, you’ll be one of the family.”

  And that was only the start of my nightmares coming to fruition.

  The only way I wanted to be family with Robert was as his daughter-in-law, not as an adopted daughter.

  “Why did you ask me if this was what I wanted if you weren’t going to listen anyway?” I whispered, feeling the cavernous break in my soul as it began to crumble away as his news hit home.

  “The illusion of choice is a powerful thing,” he advised, and somehow, when he looked at me, I felt like he was telling me something else.

  My brow puckered as I strained to understand, but he reached over, patted my hand, and said, “Just concentrate on getting better. I’ll arrange for everything to be moved from your foster home to ours. I’ll visit within the next couple of days, my wife too, and you’ll be returning home to us once you’re allowed to leave the hospital.” Another pat to my hand. “Let’s make some good come out of this, Theodosia. Let me right my son’s wrongs.”

  It wasn’t a question, more of a statement, and it was more of a highlight once more of how choice truly was an illusion. I had no say in this. Adam’s family had decided my fate, just as they’d decided his.

  Only, it wasn’t a fate that was entwined, a future where we were together… No. It was one where we were separated by a wedding band, one that wasn’t on my finger, but on his.

  THEA

  A few days later when I was chauffeured back to the Ramsden’s home, staring at the family driver’s head, I wondered at the oddity of fate.

  I’d already met Linden a handful of times thanks to Adam, and he’d greeted me on sight when I waddled out of the hospital wheelchair they’d rolled me out in. I’d never been so stationary in all my life, and I was stiff as a board as a result. Linden had helped me out of the chair, had assisted me onto my feet, and had steadied me when I’d almost fallen over. I wasn’t sure if his friendliness was because of my new status, or if it was because he was genuinely sorry for me after what had happened, but I’d take it.

  There was nothing physically wrong with me. No reason my legs were limp as spaghetti… but they were. And I felt like I was one big vat of overcooked pasta too.

  In fact, I felt like I was burnt pasta.

  My life was one big destroyed pan of lasagna. Depressed? Understatement.

  I was lost. Adrift. Maybe above the surface, I looked normal, if a little wan, but deep inside, I felt like I’d been hit with a depth charge. Coming back from this was impossible, and suddenly, Momma’s depression after my papa’s death made sense. It resonated with me, because love? Hurt.

  God, it did.

  It hurt so badly, and when it went wrong, it tainted everything.

  I closed my eyes at the thought, trying not to puke as my misery overtook me. I knew if someone understood, ironically enough, it was Adam’s mom. I’d met with Anna the following day after Robert had stopped by to inform me of my change of circumstance, and she’d barely said a word through her tears and horror-filled haze.

  I wasn’t sure if she hated me or if she hated herself, but she’d spent most of the visit staring at her hands.

  Yeah, that had been awkward.

  And now I was expected to live with her. To live with Robert.

  And Adam.

  Would Maria move in with him?

  They were going to be married—

  My mind clutched at that, and I found myself still as taken aback by the news that Adam was marrying someone else and hadn’t told me himself.

  I hadn’t seen him, not since my first day of school when things had been so different. How had our worlds changed so rapidly? How had everything turned upside down, when we’d been going nowhere but up?

  God, I hated Cain. He’d ruined my life, and nobody would ever understand how. It had nothing to do with the goddamn attempted drowning, and everything to do with how Adam was suddenly no longer mine.

  How was I supposed to deal with that?

  My momma had killed herself, because the pain of losing my papa was that bad. How was I supposed to live in a world where my one, my jílo, didn’t belong to me, but to another? A woman who’d set out to hurt me as much as Cain had.

  I reached up and rubbed my eyes. Any fatigue from the incident had passed now, and I was only exhausted because I lay awake at night wondering if this was all a fucking dream.

  A bad one.

  It wasn’t.

  I knew that though.

  Adam would have visited me if it wasn’t a nightmare. He’d have come to me and held me, he’d have made things better.

  A shaky breath escaped me, and Linden asked, “Miss, are you okay?”

  “No. I’m not,” I muttered.

  “We’re almost there,” he replied worriedly. “My wife’s the family housekeeper, and she’s prepared your room for you so you can rest the second we arrive.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ramsden are out, so it’s down to me and Janice, my wife, to greet you.”

  Well, there was some relief to be found there. Robert, I had a feeling, I’d get on with. Anna was another matter entirely. Something about her set me on edge. The way she was upset—it just didn’t sit well with me.

  Robert was ashamed of his son and what he’d done. Anna wasn’t ashamed of Cain. I knew that much. She was upset he’d been caught—and there was the difference. Whether it was because it looked bad on her or because he was going to be punished, that I couldn’t discern.

  Not yet, anyway. Time would tell.

  “Where’s Adam?” I inquired, and his name on my tongue was painful.

  Bittersweet.

  A flavor I was getting used to tasting.

  “Why, he’s with his wife.”

  They were married? Already?

  Christ, was I about to have a panic attack?

  How was that even possible?

  I stared at the back of Linden’s head, my eyes wide with shock, and whispered, “They married already?”

  “Yes, miss. While you were in the hospital.” Then he tutted, and in the back of my mind, I registered his disapproval, but the forefront was having enough problems dealing with what I was hearing, never mind anything else. “They’ll be living with her parents from now on.”

  My eyes widened further. It would have hurt to see them together, but I’d have at least seen Adam. I’d have been able to get him to explain what the fuck was going on.

  Now?

  A tremor rushed through me, and I bit off, “Stop the car.”

  “Miss? Why?”

  “Stop the car!” I commanded. “I’m going to be sick.”

  It was inconvenient timing. We were on a busy highway, but Linden swerved to the side of the road, and even though a hail of honks and beeps joined us as we flew to the hard shoulder, I didn’t care. My ears were rushing with the sound of my heart.

  He pulled up, and I barely managed to open the door before I was spewing up what little I’d eaten for breakfast.

  As my body expelled all the sustenance I’d managed to eat, I suddenly understood something that had always escaped me.

  Why Momma had done it.

  This pain, this agony...I couldn’t stand it. I wasn’t sure I could deal with it.

  For five months, he’d been my everything.

  Now?

  He was nothing. How could he be anything else? He was married. And not to me.

  Sobs racked me as I puked, and when the car jerked, I realized Linden had climbed out of the vehicle.

  When he pressed behind me, his hand on my back, he
murmured, “There, there, miss. I’m so sorry.” He passed me a bottle of water, which I took and rinsed my mouth out with. It felt awkward spitting it out, but he’d just seen me vomiting, and I couldn’t bear the taste, so I released it as daintily as I could.

  I felt like a mess. One big, snotty rag of despair, and he surprised me by taking me in his arms and hugging me.

  At first, I wasn’t sure what he was doing.

  But before I could tense up, he whispered, “We were surprised, Mrs. Linden and I, by the announcement. Every time I saw you two together, I told her about it. I’ve never seen two people in love as much as the pair of you.” He shook his head, and his words started the torrent of tears again. He patted my back. “You’ll get over him, miss. You will. But, in the meantime, it’s going to hurt something fierce.

  “Mrs. Linden, Janice, she’ll help you when she can. It helps to have a woman to talk to.”

  My face felt sore from the tears that had fallen from me, and I knew I’d drenched his jacket coat. “I’m sorry. You’re all wet,” I whispered miserably, my shoulders hunched over as I tried to deal with my new reality.

  He shrugged. “Don’t worry. We all need a shoulder to cry on sometimes.”

  My mouth wobbled, and though I guarded my secrets fiercely, I couldn’t stop the words from falling. Just like I couldn’t stop the tears from burning my eyes. “It hurts.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “Janice will help, I promise.”

  “I don’t know her. She doesn’t know me.”

  Another shrug. “Better to talk to someone who you can speak the truth with than to bottle it up inside.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “True. How do—”

  “I saw you together,” he repeated. “That day at the community center, when Master Adam gave you his gift. I’ve never seen anything like it.” His brow puckered. “Trust me, and Janice will confirm it, I’m not a romantic, miss. Not at all. She’d like me to be. She’d be happy if I gave her flowers every day and left her little notes, and maybe I should. She deserves a better husband, a better man at her side, but even I saw what was between you. Even I couldn’t fail to see what you had.” He shook his head. “I thought I was going mad at first. But it was like you were connected.” He shrugged again. “I told Janice, and she thought I was mad too. But I told her enough that it stuck with her. So when the master moved out and married that Lopez girl, she was just as perplexed by it as me.”

  “Robert said she’s pregnant.”

  Linden tensed. “That would explain it. The family is Catholic.”

  Confusion furrowed my brow. “They are?”

  “Yes. Intensely.”

  How didn’t I know that?

  “Adam never said—”

  But Robert’s need to atone for Cain’s sins suddenly made a hell of a lot more sense.

  “Why would he? It’s not something a boy talks about with his sweetheart, is it?”

  My lips curved at that before, at the ends, they turned down. “I’m not his sweetheart.”

  “You were. But he’s honorable.”

  “Adam didn’t think you liked him.” I swallowed. “He didn’t think anyone liked him.”

  “We weren’t all enamored with Master Cain, but it isn’t something you can tell your boss, is it? That you think their child is a vindictive little hell spawn?” Linden winced as he squeezed my shoulder. “Truly, the only way the family would have registered his true nature was by what happened to you.” He cleared his throat. “They say he held you under water—is that the truth?”

  “At first, I thought it was a joke. Like they were hazing me, and I got it. I’d had Maria kicked off the team. So I think it started out that way. Maria shoved me, and I went down. The next thing I knew, my face was in the water.”

  It wasn’t that difficult to remember that part of the event. What was harder to swallow was Cain’s appearance. Cain, who’d looked so much like Adam in the daze of oxygen deprivation that he’d broken my heart before it had ruptured for real in the aftermath of the incident. “They were laughing and joking, but I’m good at holding my breath under the water. It’s something I’ve trained myself to do.”

  “Thank the Lord for that!” he retorted gruffly.

  “Then Cain walked in. I thought he was Adam at first.”

  “You could be forgiven for that,” he conceded. “After all, they’re so identical it’s unnerving, and while you’re undoubtedly talented at holding your breath underwater, it’s bound to affect your faculties.”

  My lips, despite my misery, twitched at his staunch defense of me. I wasn’t sure if I deserved it or not, but it was nice to have his support.

  “I guess so.” Sucking in a breath as I recounted a story I’d already told the police three times, I muttered, “He took a hold of my hair and shoved my face back in. I was so startled by the thought that it was Adam that I guess—” My brow puckered. “I couldn’t control myself like I did before. I struggled, he put his foot between my shoulders and held me down. I panicked, and in the panic, I swallowed water which choked me.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “A teacher walked in, caught everything, and I assume, hauled me out. By that point, I was unconscious. I only know that from what Robert told me.”

  He patted my shoulder. “Where was Master Adam?”

  “I don’t know. He was supposed to be training too, but he wasn’t there. He didn’t visit me to come see if I was okay, so I couldn’t ask him.”

  Linden sighed. “They had him out of the house the second they could.” He grunted. “I like my employer, miss, but Mrs. Ramsden is a difficult woman, make no mistake.”

  His statement, the kindness of his embrace, it made me nervous. “Why are you telling me this? Why are you being so nice?”

  Linden’s eyes were kind. I looked at him, saw the genuine concern, and strangely, felt more at ease. He was someone I’d barely taken notice of because he never uttered a peep this summer whenever Adam had collected me in the car with Linden at the wheel.

  I’d only ever greeted him before I’d turned my focus onto Adam. Just as he’d done with me.

  He was an older guy, maybe in his sixties, with a wizened face that was lined here and there, but his brown eyes were soft, and they were wrinkled at the side from smiling too much. His mouth was tilted up at the sides too, like he was always ready to laugh.

  “Because you’ve a good heart, and you’ve been dealt a bad hand.”

  “Some would say I’m lucky. Out of a foster home and adopted by people like the Ramsdens?” I let out a bitter laugh. “Some luck.” God, the Majors hadn’t even bothered swinging by since their first visit before Robert had darkened my hospital room—showed how much of an impact I’d made on their lives.

  I thought of Louisa, of their grief, and I forgave them their inherent dislike of hospitals, but it didn’t make the lonely hours I’d been stuck in that ward much better.

  “Exactly. Some luck.” He patted my hand. “But Janice and I will be there. Mr. Robert and Mrs. Anna, they’re not often at home. We’ll make things right for you. As right as we can.”

  There was something he wasn’t telling me. Some reason that he was being so kind, but I’d take it.

  I needed all the kindness I could get in the upcoming days.

  I’d be back at school within the week. I’d have to face the same crowd of strangers as I had before, but Adam wouldn’t be at my side. At least, he’d be there, but he wouldn’t be mine, would he?

  He was hers.

  Maria Lopez.

  The bitch who’d kicked my feet out from under me, who’d tried to hurt me first.

  It was stupid when there wasn’t a side to take, but it felt like he’d sided with her over me. Like he was going to her defense when I was the one who needed him most.

  I’d see him at school, be surrounded by strangers who were all going to be whispering about me behind my back. Hell, Maria was popular. Cain, too, from what Adam had said. Maybe I’d get the blame for what had happened. These rich ba
stards all stuck together, didn’t they?

  I gnawed on my bottom lip. “I wish they’d just left me alone,” I whispered.

  Linden seemed to sense where my mind was running. “The family’s come under great scrutiny, miss. With Cain doing what he did, and other things coming out about him—” What other things? I knew he was fucking one of the teachers. Had that come out? Wouldn’t the blame have shifted onto the teacher though? Not him? “There have been arguments, and that’s no word of a lie.” He wagged his finger. “Restitution had to be made to save face, but Mr. Robert is a good man. He’s just absent. And, I hate to say it, but they’re very wealthy people, miss. And you and I both know that in this world, that’s what it takes to get anywhere.

  “So, as I’d say to my own daughter if she was here and hadn’t gone to visit her grandparents in Ireland, take everything you can get. Don’t be grasping, don’t be greedy. Work hard, but if they offer you something, take it. Take advantage of the opportunities they give you, because while Mr. Adam was certain you had success in your future, his family can make it happen.”

  My brow puckered. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s in their best interest for you to be a success,” he advised. “Don’t forget that, miss.”

  Despite myself, my lips curved. “I think you can call me Thea.”

  That was no longer Adam’s name.

  It didn’t belong to him.

  It belonged to me, and I was taking back ownership of it.

  “If you’re okay with that, Miss Thea, I will. But not when the family is around.” He tapped his nose. “Mrs. Anna wouldn’t like that.”

  I could well imagine. Having spoken with her now, one-on-one, she looked finicky and like she was inordinately difficult to please. Everything about her was pristine, even in the middle of a meltdown. The creases in her trousers, the cleverly applied makeup, the perfect hair. She was nauseating to be around.

  Ever since Louisa, my ability with auras had been on the blink, but instinct told me that, not unlike her son, her aura would be malevolent. She was better at hiding it though. Had years to camouflage what she was—a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  The thought, along with the fact I was about to move under the wolf’s roof—had nerves taking residence in my stomach.