A little dazed by his advice as well as my thoughts, I whispered, “Thank you, Linden.” His kindness meant more to me than I thought he’d ever know.
“Peter, Thea. And my wife is Janice, don’t forget.”
“I won’t.” And I didn’t.
Janice was kind, just as much as Peter, and they both took me under their wing. Especially on the first day of school.
When I came face-to-face with the one person whom I should never have to worry about seeing.
Adam.
He looked drawn. Miserable. In fact, he looked just as drawn and as miserable as I felt on the inside.
He didn’t look at me.
If anything, he looked past me, and that hurt more than anything else.
I knew why though. Knew why he couldn’t share a glance with me, because if he did, the truth would be revealed.
The way he’d betrayed me, the way he’d betrayed us, would be rammed home.
And that was something I’d never forgive him for.
THEA
I smiled as the gold medal settled around my neck, but inside I felt dead.
I felt no joy, not right then. I was hurting so deep inside that nothing would ever heal it, and I had no choice but to move on. To just carry on and make the best of things.
Like I’d always done.
Luckily for me, I no longer had to worry about a new home, food in my belly, or a roof over my head.
I was rich.
I had earned my future, and I deserved for it to be brighter than the past.
When the national anthem blared loud and proud, and the crowd screamed their joy, I didn’t sing along. I just moved my lips like I was singing, and instead, sought him in the stands.
Of course, he wasn’t there.
Hatred for him entwined with the lingering love that was my curse to bear as I found Anna and Robert and, like he’d said he would be, he was absent. I felt that absence more now when I endured the twinge of muscles that were long underused. Christ, I could still feel him inside me, even though he wasn’t here.
Even though I’d woken up to an empty bed.
The bastard.
He hadn’t even had the decency to kiss me goodbye.
The bastard.
The national anthem droned to a halt, but I didn’t register it. In fact, I only moved when the women on either side of me, including Hilary Benton from Team U.S.A. who came in third, hustled off the podium.
Feeling fragile, hell, worse, brittle, I walked toward the locker room where my shit was stored.
Today was the first day of the rest of my life because today, I had six gold Olympic medals to my name.
I sucked in a breath at the thought, shook hands, pretended to laugh, and smiled in all the right places as people congregated around the locker.
When I made my escape, I pierced the crowd, rushing through it because I knew Anna and Robert would be waiting on me otherwise.
I had no desire to see them, and I knew it would hurt their feelings for me to disappear like I was, but I didn’t care.
I couldn’t care.
I needed to get away.
I’d stored my case in my locker, and I was moving out of the Olympic Village and into a nearby hotel suite where I didn’t have to be around other athletes. I was pissed at Lori, who’d magically not come to our room to sleep last night, and I was ignoring her texts as well.
The traitor.
Crap.
I bit my lip as I recognized that the only traitor here was me. I was the one who’d let him in my body, who hadn’t told him where to go. I wasn’t even sure what had me so upset. He’d told me he’d be leaving, only, I’d thought, after last night he wouldn’t.
And to wake up without him? For him to have pulled a coyote ugly on me?
It made me want to rip his head off.
At the moment, I just needed peace. A chance to reflect, a chance to think about my next steps. I wouldn’t get that in the village. There’d be a party for me, and while it was churlish of me to avoid it, and though I definitely needed to let my hair down, that was the last thing I wanted. I needed space. Stat.
When I made it outside with my case without spotting Robert or Anna, I felt more victorious than I had when I’d won gold, and I hailed a cab then hustled in. Urgency rode me, urging me on, making me feel like I was going to go insane if I didn’t get out of here right now.
I gave the address of the hotel I’d reserved this morning, and pulled out my phone when it buzzed. I let the calls go straight to voicemail, ignored the texts, and did as I always would when I wanted to torture myself into remembering why, sometimes, the charade was too hard to continue.
I pulled up Facebook.
Searched Maria Ramsden nee Lopez’s profile, and stared at them.
All three of them.
The happy family.
It should have been me standing with him, not the bitch who’d tried to hurt me, but as I’d learned quickly, the elite stuck together. Closing ranks around us mere peons to protect themselves, uncaring of the hearts they broke along the way.
The kid, Freddie, was beautiful. He looked just like his father, and his father looked just like the love of my fucking life, so he was beautiful too. Absolutely gorgeous. But I’d expect no less.
As if the charade before me could be anything but beautiful.
As.
If.
They wanted to torture me? They’d succeeded.
My mouth tightened and a flurry of pop up banners cropped up along the top of my screen as I received texts from Anna and Robert as well as Coach—who was demanding my presence at a press release—and the rest of the team.
It seemed so obscene to call Adam’s parents ‘family,’ but they were. They might have broken my heart, but they’d given me the chance to be here today. To have records in my name. To have the world at my feet.
I bit my bottom lip, feeling ungrateful and spiteful, but I just...I knew my limits.
When I made it to the hotel, I sent Robert a text, explaining I needed to get away.
Because he was awesome and, in his own way at least, supportive to the last, he replied with a thumbs up, and told me that the press was clamoring for an interview with me.
Me: Remember Renee Lisette?
Robert: The journo?
Me: Yeah. I’ll speak to her.
Robert: Who’s she affiliated with?
Me: Don’t know, don’t care. I’ll talk to her. Give her the scoop.
Robert: If you say so. You sure you don’t want to head to lunch to celebrate? You did brilliantly, Thea. I couldn’t be prouder of you if I tried.
Me: Positive. Thank you though. I’m just a bit overwhelmed.
I hadn’t been. I’d been fine. Then he’d wrecked shit by turning up last night, reminding me of everything that was wrong with my life. Everything he’d made wrong with it.
Walking into the hotel that had an odd little foot spa running down the length of reception, I eyed the men and women who had their toes dipped into it. They were seated on black marble, their attention on their phones, and charmed by the idea, I checked in, handed the bellboy what I figured was the equivalent of a ten-dollar tip, then retreated to the spa.
The second my feet were underwater, something inside me was soothed.
Like always.
The water never let me down.
Ever.
I tipped my head back against the wall behind me and tried to relax, tried to find some solace in what would always be a part of my nightmare.
Because Adam? And the rest of his family?
Maria too?
Catholics.
All of them.
And that meant divorce was forbidden, and it tied me to a future filled with nothing more bittersweet than broken promises and morning afters that left me feeling pathetic and lost.
I was the one who’d put up barriers between us, but I was the one who always broke down.
Why?
Because he was the lo
ve of my life, and I was his.
But it had all gone wrong before we’d even had a chance to begin.
Cursed?
Yeah. I lived with that knowledge every damn day of my life.
THEA
I was eighteen when I went back home.
Well, home as in the place I’d been born, as in the place Nanny had taken me away from after Momma’s death. But to me, Fort Worth would always be what I considered my base.
Even if I was no longer welcome.
Here on a meet, a successful one, I’d veered off the beaten path and decided to see what it was like around here.
Maybe see a few sights that might prod some memories of happy times spent with my grandmother.
I didn’t remember my parents that much, and I genuinely thought I’d tried to forget them. Which kind of made me sad. Most of what I remembered was arguments though, so it figured that my brain would try to shield me from those harsh realities of my parents’ marriage.
It wasn’t that I wanted to tear that veil away, it was just, I guess, that I wanted to reconnect. With me.
Life with the Ramsdens had been better than I’d imagined. I was left alone for the most part by Anna, Robert was home every day for dinner—Janice told me that was a new development—and we often talked about my future. I thought my potential excited him enough to hang around, and I didn’t mind—he was interesting, and he was interested in me.
We weren’t particularly close, I didn’t think. Not like I was with Janice and Peter, but Robert was a good person. Anna, I trusted less.
She’d taken Cain’s incarceration hard. But, I thought, it was the damage he’d done to the family’s reputation that had hurt her more.
Her reelection campaign had been a wash out, and she’d been a laughingstock at the polls, but she was building up a support base, trying to get back into power for the next election.
I’d never met anyone as determined as her, and it was easy to see where her kids had inherited that particular trait.
Robert and I were closer. He gave a damn about me, and even though Peter and Janice felt like family, Robert was starting to feel that way too.
Of course, I’d be leaving home soon. Heading for Stanford where I’d received a scholarship.
For the most part, I was glad. It was time to get away from the shadows of the past, time to make new memories, to forge a path that would steer me to a brighter future.
But first, I wanted to deal with my history. Deal with what had made me me.
If I remembered correctly, there was a whole encampment down by the churches. Lots of folk who lived there, some in caravans, some in homes.
I hadn’t experienced that as much as my fellow Roma, because Papa had always had us traveling around the country for his work, but I remembered it from my time with my nanny.
In the near distance, I saw the sun gleaming off the rows of mobile homes, and the dust rising from them, merging with the wind, created a strange kind of illusion.
Blanche Settlement was a strange little town. Over twenty thousand Romany lived here, some Romanichal like me, some Vlox—Catholics at heart. They were the biggest minority in this area, and had made their place here for a hundred years. Half the cemetery was filled with Romany, I remembered that much from days with Nanny.
We were interested in the dead as much as we were with the living. I could easily recall her talking about my parents like they were in another room, not the afterlife. It was as simple as her demanding my mother give her strength if I was tiring, or going so far as to ask my papa why he wasn’t there to fix something that was broken.
My lips twitched at the memory.
It was weird being back here, being around the places I remembered. Like the chapel over there for the Romanichals, the white clapboard looking a bit worse for wear, especially in comparison to the church directly opposite for the Vlox. With its high turret, and walls so bright a white it made my eyes ache. The churches were like the gateway to my world.
The roads were cracked, the pavement shoddy. Running down the streets were downtrodden trees that hung limply in the cold, and dust motes danced around me as I began to stroll toward an area that had once been home.
Once upon a time, I’d have brought Adam with me. He was on the same team as me, had come to Fort Worth too, but we were like strangers now. Strangers who barely even looked at one another.
In two years, I’d maybe said a handful of words to him. I’d endured two painful Thanksgivings, seeing Maria draped all over him, mostly ignoring her kid as she fawned at his side. I figured she was trying to make me jealous.
It worked.
Christmas was no better, but it was cute seeing Freddie open the gifts Anna showered on him. I’d never seen anything like it the first Christmas after Freddie had been born.
I’d gone downstairs, entered the lounge where the Christmas tree had only been put up the night before, and had found something out of a movie.
The kid was two months old and had more presents in one day than I’d had in a lifetime of Christmases.
The floor had been full of boxes and gift bags, and Maria had loved it. Which had made Anna smile.
Freddie and Maria were the only people capable of that.
To be fair, I didn’t smile that much anymore either. Especially not around Adam.
Hunching my shoulders against thoughts of him, thoughts that often invaded my mind and drew me into a quagmire of misery that could take days to overcome.
I didn’t have time for that.
Hell, nobody had time for that. To be constantly depressed?
Yeah, that was good for no one, and to be honest, it was one of the reasons why I was here.
I needed to see my mother’s past, needed to understand if anyone knew why she’d done what she’d done.
Maybe no one would talk to me. Nanny had been pretty damn insistent that we were both outcasts because of Momma’s sin, but I was hoping someone would be able to explain it to me.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride...
That was one of Nanny’s favorite sayings.
Blowing out a breath, I lifted the zipper on my hoodie which hit beneath my chin as I lifted the hood to cover my ears as the faint nip in the air made itself known to me.
The taxi had dropped me off in the wrong place, but I’d only realized that when I’d started walking around.
It was a nice town, and it filled me with pride that even though my people might not have had the best rep, we sure looked after our homes.
Maybe this wasn’t the subdivision I lived in at the moment, maybe there weren’t eight-bedroom Brownstones set in luxurious gardens, but they were someone’s castle, and it was clean. Sure, the road needed a bit of work but hell, that was the council’s fault, not my people’s.
When I walked through the gateway, I instantly saw an older woman sitting on a wooden deck, rocking on a spindly chair, a tray of tea on a stand beside her. It felt like she was waiting on me, even though she most definitely wasn’t. Christ, I hadn’t been sure if I was coming, but being in the area was an opportunity I hadn’t been able to pass up.
Sometimes, I wondered if I was lucky, even if I didn’t feel like it.
The mobile home park was dead. No one was around. Except for that one woman, and I knew that if anyone would be aware of my past, it would be the older generation.
I hadn’t been around here for over a decade, my nanny had been dead for that length of time. Only those who’d been friends with her would remember her.
At least, I was hoping that was the case.
Anywhere else in the world, ten years would be way too long. But here? In this close-knit community? Nothing was forgotten.
Including if someone was an outcast or not.
Which meant a long memory was a double-edged sword.
Because if they didn’t forget, they didn’t forgive either.
Rather than hesitate or deliberate over what to say, I stepped over to her property, hoping sh
e wouldn’t shoo me away.
Only, the second I did, I saw it. Scented it.
God, it had been a long time since I’d felt the overpowering stench of death. Even when I’d been in the hospital after the incident, I hadn’t experienced it, but now? It was here.
Overtaking the deck the woman was sitting on, merging into the wood itself. It overtook the lingering essence of freshly mowed grass, and the faint odor of gas in the air from the nearby road.
She was a little hunched in the shoulders, her face lined, but she had clear gray eyes that weren’t cloudy with age. Her skin was a sharp bronze, maybe a little ruddier than mine, and the contrast of her black dress which hung on her frame made her look like she might have dropped a lot of weight recently, something that confirmed my initial appraisal—she was sick. Terminally so.
Her hair was covered by a kerchief, and in her ears, she had Creole earrings that swayed as she tilted her head to the side, watching my approach with interest.
When I reached her plot, a tight space with a neat patch of lawn that was tiny because of the pretty extensive decking, I stood on the line between the grass and the road.
“You’re Nicodemus’s girl.”
My eyes flared wide at that, at what had definitely been a declaration. My mouth quivered a little because, in all honesty, it had been such a long time since I’d heard my father’s name that I just hadn’t expected to hear it. Nanny’s? Sure. But my father’s?
I had strange memories of him, not entirely good ones, but her statement sent a shudder whispering through me.
I had a past.
History.
And she was my link to it.
Maybe my only link.
It had been so long since I’d been connected to anyone, so fucking long, that this was a crowning moment in my life.
I was someone’s girl. For so long, I’d just been a case number.
Here?
I was Nicodemus’s kid.
Licking my lips, I told her the truth. “It’s been a long time since I heard his name.”
She shrugged. “Been a long time since the Lord took him.” Her lips pursed, revealing a hundred tiny lines as she stared at me some more. “Allegria passed?”
Above The Surface Page 16