by Emma Doherty
I hadn’t even thought about that. I’m severely allergic to nuts. It just goes to show how misplaced and distracted I feel when the ingredients of her chilli hadn’t even crossed my mind.
I obediently pick up my fork and take a bite. It’s a taste explosion, and I can see why Ethan’s not stopping for breath between bites. I take another, and Maria grins wide. She reaches down and kisses me again on both cheeks then leaves, telling Ethan his clean laundry is in his room and saying she’ll see me again in a couple of days.
We’re left to the silence of the room as we both continue eating. Ethan goes for seconds, but I stop halfway through my plate, completely full. You can’t skip meals for months on end and then expect your stomach to suddenly be able to handle loads of food.
After another couple of minutes, Ethan finally puts his fork down. “It’s good, huh?”
I nod, because I’m not so pissed off at being here that I’m about to say good food tastes bad. He grins back at me conspiratorially, like we’ve made some secret agreement.
“When’s Dad coming back?” I ask. It’s important that I know so I can prepare myself.
Ethan snorts. “Who knows? He turns up every month or so but usually only stays for a couple of nights, just enough time for him to remind people around here how important he is before he jets off again and spends time somewhere with people he thinks are more like himself.”
By that he means rich. My dad wants to be around other rich people, people who will worship him because of his money, just so he can prove to himself how successful and important he is.
“Does anyone else live here?” His living situation is confusing me.
He shakes his head.
“So how do you get away with living here alone? Don’t the authorities have anything to say about that?”
It was picked up on straight away that I was living by myself back in London when my mum first died and before I moved in with her best friend, Richard. There’s no way I would have been able to live alone long-term. Then my dad decided Richard wasn’t good enough and I’d have to move over here, and because I had no other living relatives in the UK—my mother was an only child and neither of her parents is still living—there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
Ethan shrugs. “Maria lived here up until a few months ago and is around for a lot of the week. There’s also a lot of adults coming in and out. Jimmy’s our gardener, and Betsy cleans here every morning. And…I don’t know, I guess no one cares enough to go against Dad. He makes lots of contributions to the school and local charities. He throws benefits once a year for the police department.” Money. The fact that my dad has money means no one questions his teenage son living all alone in a house that could comfortably accommodate twenty people. “He gets what he wants around here, and this is his official address even if he is never here.”
This is what I don’t get, what I’ll never get—how Ethan could choose to live away from our loving, caring mother who always, always put us first, who was there every evening to make me a home-cooked meal, and instead picked our absent father. I can’t believe my mum knew the extent of my dad’s absence, because there’s no way she’d have been okay with Ethan spending so much time on his own.
Ethan glances around the room. “Do you want to watch a movie?”
“I’m going upstairs.”
He looks disappointed but covers it quickly. “Sure, I can show you your room. Casey sent an interior designer here last week to decorate. You’re just down the hall from me.”
“Okay. Whatever.”
His phone starts ringing, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls it out. He grimaces as he looks down at the name on the screen. “It’s Dad.”
I can’t stop my stomach from twisting anxiously as Ethan swipes the screen and lifts the phone to his ear.
“Hi, Dad. Yeah. Yeah, she’s here. You don’t need to do that. She did what you wanted. Right. Okay, okay. I’ll tell her.” He holds the phone out towards me. “He wants to speak to you.”
I hesitate, really not wanting to speak to him but knowing it’s pointless trying to avoid the inevitable.
“Hello?”
“Isabella.” He refuses to call me anything but my birth name.
“Hi Dad.”
“It’s good to see you’ve finally been able to follow instructions.”
My hand tightens around the phone.
“It’s been very inconvenient having to chase after you, Isabella. My time is money and you’ve wasted a lot of it.”
Inconvenient—that’s how he sees me.
“I’m in Miami for the next couple of weeks. Do make sure you’ve sorted out your appearance by the time I see you. You looked grubby at your mother’s funeral.”
Does he mean when my heart was breaking and my life was falling apart, I didn’t look pretty enough for him?
“Your grandmother is also expecting a visit from you in the next few days. I’ll have Casey email over the address.”
I can promise I am not going anywhere near my grandmother’s house.
“Casey has arranged the essentials you’ll need, and Ethan will give them to you. I must go. Try not to cause any more problems now that you’re finally where you should be. I’ll see you shortly.”
Then he hangs up without me uttering a word, and I realise I didn’t say anything the whole time he was talking to me. That’s the thing about my dad—he doesn’t want to know what I think or what my opinion might be. It’s completely irrelevant to him.
“You okay?” Ethan’s looking at me in concern. I’m guessing from my facial expression he can tell how much I enjoyed that conversation.
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, obviously knowing I’m the furthest thing from fine right now. He must know I’m not going to elaborate on it, and instead he gestures to the counter, where I see a bank card, a set of car keys, and a brand new iPhone. “That’s for you,” he tells me. “Three hundred dollars is put in your account every week, and if you need anything more just send Casey a message and she’ll put it in.”
Three hundred dollars? What the hell?
I’m actually speechless. Why on earth would I need three hundred dollars a week? What would I spend it on? “Do we need to pay the bills ourselves or something?” I can’t help asking.
He shakes his head. “No, it’s for whatever you want.”
Oh my God. I knew Ethan had a comfy life over here, but I had no idea just how comfortable it was. “Do you manage to spend all that?” I ask in disbelief.
“No, but you know what Dad’s like—always wants to prove he’s the best. I think one of his friends once told him he gave his kid an allowance of two hundred dollars a week. The next week I got three hundred in the bank, and it’s been the same ever since.” He pauses, suddenly confused. “Wait…did he not send that to you in the UK?”
I snort back a laugh. “No.” I’ve had a part-time Saturday job in a café since I turned sixteen, and I used to have to save the money so I could get the clothes I wanted. Mum gave me the odd twenty pounds here or there, but I never got any money from Dad. I guess it was his idea of punishing me for choosing to live in the UK away from him.
Ethan looks shocked at the news, and I roll my eyes. He’s always been so naïve to things, always thought the best of people. I’m honestly not surprised he had no idea how we paid for things in the UK. Dad cut us off. The only thing he did pay for was my school fees because the closest school to me in London was so rough and badly run that it made more sense for me to go to a fee-paying school with a higher level of education. He covered that, and that’s about it. Clearly he’s been looking after his other child better, at least financially, although I doubt caring about Ethan has anything to do with it. It’s probably more to do with trying to prove to my mum that she made a mistake by leaving him and rubbing it in that he has enough money to do what he wants whilst she had to watch every penny she spent.
“Is the account
in my name?”
Ethan looks uneasy. “No. It’s in Dad’s. You have the bank card with the PIN number so you can withdraw cash, but you can’t transfer or do any major payments without his permission.”
Of course. He’ll let me live the life of luxury whilst I’m here, but it’s still his money. He still has control over it, and I can’t use it to buy a flight home or transfer it to my UK account so I have money waiting for me when I get back there.
Ethan nods towards a set of car keys. “They’re yours too. They’re for the Cayenne outside.” I stare back at him blankly. “The black car I parked next to.”
Wait…what? That car is for me?
“It arrived a couple of days ago. Casey picked it out, but if you don’t like it then you can change it for anything else. Get whatever you want.”
I’m actually in shock. I knew my dad was rich—I’ve always known that—but I didn’t know he was this flashy, or this irresponsible, either. I mean seriously, what seventeen-year-old girl needs a car like that?
Ethan grins at me as I just stare at him blankly. It’s inconceivable to me that that is my car. “Pretty awesome, huh?”
An idea is starting to form in my mind. “Is the car in my name?”
“Um, no.” His smile falls and he lets out an uneasy chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s in his. I guess he figured you’d sell it and be on the first flight back to the UK if it was in yours.”
He’s completely correct, but I’ve just realised something else too. I might not be able to make any big payments or transfer any money out of that account, but I can withdraw money. I can make sure I take out my whole allowance every single week until I have enough put together to get me a flight out of here and survive in the UK until my trust fund comes through. Don’t get me wrong—part of me wants to cut the card into pieces and throw it in my dad’s face to show him he can’t buy me, but more than I want that, I want out of his house. I want to go back to the UK where I belong, and this is a way of doing it.
“So do you like it? The car I mean? I helped Casey pick it. I wasn’t sure what you’d like.”
“The car’s fine,” I tell him, but I won’t be driving it. I can’t drive it. Ethan must have forgotten that the legal driving age in the UK is seventeen. I’ve only been able to take lessons for the last three months, and they’ve been very sporadic. To be honest, it hasn’t been a problem. In London, nobody drives unless they absolutely have to because the traffic is so bad. Instead, everyone gets the bus or the tube or the train. The public transport it so good that you don’t have to drive. Judging from what I saw on the way in, that’s not going to be the case around here. I’m going to have to figure out how I’m going to get around, because God knows I refuse to be reliant on Ethan or my dad.
I glance at the clock on the wall behind his head. It’s almost 8pm, not late at all. Usually at this time I’d start drinking for a couple of hours before figuring out what I’d be doing for the night, figuring out who’s down to party and where I needed to be in order to get as wasted as possible. I recall with glee that I remembered to pack a couple of bottles of vodka in my suitcase, and I realise the only way I’m going to get through tonight and the overwhelming sense of defeat I feel is by drinking one of them. Because that’s what I do: I drink to forget. I drink to forget my problems and I drink to forget her, because I can’t think about her. I can’t think about my incredible mum dead in her grave at only thirty-six years old. I can’t think about the only person who loved me being gone and me being left alone. “I’m going to bed.”
“Um, I…I have football practice in the morning before school, but I think if I’m quick in the showers I’ll have time to swing by here and pick you up in the morning so you don’t have to arrive there by yourself?” He has this look on his face like I should be grateful for the offer, but he needn’t bother. I have absolutely no intention of going to school tomorrow. I have no intention of ever setting foot inside that high school.
“Don’t bother. I’ll be fine.”
“Really? It’s not hard to find, but I don’t want you to get lost, and I know it’ll be weird for you starting a new school a couple weeks into the year. We don’t get many new kids, and they always seem really nervous the first couple of days.”
I’m tired and my patience with him is gone. “Don’t you think it’s a bit late to start playing the protective brother now?”
He looks completely flabbergasted. “What?”
“I mean come on, Ethan. Let’s not pretend everything was great between us before Mum died. We tolerated each other and that was it. Just because I’m here doesn’t change anything.”
He’s rendered speechless.
“I’ll be fine. I don’t need your help, okay?” He wasn’t there when I needed him the most, and I certainly don’t want it now, not now that it’s too late. “I don’t need you or anyone else. I just need to get through the next nine months and then I’m gone.”
“Nine months?”
“Until we’re eighteen. Then I’m legally an adult in the UK and can go home.”
“Wait—you’re on a countdown to go back to the UK already? You just got here.”
“The sooner I get back home the better.”
“But I thought…I mean…we can—”
“Ethan, me being here isn’t going to be some big sibling bonding thing. Get that out of your head right now. I don’t want to be here. All I want is for the next nine months to go by as quickly as possible and then I can forget I ever set foot in Dad’s house.”
I don’t wait for his response and instead turn and walk out of the kitchen. I hit the stairs, and it takes me a couple of minutes to figure out which room is mine. I don’t manage to delve straight into my bottle of vodka though, not for ages, because it takes me quite a while to lug both my suitcases up the stairs. Ethan doesn’t offer to help this time. No, this time I just hear footsteps on the stairs and a door being slammed behind him.
It doesn’t take me long to find a bar in town that will serve me. This morning in my dad’s house, I ignored the knock on my door and Ethan’s voice on the other side, turned over, and went back to sleep. Then when I woke up, it was almost lunchtime, and after having the most luxurious shower of all time in my new bathroom, I dressed and then left the house. I did a quick Google search and figured out it would take me about forty minutes to walk to the main strip in town. I didn’t have much else to do, so I set off walking, and on the way I happened to walk past a run-down-looking bar advertising chicken wings and live music.
I walked in, ordered a drink, and have been here ever since.
That was hours ago, and the older guy who’s been serving me steadily throughout the day is about to be replaced by a much younger one who has his eyes narrowed on me and is talking to the guy who served me in hushed tones. I paint a disinterested look onto my face, but inside I’m nervous. The first guy barely looked at me when I ordered my vodka and Coke when I walked in. He asked a quick, “Are you twenty-one?” I told him I was, and that was it; he served me my drink. The relief was immediate as I’ve heard how some bars are really strict on ID in the US. I don’t know if he believed me or even cared, but this younger guy wearing the same bar t-shirt seems to care an awful lot more.
The first guy shrugs then drops the dish towel he’s holding and disappears around the bar, heading into a back room whilst this new guy approaches me.
“Hey.”
I nod in his direction but go back to fiddling with my phone, not that there’s anything to see on there. I’m just scrolling through social media, and it’s all things I’ve seen before.
“Billy said you’re twenty-one?”
I consider telling him I’m twenty-two, thinking it might make it seem less likely that I’m an underaged teen, but I decide against it. “That’s right. I am.”
He raises an eyebrow in surprise. “You’re British?”
I nod.
“Don’t you have to be eighteen to drink in the UK?”
/>
I press my lips together. I’m not sure where he’s going with this.
“So do you think perhaps you’re a bit confused about what country you’re in and where you should be drinking?”
I scowl. I have absolutely no doubt about what country I’m in. I can’t get that particular thought out of my brain, and I don’t appreciate his patronising tone. “I’m aware of where I am,” I tell him testily.
“And how did you end up in a small town in the middle of Texas?”
I sigh and look down at my drink. It’s almost empty. If I want a refill, I’m going to have to speak to him. “I just moved here.”
“You just moved here?”
I look back at him, straight in the eye. “That’s what I said.”
“And why did you just move here?”
“Marky boy, who cares?” This from a giant redhead who wears a cowboy hat and a flannel shirt. “We got a new friend.”
I glance over and smile at him. He and his buddies came in a couple of hours ago, promptly introduced themselves, and have been talking at me ever since. They seem harmless enough, if not a little pervy. His friend keeps glancing down at my legs despite him surely being in his thirties, but they don’t require much from me in terms of conversation so it suits me perfectly. I think they’re just enjoying having someone new to tell their stories to, and them chatting to me is stopping the group of shady-looking men in their late twenties who arrived around an hour ago from approaching me. I’ve seen them looking over here, and I have no doubt if I weren’t near these guys, they’d have come over by now, and they definitely don’t look as harmless as the guys I’m sat down next to.
Marky boy looks back at me. “This is my bar.”
I raise an eyebrow. He looks fairly young to be owning a bar. I’d guess he’s about twenty-four, but I can’t be sure.
“Do you have your ID to prove you’re twenty-one?”
That would be a no. “I showed it to the other guy. He saw it.”