Page 17 of Ruthless Son

Tenderly, I held the towel of ice against my cheek, hoping that it stopped the swelling. I had to go back to Millie shortly, and I just knew that she was going to blame herself for this.

“Ow ow ow.” That arsehole had a mean backhand. After rushing out with my sister’s stuff, he’d seen the duffel and went berserk, screaming and shouting that I wasn’t allowed to take his stuff and I better put everything back where I found it or else.

Of course, my or else what? Practically had steam pouring from his nose, he’d pushed past poor George and swung. My mouth was clearly smart, but I obviously wasn’t smart enough to move out of his way. Now I was paying for it with a soon-to-be black eye and wounded pride.

And the only reason I got out of there with just this was because George had given him a shove. In his inebriated state, Mickey had fallen to the floor, and we’d had enough time to jump in the car and hoof it out of there. A furious Mickey raging in the rear-view mirror.

I’d had to listen to the driver’s “I told you so’s” about a million times before he dropped me off at my hotel. “I told you it wasn’t a place for you.”

Trying to explain that I didn’t have much choice barely appeased the gentleman who had saved me from perhaps something worse. But I had Millie’s passport and some of her personal effects, so the strike to the face was tolerable.

I’d already texted dad an update, and once Millie was given the all clear, we were jumping on the first transatlantic flight home.

The tea tree oil from my first aid kit stung as I dabbed the cotton ball along my cheekbone, hoping it would aid the healing process. It wouldn’t help the dark circles around my eyes from my time here though, the past few days had been a whirlwind of drama. I needed a holiday from my holiday at this point and begging to go home to my twelve-hour night shifts in A&E which seemed far easier at the moment.

The concealer hid some of the redness, but it wasn’t enough to hide the raised skin. It would have to do though, because I had a date with a heartsick sister who would be seeing the evidence of her boyfriend's anger real soon.

Mia

The halls were becoming familiar now, the nurses welcomed me with a warm smile, a sharp contrast to my first visit here.

The minute I stepped through the door, Millie’s smile dropped, she zoned in on the mark on my face and tears immediately welled in her blue eyes that mirrored mine. “Mia…” she whispered, her bottom lip wobbling.

“It’s fine, it’s just a scratch.” The makeup helped hide some of it, but in a few hours, the bruising would be more than I could hide with concealer. “I got you some stuff.” I held a plastic bag up in the air, hoping it would distract her from my face. “Your books, and some clothes?—”

“You shouldn’t have gone there!” she cried. “You could have been hurt… or…” The fire in her eyes was the most life I’d seen since I got here.

“Or what?” I argued. “I could have been seriously hurt by your abusive boyfriend? Is that why you stopped answering our calls and refused to come home. Did he do this,” I pointed at my face, “to you?”

Her eyes lowered to the bed, shame written all over her. “I couldn’t tell you,” she whispered. “You would have come here and?—”

“Yes, I would have come here and brought you home.” My annoyance leached out of me, I dropped the bag of goods on the chair, and scooted her over on the bed so I could join her. Our shoulders pushed together on the tight space. “You’re my sister. If I’d known he was hurting you, I would have been on the first plane over here.” To be honest, in the deep recesses of my mind, I’d thought that maybe she was ignoring us because of this exact reason, but I’d brushed those aside in favor of a happier scenario, not wanting to consider that my little sister was someone’s punching bag, thousands of miles away. I squeezed her hands between mine. “Why didn’t you tell us… tell me?” I spoke softly to my wearied sister. I braced for the answer; worst case scenarios vividly racing in my mind.

“Because… because you would never let someone treat you that way, and…” she swallowed, “I didn’t want to let you down?—”

“You could never?—”

“Yes, I could. Disappointing you was always my biggest fear, you were always the smart sister, the sensible one that Mum and Dad relied on. I always got why can’t you be more like Mia?”

I sucked in a breath, hearing the pain in her voice. I’d never known she’d felt that way, I was just… me. I’d thought I was being the reliable role-model to my much younger sister, but instead I’d set expectations that she had thought she’d needed to live up to.

“I tried to do well in school, but I just wasn’t as clever as you. I didn’t get the highest grades, I wasn’t the most popular, and then… well, Mickey… He didn’t care about any of that, and he was going back home to the US after uni and he wanted me to go with him. He wanted me,” she stressed. “Dumb Millie, who had to retake English exams and you come out with the highest grade in the whole year. Do you remember? The headteacher called Dad to congratulate you, you got a whole fucking letter sent home.” Tears tracked down her cheeks, and a pang hit my chest as I watched my little sister cry for a childhood that I wasn’t even aware of.

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” I whispered as she gently wiped the tears from her face. I grabbed a tissue from the little box beside me, handing it to her and listening to her loudly blow the snot into it.

“Of course you wouldn't know, and here you are,” she waved her hands, the snotty tissue balled in her fist, “being all heroic and rushing to get my stuff from a place that could have been dangerous. It’s just stuff, I could have replaced it all!”

“I had to get your passport, Millie. How else?—”

“Why would you need that?” she interrupted, her eyes narrowing.

“So you can go home obviously.”

“Are you kidding? I don’t want to go home.” My mouth hung open, and I jumped up from my perch beside her. “I like this place, Mia. No, I love this place.”

Digging my fingers into my eyes, I flinched as I rubbed over a sore spot. “You can’t be serious? Look at what happened to you. Look at what happened to me,” I declared, my fingers tracing softly over the welt, feeling the lump that felt like it was getting bigger. My head pounded in my skull as I stared at my defiant moronic sister. “Mickey clearly doesn’t give a shit about you,” I stated harshly. “He left you to die in that car, and you want to stay?”

She rolled her eyes, and she reminded me of all of the times she’d done it to Dad when he had lectured her on something. “I’m not staying for him. Fuck him. He left me, I’ll never forgive him for that,” she spat. “But you’re not getting it, this is my home now.” Her voice softened, she must have seen the confusion and sadness on my face. “I walk down the street here and everyone knows me, they wave and say hi, everyone’s so friendly. I have a job.” My surprise showed, and she chuckled at my raised eyebrows. “I know, all those years at university and I work in a flower shop arranging bouquets, but I love it.”

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