Page 32 of Fake You

“Neither.” I loved watching the confusion written all over her face.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want either character you play. Tonight I want Angelita.” She flinched slightly at the sound of the unfamiliar word on my lips.

“She doesn’t exist.”

“Yes, she does. Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look. At. Me.” When she didn’t alter her eyeline, I crouched down alongside the bed, and lifted her chin with the crook of my index finger, forcing her to meet my gaze.

“I want the sometimes tomboy who was just as happy playing golf and fishing with her dad, as she was twirling batons and killing it on the gym squad. I want the girl who adopted a stick-insect called Sticky, and held a funeral for it when it died. I want the girl who used to be scared to flush the toilet if she woke up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, in case she got sucked into the watery vortex. I want the girl who loved making snow angels so much that she’d stay outside in the snow for hours, even after she’d lost feeling in her hands and her lips were blue…” Kik’s eyes widened in shock, and I high fived myself internally. “…which is what earned her the nickname ‘little angel,’ and yes, Luis did show me the photos, Angelita.”

In the end, I’d used the fact that she was a no-show to my advantage, and mined her father for information that might prove useful to me as I continued to tear her down. Turned out he was an easy nut to crack, and a goldmine of facts about Kik I’d never have had access to otherwise—the man was clearly lonely, spending so much time alone and isolated at home—it was all I could do to shut him up once he’d started squawking like a canary.

“And I told you, that girl no longer exists.” The heaviness in her soulful rich-chocolate eyes as she uttered those words sent a shiver down my spine, and had the hairs on my neck and arms standing on end.

The air in the room seemed to grow thick, time stood still, and I was acutely aware of everything around me, as though my senses were on high alert. I focused in on her breathing—the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she fought to fill her lungs. The ragged pull of air as it brushed her lips. The way she seemed to falter, holding every inhalation for an extended time, before releasing it in a rush.

She didn’t move a muscle, and neither did I. We were each locked in a limbo of our own making. I would have given anything to be able to read her mind at that moment—to see the thoughts as they swirled around her brain. At the same time, I hoped to God she couldn’t read mine.

“Yeah she does. You just try to keep her hidden. Don’t worry, I’ll seek her out, and when I find her, she’s mine.”

“I—”

I loved being able to put that confused look on her face. The one that reminded me of a story one of my nannies used to read to me when I was a kid, called the Little Marionette. It was about a puppeteer who created a doll, then masterminded her every move, all day, every day. I used to listen to the story over and over, loving the idea of the power of being in control like that. I guess Grampsie wasn’t too far wrong when he said I took after my father.

Victor Cavanagh was the original puppet master—my mom’s, Bella’s and my lives were just three of the moving parts of the cleverly orchestrated puppet show of his life. Like everyone else around him, as far as he was concerned, we served no purpose, except to further his aims. In his view, we weren’t worthy or deserving of personal agency. Worse still, we all knew that as soon as we were no longer useful, we’d no longer be ‘welcome’ in his life.

The fact that we were still around in some capacity meant he still needed us, so Mom was the trophy wife trapped in her gilded cage—unloved and falling apart more and more with each passing day—and Bella and I were the trophy kids. I was the all star athlete, and academic achiever, killing the game at one of the country’s top colleges. Bella had a good head on her shoulders, but like Mom, seemed only to be required to look good—she was beauty personified.

The three of us existed to add legitimacy to my father’s otherwise decidedly shady and corrupt way of life, and to bolster the image of Cavanagh Corp as “putting family first,” which was the company motto. What better way to do that than by having what seemed like the perfect family?

The fact that he’d blackmailed my mother—or worse—into marrying him, and then single-handedly destroyed her self-belief, self-worth, self-confidence and pretty much her will to live, leaving her a fragile shell of the woman she used to be, was neither here nor there to him. Nor was the fact that her battles with anxiety and depression were a direct result of his cruel and callous treatment of her.

Likewise, he had very little interest in Bella—as far as he was concerned, she was just as much of a waste of space as our mom. He’d had low to no expectations of her, and treated her as a trifling irrelevance from day one.

As for me—he’d had high hopes, and when they were dashed once he realized that I didn’t idolize him the way he’d imagined his only son would—instead of facing his disdain and distaste, like my mom and sister, I was the object of his ire and rage. He gave no fucks about the reasons I’d hated the sound, sight, and thought of him, since I was old enough to understand the pain and suffering my mother endured at his hands. The minute it was obvious I was going to play ball, I was pretty much dead to him.

“Shhh.” I silenced her with a finger over her full, accommodating lips. “This isn’t a negotiation… it just is.” I stood up to full height again, before climbing onto Kik’s bed to join her, enjoying the way her eyes widened in surprise.

“I thought you said we needed to hurry to leave?”

“I did, but you know, sitting there talking to your dad I really worked up a hunger, and I don’t deal well with hunger. In fact, I get quite hangry, and nobody likes me when I’m hangry. So I figure a little appetizer here will help keep me on the level until I get to eat for real.”

She looked more than a little confused, and I smirked. I loved to keep her guessing—there was power in the art of surprise.

“I’m not following you.”

I smirked again, as a look of irritation passed across her face. I liked that look on her even more than surprise. It was weird, but something about knowing that I was the one to piss her off worked me up to the point where I was sporting wood just thinking about it.

Chapter 21

Kik

“I know, but all will become clear, don’t you worry, Angelita.”

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