Page 88 of The Photograph

I nod. I’m the stepping-in elder sister in this scenario. It still feels weird that I haven’t met any of them.

“I shouldn’t have gone along with it. I wish I’d been braver. Fuck, Des, I feel terrible about Tom. If I’d stood by his side, would he have been okay? Would his parents still have disinherited him?”

“You can’t think like that, Alex. You did what you needed to do at the time. It was your family, your home. What would you have done if they’d cut you out of their lives?”

He drags his fingers through his hair and blows out a long breath. “To be honest, I’m not sure. I could have found somewhere to live, but not seeing them again … I could have gone to Nana, but explaining it to her would have been difficult. Ugh, I was a coward.”

“How did it all go down?”

“In what way?”

“With Tom?”

“My parents called a conference with his.”

I stare at him. “Seriously? Were you both there?”

Alex shakes his head. “No. They decided what the next steps should be between them. They agreed to hush it up.”

“Without either of you involved?” Wow, that’s crazy. “How did they find out about you two?”

“I wrote Tom a note, telling him how much I was enjoying what we were doing. He didn’t hide it very well. I mean, he didn’t hide it at all. His mom found it in his pocket when she was doing laundry.”

“God, that’s awful! Was it graphic? “

Alex waves his hand. “Oh, not at all! We didn’t do anything except kiss and make out. I’d kissed guys before, but it was the first time I’d ever had something ongoing with a guy. It was more of an emotional thing.”

My mouth turns down, and I lean into him against the counter. “You can get emotional with me any time you like.”

He laughs. “Yeah anyway, it’s dreadful at home, Becs says. Scary. I want to reach out somehow to my parents, try and make things right.”

“You think visiting is the best way to do that?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s the only idea I’ve got.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No. I think I should go on my own, check out the lay of the land. It sounds like my sisters are in a much worse position than when I was there.”

“Your father being the one creating all this.” I don’t like the sound of this. He’ll be on enemy territory on his own. And his dadisthe enemy right now. But it must be taking a lot of courage to face up to this.

He must see something in my face because he says, “It’ll be okay, Des.”

I nod at this. “Allow me to worry a little, though—yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you scared?” I ask.

He nods and blows out a long breath, and I pull him into a hug.

And later, on my way into work I play loud shouty music instead of my normal dance tracks to try and take the edge off my worry.

34

DES

Late Sunday afternoon, Alex kisses my cheek and heads off to visit his family, and I sit and chew my fingers. My plan for the evening was to tidy the apartment and lose myself in a thriller, the theory being that it would stop me from biting my nails or staring moodily out the window. I told Alex to text me or contact me if he had any problems and I would come and meet him wherever. Camping out in a café somewhere in his parents’ neighborhood so he had a place to bolt to seemed like a smart option to me, but he said that was a step too far. The dark TV screen looms over me from the wall so I grab the remote and I’m halfway through the thriller when my phone vibrates on the coffee table.

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