Page 80 of I Would Die for You

“I didn’t know who to hit first: him or her,” says Cassie, still in bitter denial that Ben was there for Nicole instead of her. She’d known there was every chance he would have been, bearing in mind they’d been sneaking around behind her back for the past month or so, but when she saw him standing in her living room, she’d still dared to believe that she was the reason for his visit. After all, how could Ben and Nicole’s relationship have survived everything she’d thrown at it?

She’d known it was him the moment she picked up the phone extension to listen in to Nicole’s conversation. And she thought she was going to throw up.

How was it even possible, she asked herself again and again. Was someone playing a sick game? Had their father got Nicole to set itup in the hope that it would deter Cassie from pursuing a relationship that he quite clearly disapproved of?

Her confusion had turned to pain, and pain had metamorphosed into an anger unlike anything she’d ever known. How dare they deceive her? How could the two people she loved more than anything in the world do that to her?

She’d imagined Ben ingratiating himself into their lives: picking her up from school in his limo, sitting at the family table for Sunday lunch, exchanging presents under the Christmas tree. But in all those fantasies, he was withher. The idea that he might do all those things but go toNicole’s bed every night tore Cassie in two and left her entrails trailing behind her whenever she tried to put one foot in front of the other. Itcouldn’thappen that way—she wouldn’t allow it.

She’d thought that inventing a kiss-’n’-tell story forThe Sunwould be enough to detonate a bomb under their burgeoning relationship. She’d reveled in making up all the sordid details, imagining herself in the place of the naked girl from whose breasts Ben had allegedly snorted cocaine. When Cassie saw it in print the next day, she’d almost convinced herself it had actually happened, and she’d enjoyed watching her sister’s discomfort as she relayed Ben’s supposed indiscretion, safe in the knowledge that Nicole’s pride and dignity would never allow her to be treated that way.

But then he had turned up at their house in the middle of the night, begging for Nicole to give him another chance. Cassie had sat at the top of the stairs in the darkness, listening to their hushed conversation in disbelief as he told her sister, the one person Cassie thought she could depend on, that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

It had taken all her resolve not to tear down the stairs and launch herself at them, not only because her hatred was so fierce that she was afraid of what she might be capable of, but because she knew it would only drive them further underground, and she needed themout in the open, where she could see them, so she could destroy whatever it was they’d convinced themselves they had.

She’d had to wait a few more days, and when the call came, she couldn’t help but be disappointed to hear Nicole cave into his never-ending attempts to justify himself—not only because her sister clearly wasn’t the woman she thought she was, but because it meant Cassie would have to go one step further to drive a stake into their relationship, once and for all.

On the day Nicole had agreed to meet Ben at the Langham hotel, Amelia had called her, posing as his assistant. She’d managed to work her wily ways and get a room for an hour—Cassie didn’t ask what she’d had to do—and had ensconced herself, posing as Ben’s “girlfriend” while he was supposedly in the “shower,” so that Cassie could go and reclaim the relationship Nicole was seemingly so intent on stealing. But she hadn’t reckoned on Ben’s resilience and his love for her sister.

“So, what are you going to do now?” asks Amelia, chewing on her nail.

Cassie fixes her with an intense stare, wondering how much she should share. “What wouldyoudo?”

Amelia puffs out her cheeks. “If I found out Michael had screwed my sister, I’d cut off his balls and force her to watch.”

Cassie wonders if the same would apply if she knew he was also capable of raping her best friend.

“You can’t let them get away with it,” Amelia goes on.

“I’m not intending to,” says Cassie, not knowing whether she’s referring to Ben, Nicole, or Michael, though in her mind they’re all equally deserving of the punishment that’s about to be unleashed upon them.

“So, what’s the plan?” asks Amelia, her eyes darkening as the man she knows only as “Uncle” rounds the corner of the caravan.

“What you gonna kill her with today?” she calls out, her tone loaded with abject hostility.

He offers a black-toothed grin as he climbs the steps. “Whatever she wants to make the pain go away,” he says, making it sound as if he’s there for the good of her mum’s health. “You want some?”

The girls look at each other, the unspoken words banging a drum in Cassie’s head, as she wonders why she hasn’t thought of it before.

41

CALIFORNIA, 2011

The brown envelope goads me from the doormat, its postmark clearly overseas. The thought that, after all this time, across all those miles, a part of my father is this close to me makes me feel simultaneously anxious and comforted.

I’m immediately taken back to the last time I saw him, twenty-five years ago, as he shuffled into that courtroom. Having not seen him for six months, I remember being haunted by his gaunt and unkempt appearance. He was always a man of pride—proud to wear his Sunday best on every day of the week—but his suit was creased and two sizes too big for him, hanging listlessly from his prominent bones because there wasn’t any flesh to cling to.

He’d looked at me with pleading eyes, as if silently begging me for forgiveness, but I didn’t have the capacity to forgive anyone, least of all myself.

Had I known then that I would never see him again? And if I had, would I have done anything differently? I often think aboutthat moment—aboutallthe moments—when I saw the people in my life for the last time without knowing it; those final words, that last look, that parting touch, which I wouldn’t realize until years later was the ultimate goodbye. Would I have held on tighter to my father for a little while longer? Would I have found it easier to forgive my little sister? Even now, after all this time, and after everything that went on, I still struggle to comprehend how the loving family I’d grown up surrounded by could be torn apart in such a spectacular fashion. But I guess killing someone can do that.

Still unmoving, I stare at the letter, wishing I had X-ray vision so that my eyes could preview its contents before my brain has a chance to be crushed by its lamentable words. In the twenty-four hours I’ve had to ruminate on what my father might have to say, I’ve realized that, good or bad, it can only hurt. If he shares his deep sorrow and regret that life has passed without us having a chance to reconcile, it’ll wrench my heart and soul out. And if he spews hate and resentment, blaming me for the breakdown of our once-perfect family, I won’t be surprised, but it will still cut deep. Though, if he hated me that much, why would he have left me his estate?

I edge forward, leaning down heavily to pick it up. It feels like a grenade in my hand, and I throw it onto the console table as if it’s about to explode. Perhaps it’s all a test, an elaborate ruse to smoke me out. Perhaps my father isn’t dead at all, and it’s a sick game to extract something I’m not prepared to give.

The conspiracy theories abound as I take deep breaths in and out, questioning what’s the worst that could happen if I didn’t open it at all. I’ve lived without his thoughts and influence for twenty-five years, so why do I need either now? And it’s not as if anything he says can possibly change the course of my life. But perhaps I already know that there’s a chance it just might—and that’s what I’m most terrified of.

My hands are trembling, and I still my breath as I gingerly open it, half expecting my father himself to jump out. There’s another envelope inside, its contents protected by a wax seal, with my maiden name on the front. It’s unmistakably my father’s spidery writing, and an involuntary sob escapes from deep within my chest as my finger traces the ink that ran from the pen he once held.

---