Page 96 of Finding Forever

“It wasn’t that bad,” she said, voice quiet and eyes watchful. She was uncertain of his mood. Not sure why he was suddenly showing an interest in this. “Some of the girls had learning disabilities,and were acting out in frustration. Others came from abusive backgrounds and were happy to be at the school and away from their awful home environments. A few, like me, didn’t really fit in with their families. They were the ones who came from broken homes, or just had parents who couldn’t be arsed with actually parenting. And yes, there were a few bad apples and bullies. But I was never important enough to be noticed or picked on. I was just the quiet one with her head always buried in a book.”

“What about your friend? Margot?” he asked and started eating again, polishing off his sandwich in just a few more bites.

“She arrived a couple of years after I did. We were fourteen and bunkmates. We immediately got along. We often spent hours in the library, reading or studying, we did each other’s hair, fantasized about boys, made up stories about the lives we’d one day have. Typical girl stuff. Margot was what the others called a bursary rat… she was there on a scholarship. While it was a school for rejects, it was a bunch of rich rejects.

“Margot came from a middle-class background. And the others ostracized her because of that. And she believed I was like her.” She felt uncomfortable admitting her deception to Cade and lowered her gaze back to her half-eaten sandwich. “I liked her so much. And really wanted her to like me too. She was my first and only friend at that school. Before her, nobody’d ever cared enough to get to know me. Nobody wanted to hang out with me just because they enjoyed my company. I was afraid of losing the closeness I’d discovered with her and I allowed her to believe that I was the same as her. Middle class, with a struggling family, and a stepfather who wanted me out of his way. It was an easy lie to tell. The other girls ignored me the same way they did her. I didn’t receive lavish care packages like they did. When I did get stuff it was basic necessities. Toiletries, some snacks—most of them peanut based so I had to give them away anyway. Uglyclothes that everybody believed were hand-me-downs because of how ill-fitting they were.

“So, Margot and I were each all the other had. I was so envious of her. Of the stories she told about her family. Her care packages were humble but filled with so much love. Pictures of her mum and dad, homemade snacks, pretty clothing… While the rest of us were there to be hidden from the world, Margot was there because it was a way for her to receive a first-class education.”

“What happened?” he asked quietly and she took a sip of cocoa just to lubricate her dry throat.

“What do you think happened?” she asked, her gaze turned inward as she recalled the awful events that had led to the loss of her one and only friendship.

He hazarded a guess. “She discovered who you were and felt betrayed?”

“That came later,” she said with a soft sigh. “When we graduated, she had plans to study nursing. And I wanted nothing more than to escape from Granger’s clutches. I had no prospects for further education, no money, no job experience. Margot was moving home, to… well here, actually. To London. She would stay with her parents while she studied. They were kind too. They’d been hearing about me for years and had actually started including little treats and snacks in their care packages to Margot just for me. Can you imagine that? I was a stranger to them and they did that forme.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears, the sweet memory of it a sharp, painful stab to her heart. She swiped at the tears with shaky fingers and tried to gain control of her fluctuating emotions.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered self-consciously. “It’s been nearly ten years since all of this happened, but I haven’t thought about it in so long. I haven’t wanted to. It’s too…” She cut herself off and pressed her lips together. The rest of her fears emerged in a shamed, whispered confession. “But after everything you said tonight. I worry it’s happening again. That, like with Margot, I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you and I don’t know how to fix that.”

He paled and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“Tell me what happened,” he invited gently.

“Maybe later?” She offered, not really wanting to revisit those memories, not certain if they would serve any meaningful purpose right now. “We have other more important things to discuss.”

“This is important too.”

“How?Why?”

“Because it matters to you, Fern. That makes it important.”

His words gave her pause and she stared at him in confusion.

“Tell me what happened, please?” His voice had lowered and the please emerged on an imploring whisper. It undid her, thatplease. It unraveled her completely and she found herself quite unable to resist it.

“I went with her. Moved in with her parents. They lived in a small two-bedroom townhouse in Clapham. They still thought I was from a family just like theirs, but with a strict, unkind stepfather. They were so welcoming. I shared Margot’s room, they’d sold her bed, bought bunk beds to accommodate me. Mr. Newsome, Margot’s father, owned a butcher shop and I started working for him while Margot was at nursing school during the day. It was a way for me to earn a salary while I was trying to figure out what to do next.

“It was the happiest I’d been since my mother died. I didn’t tell Granger where I was going. I was free of him. Free to finally live my own life. At that time my trust didn’t matter, it was still years out of my reach and it didn’t affect my life in any significant way…”

“Youshouldhave been receiving a generous disbursement off it every month,” Cade interrupted grimly and she nodded.

“I didn’t know that at the time. I wasn’t receiving any money and when I questioned Granger about it, years later, he claimed that the allowance went toward my monthly care packages. Anyway, it just wasn’t a factor at that point, so walking away from the Abernathys to figure out my own life made perfect sense to me. I was eighteen, vaguely ambitious…foolish.

“It didn’t take him long to track me down. A month maybe. One month, that’s how long they helped me. And for that month they paid the steep price of losing their business and their home… Margot had to leave nursing school. Granger made sure that their lives were completely destroyed. And he usedmyname to do it. Used Lambert Holdings to buy out their home and business mortgages, then foreclosed without warning and evicted them with only the minimum required noticed. He boarded up the shop and refused to rent or sell the property to anyone else. And tore down their house and left an empty lot in its place.Thatwas the price they paid for showing any kindness toward me.”

“Jesus,” Cade whispered shakily, the word sounding like the horrified prayer it was. “That fuckingcocksucker.”

“The last thing Margot ever said to me,” Fern whispered, silent tears now streaming down her face, “was that she hated me and wished she’d never met me.”

“Oh God,” Cade’s voice was strangled as he rounded the kitchen counter without warning and folded her into his strong arms. “I’m so sorry, Fern. I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you.”

“Only it didn’t happen to me,” she corrected in a voice made tiny and shrill by the tears she was trying so hard to suppress. She buried her face in his hard, warm chest, allowing herself the small comfort of being held by him. “It happened tothem. And I hate myself as much as Margot hates me for puttingthem in that position. And now… now I’m scared that you’ll hate me too. That you already hate me because of the way things always spiral out of control when I’m involved.”

“It’s not your fault.” His arms tightened around her to the point of pain, but she wasn’t about to protest. She needed his touch too much right now. “Noneof it was your fault, Fern.”

It was the first time she’d ever spoken of this to someone else, the first time she’d really had anyone she could confide in at all. She’d had few friends in the past, Margot being her closest. And after everything that had happened, it had been hard for Fern to let anyone close. Not that many people had even tried to get to know her. After the incident with Margot, Granger had sent her back to school, this time towork.

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