Page 27 of A Secret Escape

She didn’t know how to make things right between them, and anyway Milly was now out of sight, her mind on her own challenges.

Her life had changed irrevocably, and there was no going back.

Nicole felt a twinge of envy. Things were obviously difficult for Milly, but she had a job she loved and was surrounded by people she trusted. She had her mother, grandmother and Zoe, and she was part of a community that cared about her. She had a normal life, and she lived in this gorgeous boathouse with no intruder alarm and no need for security cameras,and she didn’t have to wake up and read lies about herself in the media. She could go where she liked when she liked without worrying about who might be watching. She liked her life and knew exactly what she wanted to do. She had a direction.

Nicole had no direction. She had major decisions to make, but she was too overwhelmed by everything to make them. She was terrified. For years she’d planned every move she’d made, every part she’d taken, but she hadn’t planned for this to happen.

She needed to talk it all through, but with Milly unavailable, there was no one she could trust. Justin had been the first person she’d allowed herself to trust in a long while, and that had turned out to be a mistake.

In the past, even when surrounded by people who wanted things from her, she’d never felt lonely because in the back of her mind she knew that whatever happened she had Milly and their friendship had felt like a security blanket, but that had been yanked away. Now she really was alone. Completely alone at a time in her life when she desperately needed a true friend.

She had to figure things out on her own. Make decisions on her own.

For once she had to focus on herself and not a part she was playing, but thinking about herself took her right back to the beginning.

Nicole had been ten years old when she’d realized that she needed to change. Being herself just wasn’t enough for her mother. It was impossible not to notice that the other children’s parents always seemed proud. They clapped loudly at school plays and concerts, they cheered from the sidelines during sports matches, they beamed with delight at the artwork displayed on classroom walls. Amy Clayton’s mother had actually clapped her hands when she’d seen Amy’s self-portrait as if her daughter had painted theMona Lisa, which she most definitely hadn’t (Nicole had actually seen theMona Lisaon a trip to Paris with her mother, and Amy’s random splodges didn’t come close). All of which proved to Nicole that there was something wrong with her.

She was determined to be the child her mother wanted, someone her mother would be proud of, but how was she going to achieve that?

She envied her friend Milly, who never had to earn praise or affection. Both seemed to be in unlimited supply in her household, her loving relationship with her mother and grandmother so different from Nicole’s own experience that sitting in their cozy kitchen was like landing on an alien planet.

The only thing her own mother seemed to appreciate was academic attainment, so Nicole threw herself into that, but she knew that no matter how hard she worked she was never going to gain straight A’s, so that was unlikely to yield the approval she craved.

Her gift seemed to be entertaining people. Making the other children laugh. She was a wickedly good mimic, imitating teachers when they were out of the classroom and once calling the school office pretending to be someone’s parent so that they could be excused from sports.

In their English class when they all took turns to read aloud from whichever book the teacher had chosen, Nicole threw herself into the task with voices and actions. It was after one of those lessons where the whole class had insisted she read for the entire time, because Nicole actually brought a boring book to life, that the teacher had taken her to see the head of drama.

As they’d walked into the room the teacher had pushed Nicole ahead and said, “I’ve found you a star.”

Nicole had glanced over her shoulder to see who the star was, and it had taken several moments to absorb the fact that the teacher had been talking about her. She’d soaked up the praise like a thirsty plant absorbs water, and she’d never forgotten those words or that encounter because it had been the start of everything.

The drama teacher had given Nicole several parts to read and then immediately offered her the lead in the school play.

Nicole had all but floated home on a tide of praise and approval. Finally, she’d found the thing she was good at. This was her gift.

She couldn’t wait to tell her mother and see her clap her hands as Amy’s mother had, or beam with pride like Tina Pearson’s mother had when Tina had stumbled onto the stage to receive a prize for her short story.

But Nicole’s mother hadn’t done either of those things. Instead she’d banned drama class.You won’t get your grades up by prancing around being an exhibitionist.

Nicole had understood then that she would never make her mother proud.

I’m not enough, she’d thought, I’ll never be enough.

But for the drama teacher she’d been enough, and that was all the encouragement Nicole needed. She’d discovered something she excelled at, and it gave her an alternative to being herself. She could pretend to be someone else. She could step into another person’s life, which seemed infinitely better than her own. There was no way she was giving it up.

And having made that decision, it worked to her advantage that her mother’s interest in her was limited. Thanks to the demands of her job as a surgeon, she was rarely home.

Nicole had forged her mother’s signature on the permission slip for drama classes and told her mother she was having extra tuition at school.

And that had been the beginning.

She worked hard enough at her academic classes to make sure she didn’t draw attention to herself, but the best few hours of the week were her drama classes. She paid more attention in that one class than she did in all the others put together. She absorbed every instruction.

When you’re playing a part, you don’t just pretend to be someone else, you become someone else. You are that person.

To a young girl who hated the life she was living and was struggling to find her place in the world, it was an invitation. If she could be someone else when she was acting, what was stopping her being someone else in real life?

She thought about that moment often, and she was thinking of it now as she sat on the porch swing on Milly’s deck, safely out of view.

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