Page 119 of How to Get Even

Her father at least had the grace to look ashamed.

‘You’re talking about when Bea was sick.’

And that was it. Right there. Because in his mind, it wasn’t abouther. Bella. ‘I’m talkingme. About you sending me away.’

Her mother appeared in the hallway, leaning against the frame, watching her and her father.

Bella swallowed. ‘And not just when I was younger. But last year too,’ she said, the hurt bursting into life like a firework, blooming and mushrooming, and raining down a thousand different hurts over the last twenty years. And this time she couldn’t hold back the tears, even if she’d tried.

‘Why did you always have to send me away?’

‘Oh sweetheart. We didn’t want to. Ever. When Bea was sick,’ his father tried, ‘we didn’t want you anywhere near the hospital. We didn’t want you to see how scared we were, and we didn’t know how to explain to you what was going on. We thought it best that you had some semblance of stability.’

‘I thought it was because it was easier for you,’ Bella confessed, her throat thick and swollen.

‘God no, Bella. It was awful. We wanted you with us all the time. It was horrible without you when all we wanted was to see both our girls, all the time. We didn’t want to let you out of our sight for a single second. But… it was a hospital. Bea was so sick. We thought it was best for you. But it wasn’t. And we didn’t like the way it made you.’

‘The way it made me?’

Her mother nodded to her father, as if encouraging him to continue.

‘We know how much you took on so that we could focus on Bea,’ he said. ‘We know you did that out of love, but when that became a habit for you, we worried about you. Worried that you’d lost your voice, your confidence.’

‘You used to be so bossy. So determined,’ her mother said with a laugh.

‘But that was gone when you returned, and it was our fault that we were just so relieved to have everyone back under one roof that we didn’t challenge it, challenge you.’

‘And what about after the wedding? Me going to France?’

Her mother looked at her father. ‘We didn’t want you to go, but we didn’t want you to stay with all the press around the wedding.’

‘I thought you were worried about the foundation,’ Bella confessed.

‘Not more than we were worried about you, Bella. God, I’m… so sorry you even thought that,’ her father said, the tears in his eyes shocking Bella deeply. ‘We love you. So much,’ he said, choking on the words as her mother came to also sit on her bed, reaching out an arm to touch her.

‘So, so, much,’ her mother echoed.

Fissures turned to cracks, emotions flooding from the dam she’d kept them stopped up behind. They poured out of her, the debris of hurt and pain, moments clung to and remembered, released and free-flowing like a river to make space for new emotions, clean ones, not stagnant, but moving and changing and Bella took great gulps from it.

And her parents held her through it all, weathered them with her, as they’d always wanted and she’d always wanted.

She spent the entire day with her parents telling them about meeting the girls, about researching Chase. About starting work and how much she’d loved the people, how she’d pranked Chase and accessed his password. How she’d convinced a journalist to do a hit piece on a man who didn’t deserve it, even though her mother was firmly on the side of Bad Bella. She wasn’t willing to share about the studio and Chase’s art because that was personal to him and she’d betrayed him enough, even though her father insisted that what had happened wasn’tentirelybetrayal.

It felt amazing to have her parents on her side. And she felt desperately sad for the little girl who’d missed that feeling, missed out on that support growing up – not for a singlesecondbegrudging the care and attention her sister had needed.

‘That’s a lot to have happened in three short months,’ her mother observed.

Bella nodded, but it wasn’t the end, because there was one last thing she wanted to ask her parents, still unsure of how far she could push their acceptance of her.

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen with Chase and the gallery, but… I do know that it’s made me re-think what I want. For the future,’ she said haltingly.

‘You mean the foundation?’ her father asked.

Bella nodded. ‘I don’t… I don’t want to work there,’ Bella said, realising just how much she didn’t want that. She wanted something for herself, like Paige had. Something that made her shine, like Astrid had. Something that she worked hard for, like Sienna did. She couldn’t very well go back to Nayak… but perhaps there was something else she could find.

‘Of course, Bella. We…’ Her mother looked to her father who nodded. ‘We only wanted you to be part of it, if that was what you wanted. It was a selfish way of us keeping you, I suppose,’ she said with a sad shrug. ‘But, you need to find something for you,’ her mother assured her, rubbing circles on her back.

Bea and her fiancé arrived just before dinner and Bea promptly stopped upon entering the kitchen.

---