Page 43 of Limits
‘Hey.’ Allegra took her by the shoulders and turned her so they were face to face. ‘Don’t worry about the fam, okay? They’ll come around.’
Millie nodded, but whilst Allegra seemed to like her she doubted there would be any coat-hiding, talking-them-down-from-a-panic-attack opportunities with the rest of Pav’s family members in the near future. She heard Pav’s irritated tone in her head again and suppressed a grimace. There were unlikely to be any more opportunities for his family to ‘come around’ anyway. Who wanted to be dragging a killjoy like her to parties like this?
‘Butwhydo you have to go now? You’re always the last to leave. Your sister is getting married. Why would you break her heart this way?’
Allegra rolled her eyes at her mother’s voice, which had now filled the corridor.
‘Mama,’ Pav’s voice cut through the air, loaded with exasperation, ‘I havethreesisters. This is Allegra’s second engagement party. She’s having a rehearsal dinner in a month. I haven’t seen her most of the night. I don’t think I’ll break her heart by leaving.’
‘If it wasn’t forthat womanyou wouldn’t even –’
Much to Millie’s horror Allegra chose that moment to plunge through the coats, dragging Millie behind her.
‘Mama. Shut up,’ Allegra hissed as she emerged on the other side. She brushed off her skirt and put one hand on her hip, as if springing out at people from behind coat racks was perfectly normal behaviour. Millie’s wide eyes flew to Pav, who was frowning first at his sister and then at her.
‘What the hell?’ he muttered, taking a step towards her. ‘Hey, you okay?’
Millie was stressed, a little shocked, embarrassed, and her hair was mussed by the coats. And that was why she jerked away so violently that she stumbled back a step when Pav went to take her hand. He froze for a moment before his face went from a soft to a hurt expression. Talia’s eyebrows had shot up and her lips were pursed. Millie was guessing that outright flinching away from her son’s touch had not endeared her to his mother any more than before.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she whispered before spinning on her heel and practically running out of the door.
She heard Allegra say, ‘Mama, listen,’ just before the door slammed behind her at the same time as she heard Talia mutter something in Greek which was not very nice at all. Millie wished she hadn’t been bored enough whilst she was doing her Chemistry degree to learn the classics. She wished she didn’t understand. (But when you were fourteen, at university and had no friends, boredom was pretty much guaranteed)
As she jogged down the street in her heels it occurred to her that maybe this was better. This way Pav could see her limits in a real way. He could see how integrating someone like her into his life would have an impact on everything, not least his family.
Chapter 19
At least try to be normal
‘Yes, of course,’ Millie muttered as she closed her eyes and sank back into the sofa. Her hand, clamped around her phone, was starting to ache and she realised she’d been gripping it hard enough to cut off the circulation to her fingers. Beauty lumbered over to her and watched her tense face for a moment before heaving his great body up on the sofa and laying his huge head on her stomach. She started and let out a small bark of laughter.
‘Camilla?’ her mother’s shrill voice sounded into her ear. ‘What on earth is going on there? Are you listening to me?’
‘Yes, mother,’ Millie said, sinking her free hand into Beauty’s thick fur and letting out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. Seriously, this dog was like magic. He should be used as a therapy animal. The smell was something she needed to work on (Jamie had told Beauty earlier, quite accurately, that she ‘smelt of arse’), but anything that could make Millie feel even marginally better when she was speaking to her parents was a miracle.
‘Are you … are you with someone?’ Her mother’s tone was incredulous. Millie couldn’t exactly blame her: her whole life had been almost entirely devoid of social interactions. Her mother knew how bizarre it would be for her to be with a friend.
‘No,’ Millie sighed. ‘It’s just a dog.’
‘A dog?’ Her mother’s voice rose in horror. ‘Please don’t tell me you have gone and got yourself a bloody dog? What a ridicul–’
‘It’s not my dog, Mum. I’m … I’m at some else’s house.’
‘But … why?’
The assumption that Millie was not there in a social capacity, despite the fact that it was actually her birthday that day, for some reason made her chest tighten. She was surprised. Millie had become adept at letting her mother’s words wash over her for quite some time. They no longer had quite the power to inflict pain that they had when she was a child. She’d built up a tolerance to them. And anyway, compared to the poison her mother was capable of spouting, this was nothing. Itwasfair to assume Millie would be on her own on her birthday; she’d never spent any of her birthdays any other way.
‘I’m babysitting.’
‘You’re what? For Christ’s sake, Camilla. What is wrong with you? Why are you wasting your timebabysitting? Is this purely to annoy me?’
Millie sighed again. Throughout her life her mother had constantly asked that question.
‘Have you made this purely to annoy me, Camilla?’ – in response to a card she made at school when she was six, which was covered in glitter and shed on her mother’s jumper.
‘Are these dolls on the floor purely to annoy me, darling?’ she’d said a year later, before scooping up the Barbies and dumping them in the rubbish whilst she muttered about gender stereotyping and pointless plastic crap (Gammy had given them to Millie and they were her favourite toys).
‘There’s dirt on the carpet, Camilla,’ she’d said once when Millie was eight, pointing to a tiny streak of black on the carpet. ‘Do you traipse through the house in your outdoor shoes purely to annoy me?’
