Page 90 of The Sunken Truth
He shook his head and looked at her intently. “I was trying to impress my dad. And it feels pathetic. I don’t know why I can’t seem to stop caring what he thinks.”
“It’s biological, I guess.” She shuffled closer. “You’re close to your mum, right?”
“Yes.” His eyes sparkled. “She’s great. I might be in a bit of trouble with her though.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t tell her about any of this recent stuff with my dad.”
“But she knows you got transferred?”
“Yeah. I lied and said it was just a few weeks to cover for someone. I made out it was a routine thing. And then I just kept saying it’s been extended.”
“How come?”
“Partly, because I knew she’d be upset on my behalf. Dad’s put her through enough as it is so I wasn’t keen to tell her. Also, because I knew she’d insist on visiting if she knew it was a six-month posting.”
“You didn’t want her to visit?”
“Not when I first moved here. I was convinced I was going to have a terrible time. Plus, if she visited, there was more chance she’d figure out the real reason I was here. Now, I wish I’d had the chance to show her around. And I miss her. It’s the longest I’ve gone without seeing her. I’ll explain everything to her when I get back. I hate having secrets from her.”
“You can bring her over another time,” Lily suggested.
“That’s a good idea.”
“How did she and your dad get together, anyway?”
“It was just a fling. Mum got pregnant, Dad told her to get rid of it, and she refused.” He pushed Lily’s hair from her face. “The annoying thing is that he was just decent enough that he couldn’t ignore my existence completely. Things would have been better if he’d never acknowledged me and I hadn’t known him at all. But here we are.”
Lily sighed. “Before, you said you didn’t want to tell me about all this because it reflected badly on you, but I don’t see how.”
“My own dad being against me doesn’t exactly say anything good about me, does it?”
“I don’t think it says anything about you at all,” she remarked. “Apart from that you’re amazingly resilient, to deal with all that and still be a relatively normal person.”
His lips pulled into a grin. “Relatively?”
“I don’t want to flatter you too much.”
His smiled died away. “I didn’t handle it particularly well in the end. Getting drunk and making a scene in front of somany people who can influence my career wasn’t my greatest moment.”
“That’s where the rumours came from about you sleeping with some officer’s daughter?” she asked. “It was the commissioner’s daughter. But that was fake…”
He scratched behind his ear as he winced.
“You did sleep with her?”
“We were both single,” he said defensively. “In the scheme of things I don’t think that was really a big deal.”
“So the commissioner didn’t really have an issue with you?”
Again, he winced. “I had a bit of a reputation for being a player… so I suppose I wouldn’t have been anyone’s first choice for their daughter. I guess it was an easy way for her to annoy her dad. But my transfer over here was all my dad’s idea, as far as I can tell. Though I guess it was easy to convince the commissioner it was a good idea. Especially with Dad spinning all his lies about me.”
Lily stayed silent for a moment. “What are you going to do? Will you still ask him about staying?”
He nodded. “As much as I hate to ask anything of him, I’ll swallow my pride and talk to him about it. I hope the thought of having me permanently removed from his life will be appealing to him.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Part of me wants to advise you to just tell him where to go, or never speak to him again… but if there’s a chance you could stay…”
