Page 31 of Avalanche
My brother had tried to get me to go to business school, back when he was finishing up his law degree at university and I was graduating high school. Said I had the mind for it. I’d just scowled at him and told him I would rather jump off a cliff than spend another minute in a classroom.
“No,” I say bluntly. “You’ve never really said.”
Antoine grimaces, as if hoping that he’d somehow be spared from having to explain this.
“So…”
His eyes dart to Liam, to Lily, as if expecting them to answer for him. He heaves out a sigh when they just stare patiently back. Either they’re as ignorant as I am about his family, or they’re leaving it for him to explain.
“They own a pharmaceutical company. Sort of.” Antoine gives an embarrassed shrug, his skin darkening as he stares at the carpet. “Well, my grandfather did, at least. A majority stake. A few other companies too, but the pharmaceutical company is the family business, so to speak. I was supposed to work there once I’d finished studying. Just like my dad did, obviously.”
I give a slow nod, my mind racing as all the pieces come flying into place. Antoine’s constant look of confusion in the kitchen, his complete inability to clean. The slightly horrified look he seemed to give to our condo each time he came home, at least at first. Until Lily and Liam moved in.
It all makes so much sense now.
“Well, he left it all to me.” Antoine’s voice is a quiet crackle, but I feel his words like electricity across my skin. Can practically see it, the burst of potential, what having that sort of money could mean. What could be done with it. Created.
It must be how an artist feels, staring at a blank canvas.
“Conditionally,” he adds, and there’s a weight to that word that’s impossible to miss. He looks up, giving Lily a beseeching look. An apology. A prayer. “I have to be married to accept it.” This time, the words are whisper soft. He licks his lips, fingers digging into his denim clad thighs as if he means to anchor himself in place. “To a woman.”
I don’t miss the way that Liam’s expression shutters, or the hurt that flashes in his grey eyes when he thinks no one will see it. Something twinges behind my ribs, an unpleasant rush of sympathy alongside anger. I latch onto the anger, that familiar emotion. The natural consequence of an unfair hand.
“That’s fucked, mate,” I say, unfolding my legs, stretching them out in front of me on the carpet. “I’m sorry, but it is.”
I wrinkle my nose, thinking inexplicably of my own family. Of my parents’ surprise at my sister going to med school. It had been no more than a passing emotion. An ‘oh’ exclaimed between dinner and dessert. And then they’d given her what she needed, even though mum had always hoped she’d study viticulture and help out with the family business.
They’d never conditioned their support on anything.
Antoine’s green eyes flash with surprise at my outburst.
“I mean, who cares whether you’re married or not? And it has to be a woman? I’m sorry, this isn’t the eighties or whatever.”
“The eighties?” Seth interjects weakly. “That’s your benchmark?”
I shrug. It seems right. I don’t know. “It’s an asshole move,” I repeat.
Seth hums in agreement, looking between Liam and Antoine with quiet sympathy.
“And if you don’t?” Liam’s voice is brittle as ice. “If you aren’t married?”
Antoine swallows, even features contorting with pain. “Then it reverts to my father.”
My hands ball into fists, knuckles pressing on the threadbare carpet as anger prickles like needles across my skin. Theft. That’s what it is. No, worse than that.
“Your father,” Liam echoes, and there is some meaning in those words that I don’t grasp. A heaviness that settles in the room between us all, like some sort of an ancient malediction.
“Yes,” Antoine agrees. The color has drained from his face now, leaving him almost ashen. “Exactly.”
A woman.
I look at Lily. The girl currently squeezed between Seth and Liam on the couch, her cheeks still flushed from that awkward call with Seth’s mum, from a day spent wrapped up with Liam and Antoine and Matty. The girl whose lips are parted on a silent exhale, whose eyes are round as she takes in the full meaning of Antoine’s words.
The girl I’ve been falling in love with.
She looks like a girl who has been handed a burden she was never meant to carry.
He needs to marry her.
