Page 58 of Change My Mind
I took a moment to look around the room and cleared my throat.
“A coffee machine, a sofa, the saddest looking rug in the world, someone’s knife roll…your right boob.” My voice sounded thick and wet.
I felt a laugh rumble through her chest before I heard the gentle sound of it. “Fair. Four things you can touch.”
“The floor, the edge of this sad-looking rug, my chef blacks, your left boob.”
Her nails drew a circle on my scalp, and I melted at the touch. “Three things you can hear.”
“Xander at the pass, something frying, your heartbeat.”
The thing that was grounding me most as I fell apart at the seams.
A scratch of nails from the top of my forehead to the nape of my neck. “Two things you can smell.”
The only thing I could smell was her. “Wood sage and sea salt.” Her perfume. The scent never left me, even when she wasn’t around. I was haunted by it. Although could it be called a haunting if you wanted it?
“One thing you can taste?”
“Hazelnut and chocolate brownie.” Kayla practically shoved it in my mouth when she noticed the second near-miss between my knife and my fingers. I only had a small bite to get her offmy back, and as I swallowed it, I tried not to throw it back up.
“How are you feeling now?”
I wanted to lift my head and look at her, but moving meant the fingers running through my hair and along my scalp would stop, and I didn’t want that.
“You wanna talk about it?” she carried on.
“No,” I said simply.
I felt a hum pass through Addie’s chest. Her fingers didn’t stop scratching through my hair, and we sat there, in silence.
“My mum diedsix years ago today.”
I didn’t know how long we’d been sitting there. The kitchen sounded like it was still in full swing, and no one had tried to come in here, so lunch service was still happening.
“That must be difficult,” she replied, her fingers finally stilling in my hair. I managed to stop myself from whimpering at the loss of her touch.
“She had a heart attack in the middle of doing a food shop. I found out three days after it happened.” My voice sounded detached. Even to me.
Her fingers scratched through my hair again. I softened.
“Dare I ask why it took so long for you to find out?”
“You can ask.” I usually hated being asked that question. It was too messy. Too painful. It changed the way people looked at me. But I wanted Addie to know. My mum had always asked after her on days when we had lessons together. I think she might have known about my crush on her, but she’d never made a big deal about it.
I felt Addie take a deep breath. “Why weren’t you told for three days?”
I took a deep breath of my own. “Do you remember what my dad does for a living?”
“He’s a wanker, isn’t he?”
I laughed. It sounded more like a snort from the leftover tears. “A banker. Yeah. He runs an investment banking company. Which he inherited from his dad, who inherited it from his dad. I think you could call it a family business. Anyway, he spent most of my childhood and teenage years priming me to take it over. For a long time, life was just a thing that was happening to me. I did all the necessary subjects. I applied to all the top universities. I agreed to get a maths degree. I went to Oxford, where it became abundantly clear that while I was good at maths, I was notOxfordgood at maths. I tried. I really did. I gave it a year, and it wasn’t for me. So, after that first year, I told Dad I couldn’t do it. I was going to culinary school.
“He didn’t take to it too well. And by that, I mean he disowned me. He cut me off, although the joke was on him, because the perks of being primed to take over the family business are that you learn early on how to make good investments. Katie finally got her chance to be the golden child, so she sided with my dad. Mum existed in a grey area. She didn’t cut off contact completely, but she didn’t exactly call Dad out for doing it either. So my connection to my family remained semi-regular phone calls with her and not much else. It’s been about a decade since Katie thought about my existence; hence, three days to be informed that our mother had died. Even when she did call me about it, the conversation lasted less than a minute, and I wasn’t even sure I heard her properly. Then I got a text with details about her funeral.”
Addie was silent for a moment, her fingers still running soothingly through my hair.
“That sounds like a lot to go through,” she said eventually.
