Page 132 of Unspoken Words
“Mum! Stop mollycoddling her. It doesn’t help.”
We all stared at Chris, eyes wide, food suspended midway to open mouths.Wow! I didn’t even know that word was part of his vocabulary.
“Christopher Roger Mitch—”
I laughed. “Mum, he’s right. You’re not helping.”
“Well … I …”
“But thank you. I love you for trying.”
She shot Dad an I-give-up look and then spooned a heap of mashed potato into her mouth.
“I do love him, Chris.”
“Maybe you do, but not enough. Not as much as Connor.”
Aggressively forking a piece of sausage, I removed it with my teeth and mumbled, “What good does it do me to love a man I can’t have?”
Dad picked up his glass. “Why can’t you have him?”
“Because I can’t. Because others do. And because I’m with Byron.”
“Are you?” Chris asked. “Even after what happened?”
I sighed. “Yes, I think so.”
“But you don’t want to be, do you?”
“No,” I whispered, hanging my head, fresh tears falling. “I don’t think I do. Not anymore.”
Mum’s hand found my back and gently rubbed like only a mother could.
“Then you need to go back to Darwin and put the Moron out of his misery,” Chris said. “Come on, Ellie, you know nothing good can come out of giving him false hope.”
“I know that. I just can’t do it now. I need to focus on getting this album finished. That’s my priority.”
“We understand that, sweetheart,” Mum added. “But don’t put this off either.”
“I won’t. If the album isn’t finished in a month, I’ll deal with it all then. I promise.”
Mum nodded.
“So you gonna tell Connor that Moron proposed and you shot the sucker down?”
I glared at my brother. “That’s none of your business. And it’s none of Connor’s either.”
*
The next day,I receivedthe usual early morning text message from Connor, warning of my pending pick-up time in fifteen minutes. Except, I was one step ahead of him, already out of bed, showered, dressed, and waiting on the front porch to avoid him crossing paths with my family, namely my big-mouthed brother.
Hearing his truck turn into my street, I hurried down the path, opened the door, and climbed in when he pulled to a stop.
“Morning,” Connor said, his eyes studying me like a book.
I avoided eye contact and noticed Max in the back, buckled into his car seat and holding his plaster cast like a teddy bear.
“Hi, Max.”
