Page 176 of Merciless Desires

He sprang up from the sofa and rounded on me with shaking bones. I stepped backwards. For the first time since I’d met him, I saw a thick vein bulging out from the side of his taut, shiny face.

I backed out of the room. “Where’s Mum?”

“She’s resting. You leave her out of this. It will only make her headache worse.”

My heart sank. Another headache.

“Penelope Ross been goading me for two years, Jeff. I couldn’t take it anymore.” I said, my tone pleading.

He held his phone up and showing me the last person who’d called him: Penelope’s father.

“You humiliated her!”

“B-but, she’s been humiliating me since the start of sixth form…” I said, unable to stop my voice from quivering.

His brow darkened and I looked past him to see six empty cans of beer crunched in a pile on the coffee table.

“Look, let’s talk about this in the morning,” I said, holding up my hands.

“No, you’re not getting out of it that easily, Rose. You just bullied my best friend’s daughter. We are having this conversation NOW.”

I would have laughed out loud if I wasn’t half terrified. Miles Ross wouldn’t have recognised Jeff if he’d stepped on him, and as for the accusation that I was the bully… It only confirmed that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this conversation. Not while Jeff was hammered, and not while Mum was upstairs sleeping off her latest migraine.

I took another step back. “I’m going to bed, Jeff. I’m tired.”

“No you don’t Rose. You stay right here and tell me how fucking sorry you are.”

A small gasp left my mouth. “What?” He’d never been the perfect stepfather but he’d never sworn at me before.

He stepped right up to me, showering my face with the stale remnants of beer breath. “Say. You’re. Sorry.”

I stared back at the man I’d been forced to share a home with for the last four years. The man my mother had put her trust in to take on the father figure role I’d missed out on for most of my life. The man who had slowly but surely driven my mother into her room with one migraine after another, while he wielded her generous sick pay around like it was pocket money. I was suddenly infused with the piercing pain of injustice. If it wasn’t enough that I’d lost my beloved father to a car accident when I was only eight years old… If it wasn’t enough that I’d had to endure years of my mother’s failed and abusive relationships in a bid to replace my father… If it wasn’t enough that I’d suffered injuries of my own… Now I had to contend with a drunk stepfather who not only was completely opposed to me getting on in life, but he was also choosing some cheesy businessman over what may as well have been his own daughter.

I anchored my heels into the floor. “No,” I said, forcefully. “I am not sorry. She was goading me, and she deserved it.”

An eerie calmness came over him and he stepped forward again, his breaths long and controlled.

“You’re fucking with people who are important to me, Rose. Say you’re sorry.”

“I thought we were important to you,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Me and Mum.”

Muddy brown eyes narrowed. “Your mum, maybe. You, not so much.”

His words felt like a slap, pinning me back against the wall. “Wow.” I breathed out, feeling the tension in my shoulders drop. Hearing the truth ripped off the Sellotape that had been holding our fake stepfather-daughter relationship together. “I can’t believe you had the guts to actually say it.”

He towered over me. “Are you saying I’m gutless?”

I craned my neck to look him in the eye and shrugged.

The back of his hand struck across my check, knocking my face into the wooden underside of the staircase. My skin burned with shame but the edges were tinged with something resembling triumph and relief. Finally, I didn’t have to live a lie anymore. We were all operating under the pretence that we were a happy, modern family, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I knew the second I told Mum he’d hit me, he’d be out on his arse. This was after all our home, not his.

A little piece of my heart broke for Mum as I climbed the stairs. She would be devastated. Not for her relationship with Jeff, but for her failure, yet again, to pick a decent man to fill Dad’s shoes. She’d be a mess for days, maybe even weeks. But if it meant getting that toxic man out of our lives, it would be worth it. I could defer university for a year while I got us back on our feet, got Mum some help for her headaches. It would all be okay. I had to hold onto that thought while she processed the news that her husband had just hit her daughter.

I heard the TV in the living room again as I pushed open the door and saw Mum’s form breathing softly beneath the bedclothes. I walked round the bed and perched on the edge resting a hand on her shoulder. Slowly, she opened one eye and groaned.

“I’m sorry, Mum. Is it another bad one?”

She nodded once and closed her eye. I ran my fingers along her scalp, just as she did to me when I was small.

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