Chasing the Browns

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Ha. So I had been right; a part of me had always suspected that he was too good for me, so why had I believed him even when he’d contradicted my thoughts?

Because you’d wanted so bad for him to like you.

I was really beginning to get irritated by that annoying little voice in my head.

It was the day after the party, a Sunday, and I was cuddled on the living room sofa with a blanket wrapped around me, watching Sunday Politics. What was I doing? I didn’t even like politics!

‘You know things are pretty messed up when you find yourself watching politics on a Sunday morning!’ I remembered Marie saying once.

I sighed, looking down at the TV remote in my hands. I’d called her after rushing home last night – for the second time, she’d been the only person I’d really wanted to talk to – and she hadn’t exactly been sympathetic towards me.

If Dayna had been my definition for mean (right now, in my eyes, she was the devil himself, masked in the ugly, uptight disguise of a monster named Dayna Parks), I had no idea where that left Marie on the scale. I’d never heard her use the words she’d said to me before…except from when she stuck up for me in front of Vince and Kai, back in the days when Kai and I didn’t get along. Now she was using those words against me.

‘Huh, so because your other “friends” ditched you, you’re running back to me?’

‘No, Marie, you know I’m sorry…’

‘Oh, so now you think sorry is just going to cut it? I’ve done so much for you, Lea, and the least you could do was invite me to one party!’

‘Wait, this is all because of one stupid party? Marie, I—’

‘So now you’re saying that inviting me would’ve been stupid?! Lea, you’re such a b—’

It was hard to get something along the lines of sympathy out of her. In fact, it was hard to get anything in between what she said; she made it so hard to get more than one word in edgeways, using the most colourful language to shut me up.

The annoying voice drifted back into my head again. But why would Jack do that to you after all he said to you? Do you really believe him?

I heard the door in another room opening and closing. I hadn’t even known there was someone else in the house. Mum didn’t need to work because Dad had a business, but she was almost always out of the house. Dad was away a lot of the time these days because of the case. Mum had said that he’d gone away last night whilst I was at the party to Brussels to meet his lawyer.

‘Brussels?’ I’d asked. ‘That’s…a bit far, don’t you think?’

‘The lawyer’s currently finishing off with a case over there,’ she’d replied.

‘What, is he, like, Brusslian or something?’

She’d laughed. ‘I think the right term, you’d find, is Belgian.’

Having not known he was home made me all the more surprised to find out that he was.

‘Hi, Dad.’ I sat up quickly on the sofa, pulling a smile.

‘Hey, you.’ He smiled, sitting next to me, offering me a sip of his tea.

I shook my head. ‘Mum said you left for Brussels.’

‘Yeah, well, there’s still a bit more I need to sort out here. I’m going to be there for a day or two, and I can’t just ditch the case for that long without finding someone to be in charge and things.’