Imported Love

Chapter Nine

“Bloody hell,”

“Good morning, Erica,” Lily chimed as she strolled into my room. I groaned and rolled over, burying my head under my pillows. Last night had definitely taken its toll on my sanity. All I wanted was to curl up in bed and hide from the world. Of course Lily had other ideas.

“Erica,” she repeated. Her tone had taken a sullen turn. I peeked out from under the pillows and glanced at her. She was quietly shutting the door while her eyes darted around the room.

“What’s wrong?” I questioned, sitting up in bed. Lily approached my bed and sat beside me. She wrung her hands before she finally grabbed mine and stared me in the eyes.

“You have to be careful,” she whispered. “I saw you and Ethan on the patio last night. If Abel finds out what’s going on he’s going to—well I don’t rightly know what he’s going to do, but it’s not going to be good.”

I pulled my hands from Lily’s and frowned. “Abel won’t find out.” I threw the blankets from my body and stood up. Lily jumped up and grabbed my wrists.

“Erica you don’t understand,” she hissed. “Abel knows everything. He isn’t the sort of man who let’s himself be shamed.”

“I think you’re overreacting Lily. Nothing is going on between Ethan and I.” I lied.

“Don’t you try that on me.” Lily snapped. “I’m not stupid, and neither is Abel or Franny. We all see it, Erica. You have to be careful.”

“I can handle myself,” I insisted, prying her hands from my wrists. “Now if you would excuse me, I would like to get dressed alone this morning.”

“Erica—“ Lily cried desperately. “He won’t let you go unpunished if he finds out.”

“What could be worse than my situation now?” I demanded.

Lily looked at the ground and sighed. She turned around and made her way to the door. Before she left she whispered over her shoulder, “He could hurt your family.”

****

The attic was chilly that morning, but that wasn’t going to stop Ethan and I. Abel was gone, once again, and that meant that we were free to do whatever we pleased. Ethan had changed his approach to teaching me how to read, now I was supposed to remember something called the alphabet and what sounds the letters made.

“Spell cat,” Ethan said. He was hanging upside down in one of the arm chairs. He seemed more interested in throwing a paintbrush at the ceiling, but I was determined to show him that all our work this morning was working.

I chewed on my lip while I ran through the sounds in my head. “C-A-T?”

“Perfect,” Ethan smiled. He pulled himself up in the chair and stared at me. “Spell Ethan.”

“That’s hard,” I pouted.