Red Leather (Book 2)

Chapter 18

She frowned. “You missed my point.”

Had I? I sighed. “Look, we have to take the good with the bad in life.” It was a trashy, new-agey bullshit thing to say, as it did no help to anyone. A line like that was something I expected to come from Gwen. “All these things… these horrible things keep happening because, well, they just have to.”

She flinched. “Do they really have to happen, though?” There was a steely sharpness in her voice. “Did I really have to be robbed in order to solve the mysteries of the universe? Do you think Cora’s parents are sitting in that room, thinking, ‘Oh well. Guess it had to happen. We did the world a favour.’”

“No, of course not,” I almost snapped, but managed to control myself just in time. “I didn’t mean it like that. But who am I to know why these things keep happening? It’s not like I’m doing them.”

“Poppy? Tammy?” Daddy came out of the emergency rooms, out of his scrubs and fully cleaned, looking like he hadn’t slept in a hundred years. “I’m so sorry, guys. I did everything I could to keep her breathing.”

Tammy shook her head. “S’not your fault, sir.”

He smiled, albeit sadly. “My name is Ted, Tammy. You can call me Ted.”

“Are you finished with your shift?” I asked him, standing up and stretching my legs. I still kept a mask of grieve and mourning over my face, and Daddy reached over, rubbing my shoulder.

“Yes. Let’s go home.”

***

I opted to stay home the next day, feeling too burned-out to walk around school with fake tears down my face. I watched the news with Gwen instead, thinking about all the other things I could be doing than staring at her piece of shit television.

“Are you okay?” she asked for the billionth time, making me grind my teeth. I wished more than anything that she would shut up. She’d offered me three cups of tea so far. She couldn’t sit still for more than a minute.

“Tired, is all. I don’t really feel like doing much,” I mumbled, closing my eyes.

She wrapped an arm around me, giving off a strong jasmine smell. Gwyneth had work off, too. I wondered why. “Oh, I’m sorry for your loss. Cora's mother was a very frequent client of mine, actually. They’re good people.” She stared off into the distance, heaving a sigh that seemed to come from deep within her bones. “The poor girl just had too many demons to battle.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. There was no such thing as demons – the otherworldly kind, I meant. Humans were the demons.

I was about to make an excuse about being tired and go back to my room, before the newscaster said something that caught my attention.

“In other news, a rise in eating disorders has doctors terrified in Alistair. Seventeen year-old Cora Grey was announced dead this morning after an on going battle with anorexia that lasted four years. Friends and family are devastated, and the exclusive town is said to be planning on raising awareness for young women about the dangers of extreme dieting. Divinia Nicks has the story.”

It happened 18 hours ago. How on Earth did the media already know? Was it due to Alistair’s notorious past? Or was it something else? I returned back to my room, saying very little to Gwen.

Tammy was next. But as I sat there in silence, staring blankly at an open page in Genesis, I contemplated yet again how I would go about this.