Illicit Dreams

Illicit Dreams - chapter two

Katie had barely collapsed onto the bed in her hotel room when there was a hammering at the door. As she opened the latch the door was forced open and almost knocked her over and Daniel burst into her room.

"What the hell?" She stepped up to him angry.

He squared up to her, unrepentant, "I can't believe you!"

She shrugged, "I'm tired Daniel, I've travelled the best part of eighteen hours to get here, and I don't need to argue with you. Not now and not like this!"

He scowled, "But that's just it Katie, it's all about you, it's always been ALL about you! You walk away and not a day passes when your father didn't grieve for you. You were like a living corpse. None of us could move on, get past the ghost of you. And now you come back and act like you've never been away, and you expect us all to accommodate you!"

"What do you want from me Daniel?" she'd expected animosity from Carmel, maybe even her father, but she'd not even considered the implications her actions had had on the little pest who'd become her brother for those few years.

"It's Dan! I haven't been Daniel since virtually the day you left, because that was the day I had to grow up and get on with life! You don't know me, you don't know your father anymore!" He paced across the room, "what do I want? Hmm, let me think?" He looked at her oozing sarcasm.

"You think that my life has been any easier? You had my Dad, your mother, familiarity in friends, family, your home.....I moved away because I didn't think that me and your mother could ever share a day out let alone a family and home. She hated me, and I couldn't bear the thought of seeing my father side with her on a continual basis, to reject me yet again. I didn't want to leave EVERYTHING I had, didn't want to have to start from scratch...but it was toxic living here, and everyone and everything was getting dragged into the hell of out battles." She sat on the bed and rubbed her aching neck. "I got married you know, with no father to give me away, no family, no guests!" She laughed ironically, "after seven years away I had a record beating birthday last year, a whopping 10 cards!" She turned to him again. "My life has not been easy. It's been anything but, but it saved you and my father getting stuck in the middle of the continuous arguments between me and your mother."

"So you did it for me? For the good of the family?" he laughed incredulously not wanting to believe a word of it.

She shook her head exasperated, "Why did you get in touch with me, let me know about Dad? I know it wasn't your mother; she was too shocked to see me. Why go to all that hassle if you resent me being here?"

"I didn't think you'd lower yourself to get back here. And I thought if you did then I could get some form of closure. The day you left, it was my fault, the argument was because of me..."

She suddenly saw the reason for the animosity, pain swept across his face, and for a moment he was that thirteen year old kid again. She rushed to his side, "no Dan! It wasn't." She put a hand on his arm. "You were irritating, and yes wrecking my make-up bag seemed like the biggest deal in the World, but if it hadn't been that, then it'd have been something else. You know that, don't you? The argument that precipitated me moving was literally the straw that broke the camel's back."

He turned to look at her, and she saw the raw emotions in his eyes, rejection, desperation and underlying sadness.

.....

She remembered the day like it was yesterday. Since finishing University she'd found it unbearable to live at home. Carmel rubbed her up the wrong way, and she knew she was no angel in this, she found it really hard to see another woman, another family in her mother's place. The memory of her mother was losing its vibrancy and becoming a flat monochrome image. And this was the topic that her and Carmel REALLY fought over.