Red Leather (Book 2)

Chapter 27

"And this poem inspired you to create a baby?"

He smiled indulgently, shaking his head. "No, no. Your mother inspired me to do that."

I slapped his chest. "Daddy!"

He laughed once more. "Alright, I'll explain it properly. The poem was basically about the devastation of war, and how soldiers had been buried in poppy fields at the time. The bodies of the decomposing soldiers brought life to the poppies, giving them the nourishment to bloom and thrive. It's a metaphor of how even death and decay can bring wonderful things. It can bring life." He grew very sad by the end of his sentence.

I watched him closely. "You always said that poppies were your favourite flower."

"They are," he agreed, looking as if his next words would be hard to get out. "What your mother went through in order to bring you into the world was fundamentally a small-scale war. She fought long and hard, for days and days, against complication after complication. You can't imagine what it was like, Poppy. Her body wasn't made for childbirth. And in the end, it cost her life." His green eyes, always so wise and in control, shone with unshed grief. "I thought I'd lost it all. But there you were, shrieking and bloody and tiny, and I couldn't abandon you even if a hundred Rhea's had died."

"I'm the poppy," I stated.

"Yes. It was through death that life had formed, do you see? You were the tiny little poppy that had blossomed amongst the chaos and destruction. And now you're my little chaos and destruction," he teased, yet his heart wasn't it in.

The joke flew way over my head. My attempt to laugh quickly turned into sobbing.

I didn't know what came over me. I was never the sentimental type, nor would I ever be, and Daddy's story should not have brought out the reaction it did. I sobbed and sobbed until Daddy's shoulder was coated in tears. For once I didn't berate myself for being weak – this was far from weakness. This was an emotional outlet. I forgot about Nathan and Eli and Aurora and Chloe. I forgot about lies and bloodshed and deceit. In that split second, I was merely a girl curled up in her father's lap, crying and shivering and terrified of saying goodbye to the only person I had ever truly loved in an unconditional scale.

From now on, I would be on my own. Daddy would no longer be hovering over my shoulder, doing everything he could to make me happy and keep me safe. I would no longer rely on him to sweep everything under the rug. What ever I did wrong, it would fall on me.

Through all the bluff and pretenses and masks, never have I felt so empty.

Perhaps it was for the best.

***

 The entire house had been transformed.

Hiring a crew was the best decision I ever made. Sticking to the theatre theme, red velvet drape hung over the railing of the staircase, which spiralled into the grand room. Smoke machines and stage lights were cleverly hidden at certain vantage points, and crewmen tested them as I walked past, filtering my path with fog. Everything had been cleared to make a dance floor that stretched to the living room, where setting up his state-of-the-art equipment was Avicii himself. The man had flown all the way from Sweden to be here for just one night. Daddy had paid him handsomely for his troubles. Laser lights had been attached to the walls, flashing and buzzing and creating dizzying effects inside the darkened room. UV party paint had been set up at certain stations, which would make party-goers glow underneath the laser and fog.

I studied the finger food in the kitchen, loving how delicate they were. Three giant geometric caskets of punch, each an electrifying display of colours, sat in the middle of the room where party-goers could fill up whenever they wanted. Every single one had been laced with alcohol, thought that should come as no surprise to anyone. I added a few drops of GHB just for sake keepings. A cooler, cleverly designed to look like an ancient treasure chest, kept brand alcohol ranging from weak beer to imported double-strength Russian vodka.