Page 5 of Bad Influence
The whole thing makes me sick.
“Everyone keeps telling me to accept it and move on,” I whisper.
Gerry looks back at me with a discerning graze. “And are you going to?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
There’s a part of me which wants to leave it all and choose myself. But choosing myself is not something I’ve ever beengood at and I wouldn’t know where to start. The other part keeps reminding me that all I have ever wanted is my parents' love and affection. I’ve already made myself so small for them, another thing I do for them shouldn’t matter.
“There are some things in life you can’t move on from,” Gerry says. “The longer you hold onto the pain, the more it hurts rather than heal. Darling, if you hold onto broken glass because it’s what someone expects, you’re only hurting yourself.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” I say without thinking.
“Then leave.” Geraldine shrugs lightly. The diamond studs in her ears catch the light and sparkle. There’s a ruby and diamond brooch over her left breast that she always wears because it was gifted to her by her husband.
I can’t imagine loving someone so much I never take off the gift they gave me.
“It’s not that easy,” I say. Gerry can probably see the reluctance on my face because she pats my arm.
“It doesn’t have to be hard.”
“Where will I even go?” I ask, slightly panicked. The good kind of panic, like I can actually leave it all behind and not think twice.
“Anywhere in the world,” Gerry says. “London, Paris.” Her eyes meet mine and hold. “New York.”
I inhale sharply at her implication. I can’t go to New York. I’ve been humiliated enough.
“Think about it. You have the key to the apartment.” She walks off into the crowd, disappearing like a fairy godmother.
When I turned twenty-one, Gerry gave me an apartment in New York.
“In case you ever want to run away,” she’d said.
I’ve hung onto the key, at times forgetting it and other times gripping it in my hand like a lifeline. I watch my family withBeckett, laughing and chatting like he didn’t humiliate me and hurt me. They’re complete without me. Maybe it’s time for me to be courageous enough to find the thing which completes me.
CHAPTER 3
Killian
The colors are all wrong.
There is a sallowness to the skin, the eyes aren’t a bright enough grey, the hair is a dull, lifeless brown. All of them, all fifteen of them, are all wrong. The shape of the eyes, the nose, the mouth is either too wide or too small, too red or not red enough.
I should’ve never attempted this exercise in futility.
I set the palette down a little more roughly than necessary and the remaining yellow paint on it splatters on my hand. My lip curls in frustration and I get off my stool, walking to the sink in my studio to wash my hands.
Wiping my hand on a dish towel, I turn to look out at the East River through the windows. I’m supposed to be at work soon, I have a client coming in at noon for her final sitting.
Tossing the dish towel on the counter, I walk out of my studio and down the hall to my room. Pulling on a black t-shirt, I grab my phone, wallet, and keys before taking the stairs down to the main floor of the apartment.
My phone buzzes just as I’m locking my door and Eve’s name appears on the screen. She’s my employee, but mostimportantly, she’s my friend. The first friend I made in New York.
“I’m on my way,” I answer.
