Page 84 of Bad Influence
Eve’s phone buzzes with a reminder about her next client and she rushes off to prep her station. I drink the rest of my coffee and throw the cup in the trash. Caroline sets her purse on the counter, looking at me with a pout.
“Are you upset?”
I look at her in question. “No. Why would I be upset?”
She chews on her bottom lip, frowning as she looks down at the counter, tracing a whorl in the wood. “Because I got the job.”
I set down the sketchbook and walk around the counter to stand in front of her.
“Why would that upset me, Caroline?” I ask softly.
“Because…” she falters, her eyes lifting to meet mine. I hate the hesitation and questions I see in them. The self-doubt which eats at her and makes her think she’s somehow not enough.
“Because it means you’re independent?” I guess.
“When I wanted to get a job at another firm after school, everyone told me I should be happy that I have a job waiting for me at our family’s firm and I was being ungrateful by rejecting it.” Sighing deeply, Caroline pushes her hair behind her ear. It’s soft and shiny because she spent an hour blow drying it to perfection this morning.
“You realize it was just a way to control you?” I ask, keeping my voice low. If she hasn’t realized it yet, I don’t want the realization to offend her or scare her.
Caroline lifts her eyes to mine. “The saddest part is I let them control me because I thought it would make me worthy.”
There’s this despondency to her voice which makes me want to pull her into a hug, kiss her, remind her that she’s worthy of everything and always has been. I don’t, only because I don’t want to push her into anything. She just got out of a relationship--which might have been planned for her, but it was one she was going to spend the rest of her life in. I doubt she wants to jump into another one right away.
Instead, I reach for her hand because I have to touch her.
“Caroline, I’m going to tell you something you probablyalready know,” I say. “If someone can’t accept you for who you are, that doesn’t mean you need to change for them. It just means you need better people in your life. People who will understand you for who you are. Love and respect the person you are now and the person you will grow into. They don’t want you to change. They want to grow with you.”
Caroline squeezes my hand, her eyes softening. She inhales deeply and exhales slowly.
“Can I be upset with you for leaving when I really needed you? I know we barely talked because I was too shy to approach you, but I always felt like you were the only person who understood me. You didn’t want to be there anymore than I did.”
“I asked you to come with me,” I remind her.
I still think about that night, standing outside on the lawn of our parent’s club, the grass wet beneath our feet, the smell of rain in the air. Caroline was wearing an ice blue dress, her hair straightened to perfection, shivering without a coat because she rushed out in a hurry.
“I was twenty-two, Killian,” she says, her eyes sparking with anger. “I’m sorry if running away without a solid plan didn’t seem like a good idea to me. Now I think I should have said yes.”
“There are some things you need to realize on your own,” I say. “The guilt would have made you miserable, you would have returned home, and everything would have been worse than it was.”
Caroline drops my hand, reaching for her purse. “I hate when you’re sensible. I’m going home.”
I look at the clock behind the counter. I don’t have a client for another thirty minutes.
“I can walk with you,” I offer.
Caroline rolls her eyes. “You heard Eve. I’m never going to be a real New Yorker if I take the easy way out. Besides, I have a job now, which means I need to know how to get to and from thecity on my own. How am I going to do that if you insist on dropping me home?”
Blowing me a kiss, she walks out of the shop just as Eve’s client walks in. There’s nothing I can do other than let her go home on her own. Following her is an option but I can’t stoop that low.
Something falls in Caroline’s room and I look up from the pepper I’m slicing. Her door opens and she pokes her head out. “I’m okay!”
The door closes with a thud and I stare at it for a moment in confusion before going back to slicing the pepper. Which reminds me, “Do you have pepper spray?”
“Why do I need pepper spray?” Caroline asks from behind her door.
“Because you’re going club hopping and you’ll be surrounded by a bunch of drunken, handsy people?”
I’m going to make myself gray just thinking about her out there. Eve and Lilith will be with her so she won’t be alone. But what if someone slips something into her drink while they’re not looking? What if some drunk asshole tries to put his hands on her?
