Page 105 of Double or Nothing

Keeping the lovely artist life while I pop out a couple of kids to a guy who makes my skin crawl.

I laugh through the tears, and a passing man gives me a wary look, as though I’ve lost my mind.

Fine. I probably deserve it.

Maybe I am hysterical. Maybe I am the overly dramatic, immature failure Dad thinks I am. Maybe I should go home and throw some more paint at a canvas until my arms give out. That’s how I’d usually deal with it.

But no.

Not paint.

Not yet.

Something else is burning in me now.

Something with teeth, ready to savage me. A need that has me quaking with a different kind of emotion. A different kind of taste.

By the time I get home, I’m shaking.

The house is dark, save for the studio light I left on upstairs. I don’t go up immediately. I stand in the hallway, breathing hard, surrounded by my own clutter, my own mess, my own life. Paint on the banister. Shoes kicked off by the wall. A mug on the side table. A scarf hanging off the mirror.

Mine.

All mine.

Not lovely. Not acceptable of a stately Parker girl who should be keeping this place immaculate.

Mine.

Except it’s not mine. Not really. This place all belongs to Daddy Parker and his generous inheritance payouts. He’s the banker behind my paintbrush and the funds behind my freedom.

I climb the stairs slowly.

The three paintings are there waiting for me, just where I left them.

They glow under the studio lights, still too alive to be ignored. Red on the left. Purple at the centre. Yellow breaking through on the right. Gold fractures everywhere. Black lines bending.

I stare at it until my breathing changes.

It steadies me.

Then the true scale of Dad’s demand destroys me all over again.

Because my father would never understand this. Not really. He’d admire it if the right critic admired it first. He’d praise it if a sky-high purchase price came after. He’d call it powerful if someone else powerful told him it was.

But he would never understand that this is me. Alice. Soul Girl.

Not some pre-planned heiress.

Not the future Mrs Christopher Bastard Otley.

Me.

A buzz runs through my skin. Too many emotions crashing through my brain to think straight.

One thing I do know is that I don’t want to be here alone.

I don’t want to cry myself to sleep and wake up tomorrow ready to apologise for daring to stand up for my own womb.