Page 10 of The Secret
I shiver as I keep looking for a yellow light. Despite its pockets of trouble, Africa is the only place I feel safe. A sharp certainty flashes through me. I’ve got money saved—I’ve just got to survive through Christmas and then I can get out of here and go back there again.
4
DAN
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Iroll my shoulders as my father paces across the old, tiled floor of the farmhouse kitchen, my stomach sinking. There’s so little time before I’m back at college. My father stops abruptly and slams his fist down on the table. “You do your share of work on the farm!”
What?I’ve been milking since dawn.
“I’ve got two weeks before I go back to college!”
“A college I’m paying for!”
“And I’m straight into the final part of my thesis when I get back. I have a mountain of work.” My jaw tightens.
Sun burns down on the glowing wheatfields and distant hills outside the window. My father places his hands on the rough wood, red face looming over where I’m sitting and his voice drops, low and dangerous. “I could very easily stop paying, then you’d have to come back here and work full time.”
“I can work anywhere I like. I don’t have to work for you.”
His fist flashes out, and my head jerks back as pain blooms across my cheekbones.
“Don’t talk back to me, boy. I want you down in the fields with the thresher after you’ve finished that.” He gestures at the pile of lamb and couscous on the plate in front of me, then he turns on his heel and stomps out. The door of his study slams shut.
Jed’s standing with his arms folded against the wall, a smirk on his face. Sometimes I hate having an older brother.
“I can’t wait to see the last of this place.”
Jed shrugs. “You get into trouble because you don’t play his game.”
“You mean drinking twenty-four-seven and sleeping with any woman who’s willing?”
“Yeah, it’s a terrible life.”
I don’t get Jed’s willingness to be involved with my father’s nonsense. Day after day of grind on the farm whenever my father can be bothered to be here followed by wild nights of drinking, then disappearing off to the city.
“Who are you seeing tonight?”
“Samantha.”
Oh God. Samantha’s a scheming bitch. He doesn’t half pick them. “That still going well?”
He shakes his head at me. “She gives an awesome blowjob. You should try it some time. You know women flock around Dad. I can get any woman I want, anything I want in bed, and I do.”
“And Samantha’s happy with all these other women?”
He shrugs again. “She knows the score.”
My lip curls. “I’m not really interested in some meaningless fuck.”
Jed laughs. “Yeah, tell me you think it’s meaningless when your cock is in their mouth and you’re coming apart.”
The idiocy of their life. Burning through it like they’re never going to see a reckoning, like there’s never going to be a day of trouble. Do they even think about the people they’ve pissed off and fucked over?
Jed’s still chuckling. “My cautious fucking brother, just fucking live a little, okay?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I like what your ‘living a little’ entails. More like screwing everyone over,” I growl.
