Page 89 of Outlier

All I had was my professional life.

So here I was, sitting in my car outside their house, an entire twenty-one minutes and thirty-two seconds late for the planned meeting. I’d been promised no Darrell and a de-escalation in their harassment if I met with them today. I wasn’t too sure whether to believe them or not, but Darrell’s car wasn’t here, and I’d checked all the streets nearby as well.

“It’s safe,” I whispered to myself as I closed my eyes. “You’re safe. You can do this.”

I startled at the loud banging on my window, and my eyes flew open to see Mum frowning at me.

“Are you coming in or what?” she said, taking a step back from the car and crossing her arms over her chest defensively.

I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly before I forced myself to open my car door.

Eat the frog, Margot would say.Get the bad stuff done early, don’t put it off.

As I followed Mum to the house, I kept doing the breathing exercises Abdul had taught me. Abdul would not be happy that I was here today. He wholeheartedly agreed with Mike and the others that I shouldnothave contact with my family.

“I rarely recommend ongoing estrangement, Vicky,” he’d said last week. “But I’ve also rarely come across people as despicable as your mother and sister.”

So no, Abdul wouldn’t think this was a good idea. And if I was insisting on going, he definitely would want me to take Ollie or Felix or somebody with me. Prior to the Margot investment revelation, he would have also suggested Mike, but now, he seemed almost as disappointed in Mike as I was. He even called him afucking idiotin one of his rare breaks of professionalism.

But, whilst I believed Ollie, Claire and Margot when they insisted that they thought of me as family, I still knew that whatever they said, I needed to be a low-maintenance member of that family. I’d already created an unacceptable amount of drama this month; I didn’t need to add to it by dragging them more into my mess.

I felt my heart sink as we walked through all the clutter into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Rebecca said in a low voice from her position sitting at the kitchen table with all the dirty cups and plates stacked in front of her.

“Hey,” I said cautiously.

Rebecca was not in her standard designer outfit. In fact, she wasn’t even wearing make-up, and there were dark circles under her eyes. “Where’s your dad?” I asked her.

Mum narrowed her eyes at me. “Gareth’s none of your bloody business,” she snapped. “You’re notGareth’sdaughter.”

I shrugged. That was factually accurate, after all.

“Okay, well what do you want?” I said, keeping my tone neutral.

“Drop the charges against Darrell,” Mum said, her voice rising in anger.

I really wanted to reach up and cover my ears, but I knew they’d call me a freak for doing it.

“I can’t do that,” I told her the truth. “I’ve already made my statements to the police.”

“He was just joking around, Vicky,” Mum said. “Who the hell goes to the police after a simple prank?”

I tilted my head to the side as I stared at Mum. “He hurt me,” I said quietly.

Mum rolled her eyes as Rebecca seemed to sink down further into her chair. I was surprised that she didn’t want to shout at me as well. “You were always too bloody sensitive. Just drop this. It’s your word against his anyway.”

I shook my head. “There were witnesses.”

“One witness,” spat Mum. “And you’re fucking him, so he should be pretty easy to silence.”

“Mum,” Rebecca cut in, standing up from her seat at the kitchen table. “Can you please stop saying––”

“I’m not fucking him,” I said simply, cutting Rebecca off.

“Bored with you already, is he?” sneered Mum. “Iknewhe was being paid to be with you.” My face drained of colour, and I took a step back.

How could shepossiblyknow that?