Page 92 of The Man Upstairs

I was a different Rosie than the innocent, scared little girl she’d always known. The contrast in my own strength was enough to make my heart soar, despite the pain, and it was Julian who’d enabled that in me. I could have thanked him for all time, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

“You’ve been staying with him? Upstairs? This whole time?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah. Constantly.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know. It was so fucking obvious.”

I opted for more honesty. “You’ve been so busy dreaming up plans with Scottie that you didn’t give a shit where I was. If you had, maybe you’d have figured it out.”

“Stop it!” she said, but she didn’t deny it. She cursed to herself.

“Tell me it’s not true,” I pushed. “Go on. Tell me you’ve been thinking about me, really keen to know who Jenny is. I haven’t seen it. You haven’t even called.”

“I didn’t suspect a thing!”

My tears sprang up again, even through my strength.

“Scottie’s had you on puppet strings, just like usual. He’s been dangling you, lost to everything in the world but how fucking great he is.”

I saw the rage on her face at that.

“Scottie is a cunt. He’s dead to me now.”

I blew out a breath, not knowing whether to believe her or not.

“He is,” she went on. “He’s a cunt who should be strung up for what he did to you.”

“He’s a cunt who should be strung up even more for what he did to YOU.”

She didn’t shrug it off with ajust a temperorargumentscomeback. She nodded. She agreed with me. For once in my life, she actually agreed with me.

We stood in silence. I still had the door open, paused to leave. But I didn’t. I didn’t move my feet.

“Julian would have really killed him? He meant it?” Mum asked, finally, and there was just the faintest hint of approval in her eyes.

“Yeah, he would have. I’d bet my life on it.”

She was still leaning against the wall, and the silence between us was deafening, but it wasn’t horrible anymore. There was a sad closeness in it. And I dared to hope. I dared.

I risked it. I asked her.

“Will you get to know him? Can you accept me being in love with him?”

She was crying again. I saw her battle, and I got it. From the outside it would look horrendous, with all the gossip and bitching about him, and me being a young girl on the arm of someone three decades older than me, but I prayed she would try. I prayed she would at least give it a chance.

But she couldn’t. She took a breath before she answered me. My heart fell through the floor as I saw the hurt in her eyes.

“I can’t. I don’t want to speak to him, and I don’t want to see you with him, and nothing is ever going to change that. Not ever. He’s not your boyfriend, Rosie. He’s a guy who likes to play dirty games with vulnerable girls like you.” Her tears fell, but her jaw tightened. “Don’t go up there. Stay here with me. We’ll work things out, no Scottie, you don’t need the dirty prick upstairs.”

My jaw tightened too.

“I don’t need him, I want him because I love him. And if you can’t accept that…”

“I won’t accept that.”

My heart was swimming in the depths but I took hold of my suitcase again and my feet finally moved for me.

“You know where to find me if you change your mind,” I said and closed the door behind me.