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“Fuck you,” I snarl in his direction.
“She’s moving in here,” Carson says again, his tone brooking no argument. “Priss, don’t fucking argue, you hate being at the hotel, I hate you being at the hotel, we’re together so you’re moving in here with me.
My lips part and an argument fills my tongue, but no words come out as I scan the faces of the people in the room, ending with my sister. Tally’s eyes narrow a little and she looks from me to Carson and back again, before her lips tip up into a sly smile. “I think you moving onto The Escape with Carson is a great idea.”
“You do?” I cry.
“It’s perfect,” Tally says, flashing a conspiratorial grin at Carson, before turning her attention back to me. “Is that what you wanted to talk to us all about? You and Carson?”
“No,” I blurt, suddenly remembering why I planned this meeting to start off with, and how ridiculous it all sounds in the cold, rational light of day.
“So what did you want to talk to us about?” she asks.
“I wanted to talk to you about Mom and Dad,” I say quietly, feeling the tension build in the room just from the mention of our parents.
“What the fuck about them?” Arlo growls, pulling my sister into him protectively as if he can shelter her with his arms from whatever it is I plan on saying.
“God this all made so much more sense last night. It seems a bit ridiculous now,” I mutter, running my fingers through my hair, absentmindedly trying to make it smooth and perfect.
“Have they been in touch with you?” Tally asks.
“No. God no and I doubt they will,” I say quickly. “But last night I got thinking and really none of this seems fair.”
“Life isn’t fair. Please tell me we aren’t here so you could feel sorry for yourself,” Watson sneers, his lips twisted into an ugly line as he stares me down.
“Give it a rest Wats. She’s Tally’s sister, and Carson’s girl,” Olly says, his tone an unexpected warning.
“I get it Watson you think I deserve it and I’ll be the first to admit that everything I’m dealing with now is probably karma’s way of getting its own back on me for all the shitty things I’ve done the last few years. But I’m here trying to make amends, to put my life back together, now that my entire future has been changed,” I say.
“You saw how wrong things were and you started to put them right, constantly blaming yourself isn’t going to help anything,” Tally says, reminding us all why she’s the nice twin and I’m not.
“But that’s the thing,” I announce. “I was thinking that while we’re here trying to put our lives back together, they’ve got off scot free.”
“Who? Your parents?” Carson asks.
“Yes. We were kids when all this started. I’m not trying to say it was all them, but they coached me, they drilled those rules into me over and over so they were so ingrained I’ll never be able to forget them. Mom told me what to do, what to say, how to behave, she conditioned me to believe that all of our lives would be ruined if we didn’t play our part in securing all our futures,” I tell them, looking between the faces of the guys in the room, before moving back to my sister.
“They did it to me too,” Tally says, her voice quiet and meek. “They made me believe that if I stopped doing what they said, that we’d lose the money and it would all be my fault.”
“Exactly, and if we stepped out of line, they doled out the consequences.”
“They hit you too?” Carson growls, his voice hard and lethal.
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“They did other stuff, didn’t they?” Tally asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, wrapping my arm around myself.
“They starved you,” she utters. “And humiliated you and ignored you. I remember,” Tally breathes, her voice cracking as she covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh my god they did all of that and I never did anything, they did that for years.”
“I want revenge,” I shout, needing to silence her, to make her shut up about the things I don’t ever want to think about again. “It’s not fair that they just get to walk away from this. It’s not fair that they get to just pretend we don’t exist, that they weren’t as complicit in this as I was.”
“Carrigan,” Tally says moving toward me on wobbly legs.
“No,” I shriek, lifting up a hand to ward her away, to stop her from bringing all those memories down on me. “I want them to feel at least a little of what we felt. I want them to understand that they don’t get to just forget about us. I want revenge,” I cry through a broken sob.
“But they’re not here,” Olly says quietly.
