Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(99)
Mum’s mouth tightened. “Well, there’s always your father’s accountancy firm.”
Now Eve was truly appalled. “Accountancy? I can barely count!”
Mum narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be flip, Eve.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to count. And I don’t want my parents to hand me a job because I’m too useless to get one on my own. I’m not.”
“No,” Mum agreed, “just too feckless to stick with one. To do the hard work, after the excitement and glamour has faded. Too immature to be an adult. When are you going to grow up, Eve? I swear, it’s embarrassing—”
And there it was. Eve sucked in a breath and blinked back the hot tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. They were more shock than pain, like the tears that came with a banged elbow—but she shouldn’t be shocked at all, now, should she? Of course her parents saw her this way. Of course her parents thought she was an immature little brat. She’d never given anyone a reason to think she was anything else.
“I—I need to go,” she said, standing up quickly, her voice thick with tears. Embarrassing. She was so fucking embarrassing, crying like a baby because her mother had told her the truth, running away from everything because she wasn’t strong enough to cope with the pressure.
“Eve, darling,” Mum began, already sounding softer, full of regret. Next, she’d say, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, and everyone would decide that was enough for today, and the poor, delicate baby of the family would be let off the hook for a while because everyone knew Eve couldn’t handle difficult conversations.
No one in this family had any idea of the shit Eve could handle. No one. And while that wasn’t their fault, she suddenly resented them all for it. Every last one.
“Don’t worry,” she said sharply. “I’ve listened to everything you’ve said, and I’m taking it very seriously. I don’t need you to baby me anymore. I will deal with this on my own, and I will try not to disappoint or—or embarrass you in the process.” But now I need to go before I completely undermine myself by bursting into tears. She turned her back on her stricken parents and bolted.
CHAPTER TWO
It had taken Eve seven attempts to pass her driving test.
She was used to passing tests immediately and without much effort, but driving had proved unexpectedly difficult. Apparently, she had serious spatial awareness problems that had taken four years of weekly lessons to overcome. But driving was one of the few things Eve hadn’t ever given up on, because a license promised the sort of freedom that wouldn’t turn sour.
For example: the freedom to drive fast and aimless down abandoned country roads while blasting music at full volume. Her mood had taken a sharp turn, and Barbra would no longer do.
As she sped past turn after turn that would take her back to the main road—to the city, to her sisters—Eve debated the pros and cons of running to Chloe or Dani for help. What, exactly, would she say? Help, Mum and Dad have cruelly demanded I hold down a job and take on some adult responsibilities? Ha. Chloe, who was hideously blunt and who had overcome more difficulties in her thirty-something years than many people did in a lifetime, would tell Eve outright that she was being a pathetic brat. Dani, who was similarly blunt and absolutely addicted to hard work, had never and would never understand why Eve avoided committing to a profession. Or to anything.
Eve had told her parents she’d handle things herself, and she would. After she finished undoing the instinctive panic caused by this morning’s conversation.
She turned up the music and drove, until the sun faded behind gray clouds and pre-rain mist soaked into her skin through the open windows. It was so safe, in that music-pounding, rain-shielded, ever-moving bubble, that Eve drove for over two hours without even noticing.
Just when she was beginning to feel the first pangs of hunger, she caught sight of a sign that said skybriar: fifteen miles.
“Skybriar,” she murmured over the thrum of cleopatrick’s “hometown.” It sounded like a fairytale. Fairytales meant happily ever after. She took the turn.
Skybriar looked like a fairytale, too. Its main road unraveled down an impressive hill, with woods standing tall on either side of the pavement. It was the kind of deep and vivid greenery that looked like it must, by rights, contain pixies and toadstools and all the rest. The air through Eve’s open window tasted fresh and earthy and clean as she drove deeper into the town, past adorable, old-fashioned, stone-built houses and people in wellies walking well-behaved little dogs.
Another turn, taken at random, and she struck gold. Up ahead, guarded by a grand oak tree and fenced in by an old, low wall of moss-covered stone, was an impressive redbrick Victorian with a wine-red sign outside that read CASTELL COTTAGE. EXCELLENT ACCOMMODATION, DELICIOUS CUISINE.
She was feeling better already.
Actually, that was a categorical lie. But she would feel better, once she ate, and took a moment to think, and generally stopped her drama queen behavior.
Eve threw the car into the nearest sort-of parking space—well, it was an empty spot by the pavement, so it would do—and cut off her music. Then she slipped in an AirPod, chose a new song—“Shut Up and Groove,” Masego—to match her new determinedly positive mood, and pressed Play. Flipping down the car’s mirror, she dabbed at her red eyes and grimaced at her bare mouth. Her waist-length braids, lavender and brown, were still tied back in a bedtime knot. She set them free to spill over her shoulders, then rifled through her glove box and found a glittery, orange Chanel lip gloss.