by Rachel Shane
Sorry, Not Sorry
Copyright © 2017 Rachel Shane
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electrical or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Rachel Shane
Interior design and layout by Rachel Shane
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Fonts from TheHungryJpeg.com and Fontbundles.net
DEDICATION
To my friends, both curent and past:
Friendship fuels us.
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CHAPTER 1
POE
Poe Culliver stopped short at the sight of an unknown car blocking the driveway of her tiny house. Her little red house huddled in the shadows of two hulking mansions on either side. Other people were always stopping on the sidewalk to admire all four hundred square feet of cuteness, clutching their chests as if they were witnessing the most darling thing. Look at the tiny little shutters! Oh my gosh, the roof—I can practically put it in my pocket! But to Poe, it was four hundred feet of claustrophobia. The bathroom opened into the kitchen. She could hear her mother peeing while she scooped cereal into her mouth. The hallway doubled as a murphy bed for her mother, leaving no privacy at all. Poe’s bedroom was stuffed into the attic so tightly, she couldn’t sit upright while lying in bed.
And worse than anything—a tiny house meant tiny walls which meant no blockades for sounds that traveled. The kind of sounds that occurred in Poe’s mom’s downstairs bed whenever a new boyfriend paraded around.
Poe took one look at the car in the driveway and cursed under her breath for rushing home right after school let out. Now that the spring play was over, she had no reason to stick around and she couldn’t bring herself to linger in the empty hallways where she might run into her enemies. Even sitting among her theater friends at lunch, she felt like an outcast, as if she was an understudy thrust into the spotlight for a single performance only to be relegated backstage immediately after.
Poe considered turning right back around, but it was too late. The latest in her mom’s string of deadbeat boyfriends moseyed down the red-painted front steps and froze at the sight of her, as if he’d seen a ghost.
She shot him the best glare she could muster.
He continued to ogle her, unfazed, his blood shot eyes and lolling tongue doing all the talking. She hiked up her backpack and tried to tiptoe past him. Sometimes her mom picked good ones, but she could already tell this was not one of those times by the way he matched her movements, point for point, electric sliding to block her path. Cold panic climbed up her spine when his lips curled into a lazy smile.
“Well now,” he said, and Poe had to turn away in disgust at the stench of booze wafting from his breath. “Who do we have here?” The way he said it translated to: whom do we have here for me to fuck?
Bile rose to Poe’s throat. She tried to dodge around him but he stepped to the side and blocked her path again. “I’m seventeen.” She spit out the words, her fists curled at her sides with an urge to strike out against him. But the problem was, her words were lies, becoming ineffective two months ago when her eighteenth birthday robbed her of the most obvious form of self-defense.
On each of her hands she wore a ring she faced toward him. Fuck was engraved in the silver of her right hand, You on her left. It was a silent plea to stay the hell away from her.
He backed away, hands raised in the air as if he were surrendering to a crime. Poe let out a relieved breath and scrambled away, circling the little house into the even smaller backyard. She stood on the flat stone that counted as a deck with zero place to go, sucking in gulps of air.
Poe flicked through her phone, assessing her options. Option One: keying Asshole’s beat up Volvo and slashing the tires for good measure. But there was a chance the guy was too drunk to remember their encounter, Poe didn’t need to do anything to remind him. Option Two: do what she used to do in the past: find a guy to let her stay the night, no matter the cost, even when the price was her dignity and morals. But she’d vowed not to sink that low anymore. Option Three: go back to school and risk running into—
Nope. Not Option Three. No place that might remind her of her two ex-friends for longer than the span of breath it took to curse them under.
With a groan, she hiked up her school bag and decided on the Last Resort: hang out in a coffee shop until the Asshole left. She’d have to dip into her saved tuition funds to keep buying tea bags but at least there she wouldn’t be alone…and she could get homework done. Her skyrocketing grades were the only things that would actually get her out of this town. Even a college acceptance and a nice chunk of financial aide loans wouldn’t make her risk slacking off senioritis-style with the rest of her class.
Just as she tiptoed around the front, cringing when she noticed Jerkface’s car still parked, a Mercedes pulled into her driveway right behind his. For one split second, Poe let herself imagine this was her night in shining Armani, come to sweep her off her feet. Or at least a real estate agent coming to make them an offer they couldn’t refuse now that tiny homes seemed to be all the rage for the House Hunters set. Much to Poe’s surprise, a man in a suit did get out of the car, straightening his jacket and plucking a speck of lint off the front pocket. He was tall, and bald, and definitely in the wrong place. Poe started to brush past him, tilting her vision to the sun to burn the sight of him off her retinas. She might also have to burn away the sight of her mother for a few days too, until she could stomach looking at her again. Poe’s mother had a polyamorous view on love, in which she seemed to go by the slogan: the more the merrier.
The man cleared is throat. “Excuse me. Are you”—he glanced down at an envelope in his hands—”Poe Culliver?”
A man in a suit coming to see her? This couldn’t be good. She eyed him warily. “Why?”
The man let out a relieved breath, clearly taking her question as confirmation, and rubbed a hand over his shiny scalp. “Great, is your mother home? I’d like to talk to you both about, well, this.” He tapped the envelope.
Poe’s stomach sank through the floor, taking all her hopes with it. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good news, not if her mother was involved. “What is it?”
“It’s a legal document bequeathing—”
“I’m eighteen,” she said fast, the words feeling odd on her lips. It was the first time she’d ever used the truth as a door rather than a blockade.
“Oh.” The man squinted at the manila envelope in disdain, as if it had misinformed him. “I must have misread your birthday. Well, do you have a minute? We can go inside and—”
“Your office.” The words flew from her lips, and she forced herself to soften her voice to asking r
ather than begging levels. “I’d rather go to your office.”
“It’s a half hour away and—”
Poe whispered a polite, “Please.” She jiggled her keys and jutted her chin toward her car on the street. “I’ll meet you there.”
As she ambled to her car, she mentally calculated the cost of gas and almost turned right around and begged to ride in the stranger’s passenger seat. But this was a small price to pay for the one thing that was priceless to Poe: sanctuary.
His name turned out to be Mr. Goddard and his office was several towns over, located between two empty storefronts with FOR RENT signs out front in an otherwise dead strip mall. A few doors down stood a pizza parlor with a sign that continued to blink on and off like a fly buzzer, announcing and then taking back the name Pizza Guys. Only a few cars littered the lot, each parked deliberately far away from the others. The whole area gave Poe a distinct shiver. Only tumbleweed passing through would have completed the image.
But at least Mr. Goddard tried to make the best of it. A small, classy plaque hung on the door of his place in lieu of a large, flashy one. It read: Law offices of Goddard, Sullivan, and Winchester. Well, at least that seemed promising. The name gave off an air of sophistication, as if it was just a small branch of a big New York law firm.
Mr. Goddard huffed to fit his key into a sticky lock and banged his shoulder into the door a few times until it popped open, making him nearly trip from the force of it. An empty reception’s desk faced the entrance, bare except for the layer of dust coating the top. There wasn’t even a phone, just three closed doors ringing the desk from behind. Mr. Goddard traipsed over the ugly brown carpeting and gestured to the first door on his left, opening it for Poe but then changing his mind and slinking inside first to switch on the lights. The window shades were shut, giving the place a dark, dreary appearance and the lights didn’t seem to make much of a difference, too dim to be effective. A large Ikea desk hogged the attention of the room, filled with piles of papers. Wooden shelves lined the walls, stuffed to the brim with books stacked flat in piles rather than neatly arranged lengthwise. There were several old monitors and computer consoles stashed in the corner like an afterthought.
Poe stayed in the doorframe, nibbling her inner cheek. Maybe she would have been safer at home, or at least less claustrophobic compared to this place. “Where are Sullivan and Winchester?”
Mr. Goddard squinted at her as if this was his first time hearing those two names. But then he sucked in a breath, like he’d finally understood the punch line to a joke everyone had stopped laughing about two minutes ago. “No longer partners.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Come, sit. We have much to discuss.”
Poe’s fingers were stiff and trembling but she managed to coax her feet into motion the way she always did: by telling herself this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her. After all, nothing could be worse than Prom last year. She crossed through a beam of dust particles dancing in sunlight and settled into the uncomfortable chair. A wooden pole dug into her back, and she readjusted her position, leaning awkwardly to the left to avoid the world’s worst free back massage.
Mr. Goddard cleared away a stack of papers and pushed a packet of pages from the envelope toward her, narrating as she flipped through them. “What you see here is the Last Will and Testament of Mr. David Wallace Easterly.”
Poe found the name in question right there on the first page. She traced her finger over the foreign word, and she had the distinct experience of déjà vu to Spanish class, when a translation was just out of her reach, on the tip of her tongue but not clicking in her mind. “Who’s that?” she asked even though her real question was more like and how does he pertain to me?
Mr. Goddard’s mouth flopped open, and he rubbed his hand over his forehead. “Oh dear. I thought you knew.”
A jolt of panic rocketed through Poe’s torso and suddenly she was turning pages faster and faster, trying to find the answer to whatever Mr. Goddard was trying to tell her.
Mr. Goddard spoke very slowly. Cautiously. “Mr. David Wallace Easterly…well, you see…he’s your biological father.” He paused for a moment. “Was.”
Poe’s fingers froze on the pages, his words reverberating in her mind. Biological father. And then another set of words, robbing her of breath: Last Will and Testament. She pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead. I have a father. She wasn’t stupid, of course she had a father in a way kids are taught the sky is blue and cells divide. Penis + vagina + stupidity and poor timing = baby. It was an abstract concept, solving for X where X was an unknowable integer, something she accepted as being true but also having no bearing on her actual life. Once the components added up, the variables that went into the outcome no longer mattered. There was no partial credit on this test, only the final answer: herself.
I have a father named David Wallace Easterly. She rocked in place, feeling dizzy. I had a father named David Wallace Easterly.
She tried out the name that could have been hers but never was: Poe Alison Easterly. It tasted bitter on her lips.
A lump swooped up her esophagus and tightened her throat. Tears were not something she ever let herself indulge in but they pricked at the back of her eyes. This could have been her way out. But now that door was closed, too.
At the sound of her throat hitching, Mr. Easterly shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “If you turn to page fourteen, you’ll see Mr. Easterly bequeathed a large sum of money to you, Miss Culliver.”
Poe’s eyes bugged out at the number on the page: five hundred thousand dollars. Enough to start a life. Enough for college. Enough to move out of her mom’s place tonight if she could find something on such short notice. It was the second time today she was thankful she had already turned eighteen.
But then Poe’s eyes slipped to the next line in the document, where another five hundred thousand dollars was also bequeathed to someone named Valentina Cupo. She pointed at the page. “Who is that?”
He tugged at the collar of his shirt, not meeting her eyes. “Mr. Easterly’s other heir. His other daughter.”
The world seemed to tilt on its axis, Poe sliding right off the surface. She gripped the hard armrests to steady herself. Valentina Cupo. Her sister.
This morning Poe had no one. This afternoon she had both a father and a sister, one who cared enough about her to ensure her future, the other who may even be part of that future.
“I need her number.” Poe slapped her hands so hard on the wooden desk that Mr. Goddard jerked backward. “Um, please.”
Mr. Goddard loosened his tie. “Provision 9a on page 21 prohibits any contact between you and Mr. Easterly’s next of kin.”
Poe flipped faster, her heart racing until she saw exactly what the penalty was for violating this particular nuisance: losing the entire inheritance.
“Additionally,” Mr. Goddard said in a dry tone. “The stipulation from the original settlement also reinforces the ban on any contact between your family and Mr. Easterly’s. You’ll be required to pay back that sum as well for any violation.”
Poe pressed a cold palm to her forehead. “Original settlement?”
Mr. Goddard fumbled through the piles of papers on his desk before he slid a stapled packet over to Poe. Her eyes plucked out several words that made her want to vomit. Dated of six months after her birth. A clause demanding silence. One hundred thousand dollars in hush money. And two signatures: David Wallace Easterly. Ashley Culliver.
Poe’s breath came in shallow spurts. Her mother had signed her father away for far less than he was worth.
But she was never one to follow the rules. She had to find this Valentina. Even if it meant losing her inheritance.
When Poe returned to her house, the deadbeat car was gone, which likely meant the deadbeat man was gone too. Everything in her life was turning around.
She traipsed into the kitchen, her steps light like she was floating. I have a sister.
But her momentary elation dropped off a sharp
cliff. Her mother stood in the kitchen, humming to herself as a pot boiled on the stove. The scent of roasted tomatoes filled the room like an Italian bistro.
Ashley waved a sauce-covered spoon at her daughter. “I heard you met Larry!” Her giant smile indicated Larry’s version of events neglected to include any inappropriate passes he may have made. She sighed in a happy dreamy way. “Isn’t he amazing?”
“Amazing?” Poe scoffed, her hands curling into tight fists. “He had beer breath, a pot belly, and HE TRIED TO HIT ON ME.”
Ashley’s eyes widened and she stumbled backward into the stove, but there wasn’t any room to move, so her back hit the pot handle, knocking it over. Bubbling red sauce splashed onto the counter and the floor.
Her mother sniffled as she hopped out of the way, careening into Poe. “He seemed nice,” she said meekly, before brushing past her daughter and out the front door like a little kid running away when she didn’t get dessert.
Ashley was always like this, falling head over heels in lust the instant a new guy or girl spoke to her and then taking extreme offense whenever Poe dared to say anything negative about her new conquest. Sometimes Poe wondered which one of them was the actual teenager among them.
She stalked after Ashley, stepping over the mess. Her stomps echoed so loud it felt like the whole house shook. She wrenched open the front door and stormed the ten paces it took to reach the backyard.
Ashley huddled in the single lounge chair in the backyard, talking in hushed whimpers into her cell phone. Her eyes were glued to a squirrel scurrying up a tree so she didn’t have to look at the daughter she betrayed. Poe opened her mouth, ready to harangue Ashley about all the lies and secrets all these years. The words cued up on her tongue and they tasted vile, like food left out for too long that spoiled. A few years ago, Poe had asked Ashley about her dad and all Ashley offered was a vague, “Sorry Babe, I have no idea who he was,” as if for the past eighteen years, she’d wondered how that baby had gotten in her belly. The only info she ever provided was that he was a one-night stand after a concert and nothing more. No name. No number. No regrets.
