Whatever that meant.
It felt as if none of what had already happened was true; as if we were three in a bubble and time stood still.
Here in James' room we were safe.
"...but there was one limitation," James continued to read. "The Little Mermaid would be in pain with every step she took. She would also foam at the mouth if the prince married the other woman he thought was his savior. The Little Mermaid did not care because she loved the Prince.
As payment for the potion, the mermaid demanded her voice. So she could not even tell the prince that it was she who had saved him."
It was only when the story ended that I realized Lu was already asleep
So James and I gently lifted her up and put her in his bed.
"I have to go home now," I said.
It was already half past six. If Mum had come out of the bedroom again and noticed we weren't there, she would certainly be worried.
Besides, maybe Dad had finally come home.
I would ask him what it all meant and then it was good when Lu was not there.
So I let her stay with James for now.
"Thanks," I said quietly as we stood downstairs by the front door
"You're welcome", he replied, hinting at a tentative smile that I returned.
I explained to him that I would be back in a moment and he promised to look after Lu for as long as I did.
You could always rely on him.
When I arrived home, the place in front of the garage was still empty.
Mom hadn't come out of the bedroom yet either.
But the bottle of wine that Uncle Matthew and Aunt Elizabeth had given her and Dad for their last wedding anniversary was missing.
It had always been in the display case above the TV and since we didn't have many decorative items, I noticed right away that it was no longer there.
Apparently Mom wasn't crying either, because it was very quiet in the house.
Just like it was this afternoon when I got back from the beach.
I knew it was wrong, but I didn't want to stay in that place.
So I cycled back and told James that Mom had allowed us to spend the night with him.
Had my best friend known the truth, he would have tried to convince me that it would be better to go home, and I didn't want to.
He took a lot of blankets from the living room and spread them out on the floor in his room.
Since Lu was now so stretched out that she took up the whole bed for herself, James and I lay down on the blankets.
At some point he stretched out his arm and I laid my head on top of it
Nobody saw, so I guess that was okay for once.
Our night's rest didn't last very long, because when James' father came home at about eleven o'clock and checked on him again, he discovered us.
He scolded us and insisted on calling our parents.
When no one answered the phone, we had to get into his car and take him to our house.
Mom answered after the fourth ring.
When she heard that we were going to spend the night at James' house without her permission, she got very angry.
We were both grounded and I was not even allowed to get my bike the next day - James brought it over in the morning.
I had seen him from the window and waved him over because I was not allowed to go downstairs. Mom could be pretty strict if she wanted to.
He waved back and drew a big question mark in the air, and I just shrugged my shoulders.
Then I had a brainstorm and wrote "house arrest" in capital letters on a piece of paper, which I then let sail out the window.
Because yelling would have been too loud, and Mom would have heard me.
James nodded and made an understanding face.
Then he did a strange dance that was supposed to be funny.
He just looked damn silly – so silly that I had to laugh out loud at the end and quickly put my hand over my mouth.
James waved again and I waved back and watched him, just like I had watched Dad when he disappeared on the horizon yesterday.
***
Dad didn't come back the next day and the day after that.
His cosmetics were missing in the bathroom and once Mom was downstairs in the kitchen, I took the opportunity and snuck into the master bedroom.
Dad's side of the closet was completely cleared out.
I knew then that he wouldn't be back so soon and I just couldn't believe it.
I had never questioned that Dad loved Lu and me.
He had always been a fantastic father.
The best you could ever imagine.
When I asked Mom about Dad, she just said she didn't know where he was and that he had abandoned his family.
Lu cried a lot, which made me even sadder.
But I pulled myself together so I could comfort her.
I suddenly understood why James hadn't cried for so long.
I suddenly had the feeling that I would never be able to cry again, because I had suppressed the tears so often that they seemed to be stuck somewhere in my body.
When I tried to do it alone in my room in the evening, because I wanted to get rid of this oppressive feeling in my chest, nothing happened.
Less than two weeks later Mom introduced us to her new boyfriend.
I was surprised how she had found a new man so quickly, since she hardly ever went out.
Besides, I didn't want her to replace Dad, because I still expected him to come back at any moment.
Maybe he just needed a break.
The thought of Dad taking a vacation from us, his family, hurt, but it was much more bearable than accepting the fact that he had left us forever and would never return.
A month later, we moved into Mom's new friend Bill's villa.
Bill was quite rich. He had three cars that looked shiny and expensive and his villa had a kidney-shaped XXL pool and two servants.
Mom said she met Bill while shopping, which I found hard to believe because Bill never did his own shopping.
They were married two months later.
Lu got used to him faster than I did.
At least it seemed so, and I assumed that Bill owned a big ranch with six racehorses made things a lot easier for her.
Now that we lived on the other side of Vancouver, James and I saw each other almost exclusively at school.
Mom had once been persuaded to pick him up and once more he had come to us by bike. Both turned out to be highly impractical in the long run.
First, because Mom made it very clear to me that she would not make this exception again.
And secondly, because it took a total of four hours by bike to get from James' house to our new villa and back.
There was also no bus, and although Bill was rolling in money, he wouldn't give me one for a taxi ride.
At first I was angry about it and sad, but then I wasn't like that anymore.
At some point I began to get used to the new situation.
Externally, my life had become much more pleasant – we always had fruit and vegetables on the table, got new clothes all the time and Mom didn't worry that the electricity could be turned off.
Inside, however, everything increasingly felt as if I was a fish living in an aquarium behind a thick window.
My chest didn't hurt as much anymore, but I didn't feel other things as strongly.
I seldom laughed and when I did not laugh properly.
Like I had always done with James. Or with Dad.
That was probably the only good thing about not seeing James so much anymore: I thought less about my father. And that was good.
At some point during that time, the first year after Mom's wedding and the absolute certainty that Dad would not return, my heart had taken an irreversible damage.
But it wasn't until much later that I realized that.
Who doesn't like literature?
Some years later…
"T-H-O-R-N!!!", we chanted in unison and
formed the individual letters with our bodies as if we were cheerleaders.
Everyone except Madox.
He was one of us, one of the P-Fiends - the privileged devils of Thorn Elite College - and that was the only reason why he enjoyed rowing competitions.
But he made no secret of his disapproval of the yelling and cheering.
Nor did he stand up clapping when our boys won the gold medal, as they do every semester.
Madox's family was among the wealthiest in Canada, as were ours.
In Vancouver, the richest of the rich stuck together.
Our parents were all members of the Vice Country Club, whose monthly dues were so obscenely high that other families could have lived on them for a year and paid their rent.
The Thorn regularly participated in a rowing competition at the start of the new semester, where the best sixteen colleges in the country competed against each other.
I liked the competitions. While cheering and cheering together, I always felt a connection with others that I missed in everyday life.
Moreover, Benji and Rash had been part of the rowing school team since the first year when all five of us were accepted at Thorn.
Together with Madox, whose rebellious nature harmonized beautifully with the equally stubborn Sky, they were the kings of the college.
All students had respect and esteem for them - they feared them.
And I was their queen.
Oh yes - and Sky too, of course!
However, she considered herself morally superior, which is why she would never call herself that.
But that didn't change the fact that it was true.
Her family was worth billions, and her hippie clothes, which she bought - who knows why the hell - in second-hand shops, couldn't hide it either.
The fact that she drove Porsche despite her efforts not to appear snobbish was simply ridiculous. But I kept that to myself.
We were sitting in the top row - always reserved for us - when the drums sounded and our team was called to the grandstand to say a few words to the spectators before the start of the competition.
The honour of speaking was always due to the team that had won the competition the previous semester.
Since Benji and Rash joined in, the Thorn had won twice in a row.
I wasn't surprised, because both were competitive athletes from an early age and trained hard to push themselves and their bodies to their limits through ever new challenges.
Rash's parents had immigrated to Canada when he was three or four years old.
They owned an oil empire and countless hotels in Dubai, their home.
Rash, whose real name was Rashid Noel Stone, was practically forced by his producers to integrate through sport.
It's hard to say whether this was a good or bad educational method. In any case, Rash was a first-class tennis player, rower and boxer.
The latter to the chagrin of his parents, because boxing fights were not exactly good manners in our circles.
By changing their last name - along with the billions they had in their accounts - Rash's family had created the ideal conditions for acceptance into the Vice Country Club.
Unlike Rash, who seemed to actually enjoy excessive exercise, none of the rest of us at P-Fiends could say why Benji did this to himself.
And in his case "did" was exactly the right word!
He could do anything: from golf to tennis, from martial arts to rowing.
Benjamin King was the best - at everything he did.
Sometimes, however, it seemed that he regularly overexerted himself simply because he was punishing himself for something.
Or because he liked pain, at least that was Skys theory.
He was attractive as hell, but as long as I knew him, there had never been a girl who was good enough for him.
So an impressive appearance and well-defined muscles to impress the ladies could not be the driving force behind his exaggerated inclination for sports activities.
Moreover, his face, like the rest of his posture, always radiated deep frustration and anger.
Sometimes he even scared me - even though we were close friends.
As in the year before, it was Benji who stepped in front of the microphone.
The blue and gold uniform - the heraldic colours of the Thorn - suited him and Rash particularly well.
Both had dark hair, with Rash's hair more black and Benji's more brown.
"Thorn College welcomes all participants and spectators at the start of term," he said in a low voice.
His eyes were blank and cold.
After he had played the rehearsed welcome speech, which corresponded to the original tone of Director Campbell, he concluded with the words: "May the competitions begin!".
The students in the stands jumped off their benches and clapped loudly. First and foremost the female spectators, who adored Benji as if he was dark-haired Thor (and it wasn't that far-fetched, except that he didn't have a hammer in his hand and had shorter hair).
The fact that his parents practically owned and therefore ruled Vancouver played only a minor role.
I took a look at Madox. He was about to put a joint between his teeth.
"Are you crazy?" Sky hisses and knocks the joint out of his hand.
Madox, his hair falling lightly on his face, sparkled angrily at her from his brown eyes. In a flash, he grabbed Sky by the wrist and pulled her towards him.
"How dare you?" he growled as he stabbed her with his eyes.
"Don't make trouble on the first day of the new semester! What are you doing?!", Sky snapped at him as if she had a right to do so.
I knew she went to bed with him from time to time, but it was nothing more than a fleeting affair and Madox Hanson was not someone you could tell.
"One, nobody cares," he said with clenched teeth. "Two, are you my mother now? Because if you are, we've got a big problem tonight. He pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek - which was supposed to be a charming reference to blowing.
"Oh, God," I whispered and rolled my eyes.
Madox could be a real asshole.
But the rest of us weren't exactly sunshine either.
Except for Sky, of course.
But she too had a dark side - we all knew that - no matter how hard she tried to hide it.
Why she was fucking Madox, of all people, was beyond me, apart from the obvious.
There was something pseudo-anarchistic about the two of them and they looked incredibly good ... but was there anything else that connected them?
"Who is that?" I heard my archenemy Chloe Clarice Bell asking a bank below us.
She pointed to the new coach of our rowing team.
It was said that three weeks ago, Walter Lam had left his wife and run off with a stripper.
The rumour mill in Vancouver was simmering away non-stop - especially the one at the Vice Country Club.
However, I thought the news I had heard from Abigale Clark during the holidays was highly unlikely.
Walter had been a respected member of the club.
He was not nearly as rich as one of us P-Fiends, but he was not in a bad way.
He and his wife were somewhat respected; they had several villas and owned Strokes - the only decent bar in town.
Considering that his wife was the one with the coal, I could not imagine that Walter had given up everything and preferred a life in poverty.
Surely his wife, like all smart rich people, had made a prenuptial agreement with him.
"His name is Logan Edwards," explained Melissa Trembley, Chloe's better half.
I couldn't stand either of them, but Chloe in particular was a thorn in my side.
She was in my year and had been the only intern in the environmental department at Xantec since our student career began.
Xantec Industries was a Canadian publicly traded general contractor that was responsible for the design and construction of infrastructure projects and facilities.
I had been drea
ming of working there for years.
Mainly because - unlike the rest of the P-Fiends - I wanted to stay in Vancouver after graduation.
Madox, Sky, Rash and Benji, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get as far away from here as possible.
I couldn't understand that at all, especially as far as Benji was concerned.
There was no better place in the world for me!
(Which probably had something to do with the fact that I had a hard time dealing with new situations).
Anyway, I had big plans for Vancouver, mainly concerning the expansion of aquarium landscapes and the protection of endangered animal and plant species.
Xantec was the only serious company around that had the financial resources to really make a difference.
I had politely asked Chloe Clarice Bell last year to leave the position. As far as I knew, she wasn't even that interested in the environment. She was always using disposable products and I had never seen her at the annual beach cleanup.
The only reason she blocked the job was because she was screwing Jackson Roy, the head of Xantec's environmental department.
He was good-looking, there's no denying that. But that didn't justify her ruining my future.
This semester, I made it my mission to knock Chloe off her high horse.
I was gonna get that internship, no matter what.
Xantec had a reputation for only hiring students after graduation if they had previously completed a successful internship for at least a year.
Of course, I could have applied for one of the other four areas - but they didn't appeal to me.
I didn't want to waste several years of my life on something I didn't enjoy, only to end up, with a bit of luck, in the department I was passionate about.
I wanted to be in the environment department - right from the start!
After unsuccessfully asking Chloe to make room, I would now bring in other guns!
Little Miss Perfect would have to dress warmly, that much was clear.
The plan I had to get what I wanted was sinister.
But the way I saw it, I had no choice but to go through with it.
She had asked for it.
I still had my sights set on Chloe and her garrulous bosom friend Melissa.
They, on the other hand, were focused on the fit, dark blond guy that Melissa had just identified as Logan.
Vicious Bet: Don't fall in love! (Sinners and Saints Book 1) Page 3
