“I love you, Katie, you’re my daughter. I always loved you.”
And I couldn’t say it back. No matter how much I wanted to, no matter how much I wanted to believe him, wanted to believe I had a dad, and that that dad loved me, had always loved me. No matter how much my heart thumped in my chest and my stomach pained with all the hurt and all the forgotten dreams, I just couldn’t say it back.
I didn’t know him enough to love him.
Didn’t know him at all.
But maybe one day.
I wrapped my arms around my father’s shoulders, and I stayed there, just long enough to count.
And that would have to be enough.
For today.
The tears pricked again as I pulled up outside the Cheltenham office, and underneath them my thoughts were all fucked up. Sadness, and shock, and a glimmer of hope.
And anger. There was anger there.
Not at my mum, who’d done her best despite a few wrong calls. Not even at my dad, who’d let her down and made a few wrong calls of his own. Epic style.
My anger was at Verity.
The cold steely determination in my belly turned hot, and it spat and spluttered. Maybe if she hadn’t been so cruel. Maybe if she hadn’t made me feel so worthless, so unwelcome. Maybe then, I’d have been able to stay, just enough to get to know him, just enough to know he didn’t hate me.
Maybe things would have been different.
I sighed to myself. What did that really matter now?
I breathed out all my hurt, all my anger, breathed out all the bitterness and confusion, and fear. And what was left was me, just me, the same me I’d always been.
Except now I knew the truth.
Finally, after all this time, and all this hurt, I knew the truth.
Carl pulled me aside on my way in, but I shook my head.
“I’m alright,” I said, and brushed his hand from mine. “I’m good.”
“What did he say?”
“Lots,” I shrugged. “Nothing. Everything.”
“Want to go talk?” His eyes were so hard on mine.
I shook my head again. “I want to work, Carl. I need the headspace.”
He nodded. “Alright, Katie, whatever you want. I’m right here.”
“I know,” I said, and I did know.
I hammered the fuck out of my calls that afternoon. I was on a mission, consumed by nothing other than the desire to forget it all and fly high on the leaderboard. I chased up all my prospects, closed everything I could into an opportunity, and those leads clocked up for me. Even Ryan looked confused.
“Who put the steam in your kettle today?”
I shrugged. “Just my lucky day, I guess.”
He reached out to me, pretended to bathe in my glory. “I hope it’s contagious.”
“If this is luck, you’re welcome to it,” I said, and gave his arm a friendly slap.
I was making a coffee when Verity clacked her way into the kitchen behind me. My skin prickled. Wondering what she knew. Wondering what she’d heard. Wondering if she knew anything at all.
She appeared at my side, reached up for a coffee mug, and she was stewing, I could tell.
“Hey, Katie,” she said, like she ever made casual conversation. She turned around, leaned against the counter, looking anywhere but at me. “I know we don’t… speak.”
No shit.
“…but I just wanted to…” She sighed. “Good leads today. So many of them.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ve been meaning to say. For a while. You, uh, you sure know how to make those calls.”
I didn’t even know how to reply.
Her earrings sparkled under the florescent light, and so did her lip gloss. She was so preened, so perfect, so stylish and groomed and well-fucking-educated.
But she was nervous, a little bit hollow. She felt like glass. I could tell.
“Look, Katie, I, um…”
“You, um?”
She shot me a half smile, like she was crazy and she knew it.
“Ruth and Sharon and I are meeting up at Cheltenham Chase, before the event kicks off. I was wondering if you would… if you wanted to… I dunno… meet us? I have a spare trailer, if you…”
“I have my own trailer,” I said.
And she looked disappointed, like I’d lashed out and stamped on her olive branch. It felt so surreal.
She pinked up, and shrugged. But she wasn’t hostile. She didn’t attack.
“Ok,” she said. “Well, I guess we’ll see you there. Dad’s coming. Seb and Dommie, too. And Mum.”
I watched in silence as she made her coffee, dumbfounded beyond