The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,117

why I felt so awkward around him.

After breakfast and prayers, I trotted off to see Fi.

‘Good morning, Electra. How are you feeling today?’

‘Lighter,’ I replied. Because it was true.

‘That’s great news. Want to talk about it some more?’

‘I . . . I’m confused.’

‘What about?’

‘I just met someone in here and he’s black and he talked to me the other night about prejudice. And I think that those girls might have been mean to me because I am. Black, that is.’

‘And you’d never thought that before?’

‘No, I honestly hadn’t. Call me naive, but I’m just me: Electra the supermodel.’

‘Exactly. Do you think that who you are is in any way defined by your racial origins?’

‘No, but when I was running this morning, I was thinking that some human beings define others by the colour of their skin.’ I looked up at her. ‘Do you think they do?’

‘Off the record, of course they do. We’re tribal animals, culturally. The more enlightened can move on, but . . .’

‘Many can’t,’ I sighed. ‘But I’ve hardly suffered, have I? My face and body have been my fortune, not my downfall.’

‘But, Electra, surely you can see that you have suffered?’

‘How?’

‘Because of what happened to you at school. Whatever the reason for it – and it’s almost certainly a mixture of things – that event has shaped the course of your life ever since. Can you see how it has?’

‘Yeah, I suppose I can. It made me stop trusting people and . . .’

‘Go on,’ Fi encouraged me.

‘So I suppose, if you lose your trust in human nature, it makes you feel alone. I’ve felt alone ever since. Yup,’ I nodded as I thought about it some more. ‘I have.’

‘We talked about no man or woman being an island a couple of days ago, didn’t we? And that is where you were, on your island. How do you feel now?’

‘Better,’ I shrugged, ‘less alone. I’ve made . . . well, I think I’ve made a friend in one of the women here. A real friend.’

‘That’s great news, Electra. And do you feel comfortable with her joining you on your island?’ Fi smiled.

‘Yeah, if you put it like that, I do,’ I said, thinking of Lizzie reaching out her hand to me yesterday. ‘You know, I’m also angry about the fact that I let those girls stop me getting my school qualifications. I could have made Pa proud.’

‘Do you not think he was proud of you for what you achieved as a model?’

‘He said he was, but I just got lucky; I was born with this face and body. It doesn’t take brains to appear in an ad campaign, does it?’

‘I’ve had a number of well-known models sit right where you’re sitting and many of them have said exactly the same as you. Yet from the little I know about it, it sounds like a gruelling job, with the added complication of fame and money at a very young age. You’ve mentioned the fact that you feel you let your father down on a number of occasions. Is that because you feel on some level ashamed of what you do?’

‘Maybe. I hate the thought of anyone – especially Pa – thinking I’m dumb. I was doing well at my studies before I moved to boarding school and the . . . thing happened. And now I can’t tell Pa why everything changed, because he’s dead.’

‘Are you angry about that?’

‘You mean am I angry that he’s dead? Yup, I guess I am. We didn’t get along so well in the past few years, to be honest. I didn’t go home so much.’

‘You were avoiding him?’

‘Yeah, I was. And then the last time I saw him was in New York. I was . . . well, out of it. I can’t remember much, apart from the look on his face as we said goodbye. It was like’ – I gulped – ‘pure disappointment. And a few weeks later, he was dead.’

‘You told me he died last summer. Which was also the time when your substance and alcohol abuse became more frequent. Do you think these two are linked?’

‘For sure. I didn’t want to feel sad that he’d gone – anger felt better. But’ – I gave a sudden choke as I felt the lump in my throat again – ‘I miss him, I miss him so much. Oh shit!’ It was tissue-ville again, big time. ‘He was like my person, you know? Like, the one human being that I