Fighting to be Free by Kirsty Moseley (40 page)

She winced. “My finals?”

I shook my head. “You have nothing to worry about there, you’ll ace them all, I have every confidence in you.”

“Aww,” she murmured, looking at me like I was the cutest puppy in the world. “Well, what then?”

I kissed the tip of her nose. “What clothes you’re gonna pack for our yearlong trek around the world,” I teased.

She made a little squealing sound and bounced on the spot, making her chest rub against mine, driving me insane. “Oh God, don’t even get me started on that. I’m already way too excited and we have to wait a whole two months. Plus, we have to break it to my mom first too. I have a feeling she’s gonna freak out and tell me I can’t go or something,” she said, frowning. “I can see big fights happening in our near future.”

I grinned and nodded to the restaurant. “Okay, I’m up for a fight, as long as I get to eat some egg rolls first.”

She grinned and kissed me fiercely before pulling back and immediately starting to gush and plan out all the places we could go to as she tugged me into the restaurant. I just let her talk my ear off about it all night. The more excited she got about it, the more excited it made me. Seeing her so happy made my heart physically ache.

~ Ellie ~

His hand was too tight in mine, making my fingers go a little numb. I squeezed gently and winced in his direction, nodding towards our intertwined hands, silently telling him to chill. Jamie smiled apologetically and loosened his death grip, moving my hand into his lap, rubbing the back of it with his thumb.

My gaze flicked up to my parents who were sitting opposite us on the other sofa. Both of them looked shocked, my mom’s shock was mingled with horror, my dad’s with worry.

“So let me get this straight. When you finish school, you two are planning on travelling the world.

That’s what you just said, right?” my mom asked incredulously.

I nodded in confirmation, trying to appear confident even though she looked like she was three seconds away from throwing me in the cellar and changing my name to Lily like I’d read in a novel once. Admittedly, we didn’t have a cellar, but judging by angry look that was etched on her face she was probably considering having one built if it would stop me leaving with Jamie.

Be confident, Ellie! “Yeah, for a year. Or, well, until we’ve had enough and want to come home, but a year will be the maximum so that I can go to school next year.”

She made an angry little scoffing noise in the back of her throat. My dad sat back, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve always wanted to travel,” he mused.

My mom gasped and slapped his chest with the back of her hand, her eyes flashing with anger.

“Michael, we’re
not
allowing this!” she cried.

My dad cocked his head to the side looking at her, an amused smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he spoke, “Ellie has your spirit and fight, Ruth, you really think that we’d be able to stop her from going? She’s an adult now; she can do what she wants.” His expression was adoring as he spoke, like he truly admired her spirit.

I almost choked on air. I was
nothing
like her, she was a bitch!

“Michael, seriously? You can stop this! Don’t you think it’s about time you stepped up and behaved more like a father should?” she snapped.

He raised one eyebrow, his shoulders stiffening. “Don’t even think about questioning my parenting skills. You know I love my girls, all three of you. Just because I don’t rule with an iron fist like you do, doesn’t mean I’m not a good parent!” he practically growled. “You of all people should know what it feels like to be repressed by a parent, yet you’re doing the same thing now.”

Whoa. Go, Dad! Dad one, Mom zero.

She frowned at him but pouted at the same time. I saw the anger fade him his face as he reached out a hand and placed it on her knee, squeezing gently. “I know you want the best for her, but what you need to realise, Ruth, is that sometimes the best things come from unexpected places,” he continued. “Happiness was all that mattered to us at their age, so you can’t begrudge Ellie the same thing.”

She pouted some more and I watched her curiously, wondering what he meant about having a repressive parent. My maternal grandparents lived on the other side of the country; we didn’t see them very often. I guess, thinking about it now, my mother never really relaxed when we went there. She always had to check and recheck her make-up, fussing over me and Kelsey to make sure we looked the appropriate amount of respectable before she knocked on their front door. My maternal grandfather was a little strict, quiet, reserved even. Had he been controlling to her when she was younger? Maybe it was a learned behaviour and she was the way she was because of him and her upbringing.

My dad turned back to look at me and Jamie as we silently watched the exchange between them with interest. I’d only ever seen my dad stand up to my mom a few times in my life, but each time she always stopped immediately when he used that tone of voice that he’d just used. Maybe he carefully picked his battles with her so he could have an easier life, or maybe, knowing my dad, he just liked to let her have what she wanted.

“So, how are you planning on paying for this trip?” he asked.

“Grandad’s inheritance money,” I answered at the exact same time that Jamie said, “I have enough money saved up.”

I turned and looked at Jamie with one eyebrow raised; we’d spoken about this before. I didn’t want him to pay for us with his illegal money, mainly because I hated that money, that money put Jamie in harm’s way all the time. I would rather he had nothing at all, as opposed to the money he’d told me he had sitting in his bank account. He smiled sheepishly at me and I felt the involuntary smile creep onto my face too because I just had to smile back at him, it was like an unstoppable reaction around Jamie, I just
had
to smile.

My dad nodded, pursing his lips. “Okay, so Jamie can pay for himself, and you’re planning on using the money my dad left for you in his will, Ellie,” he clarified. I nodded, hoping he’s go for it. “What about when the money runs out? It won’t last a year, not even close.”

“Then we’ll get jobs or something,” I replied. Jamie made a little strangled noise from next to me, like he was going to speak. I squeezed his hand, telling him to shh. I knew what he was thinking - he was thinking that he had enough money to pay for us both for a year, without jobs.

My dad nodded thoughtfully, looking at Jamie curiously. The silence was turning uncomfortable as he seemed to be assessing Jamie’s aura or something. “I can trust you to look after her, can’t I?” he said finally.

Jamie’s hand left mine, his arm snaking around my shoulder possessively. “Absolutely. No worries there at all,” he confirmed confidently.

My dad stroked his chin, seeming to ponder it for a few seconds. All three of us watched him - my mom included. “Okay, we’ll allow it,” he agreed.

Happiness exploded inside me and I couldn’t help but squeal with excitement.

My mom gasped, looking at him with wide eyes. “Oh no! No chance, it’s not-”

My dad cut her off quickly, his voice resonating with that firm tone that he’d used earlier. “I said we’ll allow it, Ruth.”

Make that Dad two, Mom zero!

Her mouth snapped shut, her teeth clicking together from the force of it. When no more protests left her lips, my dad smiled and bent forwards kissing her softly. “She’ll be fine with Jamie,” he whispered as he pulled back, cupping the side of her face with one hand. “You need to let go of her sometime.”

I knew I should respect their soft and tender moment, but I was just too damn excited to sit still for a second longer. I sprung from the sofa, literally doing a little happy dance as I fist pumped the air.

My years of being a cheerleader wanted to surface in me as I struggled not to do a fully-fledged cheer routine in the middle of my lounge, including backflips and the splits.

“Oh God, this is gonna be awesome!” I practically screamed.

Jamie laughed and gripped my hips and pulling me down into his lap. I giggled excitedly and looked up at his face. He was grinning ecstatically, his eyes sparkling with happiness as he bent forward and kissed the tip of my nose. That was a lot easier than either of us expected. Jamie had been dreading telling my parents for the last two weeks since we’d first come up with the idea.

“Now all we have to do is plan out where you want to go,” he said, stroking the side of my face.

“New Zealand.” We both looked up, shocked because that answer had come from my mom. She smiled weakly, gripping my dad’s hand tightly, seeming to need the support. “New Zealand is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go to. Maybe you could go there and send me some photos?” she continued.

I smiled at her. That was obviously a big thing for her to concede on and I needed to appreciate the gesture appropriately. “Sure. Maybe we could look on Google later and you could show me some of the things that you wanted to see,” I suggested, not really knowing how to connect with the woman after all this time of her being a standoffish parent.

She gulped and smiled a pained smile as she nodded. I could see how much effort it took for her to let me go. Maybe all the time that I’d resented her controlling, bitchy nature, she’d actually been struggling to show me how she felt? Maybe control was how she showed affection? Who knows, either way I was getting to go travelling with Jamie, so I didn’t really care
how
that came about.

…............................

As I lay on my bed, combing through my books, trying to revise for my biology final, my little sister Kelsey, lay next to me cutting out pictures of places that I wanted to go to.

“Tag ma hall? What’s that?” she asked, frowning at my list of things I needed to see.

I laughed at her pronunciation of it and looked down at her. I was actually really going to miss her.

"Taj Mahal," I corrected. “It’s a building. An Emperor had it built in memory of his wife that died.

It’s a mausoleum,” I explained.

Confusion crossed her face. “What’s a mausoleum?”

“It’s like a resting place for the dead. Her body is inside the Taj Mahal,” I replied, flicking through one of the travel brochures and finding a picture to show her.

“So it’s basically like a grave?” she asked, turning her nose up.

I smiled and shrugged. “Kind of. But it’s also a symbol of the love that the Emperor had for his wife. It took over twenty years to build. I would love for a guy to be that in love with me that he would do that,” I cooed, raking my eyes over the picture of it on the page.

Kelsey nudged her shoulder against mine. “Jamie loves you that much.”

I felt the blush creep onto my cheeks as my stomach fluttered at the mere mention of his name.

“Maybe,” I confirmed.

She nodded confidently. “He does. He’s taking you to all of these places so he must love you a lot.”

I grinned. Kelsey adored Jamie. He was great with her too, playing games with her, buying her candy and magazines, listening to her ramble on about school and never once showing he was bored.

“He does,” I agreed. I still had no idea why he loved me but I knew he did. I was fed up with questioning why - a person could waste years pondering things like that but in the end what did it matter ‘why’, he just did and that was the most important thing in the world to me.

“I’m gonna miss you both. Can I really not come? Even just for a week?” she asked, pouting at me, giving me the puss in boots eyes.

Kelsey had been hanging around me constantly since I told her I was leaving. She was like my new shadow, wanting to be in my room all the time. Sometimes, like now, I didn’t mind - I could keep her distracted by getting her to do little menial things for my plans. Kelsey clipped out pictures to perfection and she spent ages pinning them on the huge world map that I had stuck on my wall. The three of us had covered it with clippings, Post-it notes and coloured pins. It looked a mess but it made my heart speed up every time I looked at it. Even my mom had helped search a few pictures to go on there.

Other times, like when I wanted some ‘alone time’ with my boyfriend, Kelsey was like a thorn in my side. As a result I only really got peace and quiet when I was at Jamie’s place - but even then I used the time to study. I missed Jamie, I saw him everyday but what with everything going on and my finals approaching, I didn’t get to just hang out with him and enjoy his company like I wanted to. Plus, he worked a lot. Weekends, nights, day times, he was so busy that he was practically exhausting himself too.

Studying, planning our trip, sleeping and eating. That was literally all my consisted of right now.

The two months passed. Slowly but they passed. It wasn’t plain sailing by any means, there was a lot of stress, sleepless nights and studying involved, but I finally made it through all of my exams and I couldn’t be happier that it was over and done with.

To celebrate our final exam, some friends and I went for an afternoon shopping trip - allowing me to buy several new bikinis and shorts for my vacation. There was a huge party at Sebastian’s house for seniors only. I hadn’t planned on going at all but Stacey convinced me to go for at least an hour.

Apparently, this was my last duty as head cheerleader, then I would happily hand the title off to Marie, my successor. I was actually pretty happy to give it away to be honest.

The plan was to only stay at the party for an hour, but I’d already been there for almost two. It seemed like everybody wanted to talk to me about my trip that started tomorrow. There were way too many people to say goodbye to. It didn’t help that Stacey was hanging all over me, blubbing about how much she was going to miss me.

I was flying solo tonight too, I had no boyfriend to get me through the night and keep me sane.

Jamie and I were spending the night apart tonight. After I managed to escape Stacey’s clutches, I was going to go home and spend some time with my family - and catch an early night. But Jamie, well, Jamie was going something more…. risky.

Last week he’d finished his agreed time with Brett, but somehow he’s been roped - or maybe forced, because he didn’t look happy about it in the slightest - into doing one last job. He was going out about eleven o’clock to do some car boost, well, that’s what I assume he would be doing, I didn’t ask.