And to think, someday, a few years from now, I would wake up every damn day thanking a God I didn’t believe in for putting that little girl through some of the worst depths of hell and sending her to me.
I’m kind of a son-of-a-bitch like that.
Chapter One
Odie
My father is a drug addict.
I think it started as a secret, something he didn't want me or my mother to know about, just like he'd kept his business a secret. You see, my father broke the number one, most important rule of being a high-profile drug dealer; never sample your product.
I grew up in small towns all across France, never staying in one place for more than two years. It made for a miserable, lonely sort of childhood because every time I started to make friends my father would pack us up and move us in the dark depths of the night.
We always moved at night.
We have been living in Villefranche-sur-Mer for almost two years and my feet have begun to itch. I know it's coming. Maybe it's just my body having gotten used to the idea of always being on the move so now I crave it. I love the town, I love being so close to the ocean and all of the scenery I can sketch and paint when my father is out of town, but I know our time here is coming to an end.
I don't realize it is only my time that is up.
I round the corner at the beach to find Martin, one of father's men and someone I always considered an uncle figure, waiting for me with an armful of flowers. My birthday is still a week away but he always remembers. A grin bursts over my face.
"What are you doing here at this time of the day? Do you not have more important things to do than a beach romp?"
He laughs as I bat my eyelashes at him, and hands over the flowers. "I have some news for you today, sweet Odette. Your father has arrived and is looking for you."
My stomach drops. I hate the man, loathe him really, and this time away from him with only my mother has been like a dream.
"And what is he here for today, hm? Does he need something from my mother? I don't think she has any jewels left to sell for him."
Martin gives me a stern look, like he still sees the small child I once was and not the nineteen year old woman I really am. "Your father is a good man, respected in his business. You need to learn to hold your tongue before it gets you into trouble, sweet girl."
I grit my teeth so I don't roll my eyes. Martin is not such a ruffian that he would strike me in public but once we get back to the cottage I share with my mother his slap will certainly sting. I tuck my sketch pad more firmly under my arm and nod, casting my eyes back to the ground in an act of obedience. It doesn't sit well with me but better to play the part to get through this little visit quickly. Once I arrive wherever my father intends on abandoning us this time I will find my voice again.
Martin takes my free arm and walks me along the narrow streets, bustling with tourists and beachgoers and life. It's easier to pretend to be happy and fulfilled this way, the aching emptiness in my gut much quieter around all of this noise.
"How has your mother been? She looks tired." Martin murmurs, a smile on his face at those around us but his arm is tense in mine.
Drunk. Distant. Broken by my father. "She's been better but I think the sea air has been good for her, and the sunshine. The summer has been a warm one and I think it's made a difference."
The dutiful daughter, lying through her teeth to save her mother's reputation. I love her and I know, deep down, she loves me too. She just loves my father more.
I think I'm going to take her home for some time. She needs to be back with her real friends. I will ask if your father will allow you to come too."
Allow me, I'm an adult! I wait until I know the bite will be out of my tone before I speak. "I can choose to go, Martin. I can make that decision by myself. I would like to go to one of the Universities there. I will get a job if my father does not want to pay for it."
Martin's arm tenses even more in my arm and I hide my grimace. I will definitely pay for these words back at the house. He huffs before he says, "This is the way of our world, Odette. If your father does not want you to return to Paris then you will obey him. That is what good girls do."
I do not want to be a good girl. I want to be a free girl, a girl who owns her own life, a girl who belongs to no one. I don't ever want to be good but I'm also a trapped girl, chained to the life I was born into, so I shut my mouth, carve it into a pretty smile, and nod as if it isn't killing me to agree.
The streets grow quieter as we get closer to the cottage, the atmosphere darker as if the stones and bricks in the buildings around us know just how deeply I dread facing my parents together again.
"Why are you slowing down? Your father is excited to see you again! He has missed being around his most beautiful jewel." Martin says, and I start to think maybe this is all a trap. Maybe my father sent his favorite friend after me to try to gain my trust and complacency. Mercy, am I about to be murdered for taking up painting? For going on a walk?
Dread pools deep in my gut, replacing the emptiness with that acidic bubbling. Maybe he found out about Louis and I'm going to be murdered for daring to take a lover.
"Calm down, sweet girl. Your father is excited to see you. Some of our friends are here today too." Martin murmurs, and it doesn't help one bit.
When we take the corner down the alley I see my father's car and it takes every ounce of strength I have not to frown or show some other sign of hating the fact that he's here. Martin smiles at me again, opening the door like a gentleman and I take a deep breath before walking in, ignoring the pile of summery jackets hanging by the door, all of them expensive designers that must belong to the wives of my father's business friends. He would never allow my mother or I to own such things, not unless we were in the city with him and he wanted to show us off for the night. No, all of the beautiful and expensive things my mother once owed have long since been sold off to fund the steady decline my parents are spiralling in.
I take a deep breath as I move to the small kitchen area, my shoes silent on the old and worn rug I'd found at the local markets to warm the place up a bit last winter.
The cottage was definitely not the type of place my father would ever lower himself to live in but he didn't care about abandoning my mother and I here. The look of disdain on his face as his eyes trace the cracked tiles on the floor and the thin film of grime on the kitchen cupboards, that no amount of scrubbing had been able to remove, makes it clear that despite his addiction he sets himself to a very different standard.
I, however, love this house with a deep sense of kinship.
I see myself in all of the cracks in the walls and the worn kitchen floor. It doesn't matter that the outside of me is considered beautiful. I know how much the men my father spends his time with lust after me and have done long before I was a decent age. All that matters is that inside, I am broken.
My mother pours cups of coffee and tea for each of the men and their wives who have joined us today, as if these dirty businessmen would ever sit around with hot drinks. Really, she's just trying to hide her own addictions. Her hands have a fine tremble, but she is not nervous, the tremble is there from withdrawals.
I swallow my sigh and give her a sweet smile as I take over, gesturing at her to sit. I look like an obedient daughter, and the approving look my father shoots me tells me he has taken it that way, when really I'm too nervous to stay still. There is nothing my father hates more than fidgeting so I taught myself to find productive and useful ways to not sit still during these little meetings to try to stop him from finding a reason to beat me. He never really needed an excuse but if I did find some way to displease him he tended to make them more severe.