Read Me Like a Book Read Online Free Page A

darling.” She doesn’t turn around. “I’ll speak to you later.” Then she whips off her rubber gloves and flounces out of the room.
    You can see where I get my
If I pretend to myself it’s not happening, maybe it’ll go away
strategy.
    I grab a bowl of cereal and occupy my mind by reading the list of ingredients. Any second now, Mum’ll shout, “Don’t be late for school.” A simple “good-bye” doesn’t happen around here. Then she’ll go off to work, and I’ll be left alone with nothing to distract me from wondering what the hell is going on.
    But Mum doesn’t shout anything. A minute later, she’s back in the doorway, rattling her keys, rain tapping on the window behind me.
    I look up. “What?” I don’t mean to snap at her, but I can’t help it. If neither of them can manage to treat me like a grown-up, why should I act like one?
    “When do you have to be in this morning?”
    “Half past ten.”
    “Right,” she says. “How about a nice cup of tea?”
    I look up. “What about work?”
    She slaps on her secretary smile and says, “I’ll phone them. You’re my daughter and that’s more important.” Then she’s gone.
    Oh, no. I don’t like this. She’s never late for work. And we’ve never had a “nice cup of tea” together. I don’t even drink tea. Shows how much notice she’s taken of me lately. She could tell you more about the town’s biggest criminals than her own daughter. She works at a law firm. Started as a temp five years ago, and she practically runs the place now.
    “Right, that’s settled.” She’s back at the door, fastening her briefcase. “We’re going out. My treat.”
    “What about school?”
    “You can be a little late.”
    I guess she’s got it all sorted. Whatever it is Mum wants to tell me, I’m going to have to listen — even if I really, really don’t think I want to hear it.
    We small-talk about the weather all the way. I’m telling you, we’re professionals at this avoidance stuff.
    I squeeze into a table at the back of the Starbucks around the corner from school. Mum slides in opposite me while mellow music and the smell of bacon and burnt toast waft over the counter in equal measures.
    “This is nice, isn’t it?” That slap-on secretary smile again.
    I pour milk in my coffee and force myself not to reply with the angry sarcasm that’s building up inside me. As I stir in some sugar, I try a different tack. “Mum, I don’t know —”
    Mum interrupts me. “Ashleigh, I need to talk to you.”
    I stop stirring and look at her.
Detach, detach, don’t get drawn in.
    “I don’t want you to be upset,” she goes on. “None of this is your fault, but your father and I . . .” She stops, picks up her tea, sips it.
    “Look, it doesn’t matter,” I say quickly. I’m suddenly positive about one thing: whatever she wants to tell me, I don’t want to hear it. I’d prefer to keep lying to myself and pretending everything’s fine than have her actually confirm out loud that it isn’t. “What you do is your business.”
    She looks out the window. “I just don’t understand what — I mean, everything was all right before . . .” Her voice trails away, and her eyes mist over. She blinks at me. What does she see? Hardness? Fear? The strongest desire in the world for her to please just STOP?
    “
We’re
all right though, aren’t we, Ash, you and me?”
    I can’t speak. “Mmm-hmm.”
    She closes her eyes while she wipes her mouth with a paper napkin, leaving a bit of lipstick behind. “Just because your father and I can’t seem to get on with each other at the moment doesn’t change how I — how both of us — feel about you.” She pauses, then says, more quietly, “I do love you very much, you know.”
    I stare at the swirls in my coffee and the grains of sugar stuck on the rim of the mug. What am I meant to say? I’ve got absolutely no idea. So I say nothing.
    “I do, Ashleigh.” Mum reaches out for my hand, and I quickly