I guffawed. I was so sick of keeping everything to myself! Who was I protecting anyway? Chad? He deserved so much worse than even SJ had dealt him.

“I dated him for almost a year, Joe! Huh, I suppose you really don’t get involved in my personal life, seeing as not only did you have no clue that I’d been in a relationship with him, but that he cheated on me with that little waitress you knew by name … oh, and he’s the reason I never finished my degree!”

“He … what? How?” Joe’s eyes were like saucers, his skin a weird dirty grey colour.

May as well twist the knife while I was on a roll. I explained to him the same long and sordid tale that I’d told SJ. I’d kept this story in for seven years, and now I’d told it twice in the space of weeks. Joe’s face went whiter and whiter with every detail I revealed.

When I’d run out of things to say about the whole debacle, I sighed. “So, yeah, that was the end of my university career.”

It might not be the end, I thought, my fingers flitting to my skirt pocket.

“Why didn’t you tell me at the time?” Joe asked, his voice hoarse, his expression tight. “Why didn’t you let me help you?”

I flashed him a tired, sad smile. “You never approved of my choice of degree. You never wanted to come along to student exhibitions when my work was on display. You wanted me to be more ‘responsible’, more ‘driven’, more ‘career-minded’ … more like someone other than myself.”

More like you, I thought.

I sank into the chair across from him. Luci scuttled across the back of the chair and down onto the floor, looking for random trash she’d pilfered. Tucking my knees up under my chin, I sighed. “But I was driven, and I was responsible. Just because you couldn’t see a future with my degree, didn’t mean I didn’t have plans for myself.”

Joe pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. He sat like that for a very long time. I wondered if I’d finally broken him. He started shaking. Oh God, I’d driven him insane! He was cackling like a fiend!

“You are so much like Mum it scares me.”

He looked up, his eyes swollen and damp. He was … crying? I hadn’t seen Joe cry once, not even at the funeral. Not even after he’d come back from identifying Mum and Dad.

“I … I am?” I whispered, leaning forwards, my legs sliding off the chair, my knees knocking the coffee table. “How?”

He looked at me, properly looked at me, in a way I didn’t think he had since before he became my guardian. I found myself clambering across the coffee table, climbing onto the lounge beside him.