Ethans Fal by Dee Palmer Read Free Book Online

any opportunity to use the washing facilities where ever I can. An invite to a party–I bring my laundry. Baby sitting or joining a friend to break into their ex’s apartment for an impromptu gang bang–I bring my laundry.
    I sigh as I stuff the remaining damp clothes into a bin liner. Never mind, only eight more weeks of high season and I can go back to squatting at Joan’s cottage. I take a moment to thank all and everything holy for my Guardian Angel Joan, and her holiday cottage. One day I will write and thank her. One day, when she wouldn’t be professionally obligated to turn me in. Something I know she couldn’t do, but I respect her enough not to put her in that situation. She probably has an idea that I secretly live in her holiday home during the quiet months. She’s a very bright doctor, but I also don’t think she would have talked about it with such detail, if she didn’t want me to know about it and exactly where it was in the country. She promised she would help and I know she never got the chance the way she had hoped, but in the end this is her chance to help. She gave me somewhere safe, a home, even if it is only part-time. I grab the heavy sack, slip my carpet bag over my shoulder, and walk into Ethan’s bedroom.
    “Ah Shit!” I exhale. He wasn’t even home an hour and it looks like a bomb site. Typical spoilt rich kid, always expecting someone else to pick up after them. Was I really any different? Maybe not, but I am now. I wouldn’t recognise that silly, foolish, trusting girl from back then if I saw her standing right in front of me. Curiosity makes me step in front of the freestanding mirror in the beautiful driftwood frame at the end of Ethan’s bed. My lips curl with recognition at my image; twenty one years old but born just four years ago. Artemis d’Aubeney died the day they took my baby. Ada, my initials are all that remains of my old life; that and the ink I’d carved into my wrist with Pip’s date of birth. My hair is much longer and in desperate need of a trim, I never have the funds for. The split ends inevitable with my time in the sun and sea, despite my permanent floppy hat in the summer. I usually keep it in a braid of some sort, but it has started to separate into thick matted sections and I may well be heading for dreadlocks, unless I get it cut soon.
    I have lost a little weight and it shows around my collar bone. I have a light tan and now that I am dressed in my jean shorts and vest, you can’t see any of the tan lines I know are there. I have five black leather laces tied around my wrist. I add one each year on Pip’s birthday and they cover my homemade tattoo. I grip the bands and try to remember. My head sinks low and I squeeze my eyes shut tight. My fingertips twitch with residual memory, touching Pip’s super soft skin, her pudgy cheeks, her tousled blonde locks despite both her parents having dark coloured hair. I wonder if she’s still blonde. I can see her eyes, wide and smiling. I open mine and can see her looking back at me with eyes, which are glassy and wet. The tears fall unchecked down my cheeks, and her image fades back to my reflection. A brief, lucid, and excruciating memory.
    The image blurs as I blink to clear my eyes. I may physically still resemble the girl I was. The d’Aubeney gene pool is strong. I think if my father or mother passed me in the street, they might take a double look. But one look into my eyes would confirm I am not their daughter. My eyes barely have enough life to keep me going each day, and they hold no shine, no fire, no passion. I breathe each day, but I don’t ever feel alive. I actually lean closer to the mirror to check that the feeling I had earlier when Ethan kissed me, hadn’t changed me physically. It sure as shit felt real…intense. I pull my lower eye lid away from my eye and focus hard on the striated blue lines, checking again for any sign of change. A tiny spark maybe, a glow, however brief would be a