Chapter 27 Things To Use

Chapter 27 Things To Use
Vanessa doesn't move.

Even with the harshness at which Caius spoke, she doesn't look fazed.

Caius has told her to leave and she is standing exactly where she was before he said it. Her hands are clasped loosely in front of her. Her chin is lifted slightly. She looks, if anything, more composed than she did a moment ago.

Like she was already expecting this to happen.

Already prepared for Caius to send her out.

"I'll leave," she says, totally unbothered. "Of course I'll leave, Caius. I would never want to be somewhere I'm not welcome."

She pauses, letting her words hang in the air.

"But before I go." She turns slightly, not toward Caius, but toward his mother. "I just want to say that I'm glad we had the chance to talk today, Mrs Michael. Truly."

Mrs. Michael nods.

"Vanessa," Caius warns.

"I'm going," she says pleasantly. She picks up her bag from the cushion beside where she was sitting, smoothing the front of her dress. "I hope we can speak soon properly, Caius. When you're ready."

She walks to the door without hurrying or looking back. The door opens and closes, and she's gone.

The silence that follows is deafening.

Caius still hasn't moved from where he stopped at the entrance. He's standing near the door, his back almost to me, his eyes fixed on something I can't see.

Then Mrs. Michael speaks.

"Caius." She says in a low voice. "Come sit down."

"Mother—"

"Please."

Something about that single word, the please, stops him. I don't think Mrs. Michael uses that word often. He crosses the room and sits in the chair at the far end of the coffee table.

Mrs. Michael looks at her son for a long moment without speaking. I watch her take him in.

"You look terrible," she says finally.

"I know," Caius says flatly.

"Where have you been all day?"

"Handling things."

"What things?"

"Things," he repeats calmly.

Mrs. Michael absorbs this. She reaches forward and picks up her teacup, takes a small sip, sets it back down.

I am sitting so still I might as well be part of the furniture. Part of me has been considering leaving since the moment Vanessa walked out that door. Excusing myself quietly. Giving them the room. Pretending I have somewhere else to be.

But I can't make myself move.

Because I know that the moment I leave this room, whatever is said in it will be said without me. And whatever is decided will be decided without me. And I have already had too many things decided without me in the last forty-eight hours.

So I stay.

Mrs. Michael sets her cup down again. Then she looks at me.

"Lia," she says. "Would you give us a moment?"

I open my mouth.

"Please," she adds. And there it is again. That word.

I look at Caius.
He's looking at me now. Finally. After standing in this room for several minutes without once turning in my direction, his eyes find mine and stay there. His expression gives me nothing. No signal or instruction.

Just his eyes on mine.

I stand up.

"Of course," I say.

I walk out of the living room and into the hallway and I do not look back.

But I don't go far.

I stop just around the corner, my back against the wall, my hands pressed flat against it. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
I know I shouldn't listen. I know it. Standing in a hallway outside a room eavesdropping on a private conversation is not something I can justify. It's not something the better version of me would do.

But the better version of me also wouldn't have spent twenty-four minutes confessing everything to Caius's ex-girlfriend while a recording app ran quietly on her phone.

So.

I stay exactly where I am.

Mrs. Michael's voice comes through clearly enough.

"She told me everything," Mrs. Michael says. "I'm talking about Vanessa."

Caius remains silent.

"Caius." She calls him. "I need you to look at me when I'm speaking to you."

"I'm looking."

"Vanessa is pregnant," Mrs. Michael says. "You already know that. Don't you?"

I press my lips together hard.

"She also told me," Mrs. Michael continues, her voice staying even. "that she came here yesterday to give this girl a chance to step back on her own. Gracefully. Without anyone forcing the issue."

I close my eyes briefly.

"And you just sent her away," Mrs. Michael says. "You came home and you sent the mother of your child away from your door."

"We don't know that she's—"

"She is," Mrs. Michael says simply. "I know Vanessa. I have known her for five years, Caius. She is not lying about this."

There's silence for a long while.
Then Caius speaks.

"What exactly are you asking me to do, Mother?"

"I'm not asking you to do anything," she says. "I'm telling you what I see. I see a woman who loves you. Who has loved you for years. Who is carrying your child and came back because she thought you deserved the chance to do the right thing."

Another pause.

"And I see a contract," she continues. "A transaction. A girl you hired because she was convenient and because a little boy responded to her in a way that solved your immediate problem."

"That's not what this is," Caius says.

"Then tell me what it is," she says. "Tell me, because I have been watching this arrangement since the night she arrived. Tell me I'm wrong."

"The thing is—" Caius starts to speak but a voice makes him stop. The same voice that makes my blood run cold.

"Mummy?"

I spin around slowly, my eyes already wide before I've even completed the movement, already knowing what I'm going to find.

Leo is standing in the middle of the hallway behind me.

His stuffed elephant is hanging from one hand, dragging slightly against the floor.

He blinks once. Then his whole face changes and he takes one small step forward.

"Mummy!"

The door opens and Mrs Michael steps out first before Caius

Her eyes drift to Leo briefly then they land on me. And narrow. I don't need to be told. She's figured out.

Figured out that I never truly left.

I've been listening. Eavesdropping.

"I wonder," Mrs Michael finally speaks, taking a slow step toward me. "How much does a person hear, standing just outside a closed door for several minutes?" She tilts her head slightly. "Quite a lot, I imagine. Enough to know things they were never meant to know. En
ough to use those things."

She pauses, taking another step.

"Is that what you've been doing, Lia?" She asks. "Standing here collecting things to use?"