Chapter 11 New phase
Felicity called me down for breakfast at eight.
She didn't send a maid, or call, or better still slip a note under the door,instead she planted two soft knocks on the door and when I opened, she said.
“Breakfast is ready.”
Like it was the most normal thing a woman her age could do, as though she hadn't just houses a pregnant and recently divorced woman she hadn't seen in years, without asking a single question about it.
“She doesn't even know you're pregnant” my subconscious mind scolded, but I shook my head, quite certain that I told her.
I shut my eyes, trying to recall the time I told her about it, more as a means of trying to convince myself, but my memory was blank, there wasn't any of such occurrence in my memory lane.
She didn't come in, I assume she left immediately after calling me, because she was nowhere in sight.
I was already awake, and sitting on my bed staring into emptiness, so getting up wasn't so much of a big deal.
After looking around what could best be described as my new life, I walked out of the room, heading to the dinning room.
The table was set rather properly, not the performative kind I'd grown used to in the D’Arden house, where everything including breakfast felt like an audition.
Here was natural, seats close to each other, the type that screamed ‘this belongs to a lover of family' not business arrangements.
I noticed that.
Although unconsciously, I was taking small notes of everything around here, and Co paring then with Ethan's, no matter how hard I tried not to.
Felicity was already seated, staring at something on her tablet, her glass low on her nose.
She looked up when I walked in and smiled. “I hope you slept well?”
“Of course, thank you ma'am.” I replied, pulling out a chair for myself.
On the entire table, it was just us, with maids on standbye.
Her family was a rather complicated chapter I certainly wasn't willing to get into.
We ate in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, the kind that didn't really ask anything of you, like it was completely fine with how things were going.
With all I've learnt while observing Dr. Lane although from a distance, one thing stood out for me; the fact that she moved through life in a strategic, yet unhurried way, like she had decided a long time ago that urgency was mostly a performance, and she had more important things to fix her gaze.
“How did you sleep?” She asked, not looking up from her tablet.
“Better than I expected.” I replied honestly, wondering why she was still asking me a question quite similar to the first one she asked when I got in here.
“Good.” She set the tablet down, took of her glasses, and folded it, looking at me properly. “Now we need to talk about a few things.”
I put my fork down.
She reached beside her chair and placed a small box on the table, beside it was a folded piece of paper.
“If you're really going to grow, then you need a new number, and email” She added. “I've already set up all your accounts, the phone is registered under a name that isn't yours, so there's no trail.”
I stared at the box. “You already set it up?”
“Yeah, Iast night.” She shrugged
“Dr. Lane…”
“Felicity” she interrupted. “Call me Felicity”
“Felicity.” I corrected myself, still staring at the box, unable to conceal my amusement. “You shouldn't have.”
“I know I didn't have to.” She said, her tone calm and weirdly holding a level of finality in it. “But I wanted to, there's a difference.” She tapped the box once. “Your old number is already gone I assume?”
“Yeah, it's in two pieces somewhere outside my window.” I chuckled, and something in her expression shifted.
Not quite a smile, but something really close to it. “Good girl.”
She pushed the box towards me, and I picked it up, turning it over in my hands.
“The only people who will have this number,” she started. “Are only the people you meet onwards, and these ones only get it after careful thoughts. You don't reconnect with your old world until you're ready”
“And ready means when you finally decide, not when they make you feel guilty enough for moving on.” She added. “How long do you want that to be?”
“Five years.” I said, as though I'd been waiting for her to ask.
“Five years.” She echoed, and raised her eyes to me. “That would require a lot of hard work and building, so at the end of the day you have something solid.”
I glanced at her, not really understanding what she was driving at.
“You'll need to do your assignments well, so that five years from today, when you go back, there's nothing they can say or do that touches you.”
I nodded, that was exactly what I wanted, and Felicity was the perfect person to listen to at this point, because she wasn't speaking mere theory, but her own story.
She picked her fork back up and we resumed eating breakfast.
“Thank you Felicity.” I said, and she nodded.
Later I'd set up the phone, and oy transfer the evidence file from my previous phone, before getting rid of it.
The remaining part of breakfast was in silence, and we were almost done, when the front door opened, followed by the sound of heels making contact with tye marble floor.
“Aunty Fee, the traffic on that road is criminal, someone needs to be arrested, I'm not even joking…”
A lady appeared in the dinning room.
She looked about my age, maybe younger. Her hair was packed in a ponytail. She wore a blazer over a dress that was clearly expensive, but styled like she'd thrown it on for only a few minutes.
Her eyes swot through the room, and the month they landed on me, they stopped.
She stared longer than normal, and turned to Felicity. “You didn't tell me you had a guest.”
“You didn't ask.” Felicity said mildly, not looking up.
The lady looked back at me and I looked back at her. There was a beat of assessment on both sides, how women did when they were trging to figure out who was a threat and who wasn't.
She suddenly broke into a wise smile. “Hey, I'm Chloe.”
“Liana.” I smiled back.
She pulled out the chair across from me and sat down without being invited, reached across the table for a bread roll and said with her mouth half full.
“So what's your story?”
“Chloe!” Felicity cautioned.
“What? I'm just asking.” She shrugged and looked at me again, unapologetically curious. “You don't have to answer, I mean… I'm just being nosy, it's a character flaw I've accepted.”
Despite everything that has happened, I almost laughed.
Almost laughed.
“It's a long story.” I mumbled.
“I have time.” She said immediately, and then caught Felicity's gaze, she immediately corrected herself. “I mean… whenever you're ready, no pressure.” She paused. “But I do have time.”
Felicity sighed in a way of someone who had long made peace with Chloe being this way.
I looked at her, loud, unfiltered and completely unbothered girl who had sat down at the table on her own accord.
Genuinely, I loved her already.
Nothing about her reminded me of the last person I had called my best friend, who had been wearing my husband's cufflinks while perfectly playing best friend.
“Maybe later.” I said and she nodded, clearly satisfied with that.
“Later works.” She said reaching for another roll.
Felicity looked at me, her eyes asking if I was comfortable with what was going on, and I nodded slowly.
I returned back to my meal, and for the first time since everything collapsed, breakfast felt like something that wasn't survival.
It felt normal, and I was slowly starting to understand that normal was exactly what I'd been starving for…