Driving Home for Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

for the first time in what felt like forever. Like she finally was truly being seen. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that I hate our normal life?’
    Heather blinked. ‘So you thought acting like a little slut would change things up a bit? Well, congratulations! Megan got the drama she wanted!’
    Minnie the dog whined gently in the corner, watching her owners carefully, trying to discern where the danger was. Megan put a hand on her head to calm her, and the black and white fluffy mass stood beside her like a protector. Her only friend.
    ‘Look –’ Jonathan started.
    ‘No!’ Heather advanced on her daughter. ‘You listen carefully to me, young lady. You can’t have this baby. You can’t even do your own washing. You can’t survive without us. You try and you’d be running back to us a day later on your hands and knees begging us to forgive you.’ Heather’s grin, so sure of herself, her ace in the hole, her truth. She had the money, so she had the power.
    ‘I guess we’ll see, won’t we?’ Megan said simply, as she picked up her backpack and coat, and left without a backwards glance, closing the door behind her.
    She made it to the church yard, five minutes down the road, before she burst into tears. Huddled on the cold stone tomb, trying to get her breathing to slow, she knew there was one more person she wanted to see before she went. She waited for fifteen minutes to see if anyone walked past, if she saw her parents’ cars trawling the streets, if they regretted their actions, if they loved her enough to ask her to come home.
    No one came, and so her decision was made.
    ***
    Anna had insisted they take the car, bumbling and prone to breakdown as it was. So on the sixteenth of December, they piled up their stuff into the old red 2CV, and decided to get there. Skye had spent most of the time deciding what books to take with her, whilst Megan had spent pretty much every morning up until they went trying to hide her consistent vomiting. Which was similar to the situation when she’d left them. At least there was no chance she’d be pregnant again.
    She wrapped her thick cardigan around her, slammed the boot shut, worrying about the presents piled up in the back seat. What do you get for your parents when you haven’t spoken to them in a decade? She’d settled for her mother’s unchanging Chanel No.5, a book on World War One for her Dad, some dorky things for Matty who she was sure, regardless of his job and wife and child, would not have changed at all. And obviously, all of Skye’s stuff.
    Skye sat in the front seat, expectant and excited. She’d brushed her hair over and over that morning, scrubbed at her teeth with vigour, practising her smile in the bathroom mirror. She wanted to please them, these phantom grandparents. Megan’s heart broke just a little, and she swore to herself that if her parents weren’t delighted with Skye, she was leaving that instant.
    ‘One minute and we’ll get going,’ Megan told her, turning up the hot air in the car, and running back to the front door, where Anna was waiting.
    ‘It’ll be fine, right?’ Megan asked, desperate for comfort. ‘It’ll be good?’
    Anna’s face creased with the large smile she gave her niece, pulling her in for a hug. Anna always smelled like nicotine and coffee, with the barest hint of some expensive musky perfume, something rich and overwhelming.
    ‘It will be wonderful,’ she said, ‘you just have to give it a chance.’
    ‘One chance,’ Megan said with determination.
    Anna raised an eyebrow. ‘Knowing you and your mother, how about three chances? Just for luck.’
    Megan held her hand, squeezed and nodded. Then she reached into her pocket, bringing out a square present wrapped in silver paper, an opalescent ribbon tied in a bow.
    ‘Before I forget, I wanted to give you this. Wanted you to have it for Christmas Day.’ She shook a finger at her aunt. ‘No sooner, I know what you’re like.’
    Anna rolled her eyes.