Free After You by Jojo Moyes

reason and ran to the bathroom and Fuckface went after her so obviously I listened outside. And she was in total shock because she hadn’t even known that he’d ended up in a wheelchair. I heard the whole thing. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know Fuckface wasn’t my real dad. It’s just that my mum only ever said my real dad was an asshole who didn’t want to know me.’
    ‘Will wasn’t an asshole.’
    She shrugged. ‘He sounded like one. But, anyway, when I tried to ask her questions she just started totally flipping out and said that I knew everything about him that I needed to know and Fuckface Francis had been a better dad to me than Will Traynor ever would have been and I really should leave it alone.’
    I sipped my water. I had never wanted a glass of wine more. ‘So what did you do?’
    She took another drag of her cigarette. ‘I Googled him, of course. And I found you.’
    I needed to be alone to digest what she had told me. It was too overwhelming. I didn’t know what to make of the spiky girl, who walked around my living room, making the air around her crackle.
    ‘So did he not say anything about me
at all?
’
    I was staring at her shoes: ballerina pumps, heavily scuffed as if they had spent too much time shuffling around London streets. I felt as if I was being reeled in. ‘How old are you, Lily?’
    ‘Sixteen. Do I at least look like him? I saw a picture on Google images, but I was thinking maybe you had a photograph.’ She gazed around the living room. ‘Are all your photographs in boxes?’
    She eyed the cardboard crates in the corner, and I wondered whether she would actually open them and start going through them. I was pretty sure the one she was about to go into contained Will’s jumper. And I felt a sudden panic. ‘Um. Lily. This is all … quite a lot to take in. And if you are who you say you are, then we – we do have a lot to discuss. But it’s nearly eleven o’clock, and I’m not sure this is the time to start. Where do you live?’
    ‘St John’s Wood.’
    ‘Well. Uh. Your parents are going to be wondering where you are. Why don’t I give you my number and we –’
    ‘I can’t go
home
.’ She faced the window, flicked the ash out with a practised finger. ‘Strictly speaking, I’m not even meant to be here. I’m meant to be at school. Weekly boarding. They’ll all be freaking out now because I’m not there.’ She pulled out her phone, as an afterthought, and grimaced at whatever she saw on its screen, then shoved it back in her pocket.
    ‘Well, I’m … not sure what I can do other than –’
    ‘I thought maybe I could stay here? Just tonight? And then you could tell me some more stuff about him?’
    ‘Stay
here
? No. No. I’m sorry, you can’t. I don’t know you.’
    ‘But you did know my dad. Did you say you think he didn’t actually know about me?’
    ‘You need to go home. Look, let’s call your parents. They can come and collect you. Let’s do that and I –’
    She stared at me. ‘I thought you’d help me.’
    ‘I will help you, Lily. But this isn’t the way to –’
    ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
    ‘I – I have no idea what to –’
    ‘You don’t want to help. You don’t want to do anything. What have you actually told me about my dad? Nothing. How have you actually helped? You haven’t. Thanks.’
    ‘Hold on! That’s not fair – we’ve only just –’
    But the girl flicked her cigarette butt out of the window and turned to walk past me out of the room.
    ‘What? Where are you going?’
    ‘Oh, what do
you
care?’ she said, and before I could say anything more, the front door had slammed and she was gone.
    I sat very still on my sofa, trying to digest what had just happened for the best part of an hour, Lily’s voice ringing in my ears. Had I heard her correctly? I went over and over what she had told me, trying to recall it through the buzz in my ears.
    My father was Will Traynor.
    Lily’s mother had apparently