Free Some Boy (What's Love? #1) by Jenna Cox Page B

me. “You said you had. When I was in the hospital.”
    “I said I’d arranged the resit—that it had been approved. But I only take it on Monday. I definitely said that.” The looks of consternation on my parent’s faces was baffling. I shook my head slightly. “Why does it matter, anyway? It’s not a big deal.”
    My mother was muttering to my father, something about “I thought she said…” I couldn’t hear most of it. And my father had his indignant face on, the one he had whenever he felt like my mum had done something silly and should have known better, and why are you making my life so difficult, Clare? Don’t you know I’m a busy man?
    “What is going on?” I interjected. Too loudly. Several nearby heads swivelled in our direction. It stopped my parents, though. They were both staring at me in wide-eyed shock. And a little bit of suppressed rage on my father’s part. I could see the redness creeping up his neck.
    Just then, the food came, delivered with a flourish, but the waiter quickly noticed the terrifying tension at the table and scurried away without a word.
    And then my parents glanced at each other.
    That was the most worrying thing. They never looked at each other like that, not in public. Not in front of me, in our family meetings. Because I knew that was what this was, now. There was something to Discuss.
    The glance meant they were trying to decide something. That they were unsure of how to proceed. A full on PDA from them at the table would have been less shocking. Never in my life did my parents admit they weren’t sure.
    My mother gave a slight nod. And suddenly she looked tired. Like she’d finally been allowed to drop a heavy bundle, and never wanted to pick it up again. Like I could suddenly see through her heavily made-up facade to the weary woman underneath. My dad remained stoic, but the redness had crept into his ears now. I saw his jaw clench and release a few times. Then they both looked at me.
    I think my heart stopped, and my hand crept over to find Brendan under the table again, any part of him to hold on to. He found my hand with his and linked his fingers through mine. He squeezed.
    And if even Brendan could pick up on the strangeness of my parents’ behaviour without knowing them like I did, then something was up.
    And it was about to be dropped on the table in front of us, in the middle of our cooling soups.
    “Katherine, you know your mother and I love you very much,” my dad began. Do I? I thought. And then my brain went to money. They were bankrupt. I was losing my credit card. Or they’d spent my trust fund. I’d have to drop out of uni.
    Was that why they were asking about my exams?
    All this was whirling in my brain so loudly, that I almost missed what he actually said next.  
    “You’re…what?” I stammered.
    “We’re getting a divorce.” My mother repeated my father’s words, but more firmly, definitely. She clearly wanted no room for misunderstanding.
    My first feeling was relief, and I almost laughed. I wanted to tell my parents they should be proud, since my first thought was money. And my second thought, in the face of my parents announcement, was relief that it wasn’t money.
    “You will still be provided for,” my dad was saying. “I will be putting more money in your trust fund, and we have decided to hand that over to you early, for your twentieth birthday. So that you know you are secure.”
    “We didn’t want this to upset you, Katherine. We had thought you would have finished all your exams by now,” my mum said, with a tone that made it clear she considered the matter of the upcoming exam my fault. “But there are things in motion, and we wanted to tell you ourselves, first, before anything else came out.”
    Like they were celebrities or something, and I was going to read about it in the tabloids? I had tightened my grip on Brendan’s hand until it was almost painful. But that was the only solid thing I could focus on. The