I drain my wine glass and feel my pulse throb in my throat. I take a breath and continue, “You’ve always done it, even when Sean was alive it was the same. I’m not public property. I’m a person, a human fucking being and I have feelings.” I can feel tears welling up and I fight really hard to say what I’ve got to say without crying. I’m so sick of crying. “All I ever do is try and please everyone. Everything that I do, every breath I take, I worry. I worry about what you lot will think. I worry about how the press will report my actions.” I look around the room at all of them, but I leave my gaze on Marley a little longer than everyone else. “When I was younger, it was always my brothers I worried about pleasing or just the family name. I was a Layton. I was expected to behave a certain way. Nobody ever saw me as Georgia. I was Frank and Berni’s daughter or I was Bailey, Lennon and Marley’s little sister, then, then I was Sean’s girlfriend.” Don’t cry. Don’t you dare fucking cry. “I’m not famous. I’ve never wanted to be famous. I just fell in love with a boy who ended up being one of the biggest rock stars in the world. I just happen to be the sister of a boy in one of the world’s biggest bands, and because of that, the press haven’t left me alone. I’ve been dealing with the press and their bullshit stories about me since I was sixteen and was titled ‘The underage harlot who broke a rock star's heart’.” Now I start to really struggle. The lump in my throat, the knot in my stomach are alternating between making me choke and making me want to vomit.
“I did nothing wrong, nothing. I stayed home. I went to school and when my boyfriend and my brother were photographed in a hotel room, snorting coke off a whore’s tits and later accused of raping that whore, guess what… Guess what, everyone?” I look around the room at everyone again, my mum’s crying, Marley’s not far behind her, Ash has her hand over her mouth. My dad and Bailey are wide-eyed and silent. I can’t even bring myself to look at Cam. “It was me the press went for. It was my reputation that they ripped to shreds. It was me that got death threats and dog shit sent through the post. It was me who lost my boyfriend, access to two of my brothers and my best friend. It was me who paid for their stupidity and then… then when Sean and I eventually sorted our shit out, they still didn’t leave us alone. He’s gay. He’s having affairs. He’s fucking her. She’s fucking him. All they ever do is judge.” I wipe my now snotty nose on the back of my hand and look at my mum, just daring her to comment. “And even now, despite everything, despite all the shit that I’ve been through, they still won’t leave me alone. My husband’s been dead a year. How long do I have to wait, how old have I got to be before I can just be Georgia? How long till I’m not just Frank’s daughter, Sean’s wife or that ‘poor girl’? When can I just be me and not give a fuck about having you lot, the press and the rest of the world think that it’s all right to judge and discuss my life?”
I don’t know where the words are coming from. I never even realised I felt like this, but the words just keep coming.
“When Sean and I split up, I had a mental breakdown, and you lot did nothing. You pandered to me. I know you thought you were doing the right thing, Mum, but all that aside, one of you, someone, should have stepped up and told me to liven the fuck up. If it wasn’t for Ash forcing me to go out, I don’t know how things would’ve gone, but even then, I spent a good six months on a different road of self-destruction.” I pause and look at my parents. “Sorry, but you need to hear this. You need to understand what I went through. I slept around. I did a lot of drugs and not one of you knew or you did and just chose not to say a thing.” My mum moves and stands behind my dad’s chair and puts her hand on his shoulder, and I smile at their unity.
“I’m not telling you all of this to hurt you. I’m telling you so you understand me, me, Georgia, not Frank’s daughter, not Sean’s wife, the story of me, so you can just try for a minute to understand what my life’s been like.” I look at all of them.
“I was angry. I was angry at life. I was angry with Sean. I thought he’d found it easy to move on and I couldn’t.” I shake my head, almost drowning in the emotions I feel as I remember just how hopeless life seemed to me back then. “And then one night, one night, this man, this man right here stepped in.” I finally look at Cam, his big hand is covering his mouth and his brown eyes glisten as he looks at me. “He didn’t care when I told him I loved Sean, that I would always love Sean. He didn’t take my bullshit. He let me cry. He let me talk, and piece by broken piece, he put me back together. He fixed me, and just when I was mended, I fell straight back into Sean’s arms and never looked back.” I sit back down next to Cam. I feel totally drained, but there’s more I need to say. “Please don’t ever tell me that he won’t look after me, because you’re wrong. I know without a shadow of a doubt, he would lay his life on the line for me. I’m not saying any of you wouldn’t and I know that Sean would, Sean did; he put himself between me and that car as best he could and he died because of it, but I just don’t want any of you calling into question what Cam would do for me.”
I take in a shaky breath and watch as Ashley goes and sits down next to Marley.