Thankfully, no tongues are involved, which I’m grateful for because that would be a weird first experience to have with him. When he finally pulls back, he smiles mischievously and whispers, “You’re a great kisser, Mils, I need to look you up when you’re a little older!” I laugh, patting him playfully on the arm before I roll my eyes over his need to constantly be on flirt mode.
Spinning me around to help put my helmet back on, I finally see the reactions to our little romantic role play. It’s then I see Bowie, Matt, Melody, Chloe, and practically all the others staring at us with open mouths, gaping like they’re in a goldfish bowl. I look back at them all with indifference, trying desperately not to laugh when Gabe ups the ante by wiggling his fingers at them as he mounts his steed. I notice Matt’s hurt expression before I move on to see Bowie looking furious. However, before I can ponder on it for too long, Gabe revs the engine. I grip hold of his waist and hang on tightly as he rips the bike away from the curb, building up speed to join the main road.
This! This was a good day hidden amongst the many shit ones I’ve been through recently.
Chapter 11
Millie, 17, Senior Year
The summer I spent with Gabe turned things around for me. The return of my diary saved me from what was sure to be years of torment hanging over my head like a black cloud. Without it, Bowie eventually lost interest and continued to climb the social ladder of high school, a feat made much easier by the fact that he is a genius out on the field. For me to acknowledge that, with my next to nothing understanding of the sport, only shows how brilliant he is, though it pains me to admit it.
Unfortunately, Matt and I began to grow further and further apart, and although I missed the boy who I had been so close to when growing up, I also knew it would be good for us in the long run. He ended his relationship with Chloe, admitted to only using her to make me jealous, which did nothing to help my reputation amongst the other girls. However, Matt fared slightly worse, seeing as she smacked him right around the face, leaving an impressive bruise all around his right eye. He had let her; he knew he deserved it, even if she is a psychotic little bunny boiler and is most likely going to end up on the news for storing her boyfriend in a suitcase one day.
As for me, I had a secondment from my miserable life, and all because Gabe took the time out to be my honorary brother before he began Stanford in the Fall. Occasionally, I’d feel incredibly guilty for it, seeing as my real brother was no doubt having the worst time of his life in prison. However, I’d then remember that this was all a temporary holiday for me. As soon as summer was over, so too would be my little break from reality.
Gabe tried to get me out and about, which took a lot of convincing in the first few weeks. Especially as practically the whole school looked at me with about as much respect as the same rotting fish that Melody Carpenter had accused me of smelling like all those years ago. But Gabe, as you may have guessed, is a stubborn bastard and simply refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. He took me to the beach, the pier with the small funfair at the end where we rode the Ferris wheel and bumper cars, to the diner for ice cream, and out for countless exhilarating bike rides.
Whenever we saw people from school, Gabe would grab my hand affectionately, kissing it like we were a couple in puppy love. Other times he’d hold me close and place his hand on my butt, causing me to blush, even though we both knew it was only for show. No one said a word but also never failed to display a look of complete shock over our relationship. Only Mercy knew how fake our supposed romance was, which she found both enviable and hilarious. She frequently dined with us during the evenings, forever flirted with my pretend boyfriend, to which he reciprocated but very much kept his distance.
My Junior year, thankfully, was fairly uneventful. Sure, I still had daily comments about my brother being in jail for rape, but otherwise, they had nothing on me. Nothing I hadn’t heard a thousand times before, so shrugging it off became easier. I guess it really is true what they say, ‘Ignore them and they’ll get fed up and leave you alone’, and that’s certainly what they did…all of them.
Mercy was my only real friend and therefore the only person who really talked to me at school. Matt occasionally chatted with me at home, usually in his back yard, but otherwise, we stayed out of each other’s way. To be honest, I had no idea what to do about our friendship, whether to leave things be or to try and reach out to him. By the time I realized I missed him like a lost limb, the year had been and gone. I had buried myself in studying and working towards my dream to study medicine at Stanford.
As for Grant, he refused to see me but sent me countless cards, letters, and well wishes from prison. I understood, I really did, however, I couldn’t help feeling hurt and disappointed by his decision. That and the fact he had seen Gabe a few times but not even his own sister. Gabe took my interrogations with gentle acceptance, answering all of my questions which I fired in rapid succession as soon as he had returned from one of his visits. From what he told me, Grant always sounded chipper, upbeat about making new friends even, nevertheless, I could always see the fear in Gabe’s eyes. He was scared for my brother’s mental health and frightened of what was happening to him in there, behind closed doors.
Sam hasn’t returned home since moving away, not even on public holidays, as far as I know. It’s one of the few things Matt and I still talked about, seeing as Bowie would be more likely to haul me into the river out back than tell me how his sister’s doing, despite knowing how close we once were. All I do know is that she said one thing and Grant said another. My mind remains a painful muddle of thoughts when it comes to that fateful night, one I wish I could eradicate from history.
My parents, if that’s what you can really call them, wander in and out like the place is a hotel they need to stop at every now and then, as though on business. Dinners are silent, mornings are empty, so I’ve given up having much else to do with them. Particularly as they never mention Grant, treating him like he’s the past tense; a loving son they lost nearly two years ago. They made their minds up about him with the court. But I haven’t. Not at all.
Something about that night doesn’t add up, not because he’s my brother, not because he’s a good boy, but because of the look on his face when they dragged him away. Just like Sam could tell me something awful had happened to her without the need for words, his eyes on the night of his arrest told me he was horrified over everything that was spinning out before him. Unfortunately, looks and hunches are not enough to go on, so for now, I’m just as impotent as I was back then.
Bowie, although a lot quieter in my life now, still sends me lilies every Friday without fail, and always with a small card offering me fake condolences. At school, he either scowls at me or if he’s in a good mood or had a particularly successful game, he’ll holler out ‘Fridge’ when we pass in the hallway. I can live with that though, it’s become just another meaningless message, like the one still pasted inside of my locker.
Both Matt and Bowie, the kings of football, the royalty of our high school, have grown into very beefy, very attractive guys, who are never short of a girl draped around their person. I bet if the confrontation between Bowie and Gabe were to happen now, there would be very little in it. However, Gabe’s frequent visits, just to check up on me, seem to keep the bullies at bay. They appear to still be a little worried about the man who they believe to be my boyfriend.
The summer just gone, I was lonely, absent of Gabe and his theatrics to keep me smiling and motivated about the future. He had been lucky enough to be accepted onto an internship abroad, somewhere in Europe, and I had told him I would personally kick his butt if he didn’t go for it. He still needed a lot of convincing to leave me behind, but I was so used to being alone in term time, bar the odd visit from one of the strangers I call Mom and Dad, we both came to accept that I am now old enough to look after myself.
Mercy, my only other ally, was also holidaying in Europe for the summer, sending me frequent postcards from exotic lo
cations, telling me of her sexathon challenge; to bed a man from every country. I surmised that half of it was fictional, but it made me giggle, nonetheless.
As for my parents, they spent their time with the really important people in their lives; their lovers. My father is shacked up with a woman from work, an intern he had tutored personally it would seem, and my mother is in a relationship with her boss, or so Dad told me. He had the audacity to sound bitter about it, but I held my tongue, even when he divulged too much information for a daughter to hear about her mother. To be honest, I’m just waiting for them to tell me they’re divorcing and selling the house, but I guess they’ll leave it until after I graduate, just for appearance’s sake mind you. That’s all they cared about with Grant, so I expect nothing more when it comes to me.
A silver lining in my summer for one, was Matt and I rekindled our friendship, so it was a pretty thick, awesome lining. His parents took a long-awaited trip to Australia to visit family or friends, I forget which, but it meant Matt got the house all to himself. This was a novelty for Matt, seeing as they usually only went away for weekends, a week tops. He relished the experience, throwing all kinds of parties till the early hours of the morning. However, during the day, we always hung out and it was very much reminiscent of the days we had spent together when we were kids.
One evening, after we had lazed around playing some mindless shooting game on his Xbox all day, he threw one of his parties and I returned to my back garden. Darkness snuck up on me as I sat with a blanket around my shoulders, reading a book on my Kindle with a small heater lit up beside me. I paused in my reading to listen in with quiet amusement, being that one guy just got caught in the act with a girl who was, apparently, not his girlfriend. The ensuing screaming and shouting began, while the others jibed him for being such an idiot as to stick his tongue down some chick’s throat when his girlfriend was standing not ten feet away. I couldn’t help giggling a little bit. These people used to terrorize me, but I think I’ve finally outgrown them and can laugh over their high school antics without apology or shame.
As I ponder on this thought, I notice a shadow, a faceless man, leaning up against one of the trees that fence off our garden’s boundary, just before a field that reaches a river. My eyes study the shadow of a man, watching as he lifts a beer bottle to his lips and gulps back its amber liquid with his eyes looking directly at me. I feel frightened for a few moments but when he chuckles, I know who it is in an instant. It’s a taunting, flagitious sound; one I’ve heard many times over the years.
“Bowie,” I say calmly in greeting, “wandered from the party I see, but it’s still trespassing you know.”
He does not answer, instead choosing to walk over and sit in the chair next to me, crossing his ankle over the opposite knee, casually, arrogantly, as though I personally invited him over to join me. For a while, a strange silence descends, while we sit next to each other like two old friends, not the enemies we truly are.
“Fridge,” he eventually says on a sigh in late greeting before gulping back another mouthful of beer.
“You can’t call me that in my own house,” I say matter of factly, “besides, you don’t know what Gabe and I got up to inside of those four walls.”
He chuckles a little and shakes his head, “So you’re now a raving sex fiend?”
My personal bully turns to look at me, but I just shrug in his general direction before turning back to face the darkness before us. I’m now a pro at looking into the black of night with nothing but my own thoughts to entertain me, to be content in the silence I live in. So, when he continues to watch me, with nothing but his breathing to fill my ears, I have no problem with it. Though, apparently, neither does he.
“Won’t Matt be wondering where you are?” I ask, not looking away from my point of reference if only to keep my eyes fixed upon something that isn’t him.
“Nah,” he leans forward, resting his arms onto his knees, his head looking directly onto the ground beneath his feet. He almost looks as lost as I do. But Bowie Phillips is a king; he has plenty of subjects to keep him amused, so how can he be?
“He’s fucking some girl in his bedroom. Probably trying to imagine it’s you!” he sighs without any particular expression. “Tell me Fridge, why aren’t you more into him?”
Part of me wants to tell him where to go, or just to ignore his blunt, personal question, seeing as he is the last person I should be opening up to. Instead, I stare at him, wide-eyed and wondering what he expects me to tell him because fucked if I know.
“Can anyone really answer a question like that?”
“Try, I’m all ears,” he grins mischievously, “and genuinely interested. Miss Goody Two Shoes and Mr Golden Balls seem like a match made in Disney heaven!”
“Your ears are deceitful, Bowie,” I reply bitterly, “you take secrets and broadcast them for all to hear…or see! Why should I share anything with you?”
“True, I have been a little vicious to you in the past,” he leans back into the chair, without even a hint of an apology, “but I had my reasons…”
“Which are?” I probe, already knowing he’s unlikely to tell me, his almost immediate deadpan expression tells me as much. “I’ve tried,” I eventually sigh, giving into his inquisition, “but you can’t help who you do and don’t fall for, can you? Perhaps we’ve been friends for too long.”
I shrug and we look back up, meeting each other’s gaze in the middle, before he nods in understanding and smiles at me. An actual genuine smile. One that isn’t full of innuendo or malice, just acceptance.
“Well,” he says a moment or two later, jumping enthusiastically to his feet, “I’m gonna go and find some pussy.” His genuine smile morphs back into a wicked grin when I screw my face up over his crudeness. “Nice talkin’ to you Fridge.”
It was the weirdest, but most pleasant conversation I think I’ve ever had with him!
The Monday after the party, a particularly loud and messy affair from what I could hear, was the first day back to school. It was also the same one that Bowie had cornered me on the football field and guilted me into letting Matt go…again. It would seem our out of character tete a tete in my back yard wasn’t quite the ice breaker to warrant him letting go of his contempt towards me. I was feeling too sensitive to try and question what he was accusing me of, so I went home, alone.
I had been so depressed when I got home that I had slipped straight into my pyjama shorts and a slumpy t-shirt, one of Grant’s old ones, and set up shop on the sofa, complete with chocolate, chips, Mac and Cheese, and plenty of cola cans. I was in no mood for vegetables or actual real food. I wanted sugar, fat, and plenty of salt to send me into a disgusting food coma, just to drag out the misery of my situation. This was feeling sorry for myself in all its glory.
I had been watching reruns of Rocko’s Modern Life for two hours straight by the time Matt came over and began banging angrily on my door. Matt’s pale face up against the window, with the dimming light behind his footballer’s body, causes me to jump out of my skin and emit a small screech of horror. I guess I was feeling so skittish I considered the worst was happening before I finally realized who it was.
As soon as I realize it is him, I jump up and unlock the door to let him in. He wastes no time in accepting my voiceless invitation, and marches over the wooden floorboards without a word, stomping huffily to the sofa where he collapses in an angry heap.
“What the hell, Millie?” he barks with his face holding nothing back when he pins his angry eyes on me. “We were supposed to walk home together, and you just fucked off and left me. What the hell did Bowie say to you this time?”
“Only what I’ve been thinking myself,” I reply, swallowing hard and trying to look small and apologetic. His stare renders me speechless, so I turn away and retake my place on the sofa where I’ve now created a me-shaped hole in it. “That I should let you go; let you find someone else and move on.”
I grab a pillow to hold over my lap as he g
roans loudly into his hands, shaking his head as he does so. I tentatively place my hand onto his back, trying to be comforting, but he whips his head up so quickly, and with so much intensity in his eyes, I snap it back with immediate regret.
“Enough of this bullshit, Millie!” he growls before taking my hands into his larger ones. “Your friendship means more to me than any of them. I don’t want to lose that and if it means I need to push my feelings aside, I will. I need you, Mils, and I’m pretty sure you need me too.”
Traitorous little tears of emotion sting my eyes as they collect along my bottom lashes, rapidly growing heavy enough to fall, knowing that I do need him, but I’m scared it’s selfish of me to keep him. As the first few breakaway, running down my cheeks and giving permission for the others to follow, he places his hand to my face and looks directly at me with such force, I almost have to turn away.
The Darkness Within Page 13