by Skylar Heart
“What do you mean, you have no job?” Mum is staring at me like she really doesn’t understand what I just said.
“I walked out of the bookstore when I went to the coast. I didn’t actually have days off to spend on a holiday.” This was not a conversation I wanted to have, but I’ve not been able to find a job over the weekend, so I’m going to have to come clean now.
“Why? I thought you liked working at the store?”
“It was okay. But I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going to get any promotions. And then stuff with Noah happened, I just had enough.”
“So you fled.” Dad sounds disappointed, and I can’t really blame him. Because I always flee, I always do this, run away from things. “Do you at least have enough money saved up to live off for the coming months? For a deposit on a new place? Or did you spend it all in the last week?”
“I...” I try to hide how much this hurts to tell. “I didn’t have much money to begin with.” I still have some left, since the guys have been paying for most of the food and such while I was at the coast. “I’ll get a job next week, and I’ll pay you back for staying here as soon as I’ve got the money.”
“Why didn’t you save? I thought you were saving up?” Mum is even more confused now. I hate it when my parents are this disappointed in me because I try so hard to do well...
“I was. But... But with Noah around, that didn’t stay in the savings account for very long.” I hate using him as an excuse, but between having to pay for most of the bills and then having to pay his half of the rent most months... My savings were gone before I even started most months.
“Why not?” The tone in Mum’s voice changes, becomes careful, and I glance her way, surprised by the worry in her eyes.
“He... He didn’t always have money to cover his part of the bills. So I had to pay for that on top of everything else.” And I didn’t get paid that much anyway, he always got a lot more, since he got a much better position at his job. But somehow it still never covered enough of our bills and things, so everything came from my account.
“Why?” Something in her voice makes me feel like I can’t keep hiding this any longer.
“Alcohol...” I swallow hard. “Hookers.”
“What?” Dad raises his voice. “What did you just say?”
“He spent it on hookers. I found out about it about two weeks ago.” I stare at the table, anger flaring in me again both at Noah and at myself. Because I had no idea what he was doing and I had no idea where his money kept disappearing to. I never questioned it, because that always brought on fights and I hated those.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mum reaches out, but I pull my hand back, not sure I can deal with her kindness and caring right now.
“Tell you what? That I couldn’t keep a guy from sleeping around? Or that he was drinking half his salary away within days of it appearing in his account? Admit that I was so blind? Admit that I was failing to take care of someone who loved me?” I stand up, ready to leave this conversation. I don’t want to drag up all the painful things, but Mum grabs my arm before I can walk out.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were struggling. We would have helped you.” Her voice is softer and I pull my arm free.
“I couldn’t. You’ve got enough problems of your own. I don’t want to make them even worse. There wasn’t anything you could do. There wasn’t... I couldn’t do that.” I walk out of the kitchen, back to my room. Wanting to slam the door closed, just to let out the frustration, the anger at myself for letting things go bad for so long, but I softly close it instead. I don’t need to act like a teenager on top of being this irresponsible.
I’ll have to find a new place to stay. I can’t go back to Noah, but maybe I can stay at Jake’s place for a few days, just until everything settles down again and I’ve got a job. Maybe that can work.
But that would mean talking to Jake again, and I’m not so sure that’s a good idea right now. Not when I feel like this.
It’s been a week since I came back to the city, and I’ve sent off more job applications than I’ve ever done before. On top of that, I’ve been trying to make up to my parents for lying to them by keeping the house clean and doing things around the place that they’ve not been able to get to because of their work hours, like paint the hallway and fix the lights in the bathroom. At least I feel useful when I do things, when I don’t just sit around and get lost in my head. But I know that this won’t last. It’s Friday evening and I feel even worse than I did when I came here last week...
It’s not so much being away from the guys that’s making things hard, but knowing that they’re out there, at the coast, and I’m here, and that I don’t have anything useful to do with my life. I have no idea what to do and just standing still like this isn’t doing me any good.
I’ve exchanged some messages with Jake, who has kept things light by just talking about insignificant things like finding a spider in his shoes one morning, and Tom and Mal keep sending me silly pictures of Elly or just whatever they’re doing at any given time. I’ve not talked to Dylan much at all. He’s been much more distant than the others, which, after the whole fiasco with Jake and Mal and having sex with them, I understand. I don’t want to, but I guess that this will forever influence our friendship.
I sit in my bedroom, my back against the wall, as I try to read a book, but I’ve been reading the same page over and over and I’ve not gotten any further. It’s hard to focus on something ‘fun’ when every time I stop moving, this darkness comes over me, making me feel like I’m not doing anything, or that I’m not doing enough. That I should be doing more, somehow.
My phone buzzes, and when I pick it up, I see it’s a message from Jake, but it’s not a funny message like before, this is much more serious. ‘Don’t freak out if you get a call from Noah. There’s nothing to worry about.’
What? What’s he up to now? I quickly send a message back. ‘What are you doing?’ He can’t go and get himself in trouble...
‘Helping you by getting your stuff out of his place. We don’t want you to have to deal with that on your own.’ We?
Oh, hell, no.
I’m not going to do this over messages. So, I call him instead. It takes a couple of moments before he picks up. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Instead of Jake’s voice, I hear Tom’s low laugh. “I told him that we shouldn’t have messaged you.” Tom sounds so relaxed. How can he even laugh? I hear the rumbling of a car in the background, the motor, the wind around it.
“What are you doing? You can’t just go over his place and barge in.” They shouldn’t go, that’s not right. I don’t want them to fight, I don’t want them to get in trouble.
“Your dad called Jake this afternoon, told him what you’d told them about the asshole. I’m sorry we didn’t do this sooner.” His voice goes softer and then there’s another voice, Dylan. Apparently, they’re now passing the phone along between them?
“Anything you want us to make sure we get? Something we can’t forget?”
“Go back home, please. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about this. I’m fine.” I don’t want them to get in trouble.
“No can do, sorry.” His voice is serious now and a flutter starts in my chest.
“Why?” Why do they have to be so difficult? Why don’t they just listen?
“Because we can’t let him have this control over you. If he doesn’t have any of your things anymore, he can’t pressure you to do anything.” Why does he sound so calm?
“He’s not getting anything from me anyway. Why do this now?”
“Because as soon as you’re happy, as soon as he thinks you’re getting even anywhere near happy, he will start again. We won’t let that happen.” He’s quiet for a moment, but before I can say anything, he speaks. “Got to go. Seems we’re nearly there. We’ll be dropping by your parents’ place as soon as we’ve packed everything up. Bye.” And he disconnects the call.
I stare at the phone no
t really sure what just went down. They can’t be serious, can they? They can’t be going over to Noah’s place, right?
For fuck’s sake. Why do they have to be so annoying? Why do they have to make things so much harder?
I’m trying to create a safe distance between them and me, I’m trying to create a distance of ‘friendship’ and not a ‘relationship’, but how can I keep that separate when they’re obviously not listening to me? Ugh, those guys.
I quickly get dressed into warmer clothes, I was in sweats and a shirt, since I’ve not been outside all day, and then I pull my hair back, not bothering with actually brushing it. They can’t expect me to look all nice when they’re the ones who are disturbing what was supposed to be a quiet evening...
10
Tom
I’m not sure how good an idea this is, this going to Mia’s ex’ place, but Mia’s dad called Jake this afternoon, explained how Mia was a huge mess and how much she was hurting and asking if he knew what was going on. Of course, we knew about most of what had gone down with her and her ex, but it seemed that she’d forgotten to mention some very important details, details that she had told her parents, apparently. Like the way Noah had been using her feelings and her kindness to exploit her, while he was also abusing her emotionally. I wish we’d known about some of these things sooner, since it explains so much of how she’s been acting, but at the same time, I’m not sure it would have been a good idea. I’m not sure that we wouldn’t have done something really dumb and gotten ourselves and her in trouble, a lot of trouble. Not that going over to Noah’s place isn’t a recipe for trouble anyway...
Elly is at my parents’ place, staying the night. My parents weren’t impressed when they realised what we were going to be doing, but they also didn’t stop us. They just told us to be careful, which we are going to try to be, at least, I’m going to try to be.
The mood in the car is much more relaxed than I expected it would be. But I guess that spending a week together, all slowly realising what we want, all slowly starting to talk to each other about plans for the near future, we’ve calmed down a lot. Even Mal is calmer, determined, but calm, focused without the danger of suddenly blowing up.
After we drop by Mia’s ex’ place, we’re going over to her parents’ place, drop her things off and hopefully ask them what they’re planning to do with the house. We’ve not agreed on how we’re going to pull this off, buying the house, especially the financial side of things. Both Jake and Dylan insisted that they didn’t want me to pay for all of it, and Mal was just unsure about things in general, especially since he doesn’t have a stable source of income. But we’re hoping to talk to her parents, because we’ve all agreed on one thing, we don’t want the house to go to anyone else, we want to have it, no matter what we do with it, who will live in it. We could just be four guys who live in a house, a strange family, or maybe Mia will be there with us, but we know that we don’t want to face the world on our own again. We don’t want to be alone anymore.
“We’re here.” Jake stops the car and looks at one of the buildings surrounding us. They all look the same to me, but Jake is focused on a very specific apartment. “The light is on, he’s home.”
I look to the back, to Dylan and Mal, who are looking very serious, and then I look at Jake again. “Okay, just making sure. We’re not going to make any trouble. We’re going in there, pack everything that’s Mia’s, and then we’re out of there again. Right?”
“Right.” Dylan and Mal nod, but Jake doesn’t say anything.
“Jake?” I glare at him.
“I’m not going to hit him unless he hits me first.” His voice is defensive, and I think that’s the best I’m going to get out of him.
“I know that we all would love to hit the guy, but we’re not here to make trouble. If we start a fight, we may have to spend the night in a cell, and I’m not in for that. This isn’t about our feelings, this is about Mia.” I touch his arm, and his eyes shoot to mine a moment, the anger in them so strong and I wish I could tell him that I feel the same, but we have to stay in control. We have to be the sensible ones. We’re already crossing the line by coming here...
“Yeah. I know.” He grumbles but then lets out a deep breath. “Let’s do this.” He opens the door of the car and gets out, going to the back, to the boxes we’ve taken in my pickup truck. We needed something that could transport a lot of things, so my car made the most sense, and we were lucky that it didn’t rain on the way here, or the boxes would all have gone to mush.
I get out of the car and my phone starts ringing as I step to the side of the car. Mia. “Hey.” I try to keep my voice as normal as possible.
“Where are you?”
“In front of the house, according to Jake. We’re about to go in.” Mal realises who I’m calling with and he holds out his hand, I raise my eyebrow at him, but he just moves his hand impatiently. Okay... fine. “Mal wants to talk to you.” And I give the guy my phone.
“Hey, sweetie.” He leans back against the car, his body relaxing a little as his eyes soften. “Yeah. I promise. We’ll try to not make any trouble.” He listens to her, slowly shaking his head. “No. That’s not going to happen. We are going to go in.” He lets out a slow breath. “Because this isn’t right. And you shouldn’t have to face the asshole just to get your things back. We can’t let you do that.” He nods, his jaw tightening. “No. You have to stay at home. We’ll bring everything over as soon as we’re done here.” His eyes dart to the end of the street.
Oh, no. She’s not going to come over, is she? That would be bad.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.” And he taps at the screen before handing me the phone. “Seems she may show up here soon. She’s not happy.”
Yeah, I got that part of their conversation. Which means we have to move fast. If she comes here, if she gets in the middle of everything, I’m not sure that things will work out. If she’s here, things could turn very ugly fast.
Mia’s ex wasn’t very happy to see us, especially not Jake, but when he realised there were four of us, he didn’t try to stop us, just kept grumbling in the hallway. Kept mumbling something about how he was going to call the police, but he didn’t do anything, they were just empty words. Which, makes a lot of sense, he knew that he wasn’t going to get his way and I’ve seen the messages he’s sent Mia, those alone would be enough to argue that Mia would not feel safe coming here to pick up her own things.
It’s easy enough to clean out the rest of Mia’s closet and I’m putting a couple of cute dresses in a box while Jake is stacking his box with books. Mal and Dylan are going around the rest of the apartment to pick things up. We know that Mia can show up at any moment, and we want to have as much done as possible before that happens.
Jake said that it would take at least twenty minutes before she’d be here, if not more, depending on how she’s planning to travel. But that means we’ve got a deadline to hit, we have to be done before she’s here. Which... Yeah, she’s going to have to repack everything nicely later, because we’re just moving as fast as possible.
“I never realised you were such a sucker for pain. That she makes you do her work, makes you run all over the place for her, and she never even wants you.” Noah’s voice is grating, and when I look up, I see he’s talking to Jake, who is trying his best not to explode. Uh, oh, that’s not going well.
I stand up, but Jake sends me a glare. What? Am I supposed to let this guy badmouth him like that?
Then Jake stands up straighter, his head high, his shoulders straight, his eyes intense. “I have no idea what problem you ever had with me, but this stops. This stops now.”
Noah snorts. “Why?”
“Because she’s not coming back to you, ever. What you did to her... Who you made her into... You never deserved her.”
“And you do?”
Jake doesn’t back down, keeping his head high, his voice level. “No. But at least I accept the fact that I’ll never be go
od enough for her, instead of making her smaller, abusing her until she’s just a shell of herself, just to make myself feel better. This stops. Now.” Then he picks up his box with books and he walks out of the room, leaving Noah standing there, staring at the spot Jake was a moment ago. Did Jake really just break him?
Then he spots something out his window and a grin spreads over his face, a look I don’t like at all, and the guy turns around, following Jake.
Oh, no. Not good... Definitely not good.
“Mal. Dylan. Follow him!” I’m already on the move too.
I have no idea what I’ll find, but the guy looked way too happy, like he had a plan, a plan to make this all even worse, and I don’t want to consider what it could me. Whatever he’s going to do, we need to stop it. Now.
11
Jake
Ugh. I never liked Noah, but I somehow keep forgetting how little I like him. I somehow keep forgetting how much of an asshole he really is, when Mia isn’t minimalising his crappy behaviour, making him seem like a not-that-bad guy. Tom was right, we can’t start a fight, we don’t need to end up at the police station or things like that, or just the general drama of it. We don’t need any of that.
I put the box into the back of the truck with the other boxes we’ve already packed and when I turn around, I spot Mia walking down the side of the road, her eyes on me wary. “Jake...” Her voice is rough, like she doesn’t really know what to say.
“Hey.” I want to take her in my arms, but I know that that’s not a good idea. There’s too much going on, too many unpredictable elements. “Wanted to make sure we got everything?”
She gives me a short glare, but then her whole stance goes rigid, her eyes a tinge of panic in them, and I don’t need to turn around to know who’s behind me.
“Finally here to tell these suckers that they can’t just take everything from our house?” Well, it seems that he’s at least stopped trying to be ‘the good guy’ around her, he’s now showing his true colours to Mia too. “If you don’t stop them, I’m calling the police.”