by Max Henry
The house looks like a damn black market florist. Flower arrangements cover every available surface, a few even placed on the floor beside the sofas.
“Oh, yes.” Mum stands beside me, hands clasped to her chest. “Your father suggested I buy a few for the wake, but I wanted to see the real thing first so I went online to buy a couple to test the supplier out, you know? And well, I had to try them all. They got delivered this morning. Don’t you think it makes the house look lovely? So soothing.”
She’s lost it. Mum has officially hijacked the train to lunacy and disembarked somewhere around instability. “How much did this cost?” Flowers aren’t cheap, especially online, and Dad doesn’t earn that much.
“I don’t think that’s relevant given what they’re for. Do you?” She glides past a lily arrangement and straightens a stem before taking a seat in the armchair. “Did you have a reason for coming inside?”
“Yeah, I do.” But more to the point, should I need one? “I wanted to talk, just you and me.”
“Oh, how lovely.” She positively beams.
I ignore the shiver that ripples down my spine and plaster on a smile of my own. “So… have you and Dad talked much about me moving out?”
“Of course. He pointed out why it’s such a good idea.”
“Really?” How the fuck could kicking your teenage daughter out be a good idea? “And how’s that?”
“Well, you need the space from us—clearly we’re cramping your creativity, or self-expression, whatever it is, and that’s why you push back against us.” She waves her hands about in the air with a sickly sweet smile, as though this topic is just too much fun to bear.
My nails dig into my legs, and I step slowly over to the sofa to take a seat. “Did it occur to you that I might struggle to find a place to live at my age? I have no credit rating, what barely qualifies as a part-time job, and no references.”
“Dad said you were going to stay with your new friends.” She cocks her head to the side, her back ramrod straight. All she needs is a high-waisted swing skirt and a cashmere sweater to complete the Stepford image.
“Dad’s lying.”
“Oh, no, Meg. Don’t be silly.” She giggles politely. “I’m sure Dad knows what he’s talking about.”
“And I’m sure I’m not imagining things either when I can recall the entire conversation we had in the kitchen where he told me I had two weeks to shape up or ship out.”
Her placid demeanour shifts. I swear the weather darkens, the dim sunlight into the room now near non-existent. A storm brews in more ways than one.
“Now, Meg, you listen to me when I say this, because I’ll only say it once. Everything isn’t always about you.” I go to protest, but she whips a palm up to stop me. “You’ve always done this, right since you were learning to walk. Anything to do with Den, you wanted to overshadow it. You continually stole the limelight from him with your temper tantrums and… and”—her lips snarl as she waves a hand at my outfit—“appearance. You don’t always have to be the centre of attention.”
Pretty sure my jaw just scraped the carpet. “Are you serious? You sound exactly like him, you know that?”
“Perhaps then it’s time you gave serious consideration to the thought that we may be right.” Her hands are perfectly posed on her knee, her chin turned down ever so slightly.
“Answer me this: when is the last time you can remember that you and Dad celebrated something I did?”
“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of occasions where we praised you for your efforts.”
Efforts. Even subconsciously she cuts me down. “Name one.”
“Well… I’m sure we did something when you got your job?”
“You handed me your bank account number and told me I could start paying board.”
She looks affronted at the idea, nose curled up and eyes hard. “When you got your driver’s licence?”
“Dad joked that he was surprised I got it without having to resit the test five times.”
“There’s no need for us to sit here and split hairs over it. I’m sure your dad and I would have showed you on plenty of occasions how proud we were of you.”
Were. Is she saying these things on purpose?
I shake my head, pained that I have to explain this to my own mother. “That’s just it, Mum—there isn’t. Everything was always about Den, so no wonder I tried to pull the light my way every so often. Did you ever think to ask yourself why I acted out? Why I had to go to extremes to get my parents’ attention?”
“We figured it was just the way you were,” she says quietly. “You and Den were so different.”
“No. We weren’t.” I lean both elbows on my knees and bury my face in my hands to groan. “He got held behind at school just as many times as I did. His grades were the same as mine. And yet I got punished for not doing enough, when he got praised for achieving what he did.”
“Because he was handicapped with his deaf ear, Meg,” she argues. “He had to fight to get what he did.”
“Bullshit.” I shake my head. “He wasn’t dyslexic, or illiterate, he just had to turn his head to hear better.”
“It still impeded him, and whether you choose to accept it or not, you could have done better if you’d really wanted to apply yourself.”
“So could he,” I shout, throwing my hands in the air. “But you two slipped your rose-tinted glasses on whenever he came in the room.” Tears battle at the back of my eyes, but I take a deep breath and think of Carver’s words: keep your cool. “All I wanted,” I whisper, “was one day where you guys treated me the same.”
“Then why didn’t you ask for it?”
“I did,” I murmur. “But more to the point, I shouldn’t have to. I tried so damn hard to impress you two, and when that wasn’t enough, I tried the opposite—I acted out knowing that at least if I got punished and told off it would buy me ten minutes of your time.”
“No.” Mum shakes her head. “You can’t blame what you’ve done on us. Not now.” My supressed tears manifest in her eyes. “You can’t blame us for your selfish behaviour.” She sniffs and dabs under her eye with the side of her index finger. “I think perhaps your father did do the right thing asking you to leave sooner.”
“So that’s it?”
“What more can I say?”
I scoff, rising to my feet and stepping toward the door. “Oh, I don’t know, Mum. That you love me? And that you’re sorry this is how things have ended up?”
She turns her head to stare stoically out the front window. I hesitate, hoping she’s simply gathering her words. But as the seconds tick by it becomes increasingly obvious that no, she’s not; she simply has nothing else she wants to say.
Even now.
Ouch.
“See you at the funeral, Mum. I’ll put the key back in the same place once I’m finished.”
My heart tears apart as I step out the front door for what will probably be the last time. So many memories here, so many milestones, and yet this is the worst of them all.
I guess in the end having your parents break your heart is a lot like losing baby teeth—it hurts for a while, but you persevere in the knowledge that what comes after the loss is something stronger, something better.
I’m leaving behind the girl I once was to become the woman I want to be.
And I’ve never in my life felt more like I’m doing the right thing.
FIFTEEN
Carver walks up the side of the house to meet me at the garage door. I texted him after I walked outside, asking him to pull up closer so I didn’t have to walk so far in the sporadic rain with all my shit in hand. He strides over the wet lawn, hands in pockets, and seeming inches taller than his six-foot frame.
And I slept curled up in that last night. I’ve never wanted to slap myself so hard for being such a lucky bitch before in my life.
“How did it go?” he asks, throwing a cautious glance toward the laundry window that overlooks the path we’re on.
; “She’s fucking insane,” I grate out, tossing supermarket bags stuffed full of my clothes out the side door of the garage. “He’s just shoved all my shit in bags, no rhyme, no reason—just shoved it all in.”
Carver leans down and places his large hands over mine. “Stop.”
“No. I need to get this done.” I struggle with a box that’s so fucking heavy I honestly can’t figure out what I own that would weigh this much.
“Meg. Stop.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders and gently coaxes me off the pile of belongings.
I break, the pent-up frustration at how fucked up this whole week has been bubbling over. He walks us backwards, my chest to his back, until he finds the side of the house to lean his weight against.
We stay like that for a solid few minutes, his arms wrapped tight around me, his right hand gripping his opposite wrist so hard that the flesh beneath turns white.
“Shh.” Gentle lips place careful kisses to the top of my head. “It’ll be okay.”
“They’re all I have left,” I sob, “and they don’t even want me.” I emit a pained cry and bawl even harder than before. If I keep this up, Mum will be out here in no time to tell us to stop making a scene for the neighbours.
“They’re not all you have left.” His arms shift so that one stays across my chest, the other sliding up on an angle so he can stroke his fingers along the side of my neck.
If I could purr, I would. Something in that simple touch sets me at ease, and my sobs die off to the odd hiccup the longer he does it.
“I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason, that something out there knows more than we do.” He places a chaste kiss to my temple and continues. “I never intended to go to that bonfire—why would I when I’m almost ten years older than the majority of the people there? But, I’d had a shit day at work, Dad was being a cunt, and Tanya was out with her friends. I needed to get outside, enjoy the space—a by-product of too much time spent cooped up indoors with the home detention.” He slips both hands to my shoulders and gently spins me around, recrossing his arms behind my back to pull me flush with his hard body. My hands go out on instinct to keep breathing space, and find the hard planes of his chest. “Meg… it might sound crazy, but all this happening right now, the fact that you need somebody there for you, that it can be me….” He closes his eyes briefly, shaking his head. “I think that’s the work of fate.”
“You’re saying you think you were supposed to find me?”
“I think we were supposed to find each other.” He leans in and places another soft kiss on my forehead. “It….” He struggles with his words, grimacing as he fights to voice his thoughts.
I reach up with my healing hand and touch the side of his face, running my fingertips over the sharp line of his jaw. He sighs and closes his eyes, his breaths coming slower against my chest.
“When I think about what it would be like if we hadn’t met, that you’d be going through this alone, it fucking tears me up inside.” He swallows hard. “Like nothing else ever has before.” His eyes snap open as my hand drops away, my breath hard to catch as his gaze studies mine. “You’re pulling emotions from me I thought I couldn’t feel. You’re building a dangerous connection, Meg, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Why is it dangerous?” I whisper. What’s so wrong about finding a person who makes you feel?
“Because I’m not the kind of guy who takes lightly to people damaging what’s mine.”
I’m his? I feel adored, cherished, but at the same time I know he’s fighting the thought it could be more. He’s acutely aware of my age—he’s made sure I know that—and there’s no chance that whatever this is growing between us could ever be more. No matter how phenomenal it feels. No matter how much I believe everything he’s just said, because I feel it too.
He’s just what I need, when I need it.
I turn my head and look out over the street as I tune in to the steady beat of his heart. His fingers knit into my hair, and he holds me close before resting his mouth on the top of my head and murmuring “What am I going to do?”
I could die right now and feel as though I was never supposed to be anywhere else. I know what I want him to do, but he has to make that decision for himself, he has to want this enough… want me.
My mind was made up the moment he pulled me close on that log. He is home. He is my comfort, my reasoning, and the one who I can rely on time and again.
“Let’s get this stuff loaded.” I slip free of his hold in my hair, yet keep my hands firmly on his chest. “We’ll stash it in the Falcon until I figure out where I’m going to go, and in the meantime, I think there might be a truck stop that deserves my attention on the rest of their amazing burgers.”
He chuckles, the sound warm and rich through my soul in such proximity. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
We load my belongings in companionable silence, stealing the odd look at the house as we work together to get the stuff in the car. Mum never comes out to see how we’re going, or even if I have gone. If I hadn’t just been inside talking with her, I would have thought there wasn’t anyone home.
The last two bags in my grip, I walk toward the back of the car with Carver close behind, and toss them in with everything else. He reaches up and pulls the boot lid down, giving it a good shove to get the latch to hold properly, just like most of these old bangers require.
He glances down at me, a small smirk on his lips. “Tell me….”
“Yeah?” I pop a hip and lean into the back of the car.
“Does this make us a ‘thing’ yet?”
God I hope so. “Mmm, not sure. You can cook,” I tease, counting off on my fingers, “and I’m pretty sure you can do your own laundry, right?”
He nods, his smile growing.
“Do you take the trash out without being asked? Change the toilet roll when it’s finished? And do you separate your whites and colours?” I ask with a stern frown.
He wraps a hand around the back of my neck and pulls me in close with a chuckle as his lips rest against my forehead. “For you, whatever you want, babe.”
“You might do, then.” I back up and wave a dismissive hand at him. He watches with a broad smile as I strut around to the passenger door and pull it open. “Come on, then. Let’s go get your lady lunch.”
***
I was kidding about us definitely being a thing now—that decision is completely in his court after what he said about this being too dangerous—but with the way he hasn’t stopped smiling since, I wonder if my joke was lost on him. He knows I was kidding, right? Shit. He couldn’t have thought I was serious. I mean, I want to be serious, but he had a valid point. He’s like eight or nine years older, and then there’s the whole issue with his family—well, his dad—and the fact I’m not eighteen yet… oh my God, what if he was serious?
“How’s the deluxe?” he asks, pointing to my greasy burger.
“What did I have last time?”
“The double bacon special.”
I twist my lips in contemplation. “I think the special was better to be honest; I could fit the damn thing in my mouth.”
He chuckles, and promptly takes a bite of his without so much as the need to unhinge his jaw. I scowl with jealousy and squish mine down further to make it a more palatable size.
“When do you start your shift?” he asks around a mouthful.
“Four.”
He turns his head to check the clock over the counter, and I unashamedly stare at his strong profile. Even if he did take my little role play at the car seriously, I shouldn’t complain. Maybe I just instigated the best thing to happen to me since, well, ever?
“You’ve got almost five hours to fill.”
I lean forward, hands folded under my chin, and ask, “What’s the plan then?” The fact it’s a Tuesday and that he’s not a student hits me suddenly. “Wait. What about you? When do you next work?”
Carver shakes his head and pushes a loose sliver of onion back i
n his burger. “Don’t need to worry about that anymore.”
I detect the hint of aggravation and ask, “Why?”
“Got a call yesterday before I picked you up.” He sticks his index finger in his mouth to lick the sauce off. Dead. I’m dead. “They fired me.”
“What the fuck for?” I exclaim.
An old couple in matching polo shirts give me the side-eye for my outburst.
“Some jackass filmed that bust-up with Jasper at the bonfire and uploaded it. Thing got around, and when my boss saw it he didn’t want me associated with the place anymore.”
“That’s screwed up. Surely you have grounds to appeal?”
“Not really.” He ducks his head to one shoulder, eyes on the burger. “But that’s my problem, not yours. You,” he says, lifting both eyebrows, “will need to iron your uniform, or at least have a shower before you go to work, right?”
“Killjoy,” I mumble, wrangling my burger together for another bite. “Where will I do that? I mean, if borrowing your shower is out of the question.”
He sighs and sets the last quarter of his burger down. “I can message Tanya, see if he’s still there, but Meg….”
“What? Would he really be that bad?”
“You have no idea.” He pushes the plate away and leans into the booth seat, arm slung over the back. “We didn’t talk for the first month of my HD.”
“A whole month? In the same house without a single word?”
“Yeah,” he says on a chuckle. “It was awkward as fuck.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I did it.” Carver leans forward again, elbows on the table, and cranes his head around to check who’s within earshot. “He set me up, for the theft. I was supposed to be helping him by being the sober driver—the whole heist was a stupid idea of his one night after too many at the pub—and when we both got hauled in for questioning, he played the whole ‘trying to stop my son from ruining his life’ card, made out he was there to convince me not to do it.”
“Arsehole.”
“If you want to pretty it up, yeah. He couldn’t risk another conviction that got him jail time, otherwise parole would be unlikely.”