Everybody's Somebody

by D. Breeze

  Idiot.

  Harvey got up gingerly and stood there glaring at her.

  “Now what the fuck is going on? And what are you yammering about him being a murderer for?”

  “He is! He fucking forced my sister to get an abortion! Do you know how fucked up that is? It’s sick, and he deserves every fucking arse-kickin’ that I’m gonna give him.”

  Jamie turned to stone. He looked at Harvey, who had gone white as sheet, and frowned.

  “Is that true?” He demanded.

  “Um...I...um...” Harvey stuttered, wearing his guilt all over his face.

  Jamie exploded.

  “How in the fuck could you do that to someone? Jesus Christ, I can’t even bear to look at you. You sick fuck. Abbi’s right, you’re a murderer. I just...I don’t even know who you are.” He looked at Harvey with pure disgusted, then grabbed my hand and dragged me into the house, leaving Abbi and Harvey outside.

  I couldn’t wrap my head around anything that had just happened, what was so wrong with the world that people had to keep doing messed up things?

  I was dragged through the house, straight out the back door and up to our apartment. As soon as Jamie had shut the door, he turned to me, looking furious.

  “Who was it?” I shook my head, not understanding the question.

  “Who did he threaten?” he asked, not even trying to conceal his annoyance.

  “Mikaela...” He closed his eyes tightly, wincing as if he was in physical pain and I knew why. He’d used her to hurt Candace weeks ago, that must have started her downfall. Not that I cared about that, because I didn’t. He obviously did.

  “Did you know?” he growled.

  “Of course not! Abbi told me today when we were on the way to shopping and then...well, you know what happened as soon as we got back.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “How can you not believe me? Why would I keep something like that from you?”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore! I don’t even know the full fucking story and I’m already considering kicking the fuck out of my own brother. My mind is working over-time trying to work out what the fuck I just witnessed.”

  So I filled him in. The whole sordid tale, including the fact that I knew something had happened the night he crashed. He didn’t look any less angry; in fact he looked like he was vibrating with fury. There was nothing I could do to help, so I didn’t. I bit my lip and looked to the floor, I’ll admit I was scared.

  Maybe he wouldn’t believe me and he’d make me move back to ‘my’ house by myself.

  The silence stretched for minutes, nothing but the sound of our synchronised breathing. Finally, I heard his feet shuffle and braced myself for the slamming of the front door. Instead, I felt his body collide with mine as he wrapped in a hug that made it hard to breathe.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I believe you, I know you wouldn’t keep something like this from me. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this.”

  He sighed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. I wasn’t going to let him take responsibility for yet another issue, when he’d already dealt with enough, thanks to me.

  I tensed and withdrew from his hold.

  “No! No, this is not your problem. What Harvey did is wrong and it’s vile, but it’s nothing to do with you. He needs to deal with this by himself,” he tried to speak but I wasn’t finished. “Yes, he might be your brother, and I know you always have each other’s backs but this is different, this is extreme. Maybe Abbi will just keep beating on him until he realises what he’s done. Maybe she’ll come up with some other crazy way to punish him, but that’s their problem. You can’t get involved, I don’t want you involved in this. You’re still recovering and even if you weren’t then I still wouldn’t want you involved.”

  To my surprise, he chuckled. “Pretty girl, you really know how to keep things interesting. I wasn’t going to get involved. You’re right, this is isn’t my issue but I meant about my mum and dad. I don’t know what to do about them. How can I live with myself, knowing something this awful, and not tell them. My mum will be devastated, that’s not the son she knows; he wouldn’t do that. I don’t know how she’ll deal with this.”

  He was right. As always. Cheryl wouldn’t take the news well, not that she would have been happy about him being a dad at eighteen either, mind you. I bit my lip, considering his words. What’s that saying? Quick and painless? That’s what he needed to do.

  “Are they in now?” I asked. He nodded.

  “You should do it now. Just go and tell them, then they can deal with it however they think is best and your job is done. I don’t want you to have to worry about something that you didn’t do.”

  His lips twisted, but he agreed and asked if I’d go with him. Like he really needed to ask?

  ~*~*~*~*~

  “And apparently, he told her he’d ruin her life if she kept the baby. He called her a whore for fuck sake. He’s just as bad, if not worse! He might not be a kid anymore, but he can’t get away with this. It’s wrong. It’s not how normal people behave.”

  Jamie didn’t waste any time repeating the story I’d told him, almost word for word, as soon as he’d got his parents to sit down. Cheryl looked at Jamie like she couldn’t believe a word that he was saying, I wasn’t surprised. She shook her head as if to clear it, but when she realised that he was telling the truth, she broke down.

  Her whimpers hurt my heart, deeply. I didn’t really think it was place to comfort her but I did. I put my arm around her shoulders and let her cry into mine. I caught random words she was mumbling like ‘my boy’, ‘a beautiful baby’ and ‘how could he?’

  I assumed she didn’t actually want a response so I stayed silent, so did everyone else. Looking over at Malcolm, I was shocked to find him staring back at Jamie, a muscle clicked in his jaw. Why was he so mad at him for? It was not his fault.

  “He made me.” The broken whisper came from the doorway to the lounge and everyone whipped their heads in that direction. That wasn’t Harvey, at least, not the Harvey I’d come to know. He had tears openly streaming down his face, his hands trembled but his hostile eyes stayed focused on only one person.

  Malcolm.

  Oh damn.

  Not good.

  I suddenly understood why he had been looking so angry, at Jamie. He knew he was going to get found out, but why? Who does that? What exactly did Harvey mean?

  Too many questions running through my mind, I’d switched off, not paying any attention to the room around me.

  “You stupid ungrateful brat! I did you a favour. How are you supposed to make anything of your life with a teenage whore and a screaming baby around? You’d never get free of her, she’d always be in your life because you’d be tied to her forever, by a baby! Don’t blame this on me; you’re the one who knocked her up in the first place. I thought you were more responsible than that. I helped you, god damn it!”

  “Oh no. Oh no no no no. Malc, tell me you didn’t. Tell me, right now, that you didn’t tell our boy to do what he did.”

  Malcolm stayed silent, staring at his wife.

  “TELL ME!!” she shrieked, he flinched but still stayed silent.

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my...how could you? What is wrong with you? They’re our boys. If they make a mistake, if they get into trouble, if they need help, we help! We fix things for them, we show them the right way to do things. We do not turn them into vile creatures who threaten pregnant girls. We don’t tell them to say things that are not true, we don’t teach them to force anyone to do anything. We don’t...we do not do that!” She rubbed her hands down her face and failed in controlling her voice. She sounded shrill and broken. I despised it.

  “I can’t believe you. I just don’t understand. If one of our boys comes to you with a problem this big, you come to me. We talk about it. Together. As a family. You can sit there and talk to Harvey like that, convincing yourself that you’ve done the right thing
, but if you really thought that, if you really thought that persuading one of our boys to threaten someone and, urgh, I don’t even want to say it! You told him to make her abort his unborn child. I don’t even know who you are right now. I’m not sure I ever did.”

  That was an ominous statement if I ever heard one. I knew it would be bad, but the way she said that, made it sound like she was really rethinking their marriage. Not that I blamed her exactly, it was a situation no one should ever have to deal with. I wasn’t sure how she would ever get over it.

  Malcolm hadn’t spoken in minutes, but he looked like he was contemplating what to do next.

  He sighed in resignation.

  “Can we go somewhere and talk, privately?” He asked.

  Cheryl was already shaking her head. “No. No way. I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

  “But I need to tell you something and it’s personal, it’s private and the kids shouldn’t hear it.”

  “Oh, now...” She started slowly. “Now you give a damn about our boys. You should have thought of that before then shouldn’t you?”

  He ground his jaw together. Then he told her and he was right. Neither Jamie, nor Harvey, should have been there to hear it. Especially not Harvey.

  “Remember that year in college, when we broke up for three months. Remember? When you were doing your exams and you said you wanted to put all your effort into doing well and you didn’t have time for me?...” Bitterness crept into his voice at the memory and he didn’t hide it, but Cheryl nodded weakly. “I met a girl...” uh oh! “We only slept together once, I swear to you, just once...b-but she called me when we were already back together and she said she was pregnant and she was keeping the baby.”

  Cheryl’s gasp echoed around the room.

  “I tried to tell you, time and time again. I knew I’d lose you, I knew you wouldn’t stay with me. Even if it wasn’t really cheating, it felt like it. I felt like my whole life was falling apart around me. I didn’t even know the girl for crying out loud! I’d just met her and she was going to ruin my life. Three weeks after, I still hadn’t told you. I couldn’t do it! I think I was in denial, pretending it wasn’t real. Then it wasn’t. She called again, to say she’d lost the baby. Her words, ‘lost the baby’, like it could be found?”

  He shuddered.

  “And I won’t feel bad for the fact that I felt relief. I was never upset, I did not have any attachment to her, or that b-baby, because it never was a baby to me. So I never told you, you didn’t need to know. Why would I cause you that sort of heartache, if nothing would ever come of it? Then Harvey comes to me, and he’s saying the same things. No, he doesn’t have a girl he loves like I loved you, but he had the same fear of ruining everything, his life being over. You’re right, he’s my boy and I hated the thought of his life being ruined, I hated knowing that he was feeling exactly how I felt back then. So I did what I felt I had to do. Maybe it was wrong, maybe it wasn’t, but now he’s free to live as he pleases and I don’t see what’s wrong with that. I do what’s best for my boys, always.”

  Silence.

  Deafening silence.

  I had no idea where to look. Not at Jamie, he looked ill. Not at Harvey, he looked murderous. Not at Cheryl, who just looked blank...and I didn’t even want to look at Malcolm. So I retreated, dropped my head and stared at the floor. It was a well practised move. I felt like I was intruding on family time, and I was not family.

  Within seconds Jamie must have noticed because he placed his hand under my chin and gently lifted my face. He would never let me hide, even when I wanted to.

  “Stay here with me.” He whispered in my ear, so quietly I almost missed it.

  “I-I...I need to go out for a while,” Cheryl muttered, then got up to leave. No one else spoke, just watched her slowly slide on her coat, and shuffle out of the front door. What could anyone say? She needed her space, she deserved it.

  The door closed, the room went static with tension. Clearly, Jamie couldn’t take it anymore.

  “We’re out! You two do what you’ve gotta do, because right now, you both disgust me. You’re as bad as each other, talking about the life of babies like it’s inconsequential. You’re vile people.” He turned to his dad. “Whatever you have to do, whatever it takes, fucking fix this. Mum doesn’t deserve this. You don’t deserve her either, but I’m not sure she could live without you anyway. So just...just fucking fix this.”

  We left.

  ~*~*~*~*~

  “It’ll be ok honey, everything will work itself out.”

  I wasn’t sure who I tried to convince more, Jamie, or myself. I was certainly not confident that everything would be ok, but I was just trying to be strong for Jamie.

  He sighed. “I know, pretty girl. I’ll be all right soon, I just can’t stop thinking about everything.”

  He still looked distraught.

  It was hours after ‘the talk’ that I’d remembered I’d left my shopping bags in Abbi’s car, so Jamie took me to get them and we decided (he decided) that we were going to drive around for a while.

  He hadn’t spoken in forever, so I thought maybe if I tried to convince him that it would be ok, then so would he.

  “So, talk to me. You never let me hide, now you’re doing it too. You’re never silent and it’s worrying me. Talk about anything, the weather, Christmas, hell, talk to me about football if you want! Just please stop being so quiet.” I knew I sounded like a whiny little girl, but I wanted him to talk!

  He chuckled quietly. “Alright babe, I’m sorry. You um...you really want me to talk about football?” he asked, sounding like a hopeful child.

  “No not really! But it’s better than nothing.”

  “I love you, baby.”

  I smiled. “I love you too.”

  “No. You don’t get it. I don’t have anything I want to talk about, nothing interesting anyway. The only thing that’s important to me anymore is you. So that’s what I want to talk about, you.”

  I was stunned, he always knew exactly what to say to make me swoon. He was the sweetest, most perfect person to ever walk the Earth...I was certain of it.

  “You know everything there is to know about me.” I could feel my skin heat. Blushing, again! Damn.

  “I know that, I don’t want to know about your past. I want to know about your future. What do you want to do when you finish college? Last time I asked you, you said you’d never thought about the future, but things are different now. Your future is yours, you can do whatever you want to do. So tell me, what’s your dream?”

  Well that was deep. It got me thinking though, what out of everything in the world, would I really want to do? I answered before I even knew the answer myself.

  “I want to write.”

  “Like what? Journalism?”

  “No, I want to write books. I want to write about happy ever afters, and true love, and I want to write about the way it feels when you know you’re on your way to getting both of them. I want to write about the highs and the lows and the trials and tribulations, but most of all, I want to write about every girl’s dream man, their saviours, their heroes and their knights in shining armour.”

  “Wow. That’s a fantastic idea. Wouldn’t that be hard to do though?”

  “No. Not even slightly. I’ve got all the inspiration I need.”

  “You have?” he inquired.

  “Uh huh.” Suddenly I felt shy and nervous; I didn’t want to tell him that he was my inspiration.

  “You gonna tell me who?” He started to sound cocky, oh he knew exactly who I was talking about.

  “Jamie, stop fishing for compliments! Yes, you’re my inspiration. Every girl wants a guy to come along who takes care of her and always wants what’s best for her, but lets her do things her own way too. She wants the guy that tells her that she’s beautiful and calls her ‘pretty girl’, the guy that actually saves her life and is always there when she needs him. Jamie, I’ll always consider myself the luckiest girl in the entire worl
d, just because I have you.”

  I bit my lip.

  Was that too much? Would it scare him off?

  “Sweetheart, listen to me.” I already was... “You believe what you want to. If you think that I’m everything you just said then, not that I thought it was possible, but I love you more. I don’t agree though, I’m not your hero and I don’t take care of you. You take care of yourself just fine now, you just needed a push in the right direction. I’m not dragging you along with me anymore, but I’ll always be holding your hand, running along beside you. We’re equals and I wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re everything to me, you changed my life too, always for the better – no matter what shit we’ve been through in the process. If it meant I could have you turning to me, in our bed, every morning looking at me with your beautiful blue eyes and whispering ‘good morning’ babe I swear, I would go through it all again.”

  Proof, pure proof of exactly how wonderful he really is and always will be.

  I turned my head to hide my tears, but he knew. He always knew.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Life

  Lying in bed, I stretched lazily and decided, I just was not getting up. I yawned and thought that maybe, if I stayed in bed, we could avoid any more drama. I’d had enough of it!

  Oh how I was starting to love the sound of silence.

  “Morning baby.” His raspy, sleep filled voice broke my silence. That was one sound I did not mind.

  I turned over and smiled. “Good morning, honey.”

  Jamie leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss on my lips. My belly fluttered.

  He pulled back and looked at me expectantly, but I had no idea what he was waiting for, so I just looked at him, blankly.

  “You got nothing to say to me this morning?” he asked.

  Uh oh!

  “Um...” I was still too sleepy to think clearly. What could I have to say to him? Seconds, maybe minutes, I stared at him, desperate for a hint or clue. Then it hit me, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realised sooner.