by Ford, Brenda
“It could go that way,” she admits. “Or it could be the best thing ever. It could be the best decision you ever make. We could really have a happy ever after, couldn’t we?”
I shake my head at her and head towards the stairs. I probably should just tell her to leave, but I don’t want to be a dick. I would much rather her just get the hint and leave of her own accord. She can’t just pile all this heavy stuff on me and expect me to just toss everything aside for her. It doesn’t work that way.
“Stop walking away from me, Oliver,” she barks behind me. “We need to talk about this. Seriously.”
“We’ve talked about it and I’m going to bed now. I don’t see what else there is to say.”
Rosie snorts with angry laughter. “Are you joking? I don’t even know how you feel.”
“I told you I don’t want to ruin our friendship. I don’t want to be used. I just want things to stay the same.”
She’s silent for a beat too long. But I hear her foot steps behind me. “But we have a connection, don’t we?”
“A connection? We have a friendship, that’s what we have always had. There isn’t more.”
I get into my room and attempt to close the door, but Rosie is on a mission tonight and it seems like she isn’t about to let this drop, however gently I try to let her down. She strolls across my room and flops on to my bed like she belongs there, then she smiles up at me expectantly.
“So, what is the real reason, Oliver? Huh? Because I know that you love our friendship, but I also know that if you felt some type of way about me, you wouldn’t allow it to get in the way.”
“I…” I fold my arms across my chest. “I don’t know, Rosie. It’s complicated.”
She props herself up on to her elbows and stares at me. “I’m going to ask you something now, and I want you to be really honest with me. Do you think that you can do that? Just for once.”
“I think so.” I gulp down a thick ball of emotion in my throat. “I will try.”
“No, I just need you to say that yes, you will. You’ll be truthful.”
“Right, okay.” I nod slowly. “I will tell you the truth. Whatever you want to know.”
She taps her finger to her lip thoughtfully before she speaks out again. “Were you flirting with Ellie just to wind me up? Because I know you were flirting with her, I saw it. Was it for my benefit?”
“Er… no.” A heat fills my cheeks. I hate to admit this, but I have to be honest.
“No? You didn’t?” I shake my head again. “So, why were you flirting with her? You know that she’s young, right? Too young for you. You shouldn’t even be looking at her in that way. You should be looking at me. Or was it just some… I don’t know, something where you were practicing your flirting? Because that’s not right. She’s vulnerable. Her mom just died and she’s young. She will take it as too much.”
“I wasn’t just doing it for that. Do you think I’m some kind of asshole or something?”
She gives me a look like she’s trying to figure that much out. Wow, I’m offended. It’s as if she doesn’t know me at all. Our friendship much have gone completely out the window in such a short time.
“You took her out for her birthday, didn’t you?” Rosie’s eyes narrow. “I asked to take her out and she said no. Then I saw you taking her out. I tried to convince myself that you were just being a good guy, looking out for her because she’s having a crappy time. I thought that you might have a bond because you both lost your parents. But now it seems like you were just being a sleezy asshole, preying on her.”
“It hasn’t ever been like that, Rosie, I promise you.”
“So, you were together?” she screams in anger. “You did have a fling with her? Are you serious? I kept thinking that I might have something to worry about, but… but it was just a thought…”
She hates me. It’s burning from her eyes. She absolutely despises me. I guess I always thought that would happen if she found out about me and Ellie, but the reality is too much to bear. I was worried about losing our friendship because of the whole feelings thing, but it looks like it’s going to go anyway.
“Rosie, it wasn’t like that. It was… I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Were you together?” She stomps her feet down and stands. Her arms fold across her chest and she glares at me. If looks could kill I would be dead on the floor right now. “Did you kiss? Did you fuck?”
I blanche at the crude way she’s describing what me and Ellie shared. “We were dating… yes, but I didn’t know how old she was at the time. I liked her, and I thought that things were going to go well between us, but on her birthday as soon as I found out her age, I broke it off because you’re right, she is too young.”
“So, you broke it off because of her age, not because of me.”
How the hell was I supposed to know that I had any other reason to break it off? Does she really think that I was supposed to just psychically know that this was going to happen? I had no idea.
“Rosie, I don’t know what you want me to say. This is all so overwhelming.”
“Overwhelming in a way that you need some time to think about it? To come up with a decision? Or overwhelming because you don’t want me? Or maybe it’s overwhelming because you fucked my baby cousin and now it’s complicated, huh? Which one is it? I need to know.”
“I… what? You threw too many suggestions at me then, Rosie. And none of them are that accurate.”
“Okay, let me rephrase it another way. Do you want to be with me? Ever? Will it ever happen?”
I take a couple of moments before I sadly shake my head no. It won’t ever happen now, I don’t have those feelings for her, I have those feelings for Ellie instead. The one girl that I can’t have. Me and Rosie won’t be anything other than friends… if she still wants to be friends with me after this. I’m not totally convinced.
I might have lost everything. Ellie and Rosie. They are both so important to me and they’re all gone. The way that Rosie looks at me before she storms out and slams my bedroom door behind her shows me all that I need to know. She’s done with me. I’ve fucked it all again. I’m absolutely screwed. If I’m not careful I will end up losing everyone and I’ll be alone. All because I fell for the wrong person. If only Ellie didn’t move here this wouldn’t have happened. Or if she was older, me and her could just be together. Or if I could just make myself fall in love with Rosie, properly this time, then all my problems would be solved.
But it seems that I’m not going to be that lucky. My problems aren’t going anywhere any time soon, and there aren’t any solutions anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ellie
What the hell…? I hear a banging through the house that I’m pretty sure has nothing to do with Auntie Amelia. She might be the only person awake in the house, but she wouldn’t want to make enough noise to wake up Seth… so what is going on? I jump off my bed and practically tip toe in to the hallway to try and make sense of it all.
“You bitch!” Rosie jumps at me like a mad woman before I can even get my eyes adjusted to the dark. She slams against me and knocks me back into my room. “How could you do this to me? I hate you.”
“Woah, what?” I hold up my hands to try and protect my face, but she grabs a chunk of my hair. “Ouch!”
“You fucking took him from me. I warned you against him for a reason. Because he’s mine. That’s the reason, I want him. I have always wanted him and you just… swooped in here and took him from me.”
Even through the hot pain radiating through my skull I gather what she’s talking about. “I haven’t!”
“He told me.” She tugs harder and digs her nails in to my skin. “He told me that you fucked him.”
Urgh, the way that she describes our relationship makes me feel sick. If that’s the way he talked about us, then perhaps I had a lucky escape getting away from him because they reality was different. It was so much more. He saw that at the time, but maybe he can’t now becau
se it was all destroyed by my fucking age.
“You can’t like him,” I shoot back through a bitten lip. I lash out a bit, trying to get her off me, but she is strong with rage and she won’t let me go. “You were with someone else. You can’t have both.”
“Fuck you, Ellie. He’s too old for you. He’s the perfect age for me. He’s perfect for me.”
I kick a leg out and manage to connect with her, just enough to send her flying backwards, releasing me as she goes. I scramble to my feet and move as far away from her as I can. We’re both panting desperately, staring at each other like we’re both strangers to one another. All the good family feeling that came before is long gone.
“He isn’t perfect for you, Rosie,” I insist. “Otherwise you two would be together long time ago before even I came here.”
“Well, you two aren’t together either, so he can’t have been perfect for you either. You fucked a few times and now you’re done. So, you can’t be all over there on your high horse, Ellie. You lost him too.”
“I know.” I hang my head down sadly. “I did lose him, so if you want him, then you can have him, can’t you?”
“So, you think that I should have your sloppy seconds then?” she sneers. “Is that a fucking joke?”
I shrug my shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Rosie. I don’t know what you want.”
“I want you to fuck off back to where you came from. I want my life back to how it was before you came along.” I hear a crack in her voice. She’s crumbling a bit. “I had it all. I had my boyfriend and my best friend. Now my boyfriend is with someone else and Oliver doesn’t want me. He isn’t even my friend anymore.”
“He will always be your friend, Rosie. He won’t ever want to change that, no matter what happens.”
For a moment, she’s so quiet I think that I might have gotten through to her. I take a tentative step closer to her, my heart pounding in my chest as I go. This has got to be the most emotionally ridiculous night of my whole life. I want to hold her and make the pain go away, even if I’m part of the reason she’s hurt.
But I didn’t want to cause her any pain. That wasn’t my intention at all. I just fell for the wrong person.
“No.” She shakes her head hard, snapping out of her moment of daze. “No, fuck you, Ellie. You caused all of this. You did it all. If you weren’t here, then me and Oliver would be happy. But now, even if you go, we can’t be because I will always know that my fucking child of a cousin got there first.”
“I’m eighteen years old, Rosie. You don’t need to be a bitch about my age.”
“Oh yeah, because eighteen is so old and mature,” she mocks me nastily. “When I was eighteen, just turned eighteen at that, I was an immature annoying kid and you are as well. You just can’t see it. You aren’t old enough to make any mature decisions and you certainly aren’t good enough for Oliver. It’s a real shame your mom died.”
The mention of my mother makes me snap. How dare she bring her death in to a fight like it’s something she did on purpose. How dare she speak about something that has nothing to do with her. I snap and I leap towards her with my fists raised. We both fight each other just as hard this time around, causing one another equal injuries. I don’t really feel what’s happening to me, I’m more focused on taking all my pent up rage out on her. There is a lot that I’ve locked away and it’s liberating to take it out for just a moment. I can tell that Rosie feels the same because she’s really focused on fucking me up as much as she can. She wants to take me down.
“I fucking hate you,” she screams at me, making sure that no one around is asleep anymore, least of all Seth.
“I haven’t… I haven’t done anything wrong, Rosie. I haven’t stolen anyone…”
“You took him. You made sure that I can’t have him. You ruined me.”
All of a sudden, another pair of hands gets in the way and yanks us apart. We both tumble backwards. I hit the wall behind me, and Rosie falls on my bed, but misses and hits the floor with a satisfying thump.
“What the hell is going on here?” Auntie Amelia cries out, her eyes burning with hurt. “Why are you two fighting? What on earth is going on? I thought you were on good terms with each other…”
I lose what she’s saying when I spot Seth cowering behind her, looking afraid of both me and Rosie. The anger peters off and I start feeling cold, oily, and very ashamed of myself. What the hell has happened to me? Am I seriously fighting with my cousin over some guy who doesn’t even want me? Haven’t I lost enough family?
“Well?” Auntie Amelia presses her hands to her hips. “Are either of you going to tell me what’s happened?”
I glare at Rosie, but she’s looking as ashamed as me. I don’t think she’s going to open up either.
“It’s nothing,” I finally reply with a resigned tone to my voice. “Sorry for making so much noise.”
“I’m supposed to believe that the two of you are scrapping over nothing? You are hitting one another for no reason? Does that make sense to either of you? Because it doesn’t to me. And if I have learned anything during my years as a teacher, if it doesn’t make sense it’s because it isn’t the truth. So, what is the truth?”
“Mom, just leave it.” Rosie shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done now. I’m going to bed.”
“Oh no, you aren’t young lady.” Auntie Amelia pulls Seth into a hug. “You have woken us up and now we want to know why. I won’t be able to sleep if you don’t be honest with me. I can’t have you two fighting.”
“We… we just had too much to drink,” she tries to cover it all up. “But it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, it matters. To me, this is a very serious issue. I’m not going to ignore it.”
The silence is thick. The tension could be cut with a knife. I really want Auntie Amelia to accept that she isn’t going to get anything from us and leave it. I won’t talk about Oliver and I’m sure that Rosie won’t either. It’s embarrassing, isn’t it? To have her knowing that we’re so pathetic and both in love with the same guy.
“Okay, well the two of you need to go to bed right now,” she snaps. “And I will be talking to you in the morning. I expect some proper answers from you then because I won’t let this drop.”
Rosie shoves passed her mom and stomps towards her room. Of course, a loud slam follows which almost brings all the walls down in the house, but at least that means she’s gone now. I can breathe much easier.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Seth asks me quietly. “I’m afraid.”
This causes a tear to leak out of my eye. The last thing I want is to upset my brother. He doesn’t deserve that at all. He’s been doing his best to keep his head up high while I have been making a mess of it all.
“Of course, you can Seth.” I hold out my arms and Seth runs in to them. “Come on let’s sleep.”
“I will be talking to you in the morning,” Auntie Amelia warns. “I want to know what’s going on. I’m obviously not blaming you for everything, but that behavior isn’t tolerated in my house.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I will be much better in the future, I promise you.”
I watch her walk out the room, leaving behind a trail of disappointment behind her, then I wearily turn around and climb in to bed with Seth waiting for me. In his eyes, I can see the confusion and hurt. My behavior isn’t good enough, it isn’t acceptable, it isn’t right. I shouldn’t let my brother suffer more.
“I’m so sorry,” I start, but he isn’t about to get a word in edgeways.
“Why were you fighting with Rosie? I thought you two were friends.”
“We are. We just had a little fall out, that’s all. It’s nothing. We will be friends again soon. Just living in this small house all together is a bit much, isn’t it? There isn’t enough room.”
“But what can we do about that? The house isn’t going to get any bigger.”
“No, Seth, but we can move, can’t we? You know that was alw
ays the plan. Me and you were going to get a place of our own once my eighteenth birthday hit.”
“But I like it here. I like Auntie Amelia and Rosie.”
“I know. I do too.” I nod slowly. “But we can’t just stay here forever, can we? That was never the agreement. We were only to come here for a while. You will like our new place anyway. I will make sure that it’s amazing for you.”
“Can I decorate my own room?” He turns to look at me. “Like, however I want?”
I smile to myself, glad that he can be swayed so easily. Ah, to be a kid. “Yes of course, you can.”
“A space theme?” he replies excitedly. “We are learning about space at the moment and it’s fun.”
“Whatever makes you happy, Seth. Whatever you want. I will make the best life for us; I promise you that.”
That gives me focus, it gives me something to aim for, it will take my mind off of Oliver which is just what I need. Time and space will make me recover. Hopefully, Rosie too. Then we can maybe heal and be friends again. I do want to be friends with her, regardless of what’s happened tonight. We can be a family… just not one that lives together, and that’s okay.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Oliver
I have spent the last three days avoiding everyone. Not just Rosie and Ellie but everyone. Even Brad hasn’t managed to catch me for any kind of conversation because I haven’t wanted to talk to anyone. I have had some heavy stuff laid on me and I needed the time to try and work out what I wanted to do… but now I think I know.
“Hey, Oliver.” Brad catches me standing in the kitchen, staring at the wall as I try to gear up the courage to act on what I need to do. “I have been trying to get you. When are we going out for drinks? I was thinking tonight, you know, unless you have any other plans on this quiet and cold Friday night?”