She chuckles quietly. “Sure. But you know you can talk to them yourself if you want.”
I suppress the rising grimace. “I’d rather not. Tell them I said thanks for agreeing to this, though.”
“I will.” There’s another awkward pause. “Oh, Hope,” she suddenly pipes up. “I wanted to ask you something. Does Jenny live alone?”
“No. She lives with her son, Ash.”
I can almost imagine her eyes narrowing at this new revelation. “Her son? And how old is he?”
“Around seventeen I think.”
“A teenage boy?” she trills. “Hope, surely you know about-” I quickly cut her off before she can finish that sentence, a steady blush creeping up my neck.
“Dawn,” I hiss. “Don’t even go there. I know all about that and I can look after myself.”
“But-”
“He’s not like that anyway. He doesn’t see me in that way at all. Hell, we don’t even like each other very much.”
She seems ready to argue, but decides to hold her tongue, sighing in defeat instead. “If you’re sure you know what you’re doing…”
“Yes, I do,” I hurry to assure her.
“Ok, fine. Just tell Jenny she can call me any time if she needs to clarify anything, okay? And look after yourself.”
“I will,” I say. “And don’t worry, I’ve been looking after myself for six years on my own, another summer isn’t going to make much difference.”
She doesn’t respond to that comment, as I had expected. “Is there anything you need?” she asks. “Do you have clothes with you? Money?”
I had taken all of my savings which I had collected over the years with me – nearly three hundred and thirty pounds. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I assure her. “You’re coming to get me on the first of September, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll call before that though.”
“Ok.”
“Tell Jenny I said thank you.”
“I will.”
“Bye, then.” It sounds wistful, almost, her voice betraying too much emotion. She sounds like she wants me to tell me something, but isn’t sure how to say it.
“Bye,” I echo.
I hang up before she can say whatever it is that she so desperately wants to tell me, because I know I won’t want to hear it. You see it’s that saying again, the one about people appreciating things only once they’re gone. Just like how Dawn is only pretending to care, because this time she knows I’m being serious.
But I’m learning from my mistakes. I won’t allow myself to believe – even hope – that her kind words and pledges of sincerity are anything more than hollow.
*****
There was a time once, when I was ten, before they broke me. I came home from school that day to find the only framed picture of us as a family lying broken on the floor, lost in a puddle of shattered glass. Although unspoken, that photo had been elected as our favourite. I knew it wasn’t me. But I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Faith quickly assumed that I had broken the picture frame. She’d called me stupid, useless, followed by a string of obscenities. Her hazel eyes had been alight with fury, her nostrils flared, her lips stretched into a pink thread on her face.
“It wasn’t me!” I protested weakly, but it was useless. Faith only cursed and sneered, towering over me menacingly. I’d been afraid that she would hit me. And then I noticed Dawn, who was also in the room, and the guilt evident in her eyes, overflowing and manifesting into tears. She was the one who had knocked over the frame.
That night I slept in the bathroom, the only room in the house that had a lock on it. My vivid ten year old imagination had already tortured me more than Faith ever would. I imagined them coming for me, taking me hostage while I slept. I imagined them infiltrating my room in the dead of night, stealing my most precious items in revenge. I imagined them locking me in from the outside, until I died from dehydration and starvation. Sleeping in the bathroom had been a precaution I was willing to take.
In the end Dawn never told Faith the truth that she was the guilty one, not me. The other two were angry with me for several days, but I never told them either. I could tell Dawn was thankful. She never mentioned the incident again. She never apologised to me, but I could tell. Every time I passed her, whenever we were alone, I saw the furtive glances she would send me before looking away and blushing when she realised she had been caught. I could tell she wanted to apologise to me but just didn’t know how. And back then I wasn’t angry, because that was just who she was. She was weak, quiet, shy. She was a follower and I couldn’t hate her for it, because that’s who she had always been.
They say that there’s three types of people in the world; the ones who like to take control of what is happening, the ones who prefer to watch what is happening and the ones who are always trying to figure out what the hell is happening. I used to think that I knew which type of person my sister was, but now I’m not so sure.
*****
I make my entrance into the kitchen at approximately nine thirty, deeming it late enough to ‘wake up’ for the second time. I’ve taken the extra liberty this morning to make an attempt to tame my tousled hair, which still shows the scars of its honourable battle with the brush. To add to this achievement, I have even gone to the effort of fishing out a new set of clothes from the supplies I had brought with me, sporting a clean pair of jeans instead my old, barely intact ones and a new sweater, this time in a different shade of indecisive grey. I’m not sure why I make the extra bother with my appearance. I still look like a sack in any case.
“Hey, it seems you’ve discovered that rather useful invention called a hairbrush.” Ah. Surprisingly, Ash notices the attempt at my hair. He’s more observant than you’d expect.
“Can’t say the same for you,” I reply through a yawn, sitting down across from him, just as Jenny returns from the kitchen carrying a plate heaped with toast. We eat. The toast still tastes like cardboard. And that’s breakfast.
Afterwards he lingers behind while Jenny heads into the kitchen. “Wow,” he says. “I was half expecting your sisters to change their mind.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“You should be, I’m devastated,” he counters, sarcastic. “But is this really what you want?”
The question is a little strange. I tilt my head at him. “Do you honestly think I would let my sisters force me into something like this?”
He shrugs. “Maybe, I don’t know.”
“Well then yes, this is what I want,” I answer. “I’m not so weak as to let them make my decisions for me.” That’s a lie though and what’s left of my conscience twinges. Can consciences go mouldy or break from lack of use?
“So then you don’t feel awkward, being here?” he asks. “You don’t mind staying here for the entire summer?”
“I don’t know. Should I?”
“No.”
“I don’t get homesick, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He seems satisfied with this answer and a smile flits across his face, immediately lightening the mood. It’s one of those few moments where I feel that we could be good friends if we tried, that maybe we could understand each other without these invisible barriers in the way.
*****
A little while later, once we have left the kitchen, he takes it upon himself to forcefully tug me up the stairs and to his room. He says it’s partly just to annoy me and partly because he’s bored.
“I’m not a plush toy you know,” I growl as he pulls me along the upstairs landing. He just ignores me as we reach our destination. Then, he pushes the door open and leads me inside.
“There’s more space in here than your room,” he explains. “Oh, and plus I have a TV and everything.”
The inside of Ash Falkland’s room is really not very different to what I had imagined. The walls are a deep navy blue and the floor is crammed with rubbish; clothes, sweet wrappers, magazine, male things. Just below the drawn curtains is a bed, covers strewn h
aphazardly across it in a chaotic frenzy. I suppress a chuckle.
“Where’s this so-called extra space then?” I ask. “From what I can see, it looks like you’ve recently had a full-scale house party and managed to cram it all into one room.”
He rolls his eyes, picking his way across the mess to collapse onto the bed, making a gesture to indicate that I should follow his example. “Why are girls always such perfectionists?”
I deadpan. “This is nowhere near acceptable, let alone perfection.”
“I think it’s perfect.”
“Honestly Ash,” I sigh. “I know the truth hurts but face it, calling this-” I wave my hands around at the mess, “a pigsty would be an insult to the pigs.”
He pouts. “Hey, that’s not nice.”
“Neither is stepping on rotting banana skins trying to get across the room,” I say. “Why don’t you just try cleaning up for once?”
“I don’t want to throw anything out; everything in here has sentimental value to me.”
I raise an eyebrow and bend down, coming up a moment later with what resembles half a sock with some gooey brown substance (possibly chocolate) coating part of it. “Even this?” I question, holding it away from me. “I swear this room’s a health hazzard.” I drop the poor, mangled object.
He just sighs and lies back on the bed. “I like my room messy,” is all he says at last and I realise there’s no point trying to convert him. It won’t work anyway. We share a common trait: stubbornness.
We sit for a little while, both content doing nothing. I find my gaze drawn to the cluttered CD racks and overflowing drawers. I can see a lonesome, greying sock poking out from one of them. Pens in various colours are speckled all over his desk, creating a greyscale rainbow. Then finally my eyes come to rest on a potted cactus that sits with a regal calmness on the window sill. Two small, red flowers bloom from the top of the vile looking plant.
“You have a cactus?” I ask, breaking the silence.
This seems to interest him and he sits up, smiling fondly. “Ah yes, that’s Tobi.”
“You named your plant?” I raise an eyebrow.“Tobi?”
He nods, as though this isn’t strange at all. “Of course, everyone has potted plants these days, it’s the new fashion. You don’t have to take them for walks or anything.” For some reason, I have a sudden mental image of Tobi the potted cactus with a dog’s collar and leash wrapped around its thorny, green arms.
“I see.”
He sends another fond glance at the motionless cactus. “Tobi’s a good plant.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“And he’s a cactus, so you don’t even have to water him.”
I sigh in exasperation. “Great, Ash,” I mutter. “Just great. I’m glad you’ve finally found something with the same level of maturity as you.”
“You’re lucky I can take a joke, you know.”
“Sure.”
“You should get a potted plant too. They make good company.”
“Of course they do. Talking to a cactus isn’t strange at all.”
“At least it can’t argue back.”
Sometimes I worry for his sanity, because apparently you really do learn something new every day. Take this, for example. Today I have learnt one very important fact: that my self-proclaimed ‘saviour’ is completely and irrevocably loopy.
Chapter 8: Standing in the rain, because singing in it is overrated
The first time I met Mr. Scott was also the first time I felt alive in well over four years. Unlike my classmates, he saw me as a lost and confused teenager rather than an unapproachable icicle. Unlike my previous counsellor, he saw me as a person rather than an assignment. And unlike my sisters, he saw how broken I was.
Our first meeting had been when I was thirteen. The teachers thought that giving me a new counsellor would be an adequate punishment. So I entered the room reluctantly with a scowl plastered over my features and profanities running through my head. He had been sitting at a desk stacked high with books and folders. ‘Unorganised and messy, he’s not going to last longer than two sessions’ had been my thoughts at the time.
But he did, and I shouldn’t have let it happen.
“So, you’re Hope Weller, am I right?” he asked pleasantly.
“Yeah.”
“Well then, it’s nice to meet you. I’m going to be your counsellor this year. You can just call me Mr. Scott.” We shook hands. After that, an awkward silence had fallen between us. Maybe he expected me to say something first. I pointedly looked away, scowl never leaving my face. “You’ll get wrinkle lines if you keep that up,” he’d commented after a minute of my stubborn silence. “I get the feeling that you’d prefer not to be here right now.”
“Really?” I asked, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “What gave it away? The death glares?”
He shook his head in what I guessed was amusement. “This is for your own good.”
“No, it’s what the teachers think is for my own good.” I quickly continued when he failed to reply. “Let’s face it Mr. Scott. You’re only doing this because it’s your job and I’m only here because I haven’t got a choice. You should just give up while you’re behind and we can both go our own ways.”
I expected, probably even hoped, that he would be angry like any other adult would be. However, he didn’t seem phased by my little outburst and instead just leaned forward, the smile never leaving his bark-coloured eyes.
“Hope Weller, huh?” he pondered. “My, you certainly are an interesting case, although I must say that I’ve heard that little speech all before.”
“Are you saying I’m not original enough for you?”
“I never said anything of the sort. But let’s make this clear, I did not choose this occupation for the money. I want to help you, if you’ll let me.”
There was a refreshing sort of sincerity about the man, something that was difficult to find. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but when I look back now I realise that Mr. Scott is yet another name I must add to the list of people I should have appreciated when I had the chance. Self-pity blinds you to things like this.
“Just get on with it so we can get this over with.”
“Fine, then. So Hope, why are you here?”
“Because I’ve been skipping class, failing the ones I actually go to, not handing in assignments, talking back to the teachers and apparently I’m being ‘antisocial’.”
“I see.” He paused and jotted something down in a purple notebook. “Why do you do it all, then? What do you get out of it?”
“I don’t get anything out of it. I just can’t bring myself to care anymore.”
“Even if the school were to expel you?”
“Wouldn’t change anything. I guess I’d find a job, something simple like a shop assistant.”
He gave me a disapproving look. “I think you’re capable of much more than that.”
“And who are you to tell me what I’m capable of?” I growled, frustrated.
“You’re capable of anything you work hard for. And somehow, I can’t see you being satisfied living without a goal.”
“Maybe that’s true. Maybe the old me was ambitious, but all of that’s gone now. There’s no point in trying anymore.”
He sighed softly, but it wasn’t a disappointed sigh, just a sad sigh. “What makes you feel like this?”
“Why bother asking something you already know?” I’d let out a short, brittle laugh, the type that is associated with deranged people. “You already know everything about me, it’s all in that little purple file on your desk. My name, my grades, my previous counsellor, the fact that my parents are dead,” my voice cracked then, at the mention of them.
“That’s not all of it though, is it?” he murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more to it than that, I can tell.”
A wry smirk slipped onto my face. “You’re good, I admit.”
“It is part of my job, after a
ll.” He’d paused for a brief moment. “Hope, I want to help you, and not because I’m obligated to,” he said, and then smiled. “Trust me.”
I scoffed, staring pointedly at the floor. “You ask me to trust you, but we barely even know each other.”
“Then let’s change that,” he suggested. “Let me get to know the real you, not the person you pretend to be, and I’ll return the favour.”
We ended up talking about our likes, dislikes and anything else we felt was safe to divulge. He did most of the talking really and I carefully refrained from telling him anything too personal, but what I did say was the truth and for once it felt nice to tell the truth. I had grown so accustomed to lying that it felt strange doing so, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. I would like to think that he was truthful with me as well. I remember asking him about his family, about his two children and divorced wife. He told me all sorts of stories, about his young daughter who he had only known for five years, the son he had never known at all and the woman he loved but shouldn’t have. He told me that even though sometimes it seems like the end, life still goes on.
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