*****
It is later that evening when the two of us are sitting outside in a comfortable silence, having climbed onto the roof from Ash’s window sill, that he brings up what happened in the meadow despite me telling him not to.
“I never really expected it to suddenly end like it did,” he admits. His eyes, a beautiful caramel in the tinted light, are faraway. The dying sun shades the clouds surrounding it red as it makes its descent, casting an ominous magenta glow over the small estate of houses that stretch out beneath us.
“Why?” I find myself asking. “Did you expect there to be a winner, in the end?”
“I guess I did.”
I lie down on my back and he copies my action, jamming his hands behind his head calmly. “Thank you,” I say. “For helping me today. If you hadn’t turned up, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened.”
His eyes harden with anger. “If only I could have beaten him up some more while I still had the chance.” I don’t know what to say to that, so in the end I just keep quiet. By now, the sun has sunken even further and the darkness is taking over. The pink glow lingers for a while but stars soon appear. “You only have a week left,” he states.
“I know.” I close my eyes and think. Before, I had always planned to go back, to return to my old life because it is something I’m comfortable with; something I can understand. But now, I feel strangely empty when I think about leaving, as though a part of me would be missing.
“Are you going to stay?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” The words come out as a painful whisper. “I want to, but...” I trail off and he finishes for me with a heavy sigh.
“You can’t leave your sisters, right?” I nod. Because I know that I can’t leave them. I wouldn’t even know how to. He turns on his side to offer me a smile and something inside me shifts oddly when I see that it is a strained, almost sad, resigned smile. “That’s okay, then. If you choose not to stay in the end, that’s okay, but it would be nice if you did.”
I sit up as well with questioning eyes. “You think?” There is a part of me that is hopeful, a part of me that almost wishes he would say ‘don’t leave me, I’d miss you’ just so that I would have an excuse to stay. But he doesn’t. Instead, he just grins and playfully ruffles my hair.
“Of course it would be,” he says. “I could have every single day to tease and humiliate you. What could be better?”
I chuckle weakly, to try and hide my disappointment. Because that small, rebellious part of me had hoped that he would tell me to stay, that he would care enough to miss me when I’m gone. But after all this time I realise how mistaken I am to think that I’m worth all of that. I look up to the sky again to hide the single tear that carves its way slowly down my cheek.
Above us, the stars only twinkle silently.
Chapter 17: How to (not) deal
You know that phrase ‘time flies when you’re having fun’? Well, screw it. I’ve never really noticed the clock before now – the seconds and minutes that tick away, the countless hours that each person wastes. It is a tap, with a continuous drip of water that never seems to stop. Drip drip drip drip. Tick tock tick tock. When I look at the clock now, all I see is a countdown. Six days and nine hours left. How many minutes is that? Nine thousand one hundred and eighty minutes left with Ash.
Dawn calls again five days before the fateful first of September. “So, are you enjoying yourself there?” she asks after the customary pleasantries.
“Yeah. Sure. It’s great.”
“And the boy…?”
I roll my eyes. “Relax, Dawn. Nothing’s happened.” I hear what sounds suspiciously like a disappointed sigh in the background static of the phone. I narrow my eyes.
“Dawn? Is there anyone else with you?”
“Erm...” but her stutter is quickly cut off by another voice, one that I try to hold in my frustration and anger at hearing again.
“Hope, it’s us.” A brief mental image flashes across my mind. It’s from my last moments before I ran away. There’s Faith, hair falling wildly out of its usually neat ponytail, expression furious. Then Lily; arms crossed, scowl firmly in place and disappointment shining brightly in her eyes. Why were they always so disappointed?
“Dawn,” for the moment I divert my anger to the one least likely to retaliate. “I thought I told you I didn’t want to speak to them.” I grind my teeth together, trying to keep the emotions from taking over but at the same time trying to stay angry, because I want to be angry at them. I have a right to be.
“I know,” she says meekly. “But I couldn’t exactly stop them, they just happened to overhear.” I’m guessing the phone must be on loud speaker at the other end.
“And anyway, Hope, you can’t keep avoiding us,” comes Faith’s voice.
“I can try.”
“But you won’t get very far.”
“I don’t have to go back, you know. That’s the point. I’ve got a choice this time.” For the first time.
“Well, then?” Faith asks calmly. “If that’s so, what are you going to choose?”
“No idea,” I lie. “I haven’t decided yet.”
There’s a pause. Maybe they have seen through my bluff, know that eventually I’m going to return to them like a stray dog. Dawn speaks, sounding uncertain. “I’ve told them everything, you know,” she says. “They know about the deal, Jenny, the boy, everything.”
“Yeah,” Lily supplies. “And we’re sorry.”
“Sure. Of course you are.”
“We’re telling the truth, Hope,” Faith joins in. “Whether you want to believe it or not, you running away and Dawn yelling at us really opened our eyes.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Dawn? You yelled at them?” It’s an odd concept, trying to imagine frail, shy little Dawn being angry and yelling.
“Yeah,” she giggles a little. “It felt good.” That probably earned her glares from the other two.
“Anyway,” Faith starts again. “The point is that we realised that we were wrong. It’s just…the sudden responsibility, the pressure for money, the grief, put together I guess it deluded us more than we thought.”
A silence follows her heartfelt little speech. For the first time I feel guilty. The sudden epiphany follows soon after. Maybe they had been a little unfair, but the truth is that they are not bad sisters. If they were bad sisters, they would have thrown me out, let me fend for myself or sent me to an orphanage. But they looked after me, even if it was just due to obligation. Faith arranged things when I needed to start secondary school. She paid for my school uniform. Lily taught me the basics of how to cook and Dawn taught me how to use the washing machine. Faith even went to my school parent-teacher evenings.
I suddenly realise that it hadn’t just been them. I was selfish. You see? There’s a twist to that Cinderella theory I had. It turns out that the evil step sisters aren’t so evil after all and Cinderella is the one who’s foot doesn’t fit into the damn silver slipper.
“I’m sorry,” I finally whisper and even I can clearly hear the guilt in those two words. “I was wrong, thinking I had it the worst. I never thought about how much you three did for me. I’m sorry.” I had been going to say ‘I’m sorry for running away’ but I can’t, because I’m not sorry for that.
“Don’t apologise Hope,” Dawn says softly. “We didn’t treat you like we should have. But, things will be different if you come back.”
“We promise,” Faith says.
“Really?” I ask weakly.
“Yeah,” Lily assures me. “We can start all over again.”
It sounds so tempting, almost too good to be true. After so many years, I’ll be worth something to them. I think back to that night on the roof with the stars and the burning pair of chocolate eyes. Am I already worth something to him?
“I want to,” I say, and my head is throbbing. “But it feels like there would be something missing if I left here.”
“Something, or someone?”
Dawn asks.
I don’t want to deal with that thought. I don’t want to deal with any of these thoughts. I blink slowly. “Just come on the first of September. The address is number 7 Treneor close, Cleadon village. Then we’ll see.”
I end the call before they can reply, because I don’t want any meaningful last words or promises that they’ll be there. I just want to sleep. Yes, to sleep – maybe hibernate would be a better word – and wake up again when I’m eighty nine and almost dead anyway. I run my fingers through the knots in the hair, not even caring when I caress split-ends. Who do you choose when the choice is between family and some sort of gut feeling?
At that moment, Ash passes by the open door to my room and stops, poking his head through the doorway in confusion. “Hey, who were you talking to?”
I smile wearily. “Oh, no one. Just my good friends, the walls.”
The stare of bewilderment I receive in response is much deserved.
*****
When I saunter lazily down the stairs the next morning, having spent most of it in silent contemplation within the confines of my room, I’m greeted by an unexpected and highly disturbing sight. Upon entering the kitchen, I find Ash with his messy, brown head bent over a frying pan. I hear the trademark sizzle sizzle pop of oil. Quickly, I flounce up behind him and peer over his shoulder to see what he is poking at with a large, wooden spoon. I practically feel myself wilt. Burnt eggs. Fried bread that is slowly turning black. In the other pan bacon and sausages are being drowned in a lake of olive oil.
“Switch the gas off.” I breathe out the command, laced with a sigh of exasperation. He looks up from prodding the slowly shrivelling eggs, confused.
“Why?” he asks. “Are they supposed to be this colour?” I feel like hitting my head against a wall.
“Only if you like your eggs extra crispy and burnt.”
“Are they really that bad?”
“No, they’re egg-celent.”
He laughs. “What? Not original enough to think up your own pun?”
“I was mocking you, idiot.”
“I don’t understand though,” he says, returning his attention to the burnt food. ”What did I do wrong? I just did what I’ve seen you and mum do.”
“You could have asked for help, you know.”
“But where’s the fun in that?”
“You think everything destructive is fun.”
“Well, you know how I love being a nuisance.”
I shake my head in defeat. “It doesn’t just take a moron to successfully manage to ruin eggs and bacon; it takes a special moron. You should be flattered.”
He rolls his eyes. “I know you love me really.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Oh yes, you can tell from those death glares you keep shooting at me.” He ruffles my hair, grinning, but I swat his hand away. Is it so wrong to want my hair to look nice, just once?
“I spent half an hour this morning trying to fix that,” I grumble. “And now you’ve gone and messed it up again!” I run my fingers through it, attempting to undo some of the damage. It doesn’t cooperate.
“What a disaster. And it’s called a brush, if you didn’t know.”
I scowl in response as I continue to comb through the brown thing on top of my head that, by this point, vaguely resembles chocolate pudding. “At least I don’t have a palm tree on my head,” I sneer.
“I’d prefer a palm tree to a bush any day, dear.” Then he smiles at me; an annoying, warming, charming smile that makes my throat dry. Charming? I wonder how my conscience comes up with these things. His smile isn’t charming. His eyes aren’t heart-warming and they certainly do not remind me of my favourite Belgium milk chocolate.
“Hope? Are you even listening?”
I blink. “Yeah? What?”
“I was just asking if you want to go out for breakfast or something, seeing as I’ve ruined it.”
Somehow Dawn’s quiet, airy voice finds its way into my head at that most impromptu moment. ‘Something, or someone?’ the echo rings in my ears and I force back a cringe. “No way!” I shout inside my head. It is only when I notice his bemused expression that I realise I had shouted it out loud as well.
“Ok, you don’t want breakfast, no need to yell about it.”
I try to amend my mistake, forcing a placating smile. “Oh no, of course I do! But um...well, we wouldn’t want these eggs and bacon to go to waste, would we?” It is cringe-worthy how fake I’m acting as I move about tipping the charred contents of the pan onto two plates.
He looks dubious. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
I laugh nervously, slipping around him to place the plates on the table and sit down. “Well, I’m sure it’s better than it looks.”
“Doubt it,” he mutters under his breath, but nevertheless he complies and takes the opposite chair. I send him a smile that is about as transparent as a jellyfish, before trying not to look and taking a large bite of the burnt eggs. Immediately I start to gag, the strong flavour causing my eyes to water. I force myself to swallow. When I look up, I see the same strained expression on his face. “Bit too much salt then,” he notes.
I sigh. “Want to go out for pancakes?”
“Definitely.”
*****
It is the same day, after a lazy afternoon spent watching the sun meander slowly across a cornflower blue sky, that I find myself wading leisurely through a field of wild, uncut grass. I’m alone, the only sound being the wind whistling through the trees.
This time I turned left from the house; walking in the opposite direction from the meadow that leads to Cleadon Creek. This field is further away, but I know it well. Unlike the meadow it is flat and the grass is wild, reaching up to tickle my knees. The wild flowers are less common here, only the occasional communities of dried out dandelions with their heads of parachute-seeds, waiting to be picked up by the wind and dispersed. I bend down and pluck one, blowing on it. The mini parachutes fly into the air, a hundred smoky silhouettes. I don’t bother making any wishes.
I walk slowly onwards until the large oak tree comes into view; majestic, ancient, with golden leaves and low-hanging branches. I stare down at the grass for a moment, hands hidden in the soft fabric folds of my coat pockets. Light footfalls behind me break the peaceful silence. When I turn I’m surprised to see the short, blonde girl walking towards me, clad in a denim skirt and midnight blue jacket. I wait until she has reached my side before I greet her hesitantly.
“Tia. What are you doing out here?”
“Gee, nice to see you again too.”
“Right, sorry.” I shift awkwardly. “So, where were you heading?”
“Didn’t really have a place in mind.”
“Me neither.” I smile slightly. “Do you want to walk?” She nods and we fall into step with each other. Behind us, the sun continues to dip, getting closer to the horizon every minute. “I listened to that band you like: Blue menace,” I mention casually after a moment. “You’re right, they are good.”
“I didn’t think you would like that sort of music.”
“Neither did I.”
“You can borrow the CD, if you want.”
“Thanks.” It’s quiet for a while. Tia looks like she wants to say something but can’t find the right words. She bites her lip every now and then, looking towards me nervously. I wait patiently.
“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “About what happened with my brother, I mean. I heard about it afterwards. I never thought he would do something like that.”
“It’s okay,” I cut her off. “Nothing happened. I don’t blame you. In fact, I should thank you for telling Ash where I was. But can we change the subject? I really don’t want to talk about this.”
She winces guiltily, nods, searches for another topic. “So, what do you think of your stay here?”
“It’s been amazing.”
“Amazing?” she repeats dubiously.
“Apart from being attacked,” I e
laborate. “I know I’ve definitely learnt some new things this summer, and despite everything I’m still glad I came here.”
In the slowly diminishing light, I notice the faraway look in her eyes that reminds me eerily of Claire. “That sounds nice, ” she says quietly. “You know, to be able to live somebody else’s life like that for a change.”
“But only for a little while.”
“What’s going to happen to you?” she asks suddenly. “Are you going to stay here?”
Cold Water Page 18