“And what if it’s cancer, Owen?” Mum asked in a strained whisper.
“What if it is, Elise? Is it going to change anything?” Dad snapped back.
“I couldn’t just let you face that alone.”
“You could and you should. I won’t have you resent me any more than necessary.”
“Excuse me,” came a voice behind me and I turned quickly.
“Yes?”
“Are you Owen Lincoln’s daughter?”
I nodded. “Is there any news?”
“Come on in and I’ll tell you all.”
I followed them in and couldn’t meet my parents’ eyes.
Even with his life potentially at risk in the hospital, they were still talking about splitting up. They were just giving up, like that. No fight. Where was the honour and decency and to death us do part stuff? Did promises suddenly mean nothing now? Could I just go off and do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted?
Despite the fact that sounded kinda nice…
“Oh, thank God!” Mum cried, her voice shaky with tears of joy.
I looked up and realised I’d missed the diagnosis.
“Just your appendix,” she said as she looked to Dad happily.
Of course, she’d be happy. Dad wasn’t in any danger of dying any time soon so she was free to just walk away without feeling guilty. Figures.
“We’ll need to take you down to theatre as soon as it’s free, but the surgery’s routine. You’ll need to be in for observation for a few days, but you should make a full recovery,” the doctor said.
I was relieved. Of course, I was. Surgery wasn’t great, but the doctor had said it was routine. Dad was going to be okay. A few day’s stay in hospital with brilliant hospital food and nothing to do, but he’d live.
So, why was I feeling so… Just so.
I was annoyed.
I was angry.
I was upset.
I was antsy.
I wanted to lash out.
There was a knock on the door and a nurse stuck his head into the room.
“OR’s ready for him now.”
The doctor nodded. “Great, thanks. Okay, Mr Lincoln, let’s get this appendix out of you.”
The room was suddenly bustling with people readying Dad’s bed to take him down to the operating theatre. Mum had questions to answer and forms to sign. Dad was being asked the same questions and nodding to Mum about the forms. I couldn’t keep up with everything that was happening, so I just stood in the middle of the room and felt completely out of control of everything in my life.
First Lisa’s heart gets completely shattered and I hadn’t been able to shield her from it. I couldn’t take the pain away.
Then my parents are sneaking around with words like ‘divorce’ and ‘last Christmas’ and I didn’t know what I could do to stop it.
Now my dad was going in for surgery and the one person who’s supposed to stand by his side has one foot out the door and there was nothing I could do to comfort him.
I watched him being taken away and spent the waiting time doing anything and everything to avoid talking to Mum for fear I’d give something away about what I knew. The restless buzzing feeling grew and grew, straining against my skin and my skull like my entire being was going to burst with the pressure.
Finally, though, they wheeled Dad back and he was alert and awake and hungry. The doctor said that was a good sign.
I sat with Dad while Mum did a second ring around to let everyone know Dad was okay. I went to check on her.
“Not now, Pat,” Mum groaned, throwing a look to me. I saw her roll her eyes before she turned around. “Because Norah’s here.” A pause. “Yes. I’ll keep you updated.” And she hung up.
I almost blurted out, ‘Even Gran knows?’ but thought better of it. I was more than willing to labour under the misconception that, if Koby and I could just remind them how good we were as a family and no one mentioned divorce, by the end of the year they wouldn’t want to split up anymore.
The look on Mum’s face though. Her eyes looked pinched. She fidgeted. She kept sighing like everything was a hardship. She looked like she’d rather be anywhere but with Dad and I couldn’t help the sudden racing of my heart.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe properly.
I wanted to cry and scream at the same time.
The whole world felt like it was going to implode.
Mum sighed. Again. “Okay, I’ll stay with your father–”
“Like you even care!” I spat at her.
She looked understandably surprised and affronted. “Norah–”
“Don’t ‘Norah’ me!” I yelled.
I knew I looked hysterical to her. I honestly just didn’t really even care. I was way too annoyed that she could stand there and act the loving wife when I knew better.
“I’m getting the bus home,” I grumbled, turned on my heel and stormed off down the hallway.
“Mrs Lincoln?” I heard someone say behind me, but didn’t care to hear the rest.
“Not for long,” I muttered to myself.
I was so busy storming away, filled with epically justifiable teenage grief and resentment and studiously tuning out my mother’s plaintive voice for me to calm down and talk to her, that I quite literally ran into a body.
Just standing in the middle of the hallway, no cares in the world, was a body. And I walked straight into them.
“Sorry, I…” I started as I looked up.
But my words died on my lips as I saw Wade Phillips of all people looking down at me.
I was feeling a mite less sorry.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” he said, his voice full of teasing inuendo.
I was so not in the mood for Wade-fricken-Phillips’ bullshit. “Shut up.”
I made to move around him but he moved very much in my way, confusion all over his face. “What’s up?” Had I not been in such a bad mood, I’d have said he genuinely cared.
“Nothing. I’m going home.”
I saw him look behind me. A quick glance in that direction told me Mum was hovering like she was waiting until he went away. I wasn’t sure if that was because she knew how Lisa and I felt about him or because she assumed I wouldn’t want to fight with her in front of him.
“Hi, Mrs–” Wade started.
I batted his rising arm to stop him waving at her. “You don’t speak to her.”
“Just because you hate me doesn’t mean I can’t be polite.”
I rolled my eyes. “It has nothing to do with how little I think of you,” I assured him. And, just at that moment, it didn’t.
“So, tell me why I don’t speak to her?”
“Punishment.”
“And for what perceived slight am I being punished now?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“What did I do this time?”
I snuck another glance at Mum. She wasn’t hovering after all. She’d been distracted by someone in scrubs – probably whoever had called her name – but that was unlikely to make her permanently forget I’d yelled at her.
“You didn’t do anything,” I snapped. “No one’s speaking to her. I’m not speaking to her.”
The way he looked towards her, then nodded, but didn’t ask for clarification made me think he’d heard our argument. “Well, what’s the point in taking the bus? Seems like you’re just punishing yourself then. Let me drop you home.”
“No, thanks. You’re…” I looked around. “What are you doing here?”
He gave me that shrug of his. “Gran’s sick. I’m visiting.”
“Oh…” I paused. “That sucks. Sorry.”
His grey eyes lit up cheekily. “Oh, Norah. Don’t tell me you’ve always cared.”
All pity I felt for him departed quick smart. “Good bye, Wade.”
I started to walk away but he easily caught up to me and put an arm in front of me. At least he hadn’t engaged in
unwanted physical contact.
“Okay. Wait. I’m sorry. If you’re so pissed off you can’t even bring yourself to trade scathing banter with me, I’ll knock it off.” Another glance down the hallway. “Now. Please, it’s late. Let me drop you home.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“You’ve got about thirty seconds to agree or your mum’s going to talk you out of leaving.”
“How would you–?”
“Oh, please. I have met your mother.”
He wasn’t wrong. She’d got away from the scrubbed person and was heading our way. I huffed. “Okay. Fine. Yes. You can drop me home.”
Wade grinned, then held a hand up to Mum. “I’ll see her home safe, Mrs Lincoln!” he called as he started walking backwards.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and bowed my head about as low as it would go as I hurried out of there.
The likelihood that anyone we knew would be in the hospital on a Friday night was slim. There were no contact sports on until Saturday and, as far as I knew, there weren’t any parties happening. With about ten weeks left of school, most people I knew would be studying, stressing, or employing fantastic avoidance techniques that were going to land them in a world of trouble come exam day.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed to be seen with me,” Wade chuckled as we walked out of the hospital.
The night wind was still chilled enough at this time of the year. August was all about the sleeves and layers. Which were perfect for snuggling into.
“I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you,” I muttered.
“Oh, really?” he laughed. “So, if we saw someone from school now, what would you feel?”
“Mostly regret and sadness,” I answered. “Not everything’s about you, you know.”
He nodded as he led the way to his car. “I did know that. I am keenly aware of that, in fact.”
“But?” I felt like there was a ‘but’.
“I’m just over here wondering if you know that.”
I was about to tell him how ridiculous he was, because I’d just told him that, when I realised he meant the same about me. Not everything was about me. I was too afraid of why he might be saying that to stop to wonder about it.
“Yes. I’m aware.”
He unlocked his car and I managed to refrain from mentioning his car crash. It wasn’t just that I’d promised Lisa, I also felt it a bit disingenuous when he’d offered to drop me home. The spiteful gremlin in me also felt that mentioning it might cause him to feel a re-enactment was in order.
I climbed in, registering vague surprise that it wasn’t full of junk and rubbish and bad smells.
“What?” he asked.
I looked at him. “What what?”
“You ‘huh’ed.”
“Huh.”
“Yep. Just like that.”
I re-focussed my eyes on him. “Right. Yeah. No. I’m just surprised is all.”
“Surprised?” he asked as he turned on the car. “By what?”
“By how clean it is in here.”
“Yeah, because chicks are well known to want to hook up in a garbage heap.”
I frowned. “Of course it’s about sex.”
“Did you expect anything else?” he asked.
No. I hadn’t. Because this was Wade.
Wade who used to be the sweet, boy-next-door. A little cheeky maybe, but with a good heart and a good head. Beloved by all, he’d got good grades, given everything to his friends, and everything else to his sport.
Wade who was now the cocky, arrogant, player who went through girls like I went through iced coffee. He was respected, sure. If one enjoyed being respected for nothing more than being popular, womanising, and having a nice smile.
I would have said it was beyond me how, after everything, he still managed to win Head Prefect and was still on the soccer team. But it wasn’t. Not really. Wade was polite to teachers, by all accounts handed his assignments in on time, and turned up to every game and practise.
He hadn’t changed.
To them.
To me, he was a totally different person.
“Your silence suggests you expected something else. The fact I know you so well, tells me you didn’t,” he said as he navigated the streets, knowing the way back to my house as well as he’d know the way back to his.
I rearranged in my seat. “I didn’t expect it to be clean. I did expect you to be all about sex.”
He threw me a look. “Would you hook up with me in a backseat full of rubbish and dirty soccer kits? Or would you hook up with me in a clean backseat?”
“How many soccer kits do you have?” I asked rhetorically. “And neither. I wouldn’t hook up with you at all.”
“I dunno. Three? And, even for the sake of argument?”
I snorted. “Not even for the sake of argument. And I do so enjoy arguing with you.”
“Oh, I know you do.”
His voice was deep and sexy. Had he been anyone other than Wade Phillips, I’d have called that a turn on. I’d also have said that he found it a turn on.
Like he could read my mind, he said, “Can you imagine the sex we’d have with foreplay like ours?”
I had never imagined it. I did now, though.
“No,” I scoffed. “Unlike apparently everyone else at our school, I would never in a million years ever imagine the sex we’d have.”
“Really? Not once?”
I shook my head. “Not once.” Before now. Now, it had been at least twice. Not that I was telling him that.
“Huh.”
“What?” I asked.
“What what?”
I knew he was teasing, but in the interests on finding out what I was willing to play along. “You huh’d.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly and, only when I thought he wasn’t going to answer did he finally speak. “Just weird is all.”
“Why is that weird?”
“I’ve thought about you.”
“You’ve thought about having sex with me?”
He nodded. “Of course, I have.”
“It is not happening.”
He huffed a rough laugh, a smile at his lips. “No. I didn’t think it would.”
“Then why did–?”
“Because I do.”
“Do?” There was so much I could read into that.
He shrugged. “It happens.”
“Can you not?”
“Probably not.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You think about having sex with me against your will?”
His smile grew cheekier. “Well, I wouldn’t say the sex is against my will…”
“This another one of your kinks?” I asked sceptically.
He laughed. “Not that I know of.”
There was a pause.
“You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?” I asked him.
He nodded slowly. “I’m thinking about it now.”
“Ugh. Stop!”
“Why?” he laughed. I hadn’t heard him genuinely laugh in so long and it had gone and happened twice. “It’s not hurting you.”
“Yeah. How do I know what you’re doing to me in the depraved depths of your mind?”
“Oh, trust me, Lincoln. It’s not what I’m doing to you. It’s all about what you’re doing to me.”
Holy hells.
A shiver ran through me. The kind of shiver you weren’t supposed to feel about Wade Phillips in general and your best friend’s ex-boyfriend in particular. It was all excitement and wonder and anticipation and I was having none of it.
“I don’t need to know,” I told him as we finally pulled up outside my house. Hand on the door, I looked at him. “Thanks for the lift, Wade. I could have done with less mental images of your secret kinks, but…”
He winked and gave me that lopsided smirk. “Sure beats arguing with your folks. I’ll see you
at school, Norah.”
As he drove away, I tried not to think about whether he’d orchestrated an entire conversation just to get my mind off snapping at Mum. Question was; was any of it real, or did he make the whole thing up?
“How’s Dad?” Koby asked as I walked in the door.
I looked at my brother, taking in our home behind him and everything came flooding back. The restlessness, the anger, the shortness of breath. With Wade, it had all faded away.
With Wade gone, there was all of it.
Chapter Six
As soon as I walked into the school building on Monday morning, I was sorely tempted to walk on back out again. I didn’t have any idea where I’d go or what I’d do, I was just convinced something terrible waited for me.
“There you are,” Lisa sang at me. “You’re early.”
That happened to you when you were avoiding being at home longer than necessary.
It might have been my imagination, but the atmosphere in the house had felt lighter over the weekend. It was like the whole house could breathe again. I’d caught Mum humming and dancing by herself while doing the ironing. She’d smiled and laughed, which only made me realise that she hadn’t really done those things in a long time.
The only thing that was different about that weekend had been the lack of Dad in the house. Mum had been happier without Dad. If that was what life was going to be like when they divorced, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I certainly didn’t need to be hanging around the reminder more than necessary.
I shrugged to Lisa. “Yeah. Just…didn’t sleep well.”
“You seem to be doing a lot of that lately. You okay?” she asked.
I nodded, but I knew it was vague. My eyes had just alighted on Wade behind her.
He looked at me and our eyes locked and it was like time slowed.
None of that eyes met across a crowded hallway and realised they were madly in love bullshit. It wasn’t romantic or lust-driven. It was nothing but awkward and weird. Even for us.
My heart racing at the sight of him had nothing to do with me liking him.
My tongue darting out to lick my lip had nothing to do with me wondering what he kissed like.
the Art of Breaking Up Page 5