CHAPTER ONE
Being a human is a complicated game—like seeing a ghost in the mirror and trying to echo everything they do. Or like walking in step, but with someone trying to trip you up—and you’re juggling at the same time, with people pelting more and more balls at you. Then, just when you get the hang of it, someone starts flashing a flashlight in your eyes and then yelling in your ear.
I’ll be midconversation and listening and responding in all the right places, then someone will say something on the other side of the room—a snatch of something that my brain will pick up. I’ll lose the thread for a second, and when I tune back in I’ve lost my way. And then the other person might—for a split second—look at me oddly or scratch their nose and I’ll start thinking, No, Grace, you’ve lost it, and by then I’ve fallen even further behind, and I remember that my face has probably stopped making the appropriate shapes (interested, listening, concerned, thoughtful—I have a full repertoire, as long as I don’t get distracted), and then I panic.
* * *
And that’s where it starts. We’re in geography and Mrs. Dawes is talking about tectonic plates and Sarah’s sitting next to me and she won’t stop breathing and the clock on the wall is ticking slightly out of time with the clock that she’s got on her desk and I’m trying to focus on what she’s saying but it feels like the walls are collapsing in on me.
And I’m sitting there thinking—I could just walk out. Like people do in films or on television. You see it all the time. They just get up and they walk out the door and there’s a slam and they just keep on walking and the rest of the pupils all look at one another in surprise and there are raised eyebrows and the teacher pushes back her chair with a screech of metal on tiled floor and a sigh of resignation and …
* * *
“Obviously we’re doing everything we can for Grace. But we have the interests of the other pupils to think of and—well—behavior like this could set an unfortunate precedent.”
I’m not supposed to be able to hear Mrs. Miller through the door of her office, but she’s got a voice like a strangled crow, even with discretion mode activated.
The rough material covering the chair in the school foyer prickles at the backs of my knees. I run my hand across the wooden arm, tracing the shape of the heart etched into the varnish by another waiting student, sometime in the past. I’ve watched it fade over the years from a bright scar in the wood to a faded memory of a moment. I run my finger around and around it as I listen.
“Yes, of course. I appreciate your position, obviously.” Mum is echoing her words carefully, using the reflective listening skills she’s been working on, and that’s her oh yes, I completely understand tone, the one she saves for teachers, counselors, support-group workers, doctors, educational psychologists …
“I’ll have a word with Grace.” I hear her pausing for a moment. “The thing is, her father is away.”
There’s a pause and a clattering of fingernails on laptop keyboard.
“If you could keep us up to date with information like this, it really would help.”
I can feel the atmosphere crackle. I can imagine Mum in that second. Hands balling into fists under the table, back straightening defensively, chin rising.
“Well, I did try to call, Mrs. Miller.” Her words sound spiky now. “But it’s virtually impossible to get past the school secretary. I’m more than aware that change unsettles my daughter.”
When Mum gets angry, she gets more clipped and posh. There’s another pause before she carries on. I can imagine them glaring at each other across the desk.
“He’s gone for a—well, he’s…”
There’s another beat of silence before she finishes. “He’s on another contract shoot.”
(Dad’s not a hired killer, incidentally. He’s a wildlife cameraman.)
More silence.
“We’ve been very busy with end-of-term reports, and we have had quite a bit of contact already this half term regarding Grace and we’re only seven weeks into the year.” Defensive reply.
I know they’ve had meetings without me there, as well as the awkward ones where I’m dragged out of class and forced to sit in Mrs. Miller’s office staring at the wall and trying to nod in all the right places. And then there’s this kind, where I’m waiting outside, the problem they need to solve.
I curl my knees up toward my chest. It makes me feel sick when the adults start snarling at one another. I take a breath in, but it shudders through me. I can hear my heart thumping in my ears. The smell of the chair fabric is causing a headachy throb behind my eyes.
“I think it’d be best if you take her home this afternoon, have a chat. We’ve got the exams coming up next term, and you need to stress to her how important it is that she’s focused in class. There’s only another week left until the holidays.”
There’s a silence before she adds an afterthought—and she sounds half surprised as she says it.
“Grace is a very bright girl, you know.”
I slouch down at the click of the door handle opening, making sure I look as if I’m staring absently into space, and definitely not eavesdropping on the whole conversation with my super-bat-hearing powers.
“Mrs. Miller and I have had a little chat.”
I look at them as if I’d forgotten they existed. They fall for it and explain that under the circumstances, Grace, it’s best if we just remember that we don’t just walk out of the classroom, Grace, even if we are feeling a little overwhelmed. And don’t forget, Grace, you can always tell the teacher if you need some time out.
It’s not that easy. It’s like there’s a wall that stops me from saying the words, even if I need to. And that’s before the whole everyone-else-looking-at-me thing, because we all know school is basically just a socially acceptable version of the Lord of the Bloody Flies. But there’s something that makes saying the words I am a bit stressed—can I please go outside to the carefully constructed quiet room? just a tiny bit completely impossible.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that the quiet room is (a) next to the cafeteria, so it smells of hot metal and thin, pointy headaches and (b) is opposite the gym hall so the thud thud thud of basketballs makes me want to scream. But I suppose they tried. It’s a shame they didn’t actually consult anyone who’d want to use it, and that’s why it ends up being a glorified store cupboard with a wall stacked with props from the end-of-term performance and a stack of leftover copies of Of Mice and Men beside the ergonomic beanbag (hissing noise, weird smell) and a token lava lamp and some inspirational posters. And a dying plant.
Anyway. None of that matters because we’re in the car now and it’s one more week until half term and that means (a) I can be at the stables all week and (b) oh my God, the party. A tiny little bubble of fizzy excitement flirrups through my stomach. And yes, I know “flirrup” isn’t a word, but it is in my head. In fact, that’s one of the things my best friend, Anna, likes best about me. My words always make her laugh. I like her because she’s nice and she makes me laugh and she’s kind and funny and she doesn’t mind that I’m a bit—
“Grace, if you don’t like geography, it’s not too late to drop it as a subject, concentrate on the ones you like. We’re only seven weeks into tenth grade.”
Mum, who’s been driving in silence, turns to look at me as she pauses at the junction. I’m tapping thumb against fingers, one after another, in time to the clicking noise of the blinker.
“Grace?”
I close my eyes so I can concentrate. I hear her sigh in irritation.
“Grace, you’re just being bloody rude, and that’s not okay. I’ve told you before if someone asks you a question you have to answer them.”
We turn onto our road and the ticking stops. I open my eyes again, staring ahead. I’m counting the road signs down. NO LEFT TURNS. ONE-WAY STREET. 20. It reminds me of being four and coming home from nursery school.
“GRACE, I am sick to death of this.”
After a few moments, I find my voice.
“I don’t dislike geography.”
We’re pulling into the driveway now and I can tell she’s seriously pissed off. She gets out of the car, hefting her brown bag onto her shoulder with a huff of air and slamming the door. She’s marching up to the porch, not waiting for me. I climb out, deliberately slowly. The second I close the car door, she blips the car locked without looking back, and heads into the hall, leaving the front door open for me.
Withnail is there, snaking around my ankles, tail a hopeful question mark. I scoop her up and carry her through to the kitchen, where I place her on the table while I tip out a sachet of disgusting dead-animal food for her. She chirrups with delight and hops down precisely, meeting the bowl on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor.
“Mum says you’re in trouble?”
There’s a clonk as my little sister throws her bag down on the table. Her school finished early today, and she’s not going to be impressed that her Netflix time has been eaten into by my returning unannounced.
Mum reappears. “Leah, I said nothing of the sort.” She shoots Leah an eyebrows-down, shut up sort of look.
She’s already tied her hair back in a ponytail, swapped her contact lenses for glasses, and replaced her shirt and posh coat with a sweatshirt.
“I don’t know why you get dressed up to see Mrs. Miller. It’s not like she makes an effort.”
Mum fills the kettle and flicks it on before turning to face me. I catch a waft of Bach Rescue Remedy on her breath—if you ask me, it’s just a socially acceptable way of drinking in the middle of the afternoon. The amount she goes through, she’d be better off making her own remedies by shoving a bunch of flowers in a bottle of brandy.
“I don’t have to explain what I’m wearing to you, Grace. For your information,” she continues, and I look at her, wondering if she realizes that’s exactly what she’s doing, “I happened to feel like making an effort to wear something nice because I don’t have to spend every day in a shirt and a pair of leggings. I’ve done that for long enough. And because it’s important the school recognizes I’m taking the—situation—seriously.”
Leah looks up from the overflowing bowl of Coco Pops she’s just poured herself. She raises her eyebrows and looks at me sideways. “You’re a situation now?”
I shrug. “Apparently.”
She shovels in a spoonful of cereal and crunches it noisily, which makes me feel a bit sick.
Basically, if Leah’s not doing some kind of sporting thing, she’s eating. She’s like a one-person training montage, and I guess it uses up a lot of energy. Right now she’s in her PE clothes. I can see the tangle of her blazer and school uniform balled up in her bag. (I predict that Mum will complain about that within the next half hour, once she’s finished with me.)
“What’ve you done?” She looks at me, and then I catch her glancing at Mum. For a split second I feel like I’m on the outside of some unspoken conversation—but then I often feel like that. I think it’s probably how it feels when you’re really fluent in a language but you’re with native speakers. I speak human as a second language, and there’s always a subtext that I miss.
Mum shakes her head slightly.
“Leah, leave it.”
She leans back against the kitchen counter, and looks directly at me in a way that makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable. I stare at the floor, but I can feel her eyes burning into me. It doesn’t matter how many books she reads—and, believe me, she’s read them all—she just. Doesn’t. Get. It. It’s physically painful to have someone staring at me like that. Her eyes burn into me and I can feel my skin prickling. Trying to escape, I step backward toward the door.
“Grace got a bit upset today. That’s all. Anyway,” Mum says, in the cheerful voice that always indicates that she’s gathered herself and decided not to make a fuss about whatever I’ve done wrong, “how about dinner in front of the TV, and hot chocolate and pj’s?”
“Can we have those cookies?” Leah knows we’ve got Mum over a barrel this week. “The chocolate ones you hid in the garage?”
“How did you know about them?”
I raise my eyes in time to see Leah pull a face. “We know everything, Mother. It’s our job.”
The truth is Mum went on a major comfort-food shopping trip the night that Dad left for Greenland. She came home loaded with chocolate-caramel-covered everything, about fifty-seven tubs of Häagen-Dazs, and a crate of red wine, which she locked in the garage, where the freezer and all the food worth eating lives. She keeps the key on her at all times. She’s been even stressier than usual for some reason since Dad went this time, and she keeps snapping.
Anyway, I’m happy to watch whatever she wants on television (even if I’ll be reading my book at the same time) if it means chocolate.
* * *
Where were you? Waited at the flagpole until ten past.
My phone’s on silent because we’re supposed to be having Quality Family Time, which means no contact with the outside world, but I catch it glowing sideways through the cushion where I’ve stuffed it out of sight. It’s Anna. Oh God. When Mum took me home, I completely forgot to tell her I wasn’t going to be there. My stomach gives a glurp of anxiety and I hold my breath as I reply.
Got picked up. REALLY sorry.
I don’t want to go into the whole walking-out-of-class thing, and she’s not in my geography class. I don’t want to think about it at all, actually, because when I do I get that weird swooping horrible feeling in my stomach and my skin goes all fizzy just thinking about it. And I’m gnawing on my thumbnail waiting for her to reply. I’m worried that she might just think sod it, because, honestly, she could. Anytime. I have no idea why she’s friends with me, because Anna’s lovely. She’s sort of accepted by the populars and the jocks and the geeks and the funny in-betweeny ones—and even with all that she still chooses to be my best friend, even though I must bring her down about fifty nerd points in the universal school scale of social acceptability.
No stress. But … party crisis. WTF are we going to wear?
And with one sentence the prickly skin feeling is gone and my heart settles down with a little thump, like a stone landing at the bottom of a pond.
Mum’s fallen asleep on the sofa, where Leah’s lying beside her with her thumb in her mouth (even though she’s thirteen, don’t ask) staring at an old episode of Friends like she’s about to take an exam in it. I get up, unplugging my charger, and slip out of the room as Anna messages again.
You doing anything tomorrow? Come around to mine and we can try some stuff on. I’ll do your hair?
CHAPTER TWO
I love Anna’s bedroom, because it’s not mine, so the mess doesn’t feel so messy. And she’s much better at lining up her posters and she doesn’t have a dressing table that looks like an explosion in a nail-polish factory. And she didn’t carve the names of JLS on her mirror when she was nine, so she doesn’t have to live with the reminder every time she puts on eyeliner that she used to be in love with a crap boy band. Saying that, she does have One Direction stuck on the back of the bedroom door. I know because, when the door closes, her bathrobe swings sideways and Harry Styles peeks out from under the sleeve.
“What about leggings and denim shorts?”
I pick them up from the tangle of clothes on the bed, and wave them at her hopefully.
“Too short.”
We’re only invited to Charlotte Regan’s party because Anna’s mum works in the health center with Charlotte’s mum, and they’re friends. They still haven’t quite grasped the idea that just ’cause we were friends in nursery school doesn’t mean we’re going to hang out ten years later. But anyway, whatever Charlotte’s mum said (something along the lines of You’re only having a party if Anna and Grace come because they’re so completely überdorky, particularly Grace, that there is NO CHANCE of anything even vaguely scandalous happening), we’re invited to the Party of the Year.
Charlotte’s family lives in a farmhouse three miles out of town, and her sixteenth birthday party is taking place in the barn. It’s going to be all sitting-around-on-straw-bales and like something out of a film. Or so everyone says. It’s been all anyone’s talked about since we got over Tom Higginson falling off his brother’s motorbike and breaking both ankles.
“Grace?”
I look up, realizing Anna’s been talking for at least a minute. She’s wearing a pair of ripped black jeans and a skinny purple T-shirt with a kitten-fluffy black cardigan, which makes her red hair look like flames on her shoulders. (She doesn’t mind “red,” hates “ginger,” prefers “auburn”—but she’s totally living in fantasy land, because it’s orange and it is AMAZING and I would love orange hair.) Anyway, she looks like she’d fit in perfectly with the super-cool gang and I feel a horrible pang of something in my stomach. For a second I don’t say anything, because I always, always, always feel like I’m panting to keep up with her and I always have been, ever since we made friends when she helped me wash the paintbrushes at Little Acorns when we were three.
“It’s perfect.” I say the words brightly. Then I do a sort of half frown because I’m not sure that it didn’t sound a bit sharp.
Anna gathers her orange hair in a bunch and sort of balls it in her fist, frowning, like she’s not sure where it all came from. “You think?”
I nod. And Anna flashes a really sweet smile. It’s a smile that says thank you for being my friend and thank you for saying I look nice and I know that I got it right. It’s not that I don’t want to get it right, it’s just … God, it’s hard work being a person sometimes. I floomp down sideways onto the fluffy pillows at the head of her bed and breathe in the fake plastic smell of them, which reminds me of inflatable toys and a trip to Singapore we made when I was seven.
“Grace?”
I take my head back out of Singapore.
“What about you?”
Argh. If I’m honest, I want to wear my favorite black jeans and my mum’s ancient, slightly holey Pixies T-shirt she had when she was seventeen. And my gray hoodie, and my Vans with a hole in the toe. But I’m guessing that’s not in the rules. I might just pack the T-shirt in my bag in case I need a comfort sniff of it at the party when it all gets a bit … well, people-y. Parties are a bit like that, even if they don’t have Pass the Parcel and organized fun.
Anna holds out a bright red T-shirt with a My Little Pony on the front.
“It’s ironic,” she points out helpfully, “and I’ve got to face the fact that I can’t wear red and must stop buying it.” She thrusts it at me, waving it in my face.
“If I wear it, it’s not going to look ironic. I’ll just look like a complete loser with a My Little Pony obsession.”
I giggle and she throws the T-shirt at my head so I can’t see. I feel her landing on the bed beside me with a thump and a snort of laughter, which doesn’t quite mask the splintery noise of bed slats cracking in half.
“Thing one,” says my friend, removing the T-shirt from my head and throwing it so it hurtles toward the wall. It slides out of sight behind the chest of drawers, where it’ll be eaten by a million lost hair bands or move in with a family of dust bunnies, “you are a complete loser with a My Little Pony fetish—that’s why we’re friends. How many do you own?”
I hide my face behind a cushion so all she can see are my eyes peeping over the top.
“And thing two: slightly more urgent. We just broke the bed.”
I can already hear Anna’s mum making her way upstairs, and they’re not the footsteps of a happy parent.
“You can talk.” I point to the row of dusty Barbie dolls that balance, their legs swinging back and forth like a line of retired Mean Girls, on top of Anna’s wardrobe. “At least my ponies are in a box under the bed. I keep my weird habits private.” I stick my tongue out at Anna just as the door bangs open so hard that Harry Styles bangs against the edge of the bookcase and Anna’s bathrobe falls off the hook.
“Oops, sorry. Pushed it with my foot. Do you girls want some cake?” Anna’s mum doesn’t seem to be upset at all, weirdly. In fact, she’s wielding a plate with two fat slices of gingerbread with thick white icing on top.
“Do you need to ask?” Anna shuffles carefully forward, clearly trying not to give away the fact that the mattress underneath her is now sagging in the middle.
“Darling, are you all right?” Anna’s mum cocks her head to one side, looking at me for confirmation. “Grace, is she going mad? Is there something I should know about?”
I shake my head, feeling the laughter threatening to escape, lips tightly clamped together. Sometimes when I start it’s so hard to stop and then Anna joins in and we just laugh and laugh until we’re almost sick. We got sent out of English last week for snortling with laughter over “Thou cream-faced loon” in Shakespeare.
I can feel it boiling up inside me, and any second now I’m going to start. Anna’s shoulders are beginning to shake.
“It’s just…” Anna grasps the fail-safe method of shutting up all adults, at all times. “Women’s problems.”
“Ohhh,” says Anna’s mum with a knowing nod. “Definitely time for cake, then, darling. D’you want some medicine or something?”
“No-I’m-fine,” says Anna in a rush, as the bed gives another warning creak.
“All right. Let me know if you want anything.”
And she pulls the door closed as she backs out of the room, brow wrinkled in an expression of bemusement, half shaking her head at the weirdness of us, and we fall over on our sides and laugh and laugh until the bed finally gives way underneath us and Anna’s legs shoot upward as her bum sinks to the floor.
* * *
It’s a couple of hours later. I’m hovering in Anna’s kitchen, staring out of the window and talking to her cat, Michael. Anna is upstairs with her mum, who apparently has psychic powers or something, because she returned half an hour later, this time without cake, but with a toolbox. She made us move the mattress into the hall while she fixed the broken slats in the bed frame. We were too weak with laughter to argue, and we tried to make up for it by getting her a cup of tea and offering to hold pieces of equipment, but she just rolled her eyes at us and told us to sod off.
I wonder if that’s why Anna and I are friends: because we both have the sort of mothers who just get on with stuff. Because Dad’s always worked away—he spends months balancing behind his lens, waiting for the perfect photograph of an antelope doing a cartwheel (or something like that)—Mum’s always been the one who does all the stuff. She bosses us around and organizes everything and remembers appointments and buys stuff for cookery class on the way to school when I forget. Thing is, when Dad is around he’s on another planet too, holed up in his study editing hours of footage and collecting coffee cups and chip bags. And Anna’s dad is the same—lovely, but not exactly practical. He’s an engineer, so he ought to be, really. He spends a lot of time in his office looking at very complicated pictures of stuff on his computers, which we’re not allowed to touch.
And we both have cats with cool names, so there’s another reason why we’re friends. And then there’s our mutual interest in the mysterious Gabe Kowalski. He arrived halfway through the summer term from one of the other schools in town. Someone said he’s got A Reputation, but I’m not really sure what that means. He seemed perfectly nice when he picked up Anna’s sneaker—it fell out of her bag last term—and he smiled and said, “There you are,” reeeeeally nicely in his lovely accent.
Friendship is a weird sort of thing when you think about it.
I look at the calendar on the wall above the kitchen sink, scanning the details that Anna’s mum has written in her neat, spidery black writing.
It’d be useful for their parents if Anna and Charlotte were friends, really. “Lunch with Adam and Gillian,” it says for tomorrow. They’re Charlotte’s parents. Anna hasn’t mentioned it. I know that’s not because she’s keeping it as a special secret and she’s planning on running off to be best friends with Charlotte, because Anna is one of my safe places. She’s one of the things that doesn’t move and doesn’t change. That’s a good thing.
What’s not a good thing is standing here in the kitchen feeling faintly worried that I’m going to be in trouble because Anna broke the bed. Even though Anna’s mum’s mouth said it was fine, her face said, Oh, for God’s sake, I’ve got better things to do than fix this bloody bed.
I recognize the look. My mum gets exactly the same one on her face when we break stuff.
“All sorted.” Anna’s mum comes back into the kitchen, putting the toolbox down on the table with a thump, all the tools inside banging together in a metallic, teeth-on-edge crash. It makes me jump and another wave of anxiety rushes through my body, sending me cold from my toes to my head in a whoosh of panic.
“You all right, my love?” Anna’s mum makes her way across the wooden floor toward me and puts her hand on my arm. I stiffen up. I don’t mean to—it’s just I’m reaching the point where everything’s a bit too much everything and I’d like to magically be back home in bed with a heap of blankets. I shiver, even though the room is warm. I just need to get home. Now. But I don’t say that.
I say:
“I’m fine.”
I realize I’m drumming my fingers against the counter and it probably looks like I’m impatient. It’s not that; I’m just tapping the rhythm of an ancient Beyoncé song for some reason that makes no sense, but I can’t stop it because it’s weirdly soothing. Taptaptaptap break tap tap break taptaptap.
“Do you need a lift home?” She gives my fingers a fleeting glance for the tiniest second and I notice it and hold them still. The rhythm shifts to my toes and now each one of them is beating their turn (but she can’t see that bit).
She turns to look for Anna, who is nowhere to be seen—probably putting the bed back together. I feel super awkward all of a sudden, like my arms and legs are too big for my body and they’re going to keep growing like the magic porridge pot until they take over the whole kitchen.
“Oh no, my mum’s just coming,” I reply after a moment, realizing that I’d forgotten to say the words out loud. “She’s on her way back from town, said she’d pick me up on the way past.”
The doorbell rings and Anna comes hurtling down the stairs, shouting that she’ll get it.
“Gracie Moo, your mum is here.” She does a cartwheel in the hall, which makes her mum pull the sort of face I imagine mother dragons pull when their children are naughty. Her nostrils go all snorty.
“Anna, will you keep that behavior outside. For goodness’ sake, you’re fifteen, not five.”
Anna flashes a grin at her mum then catches my eye as she swings onto the kitchen table, picking up an apple from the fruit bowl.
“Make your mind up, Mother.” She spoke through a mouthful of apple. “Yesterday you were all full of woe that I’m growing up too fast. Now you’re telling me off for being youthfully exuberant.”
“You’ve broken a bed and now you’re doing acrobatics in the hall,” she said pointedly. “I think under the circumstances I’m allowed to be a bit annoyed.”
Her mum looks at mine and shakes her head.
“These two.” She half moves toward the kettle. “Got time for a cuppa before you go?”
Mum wavers for a second.
“Go on, then.” She pulls her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. “I’ll text Leah, tell her we’ll be half an hour. Thanks, Lisa.”
She sits down at the big wooden table while Lisa clatters around with coffee cups.
“Have you girls been behaving?”
Mum says this to me, but looks at Anna’s mum with that look mothers reserve for each other. I feel about seven.
“They’ve been perfect angels.” I feel a wave of love for Anna’s mum and her kind voice and her not minding that we bounced the bed in half after all. My mum snorts with laughter.
Anna, who has been teasing Michael the cat with a feather, looks up at me, motioning toward the door with her head. We can escape.
“So how long’s he gone for this time?” Lisa slides a coffee across the table toward my mum.
As we leave, I hear my mum telling Lisa it’ll be almost Christmas before my dad is back. She sounds distinctly unimpressed.
* * *
“Come on, you,” says Mum, an hour later.
“You’ve been ages.” I hoist myself out of the gigantic squashy sofa, plonking Michael onto Anna’s lap.
“And now it’s time to go. Leah’s been texting, asking where we are.”
“I’ll message you,” says Anna, waving Michael’s paw at me in farewell.
* * *
And then we’re home. And I’ve done enough everything for today. I’ve been enough. I have literally no Graceness left to offer anyone or anything. I’m wrapped up in my fleece blanket like a burrito and it’s safe and warm and I’m watching Walking with Dinosaurs on Netflix for the fifty billionth time. I just want to sit here all evening, because then my brain might just stop whirring around. It’s like a million shooting stars flying out in different directions and I can’t make them stop and then I can’t sleep. The dinosaurs help. The beanie hat I’ve got on helps too. It sort of stops the thoughts from shooting around.
* * *
I can’t sleep. It’s after midnight, and I’ve read the whole internet and I’ve had a shower and watched so many trashy American TV shows that my brain is beginning to melt, and I’m starving.
As I’m creeping down the stairs, trying not to wake anyone up, I realize there’s a noise coming from the sitting room. I open the door to find Mum. She’s sitting on the couch in her pajamas, and Nirvana is on old-people MTV, and there’s a bottle of red wine three-quarters drunk by her side. She looks up, head cocked to hold her cell phone in place under her ear, and beams at me fuzzily.
“Hello, darling. I’m just rediscovering my lost youth.”
She giggles as presumably someone on the end of the phone says something. “Shh,” she says to them, waving a hand pointlessly. “You okay?” She looks at me quizzically.
“Fine.” Withnail is curled up on a fluffy tartan blanket at Mum’s feet and the fire is still glowing from earlier. I like it when the fire’s lit—it makes the house feel alive somehow, like it’s got a personality. “Just getting food.”
She nods, and turns back to the television and her phone as I withdraw.
I had no idea she could get Dad on the phone from Greenland, but I can’t think who else she’d be talking to at this time of night. The floor’s freezing, so I sit on the kitchen counter as I wait for the toast, shoving over a heap of Mum’s paperwork as I do so. She doesn’t work, but the voluntary stuff she does with the local autism support group takes over her entire life. Maybe she was talking to one of her cronies from there.
The toaster pops, and I stop thinking about anything else apart from melty butter deliciousness.
I’ll clean the mess up in the morning.
Copyright © 2017 by Rachael Lucas
