Broken Ties (Prequel to The Mentalist Series)

by Kenechi Udogu

much easier ways to get a snog off a guy. If that was all I wanted, I should have cut short our bonding session right after I got it. Plenty of other guys would have obliged and not resulted in me being stuck at home for the rest of the week. But, given another chance, I knew I’d have stayed out late again. The only guy I wanted to share a snog with was Paul. He was the only person I wanted to tell my boring old stories to; the only one whose stories I wanted to listen to in return. How lame was that?

  “Where’s your father?” Agnes’s slightly elevated voice cut through my reminiscing.

  I turned down the volume on the game show I’d been blankly staring at. The only good thing about being grounded was my TV privileges were not revoked. “I think he went down for a smoke.”

  Smoking was banned in the flat. Not even on our oversized balcony. Agnes was certain the smell would still find its way into the living room and choke us all to death. If she had her way, David would quit the habit with the flick of her fingers. Some things weren’t that easy to control.

  “Did he take his phone?” She began to rub her arm and I sat up straight. Her large brown eyes were slightly puffy and her lips were beginning to tremble. Everyone outside my family thought my mother was strong and beautiful, but when she got like that, she just looked frail and incredibly ordinary to me.

  “No.”

  I could see the phone resting on the kitchen counter. So could she.

  “I need him. I need your father. Has he been gone long?”

  She didn’t need him; I don’t think she ever really did. She just wanted him back in the flat so she could keep an eye on the both of us.

  Agnes wasn’t always like that; I was partly responsible for her current panicked state. Last week had been a good one because she’d had no reason to worry. Then I’d put an unnecessary fear in her after she tried to reach me on Saturday night and couldn’t find me for ten minutes. Ten minutes! She hadn’t even set out to pick me up and was only calling to let me know she’d be on her way. When I walked into the flat at about the time she was supposed to leave the building, I thought she’d be glad she didn’t have to make the journey all the way across town to get me. Boy, was I wrong.

  “I’ll go get him.” I offered quickly, before she went into proper meltdown mode. I could have called Jacob at reception and asked him to let David know he was needed, but it was my chance to escape the confines of the flat for a few minutes. I was willing to take anything I got.

  Ignoring the warning glare from Agnes, I slipped on my shoes and bolted out the door. Seriously, what mischief could I possibly get up to between the front door of the building and our flat?

  I only took the stairs to kill time but the stars must have been aligned in my favour because, if I had taken the lift, I would have arrived at the entrance lobby straightaway. David always stood by the front door, blowing smoke at disapproving non-smokers who walked past him. I’m guessing he saw it as his act of defiance against Agnes, even though she was never there to witness his childishness. Coming down the stairway, my view on the ground floor was through a large wall of glass to the side of the entrance. It was the only reason I noticed the tall familiar figure making a beeline for my father.

  A hundred alarm bells went off in my head at the sight of clenched fists at Paul’s side. After what I’d seen on Saturday, I had a feeling whatever he planned on doing wasn’t going to end well. And, again, it would be my fault for opening my big mouth.

  “You’re early,” I yelled, bursting through the front door before Paul reached David.

  Being fast on my feet had its benefits but I never thought one of them would be saving my father from getting thumped. David jumped at the shrill tone of my voice before turning to face the teenage boy who now stood about a meter away from him. He hadn’t seen him approaching, but he’d had no reason to take any notice of him.

  “Nora, who is this?” David glanced from my fake hundred watt smile to Paul’s glowering face. “What’s going on?”

  Good question. I wished I knew too.

  “Paul’s my Physics lab partner. He promised he’d bring some notes over. I don’t really understand the theory of relativity coursework we were given and he’s good at breaking down stuff.”

  It was a blatant lie because my supposed lab partner wasn’t holding a scrap of paper or a bag that would contain said notes. He could also have emailed them to me instead of showing up there. To his credit, Paul said nothing to refute my fib. Instead he relaxed his tightened muscles and nodded along, then extended a hand to David like he hadn’t intended to knock him out a second ago.

  “Good evening Mr Brice. It’s really good to meet you.”

  David had no choice but to shake his hand.

  “You realise you’re still grounded, right?” He clearly wasn’t buying my story or Paul’s transformation into a well-mannered classmate. I didn’t blame him; it must have looked to him like his presence had messed up our tryst. I couldn’t really tell my father my body had a way of sensing when Paul was around and gravitating towards him. How crazy would that have sounded?

  “Agnes is looking for you.” I responded, knowing any mention of her would distract him.

  “Oh.”

  A cloud of uncertainty passed over David’s face. He knew he had to go but he carried on eyeing Paul, who suddenly looked quite shady to me in his dark jeans, scruffy sneakers and trademark T-shirt. Coursework or not, my father would rather I associated with boys who wore loafers or, at least, combed their hair. He finally sighed and shook his head, stubbing out his cigarette on the pavement. “Don’t be too long coming up, okay? I’ll take the stairs.”

  I almost felt guilty when he added that last bit. He was trying to buy me some time even though I didn’t deserve his generosity, especially since I was clearly lying to his face.

  “Thanks.” I grazed his arm gently before he walked into the building, nodding at Jacob as he headed in the direction I’d come from.

  Once he was out of sight, I turned and jabbed Paul in the chest with as much force as my small body could muster. “What the heck were you thinking? What were you going to do? Hit him till he admitted something you believe to be true?”

  Paul didn’t even have the courtesy to look apologetic about being there. Folding his arms across his chest, his gaze fluttered to my cheek and his frown returned. I’d washed my makeup off so the bruise was more obvious than it had been at the sports centre.

  “It’s not okay. You know that, right?”

  Grunting, I rolled my eyes. “I already told you he never touched me. And if he was hitting me, do you think a plea from a boy he’s never met would change his mind? It’d just piss him off even more. Or were you just going to punch him and walk off.”

  I was trying not to yell but it was a struggle.

  Then, oddly, instead of trying to defend his presence the way I thought he would, Paul’s frown disappeared and his shoulders slumped as he closed his eyes. It almost looked like he was trying to calm himself; like he was recalling a mechanism to quell the storm brewing inside him. Of all the good looking guys at school I’d ever ogled, why did I have to fall for one with anger issues?

  “No,” he opened his eyes. “I was going to try to talk some sense into him. I know he’s not hitting you, Nora. It’s your mother, isn’t it?”

  My astonishment must have shown on my face because he covered the space between us in seconds and brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. It was only then I felt the wetness on my face. Crap! When had tears started to fall?

  “Please, don’t,” he pleaded in a whisper, making it sound like my tears were his fault as he placed his forehead on mine. “I didn’t mean to upset you, I just...I don’t know…I just want to make sure you’re safe. I want to make sure this never happens again.”

  Strangely enough, for years, none of my friends had ever felt it was their place to question the bruises which occasionally marked my skin. I said nothing; they asked nothing. Our conversations circled around c
ute guys, hair dye and nail polish as we swept our real problems under imaginary rugs. Yet this boy who knew nothing about me and had no business caring about me was the one who felt the need to protect me.

  His words only escalated my sobs. He made it seem so easy, like he could snap his fingers and take away the pain my mother caused whenever she fell into one of her moods. Like he could wave a wand and make all the medication she’d been taking work in a consistent pattern. Like his bright idea of talking to David would be the thing to make my father crawl out from under my mother’s thumb and finally take some action which could help us all move on.

  I don’t think Agnes had intended to hurt me on Saturday, but like everything with her, things got out of hand. She flung stuff when her temper got the better of her. Anything she could get her hands on; plates, books, vases. She’d once tried to throw a chair at Dad but he was too fast for her. As always, her apology afterwards had been heartfelt.

  “You can’t always save me, Paul.” I shook my head as I wiped my eyes and pulled away from him, remembering Jacob could see us from where he sat. “Some problems aren’t so easy to sort out with words. And they definitely don’t need to be tackled with these.” I covered his long fingers with my hands and held them to my chest. “I know you said you only came to talk, but you should have seen your face a few minutes ago. You