Bringing up the fact that he'd lied to me for so long seemed to check him momentarily, but then he scrubbed his hands through his hair and said, "Your mum asked me not to tell you, she begged me. You think I wanted to be responsible for ruining things between you two?"
"You're not responsible, though." God he was so irritating! Why didn't he get it? "You're not responsible for either of us, when are you going to get that into your thick head?"
A sudden silence fell and we glared at each other, both breathing heavily as if we'd run a 100 metre dash.
Unbidden, the thought of what Nan would say if she saw the pair of us basically panting in each other's company sprung to mind. Obviously she would have liked the heavy breathing to have been attributed to something a bit more lusty, but I think even us arguing would have amused her.
Thinking about Nan pulled me back from the edge as swiftly as if she'd reached down (or, let's face it, up) and yanked me away. I broke off my glare and looked down to pluck at my doona cover.
The days Elliot and I had spent together watching Nan slowly pass away, and the crushed hearts we'd experienced together afterwards merited more than this. They were worth pushing my anger aside for a moment, being a grown up and letting him see the other side of it; that I was hurt.
"Even leaving aside you choosing to make me your own special little charity project," I said, clenching my hands as they'd started to shake, "at some stage over the last few weeks what I meant to you should have been worth more than some promise you made my mum."
He fell away from me as if I'd shoved him, his eyes dropping and searching the floor like he was looking for some loophole in my logic. He obviously didn't find one, and when he lifted his head again I almost found myself wishing he had. His frustration, exasperation and all other 'rations' I could deal with, his…humility was a whole other story.
"Yes, it should've," he said, sounding so different I wondered whether he'd had a Nan-related epiphany as well. "I'm sorry."
I sucked in a low breath, perhaps trying to counter the fact that the wind had been well and truly been taken out of my sails. His expression told me there was more to come, so I was still holding that breath when he added, quietly, "But you know what? It'd be kind of nice to know that what I mean to you is worth more than your damn pride."
----------
It wasn't that he'd been expecting her to leap immediately into his arms and say that of course he was more important. Still, he would've preferred not to have her ignore what he'd said altogether.
But that's what she did, closing her eyes, before coming out with, "I have to go home. I need to talk to Mum."
Her lack of an answer was like a kick to the guts; if he'd been the dramatic sort he would've grabbed at his chest and staggered backward with the force of her dismissal. He wasn't, though, so he scouted round to try and find something to say in response.
Thinking to lighten the mood, he threw out, "Do you need a lift?"
He saw instantly he'd made the wrong move as her eyes snapped open again, sparking furiously.
"Seriously? Were you even listening -?" She started to say and he jumped in quickly before she could get on a roll.
"Joke, bad joke," he explained, holding up his hands in case he needed to ward her off. "Catch the bus, walk for all I care."
She receded, the tiniest tug on her lips acknowledging his attempt at humour, and then said, "Right, so I'm off then." She seemed to freak herself out with these words and added in a rush, "I won't be gone long, though, it'll be a straight there, straight back thing. Then, you know, we can continue with all the super fun this confrontation thing has been."
He nodded, because what else was he going to do? He'd made his point and she was running away.
Still, because he hadn't touched her in over a week, and because he thought he was going mad because of it, he reached out and rested his hand on her upper arm. She looked down at the contact then quickly back at him as he gave a little squeeze then let go. That done, he let himself out of her room and started to walk towards the stairs, every step jarring. His good work on the 'keep walking, don't stop' front was blown to hell, however, when he heard the door open again and Rox say, "Wait a sec!"
He turned and she ran over, colliding into him with a thud and wrapping her arms around his chest. It was more of a face-plant than a hug, but her grip was tight. Unsure which way the wind was shifting now, he hesitated for a moment, but then hugged her back, one arm around her waist, one hand cupping the back of her head.
"You alright down there?" He forced himself to ask several seconds later when she remained completely motionless, her face buried into his t-shirt.
She nodded, her hair sliding back and forth under his palm, and then emerged, her face red, her eyes suspiciously watery. Taking a big, deliberate step back from him she smiled shakily and said, "Well, there's your mixed message for the day."
Then she hightailed it back to her room.
He raised his eyebrows, waiting a moment to see if there was going to be more, but this time, the door stayed resolutely closed behind her. Well, alright then.
As he made his way down the stairs he tried to tell himself things could've been worse. The truth was out at any rate. There was something tugging at him, though, something more than the fact that he had no idea whether the nutty girl who confused hugs with tackles was going to come back to him. It wasn't until he'd reached the ground floor and stepped out into the courtyard that he realised what it was.
They'd had a full argument...and she hadn't said 'monkeys' once.
Chapter 19 – The Complicated Woman and the Unhelpful Afterlife
Long bus rides were good for memories. Or bad for them, depending which way you looked at it.
Sitting there, watching the familiar landscape roll by, I let a string of little moments from the past wash over me. The time Elliot and his buddies had deliberately trailed honey through the house to see how many ants would get in (the answer: approximately a billion). The time Jonah had managed to actually vomit on me, rather than the floor I was cleaning. The time Elliot had dropped $50 out of his pocket without noticing and I’d, shamefully, had a split second’s thought about taking it. And, of course, the time my shoe had been thrown in the dirty washing up water and Elliot had thought it the funniest thing he’d seen all week. Dredging up this history was almost reassuring; a way to convince myself that past Elliot and his friends had existed and that Elliot, particularly, had been a massive pain.
Reconciling these memories with what Elliot had grown up to be...and do was tricky.
I wondered whether if the shoe was on the other foot (an appropriate metaphor given what I'd been remembering), Elliot would’ve been expected to just accept such a massive blow to his ego. I couldn't see it somehow. Why was it that unwanted help for a guy was emasculating, but for a girl it was considered a rescue she should be thankful for?
Also, despite what he might think, it wasn't as simple as Elliot being worth more than my pride, and I was actually kind of cross at him for trying to reduce it down to that. It wasn't pride, it was principles. More than that, it was my history, the way I'd grown up understanding the world. The thought of giving all that up for some boy...it didn't sit well with me.
But then, it wasn't just some boy, it was Elliot...
Yeah, conflicted didn't even begin to cover it.
If I'd been in a music video it would have been pouring with rain and I would have cried in attractive droplets that matched the ones sliding down the bus windows. My life wasn't a music video, however, so it was a clear, sunny day and I didn't cry. There was a block in my chest that was making me suspect I was having a mild heart attack, sure, but no crying.
Just as well, though, I didn't want to turn up on the Sinclair's doorstep in floods of tears. I'd already cried enough in that house in the week that Nan had died to last me a lifetime.
As I'd wasted the bus ride wallowing around in my confused emotions, I had hoped that the long walk from th
e bus station to the Sinclair House would help clear my head and give me the time to start to pull together what I needed to say to my mum. Unfortunately, it didn't do either and my head was just as cloudy and my script just as unwritten when the monstrosity of a house loomed into view.
My pin number still worked on the gate and I was able to make it to the front door before having to announce my presence. Ready to get going with why I was there, though, I didn't waste any time pressing the buzzer.
"Rox?" Even distorted by the crackle of the intercom I could hear the surprise in my mum's voice as she answered and I experienced a split second of my own surprise that Elliot hadn't given her a heads up about my arrival. Maybe he was finally getting it?
I didn't have time to follow that train of thought as I heard hurried footsteps and then the door was flung open and my mum stood there. To her credit she seemed so pleased to see me, reaching forward to give my stiff frame a hug and then ushering me inside, that I was almost convinced this was just an ordinary visit. The illusion was quickly banished as she said breathlessly, "Come down into the kitchen, sweetheart. Are you...?" And then stopped. I knew what she'd been going to ask, though.
"On my own?" I finished for her. "Yes. I caught the bus." Subtext: I'm perfectly capable of getting from Point A to Point B without Elliot's assistance.
Unfortunately mum seemed determined to ignore the passive side of my aggression and said brightly, "Good, just us then."
Her cheeriness continued as she bustled about, brewing tea and asking about my exams, while I sat and sulked at the table, providing monosyllabic answers when required. Yes, I was being a bit of a brat, but frankly, I was proud of myself for not just stamping my foot and shouting, 'enough with the bustling! Just talk to me!'
My perversely impatient patience eventually paid off as, seeming to run out of things to distract herself with, Mum ceased her nervous fluttering and sat down opposite me. There was silence for a couple of moments and I was just getting myself ready to get the ball rolling when she tapped her fingers against her mug decisively and raised her eyes to meet mine squarely. "I'm not ashamed to accept charity, Rox, I never have been."
Well OK then, we were off! I was surprised that she'd got into it without any nudging on my part, and a little perturbed by the distinct lack of any apologetic note in her tone, but this was what I'd come all this way for, so I went with it.
"I learnt pretty early on that I couldn't give you the things you needed on my own," she continued firmly. "Food, shelter, clothing, education; I used charity at one point or another to get all of these things for you rather than dig us into debt, and I've never regretted it, not even for a second."
"OK," I said slowly, "but if you think charity is so good and noble and you see nothing wrong with begging it off Elliot for me, why keep it a secret?"
She let out a quiet 'ha' under her breath before saying wryly, "I said that I didn't have a problem with charity, I've always known the same can't be said for you." She looked down into her tea, perhaps finding it easier to address the brown liquid as she continued, "You were five the first time you told me you didn't want a birthday present, you know? Six when you said you didn't really like school excursions anyway. Your whole life you've wanted to make it clear that you have the control; like it wasn't that you couldn't afford the things the other kids had, but that you didn't want them. It's the same way you go on about the trappings of the Sinclairs’ life, this big house, Elliot's TV...it's like you hate it and want it at the same time." She seemed to think about it for a moment and then added, "But only on your terms."
I shrugged, not quite getting her point. "Well, yeah," I agreed. "But why should I be ashamed of wanting a little bit of control in my life?"
"Oh, Rox," her disappointment made something inside me curl up like an echidna, so only my spikes were on display. "Why does it have to be about you being ashamed?"
"Because I am!" I exclaimed, not sure why no-one seemed to be getting it. "Bad enough when I thought that Mr and Mrs Sinclair had spotted me the money, but Elliot?"
"What's the difference?"
"Oh, Mum," I cringed when I realised I'd almost exactly echoed her tone from when she'd 'oh Rox'-ed me. "You know the difference."
When she looked at me blankly the echidna in my chest seemed to decide there was no point having spikes if you didn't use them and I snapped, "OK then, dirty family secret time, Mr and Mrs Sinclair have been helping us out for years. They didn't have to give me the cleaner's job, they didn't even really need another cleaner, but they offered me a chance to work and balance out our situation because they could see you were struggling."
And it was out, I'd finally put words to something I knew we'd both suspected for a long time.
"So then Mrs Sinclair phrases the uni money like she wanted to see me do well and expected me to work hard and repay her for it," I went on. "Fine, seeing as how that's pretty much been the deal between our families for years I could sort of accept that. Having Elliot, who knows absolutely nothing about what it's like to not have everything handed to you on a silver platter, use me as just another way to stick it to his family? It's not anywhere close to the same thing."
Mum lifted her tea and took a sip as I spoke, placing the mug carefully back on the tabletop before saying, "Same end result, though."
I let out a little 'huh' of astonishment at her decidedly badass reply, although my surprise was quickly overridden with frustration. "So, hold up for a sec, now Elliot's the champion of the world?" I asked. "After all that 'be careful, don't end up like him' stuff? What was that, by the way? Were you worried if we got too close he would tell me about what the two of you had cooked up?"
"Yes," she said bluntly and my chair squeaked along the floor slightly I sat back, stunned by her candour even though I'd been the one to prod it out of her. "He asked me if he could tell you," she continued, taking advantage of my, admittedly uncharacteristic, silence. "He said that he thought you should know, but I told him not to say anything."
Which went some way in explaining their less than enthusiastic parting a few weeks ago...
"Bit harsh, Mum," I defended Elliot without thinking and she raised her eyebrows before sighing and saying,
"I'm not proud of it. It was a cruel thing to do to him, especially given the timing."
"So why did you do it?"
"I panicked,” she said flatly. “I could see that you were falling for him and..." she trailed off as I made a strangled noise. Now looking faintly amused she asked, "What? You think you and Elliot were subtle? The two of you were so obviously in the midst of getting together while Nan was dying that even Mrs Sinclair noticed."
'...getting together while Nan was dying...' Oh geez, that was a fairly horrifying description, but it wasn't what had most struck me about that sentence.
"Mrs Sinclair noticed...?" I asked in disbelief.
"She asked me if you two were in a relationship," Mum explained. "I think she was hoping I'd say yes, she likes you."
Immediately the memory of Mrs Sinclair inviting Elliot and me to dinner so she could interrogate her son about his finances and tell him not to expect anything from his dying grandmother sprung to mind. I wasn't sure the woman on display that night could be reconciled with the sort of person who cared a whit for anyone else's feelings. Then again, the way she'd handled me asking her about the money so that she protected not only her son, but me as well, told a different story. Complicated woman that Mrs Sinclair.
"But you didn't tell her that we were together?" I asked, knowing instinctively that Elliot would hate his mum knowing anything about us, and automatically looking for information to reassure him when I saw him next.
Mum's look was arch. "I said that neither of you had mentioned anything to me." Ha, well played, mother, very well played.
"So you panicked," I said, getting back to the original point and hoping to avoid any direct 'are you and Elliot together?' questions, as I wasn't sure I knew the answer. "What did you panic ab
out?"
Her face twisted as if she was tasting something unpleasant before she said quietly, "That I would lose you to Elliot, to everything he could provide you that I couldn't."
I felt a shudder run through my entire body. That was it, it was the one sentence that pulled the whole thing together.
"Two things." I spat the words out, practically shaking with rage. "One, Elliot is not a replacement mummy. I'm not on the hunt for someone to fill that role both because I already have you and because I'm 20 years old. Two, I am perfectly capable of providing myself with anything that I need. What the hell do I need to do to make you people see that?" I was furious, but for some insane reason, Mum seemed to be smiling.
"Urgh!" My shoulders slumped and I thunked my head down on the table in defeat. "I wasn't making a joke."
"I know, darling," I could hear that she was making an effort to sober up, but when I lifted my head, I could still see a twinkle in her eye. "It's just...it used to be just me and you, but now we're arguing about how people want to stand up for you. And, before you say it, there is a difference between being a charity case and being stood up for."
There had to be a rebuttal for that somewhere, but whilst I scrabbled around in my brain trying to find it, Mum reached across the table and grabbed my hand. "But I get that the difference doesn't matter right now, and I'm sorry," she said, lacing her fingers through mine. "I'm sorry for underestimating you, for going behind your back, for disrupting things between you and Elliot, all of it. I should have known you better and I will in future."
In the stunned silence that followed it occurred to me that there should be a superhero whose power was the apology, the genuine, raw apology, because it turned out that I, at least, had no defence against it. It was emotional kryptonite.
I believed my mum's apology, it was as tangible as her grip on my hand, and I knew that forgiveness was the next step. Knowing it logically, however, didn't make it an automatic reality.
Looking at my mum, though, at her familiar face and genuine expression, the shame and disappointment that sat heavy in my stomach lifted slightly. It was a little thrill, a moment of buoyancy that said 'hey, maybe if you stopped being so dramatic and in your own head about this it could work out.'
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