Chapter 23
Over.
Easy to verbalise, not easy to believe or to enact. In fact it is unbelievably hard, especially when you're staying in the same house as the person things are over with and, oh yeah, he just happens to be the most beautiful, wonderful person ever.
The whole thing sucked, and that was a major understatement.
I had one saviour in my endeavour to avoid Jack during the mid-semester break we spent at home and that was study. I used Jack's text books as both weapons and shields knowing that once we got off angles and theories I was treading in very dangerous water.
When we weren't studying, I went for long walks across our property or glued myself to the side of one of my parents so that Jack would never catch me alone. Also, I memorised the family schedule and did my best to see that we all stuck to them. In the morning I stayed up in my room until I heard my dad's Ute head out, the boys had taken to going out in the morning to work on the property and only returning for lunch, then I would get up and go for walks or just loiter about. After lunch I would help Jack study until teatime after which I disappeared back up to my room to make phone calls or work on my assignments and my mum took over the study with Jack.
Still, it wasn't as if my plan or the schedule were anywhere near infallible and I was constantly on edge, prepared to flee from a room if Jack walked in with that 'we need to talk' face on. How stupidly optimistic was I that I thought I could avoid Jack for a whole week? Still, I did quite well, I made it all the way to Friday 25th before the proverbial hit the fan.
Oh I thought I was oh so clever watching from the window as the Ute left and then sauntering down the stairs to the sunny kitchen to get some breakfast. Yep, I was mightily pleased with myself for avoiding Jack for so long and was merrily humming a triumphant ditty to myself as I popped two pieces of bread into the toaster. My song faltered, however, when I heard someone enter the kitchen behind me.
I whirled around, hoping it was my mum, and gave a little shriek as I saw Jack leaning against the doorframe watching me. I eyed the space on either side of him and wondered ever so briefly whether I would be able to dart past. No such luck, he pretty much filled up the doorway and was looking at me in a stony way which seemed to indicate that he was one heartbeat away from saying 'go ahead, make my day.'
"Yes?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but missing the mark by several high pitches. To try and look unconcerned I made to retrieve my toast from the toaster but misjudged the distance and pressed my fingers against the burning hot metal part of the toaster. Yelping, I yanked my hand away and waved it around trying to reduce the horrible stinging, tingling feeling of the burn.
Jack swore under his breath, left the doorframe, grabbed me by the wrist, dragged me over to the sink, flicked the tap on, and stuck my burnt fingers beneath the stream of cold water.
"Jesus, Tally," he said, sounding incredibly frustrated and, for about the millionth time since that first fateful day I had run to Jack, I had to quash the wormy feeling of guilt which twisted my gut. To cover my remorse I turned my face away from him and said irritably,
"God, Jack, stop it! You don't always have to baby me."
He removed his hand immediately and took a step away from me. "Hey, I wasn't-" he began in confused tones, but I cut him off cruelly.
"Yes you were and, thank you, but it's not necessary." I really was perfecting this bitchy tone, shame I couldn't really take any pride in it. "I'm perfectly capable of putting my own hand under cold water."
"I didn't say you weren't," he protested, quite legitimately might I add.
There was a long, awkward pause which I ended by snapping, "Shouldn't you be out with Matt and Dad?"
He leant back against the counter next to the sink and looked at me sardonically, "Why? Upset that I messed up your avoidance schedule?"
Annoyed, although not really surprised, that he'd noticed how I managed to never be in the same room as him for too long I decided to brazen it out. Not exactly an odd choice for me after all.
"Look, with things like they are and you trying for the scholarship and everything I just think it'd be best if we left each other alone for a while, you know what I mean?" Note to self, try to reduce pleading note in voice when trying to be brazen.
He looked away from me then, leaving me to look at his strong jawed profile. "No, not really," he answered shortly and I realised that I didn't know what I meant either.
Neither of us said anything after that for a long time. I felt inside like my burnt fingers under the tap did, hot yet cold, tingling and painful yet numb.
Finally Jack gave a little groan of frustration and ran a hand through his hair, that familiar gesture making my breathing hitch for a moment. "Do you-" He stopped short then started again, "Do you regret that we-?"
This time I cut him off, "No," I spoke quietly, but intensely, "No Jack, I don't regret anything."
He let out another sigh, this time of relief I think. "So what does that mean? What are we going to-"
"Morning my chicks!" My mum's bright, cheery voice made both Jack and me start violently and I smacked my burnt fingers against the tap making my eyes water, or had they already been wet…?
"Mum!" I exclaimed breathlessly, turning off the tap and turning to see her bustling into the kitchen "Don't sneak up on us like that, you nearly gave me a heart attack."
"It's my house, darling, I don't need to sneak," my mother sang, taking the now cold toast out of the toaster and putting two fresh pieces of bread in.
Have you ever had that feeling with your mum that her tone of voice doesn't quite match her words? I had that feeling in spades at that moment. Was it just paranoia or was she saying that while she didn't need to sneak I did?
Jack was obviously feeling as freaked out as I was and, after he bade my mum a good morning, he made a hasty exit from the kitchen. Coward!
I attempted to escape as he had, but my mother's voice rang out, stopping me before I'd taken more than a couple of steps. "One minute Talia," she said, her tone still chirpy, but with that hint of a threat that indicated that if I took even one more step my life would stop being worth living.
I turned back and looked at her, raising an eyebrow enquiringly. "What?" I asked a moment later after she'd just stared at me for a few seconds.
"Oh my darling girl," she sighed deeply. "It's just that I don't know if the game you're playing is going to do either of you any good in the long run." She moved past me to the fridge as she talked, removed the butter and then began to spread it on the freshly popped toast. In fact her movements were so mundane I almost missed the significance of what she was saying.
I mean what the hell? You can't just say something like that and then start buttering your toast!
As what she'd said, or more importantly meant, sunk in I wished like nothing else that I'd made a bolt for it when I had the chance. How dare Jack leave me to fight this battle on my own?
"Could you be any more cryptic?" I asked crossly, hoping against hope that she was just fishing and didn't really have any real knowledge about what was going on. This hope was shattered as she took a bite of toast, swallowed and said calmly,
"Well, you are having sex with Jack, aren't you?"
I nearly swallowed my tongue in shock and despair. How did she know? How come she always knows?
"Mum!" It came out as a choked, agonised, shriek.
"What? You told me to stop being cryptic, if you want plain language then there it is."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.
"Don't be ridiculous, exactly how stupid do you think your father and I are?" My mother said in a way that very definitely meant that her question was rhetorical. "Things have been different between the two of you for about a month now. Now, I'm not saying that you should stop whatever it is that's going on, I'm just advising you to be careful. I understand that you might think that what you're doing is none of anyone else's business, but I doubt Matt will see it that way." S
he took another couple of bites of toast, using the pause as she did so to let her words sink in. "Boys are strange about these things. Your uncle hated every single one of my boyfriends saying it was because he didn't know them, but the moment I even looked at one of his friends he would bite my head off and refuse to talk to the friend for weeks at a time!"
She finished off the toast and patted my cheek fondly. "Face it darling, if you have a brother you can't win", she shrugged, "…or at least date. I advise you to tell Matt now before things go any further or before he finds out from someone else, damage minimisation is the name of the game."
She wasn't telling me anything that I didn't already know, but it was still harsh to hear it said aloud like that. Especially from my mum who had the unnerving power of seeing straight into my mind, reading what it was that I really did not want to be said, and saying it.
"Mum, seriously," I sighed, rolling my eyes, "Nothing is going on between Jack and me. You're just stirring up trouble."
She looked at me for a long moment with that scary patented 'mum stare', that I tried to take unflinchingly, then said archly, "You know there I was worrying about my little girl growing up, seems I needn't have worried."
Oh ouch!
"Never mind, you know where I am if you need to talk." She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, another knowing look and left the kitchen leaving me with nothing but cold toast and a lot of things to mull over.
So Much to Learn Page 40
