Only everything.
I have no idea how to reply, wanting to confess everything right there and then. I want to tell him my real age, that I go to school. I want to tell him what happens at home with Mum and the cutting, with Smith and how creepy he's acting, about how I'm running to Melbourne because I'm running away—
But he'll hate me.
He'll see me for the lying, weak person I really am.
I step toward him and wrap my arms around his neck, kissing along his jaw. This distraction technique always worked with Duke. When questions got too hard, or times got too tough, I could always rely on this to see me through.
Jase, though?
He doesn't.
He places his hands on my shoulders and firmly pushes me back. "Don't."
And then I have to decide which I want to save. Our relationship, or myself.
I choose myself.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, and I grab my bag from the shelf behind me then push past him and run out the door, heading straight for my car I all but throw myself in.
Tears stream down my face, and I'm sobbing, crying with everything I have. I wonder if I cried this much before—if I even did that day when Mum found him.
And the worst part is, he doesn't come out and console me. He just stares at me through the window, and somehow that hurts more, so I start the engine, swing the car into reverse and then speed off home.
***
It's after two in the morning, but I have all this energy burning through me and I know I won't be able to sleep. The lights aren’t on in the house and I guess Mum and Smith are out God knows where, probably trying to rob some other bar or something.
My car shudders to a stop and I grab my bags then jog to the front door, twisting the key in the lock and shoving the door open. She keeps ruining my life, and now I feel I have to do something to ruin hers.
I charge up to her room, garbage bag in hand, and yank open the drawers in her bedside table.
Nothing.
Seriously, who doesn't have anything in their bedside table drawers?
I yank open the wardrobe doors, rifle through her clothes and that's when I find it. One of her jackets has something hard in the pocket, and I reach in to take it out. Gin. It's a bottle of gin.
Five minutes later and I have her complete stash laid out on the bed. Three bottles of wine, a bottle of some cheap vodka, the gin and a knife.
Seeing them sitting there, the things she hid even from me makes the impossibility of the situation seem worse. If she couldn't be honest with me about this, what hope do I have that she's going to get help like she says she is? What chance is there that she'll commit to the meetings, hell, commit to herself and quit this time?
Rage courses through my body, and I pick up one of the bottles of red and hurl it at the wall. It cracks, a satisfying sound of breaking, and plum liquid seeps out over the floorboards. Watching it pool and spread is like watching fire, and for a moment, I feel calm as I watch this casual destruction in front of me. My mind seems to slow and heaviness settles over my limbs.
And then it finally hits me.
Sleep.
***
I never escape the dreams …
I scream. My eyes close and my hands fly to my stomach, pulling away the knife that sliced across my side. Tears burn my eyes and bile chases up my throat. The pain is enough to make me sick.
“Baby! My baby!” Mum scrambles to me, her eyes wide. Her hands fly to my wound and she applies pressure. It hurts so much, deep inside me, everywhere.
“Why-y-y?” I sob, looking at the woman who gave birth to me. The woman who was supposed to look after me—to protect me no matter what.
“I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, Lee Lee,” she says, shaking her head. “Please, believe—”
“No!” I cry around another scream of pain. But she still doesn’t get it. Still doesn’t see why I’m really hurt. “Why don’t you love me enough to stay?”
She stills. Realisation dawns on her features, followed by a flash of horror. “I didn’t mean … I didn’t think … I …” Her mouth opens and closes. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”
She stands and pulls me to my feet, and I stagger beside her. Blood coats my hand, my fingers, my shirt, and I think of the last time I saw it, and I want to cry more, harder, all over again. Why is this happening to me?
Mum’s still talking, but I don’t hear her over my cries. It’s only when she says the word ‘neglect’ that I snap out of my pain-induced haze.
“What?” My lower lip trembles.
“I neglected your care. I’m going to turn myself in.” She squares her shoulders and faces me. “I need help, sweetheart. You’ll be able to go to a carer, a foster home, or—”
“No!”
One word.
Because she’s the only family I have left. And I can’t lose her.
And that’s how I convince her to use butterfly bandages when I should have stitches, to try and hold my wound together. It doesn’t work, and it splits open every now and then, but eventually it heaps enough to function. Enough to get by.
Just like our relationship.
CHAPTER TWENTYSEVEN
Waking in Mum's bed is a strange, unfamiliar feeling. The curtains are still open, and light streams in from the blaring spring sun. My eyes are stuck together, and for a split second, I wonder what I have to be unhappy about.
Then it all comes crashing in, and I remember. The dream.
I huff out a breath of air through my nose, then sit up, swiping at my still damp cheeks. It's this dream I hate the most. This dream where the pain is too real, too familiar for my liking. It's better when I don't see the note, see those four words, that pathetic apology that somehow justifies the taking of his life.
I cradle my head in my hands, thinking of all that happened last night, and the smell of red—
Ah crap.
Peeking through my fingers, I see the red wine still pooled on the floor, the other contraband on the bed beside me. The clock on Mum's bedside table reads eight a.m., and I know I have to get moving in case she comes home early.
I throw the bottles and the knife in the trash bag I brought up with me, then slug it over my shoulder and take it downstairs, emptying all of the liquor down the drain. Then I throw the empty bottles in our recycling. The knife, though? I know she'll go looking through the trash for it. She's done it before.
So this, I take back up to my room and search for my piano book, the one that houses all my favourite scores. I slide it in between the pages, then place it in the bottom drawer of my desk. It may not be the world's best hiding place, but if she's looking for the knife, she's in a frenzy, and I know my music books are the last place she'd think to look. At least this way, I can leave it here until bin night, and then maybe I can sneak it into someone else's trash.
One more trip downstairs to get a sponge, a bottle of cleaning spray, some paper towels and another trash bag, and then I head back upstairs to clean. I carefully pick up the glass and throw it in the bag. Luckily, it broke in two big chunks, so it's quite easy to collect. Then, I try and mop up as much of the liquid with those paper towels as possible. It takes me at least half an hour, as every time I move, the wine spreads, but eventually, I get rid of any loose liquid.
Finally, it's time to scrub, to try and remove that dark brown stain from the floorboards in the corner of Mum's room, and the purple streaks running down her wall.
I spray the cleaning agent and then scrub with the sponge, both hands on the piece of tough yellow material and moving up and down. I scrub the floor with everything I have, my entire body weight pressed down against the sponge, and the foam turns from phosphorous white to a pink, then finally to a purple.
I look down, my hands soaked in the stuff, and all of a sudden, I'm no longer here, scrubbing the floor, but in another home, at another time.
***
Once someone's life has stained the floor, it's impossible to get it clean.
It's been seven days since the death, three days since the funeral, one day since my stomach split open, and the stain on their bedroom floor still remains, a scar from the death of one third of this family. A visible reminder that nothing is okay, or will be the same again.
I haven't seen Mum since Thursday. After the funeral, late, late at night, her friend from college, Cheryse, came 'round, took her out to get her 'mind off things'. I had a fair idea of what that activity entailed, and while I'd had frequents texts, so I knew Mum was still okay, if a little boozy, I didn't know how she was doing really.
And she didn't know about me.
She'd asked Ellie's parents to take me in for a week or so, while she 'adjusted', and I'd stayed there for the first two nights, but yesterday afternoon, I told them she'd come home, and they'd believed me. I shouldn't have lied. I'd never been a liar before.
But sometimes you have to lie to get what you want.
And right then, I wanted my family.
But I knew my family would never let this mess just stain the floor like this, so I was scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing to try and erase this blatant and painful reminder that this is where he died and he is never coming back, and it hurts, hurts deeper than any physical pain I've experienced, but worse—it feels just like physical pain, too. There's just more of it. It's all consuming.
And underneath that devastation, that injury to my heart that I can't seem to find the strength to fight, there's a slow-burning rage. An anger that's hungry for fuel, a fire that feeds on the situation I'm in. Because how dare he bow out with no real rhyme or reason? How dare he leave me when I need him so much? How dare he do all that, and then just say sorry?
"Sorry's not good enough!" I scream to the empty house. My words echo against the walls, heard by no one except me, my sponge, and the red-brown foam collecting around my hands.
I don't know how long I scrub, but eventually, the suds stop turning a darker purple, and my hands are pruned from the cleaning formula. The boards are still wet, so I can't tell if I'd succeeded in my mission, but at least I've given it a try.
Downstairs, I rinse out the sponge and wash away the tears I didn't realise had fallen. I have to make things right again. I have to make things better for Mum.
I wait and I wait, sure that she is coming home, that she's been at least sleeping here, despite spending some time with Cheryse.
But she never comes.
No calls.
No cars in the driveway.
Nothing.
So eventually I go to bed, in the same bed I always have, and I hope like hell that when I wake up things will be different.
Because I need things to be different.
CHAPTER TWENTYEIGHT
I don't know if I should show up to my shift, but I do anyway. I figure the worst he can do is tell me to get out, and after what he's already said, how much more can that hurt?
My car hums to a stop outside the building and I just sit in the car and think for a minute. Think of all the things I could have done to make this easier.
But all the could haves, should haves, what ifs won't make a damn difference. This is the real thing. I should just be grateful it isn't worse than it is.
I clamber out of the car and walk inside, but when I step foot in the bar, it's silent. The door's unlocked, so I know Jase must have been here recently, but he's not around now.
I walk out the back and stash my bag, then step behind the bar. A big stack of limes sit inside a cardboard box, and while I haven't worked here long, I know enough to know that they need to be squeezed, so I grab a knife and halve about twenty, then use the Mexican elbow and start squeezing the juice into the bottom of a cocktail jug.
It's easy to get lost in the rhythm, so easy, and soon I find myself studying the bar from this perspective, an angle I've rarely seen before. From here, the room looks bigger, wider, and I can suddenly see how we managed to fit so many people in last night.
The stools and tables on the left-hand side of the room are illuminated, courtesy of the open windows above them. The other thing illuminated is that gorgeous old piano ... and it's open.
I frown, drop the lime I'm squeezing, and walk over to the beautiful instrument. The keys are on display in the sunlight, and I can't resist just casually pressing one as I walk past, enjoying the rich, thick melodic sound that resonate after.
Sheet music sits atop of the piano on the stand, and I frown as my eyes scan the notes and the keys. It all seems relatively simple. Has Jase hired someone else to play here? Has he gotten sick of my—
Then I see the title to the song.
"I'm sorry."
I spin around. Jase has walked into the bar, and his eyes are spidered with red, dark shadows under his eyes.
"I didn't mean to snap. It's just ... it's so important to me that you're honest," he says, and his words are laced with such torturous sweetness. It hurts me with its good intentions. Plays havoc on my emotions with its kindness. Guilts me with his sincerity.
"Did you see the music?" He gestures to the piano.
"Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word?" I ask, a smile twisting my lips. "I didn't pick you for an Elton John fan."
"I'm not." Jase steps closer to me, and suddenly we're chest to chest, his hands on my shoulders, his feet either side of mine. "I'm a Lia Stanton fan."
He wraps a hand to the back of my head and draws me forward until our mouths meet in the softest, gentlest kiss. He pulls away, then looks into my eyes, integrity shining in his gaze. "I'm sorry for judging you. You told me your mum had issues. I guess I didn't think ... after everything ... that you'd be ashamed. I understand, though. I do." He nods, one hand still supporting the base of my head. "Do you ... forgive me?"
"There's nothing to forgive you for," I whisper, and crush my lips against his once again.
We pull apart, and I can still taste him, that minty, manly taste that is his and his alone. This whole scene is too perfect, too sweet, and I know I can't take him along for this ride any longer. I have to come clean. I have to.
"Jase ..." I can't keep this secret anymore. "There are things I'm not telling you."
He stills, and a slight crease mars his clean forehead. "I ... are you going to tell me?"
I swallow. "When the time is right," I whisper. "And I don't mean that like it's a line in a song, or an excuse, or a way to avoid confrontation."
And I don't. I mean that I'll tell him when the time is right. When I'm eighteen. When I know if Smith is a real threat. When I have a plan to sort Mum out, so he won't look at me as if I'm a victim. Someone to be pitied. Someone to feel sorry for.
His lips purse as he considers this. "These secrets ... do they involve your mother and her weird boyfriend?"
I school my expression to neutral, but part of me feels good that Jase noticed how strange Smith is. Justified, even. As if maybe the policewoman was wrong, and I'm not just misinterpreting him for an overly keen to be accepted new "dad".
"Yes."
He wraps his big strong arms around me. "And you promise you'll tell me before these secrets become a problem?"
I lick my lips, grateful he can't see, because I can’t keep a poker face right now. The thing is, I don't know where the problem starts, or where it ends. Where's the tipping point? When does it stop being an inconvenience and become a real life, honest-to-goodness issue?
Or has it reached that point already?
"Yes," I say into his shoulder, and his shirt smells like musk, and man, and clean.
I wrap my arms tighter around him, snaking them over his back, and he pulls back to meet my eyes, his golden meeting my dark brown. He leans in and kisses my lips, and my body is eager, desperate for his touch, and my mouth opens to greet his, to dance in a passionate dual.
Seconds later, he pulls back and rests his forehead against mine, breathing hot and heavy on my lips. "I'm quickly falling for you, Lia Stanton."
"I'm falling for—"
"Am I gonna walk in on
this all the time? Because, dude, come on."
Kyle's voice jerks us apart like two magnets of the same charge, and we all but flee to opposite sides of the room.
"Sorry, man, completely unprofessional." Jase strides over to Kyle and offers his hand up in a high five, which Kyle quickly accepts.
"Nah, it's cool. I just didn't want you guys to be so lost in the moment you didn't hear me enter." Kyle gives us both a wink, and my cheeks flame with heat for the second time that day.
With that, the three of us get the bar set up to start service, Hope arriving an hour later right as the doors open.
It's another busy night, and soon I'm thinking Jase won't even need to organise a professional launch, because the bar already has so many visitors. It couldn't really handle any more without opening an outdoor beer garden. It's a true testament to his picking the market—a venue just more than an hour north of Sydney, where this trend is already established, in a marketplace that's fifty per cent commuters, and at least thirty per cent ex-Sydney siders. It makes perfect sense, but the extreme popularity is still well and truly surprising.
It's right on ten, and I can't stop thinking of Jase's words to me earlier. How he gave me so much of him.
How there's still so much of me I'm holding back.
Then I think of one part of me I can give to him now.
One part that's very easy.
I check on the dishwasher, and there's still seven minutes to go, so I take a deep breath, smooth down my hair and square my shoulders.
I can do this.
I'm good enough.
As I walk to the piano, it's as if I'm on a different planet. The voices are coming at me from miles away—I have tunnel vision for the keys, and the keys only.
When I sit down, my hands shake, and my gaze darts left, right, backward even to check that no one is looking at me.
But no one sees me sit down to play.
Thank goodness.
How To Save A Life (Emerald Cove #1) Page 19
