Toby glanced my way, a look of excitement all over his face before he turned back to the road. “You’re way too innocent looking to be a criminal, Lil.”
“That’s what will make me good at it! No one would suspect a thing.” I grinned. “Think about how much fun we’d have. We’d drive down long country roads for hours, then stop off at some unknown pub that has a million local stories to tell. We could visit tiny little villages…”
“Screw in dodgy inns and motorway pit stops.”
“Yes!” I cried with excitement. “We could stop by all the beaches. Visit all the amusement arcades. Eat fish and chips by the sea and keep going on nothing but enthusiasm and epic teenage mischief.”
Toby’s smile grew wider.
“Then what would happen after college?” he asked. “You want to go to university, right?”
My face fell a little. I did want to go to university, but that wasn’t a certainty for me. I had a lot of things to chase, a lot of dreams to keep believing in, but I also knew I had to make things happen for myself.
“Maybe. Uni is only three years.”
He briefly glanced at me again, his eyes narrowing. “It can be as long as it needs to be. You know I’ll wait for you.”
I didn’t know if I could wait for him for more than a day, never mind three years.
“Let’s focus on today.”
Toby gave my knee a reassuring squeeze and focused back on the road. “Okay, so tell me what happens once we’ve discovered the whole of England.”
“Then we go and discover the entire world. Imagine all the adventures we could have in sunny climates and far off places.” I sighed dreamily, letting my head relax against my hand again.
I hadn’t realised how love could make you feel like you wanted to burst wide open.
It made you want to do everything, see everything, and be everything together.
All my dreams were changing, and Toby sat at the very centre of all that was new.
The worst thing anyone can do is patronise the power and importance of young love. It’s what so many lives are built upon.
I’d never respected Aunt Coral’s view of the world more.
TWENTY-THREE
Toby
A strange feeling invaded the very pit of my stomach as I drove through the familiar streets of Southwold. The highs of our night away took a back seat as that dread sucker-punched me in the stomach with a screwdriver, digging into the calm and creating a fucking mess, turning my body from relaxed to on edge in an instant. Maybe it was because our trip away had been so amazing that seeing the streets of home made me wish we could go back and escape all over again. Or maybe it was because, to me, Southwold held enemies, and I wanted to drive away from them, not towards them. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it, and the hairs on the back of my neck tingled and came to life in a lazy yet hypnotic slow dance.
It was weird, that awareness I had—a sixth sense for discovering nearby chaos and shit.
But my girl was trailing her finger up and down my arm as I rested a hand on the gear stick, and I decided to exhale and be optimistic for once. Maybe I was wrong. Life could be good without something always coming along to mess it up, right?
Wrong.
Lilac was chatting away beside me when we slowly turned the car into Crooked Mount, but she turned silent as soon as we both saw the commotion going on outside my house. Mum was in her tattered dressing gown, her eyes wild and erratic, her face ghostly pale as she snapped her head from side to side, watching as Dad carried a heavy duffle bag to the backseat of his car, opened the door and threw it in.
I gripped the steering wheel, leaned forward, and slowed the car to a crawl, my heart skipping a beat as I watched him slam the door shut and march back towards the house. My two little brothers were standing on the porch step, their hands joined together, with Charlie wrapping a protective arm around Harry who was biting his thumbnail and watching his parents fight.
“Fuck,” was all I could whisper.
“Oh no,” Lilac echoed my fear, her hands flying to her mouth as she tried to push her panic back in.
“Shit, not today. Not fucking today,” I growled. “And not in front of the goddamn kids.”
I pulled over, slamming the car to an abrupt stop and climbing out, not even thinking about the girl I’d left behind, now only focused on my fractured family as they began to create wounds I wasn’t big enough to hold together.
“Mum?” I called out as I approached her.
She didn’t hear me through the apparent fog of her thoughts. As I got closer, I saw her lips moving ever so slightly, and I knew she was having a silent conversation with herself. The more she spoke, the fuller the well of tears became in the pockets of her eyes. Her panic had settled in, and her tongue was now a prisoner to that fear.
“Toby,” my brother Charlie called out to me.
“It’s okay, C. Stay there. I’ll be a minute.” I looked up at him and gave him the most genuine smile I could muster. “It’s okay, buddy.” His youthful shoulders relaxed almost instantly. At eleven, he wasn’t a baby anymore, but he was young enough to be scared and need some reassurances from the people he thought would always protect him. “You look after Harry, yeah? Take him inside for a minute.”
“Dad told us to wait out here.”
“Yeah, yeah. Dad’s always bossing us around, and we ignore him anyway, don’t we?” I grinned. “Trust your big brother. I’ll deal with Dad.” I flashed Charlie a wink and watched as he spun Harry around and began to lead him back inside the house.
Dad marched past the two of them without even blinking an eye, his body half turning to avoid hitting them with another bag he was bringing out as he pushed through the doorway.
When he looked up, the scowl and anger that was so evident on his face disappeared for a split second when he saw me, but just as soon as his calm made an appearance, his determination silenced it again, and his frown turned darker. Looking at the ground, he made his way down the driveway, not saying a word.
“Wayne, please!” Mum cried desperately, her voice breaking on the please. Her little feet shuffled around, but they never really took her anywhere. “Please, don’t. You can’t do this. Don’t go. This isn’t my fault. None of this is my fault. No, no.”
“Dad?” I spun around when he walked right by me, watching him open the boot of the car and throw another full bag inside before he shut it again. “What the hell?”
With his palm resting on the back of the car and his eyes cast down, Dad spoke. “Do you want to tell him, Darlene, or shall I?” His voice was low and menacing, desperate to cut through whatever bullshit was sitting between the three of us.
“Please, don’t do this,” Mum whimpered, taking a tentative step closer to him. “You know that I love you. You know that I need you, can’t live without you, I can’t spend a day without you in my life, Wayne. Don’t do this. Without you, everything will be heavy again. So heavy, heavy, heavy. And… you! You promised. You goddamn promis—”
“Don’t you throw my promises back in my face,” Dad spat, his head snapping up and his eyes blazing with fury in a way I’d never seen them flame before. “I know what promises I made, Darlene. I was there for every single one. I said them, created them in my heart, and I poured them out of my mouth with nothing but determination to keep them. But you made promises, too. You! And for all these years, all you’ve ever done is broken them.”
“You know I’ve tried!” she cried, her arms slamming down by her sides and her dressing gown falling open to reveal her well-worn pyjamas. She was a woman on the edge of life, barely recognisable from the pictures I’d seen of her when she was my age. All I could think as I stared at her grey face, red-rimmed eyes, chapped lips, sagging body and rotten clothes, was how a woman so beautiful and full of life could end up becoming this version of herself.
“Trying isn’t enough anymore,” Dad hissed. “I have done everything in my power to keep you and the boys happy. All three of th
em. But it’s no use. All you ever do is blame everyone for the way you feel, and while I know you’re hurting, you’re sticking knives in our backs every minute of every day and expecting us just to accept the pain because you can’t handle yours. Be accountable! Get the help you need without making excuses. I can’t shoulder your attacks anymore. It’s not fair to me. It’s not goddamn fair to our kids. You’re not the only one struggling to live. You’re so far gone, D, I can’t even attempt to bring you back again because if I do, not only am I in danger of drowning myself, but I’m in danger of bringing those boys under with us both.” His arm snapped out, and he pointed to the house where my younger brothers were hiding.
It was like I wasn’t there. Like they couldn’t see me, and then I felt the small, familiar, tender touch of Lilac on my shoulder. A palm of reassuring fire burned its way down my back, and even though I remained looking at my parents, I reached up to hold Lilac’s hand in place for just a second. I squeezed her fingers with mine, released her, and took a step forward.
“Dad!” I shouted, catching his attention. He blinked several times, eventually turning away from my sobbing, wide-eyed mother before he let his gaze drift to me. “Dad,” I said again quietly. “Are you… are you leaving?”
“I have to, Toby. I can’t do this anymore.”
“You can’t do what anymore?”
Dad sighed, defeated. Whatever was on the tip of his tongue cut him, making it a bitter taste when he swallowed his words back down. “Toby, I’m taking the boys away for a while—”
“What?” I snapped, cutting him off. “No. Where? Why?”
“I have to, son. I have to.”
“And what about me?”
“I can’t explain it properly, but it’s important you stay. You have a life here now. Your mum needs you with her, too.”
“Like fuck she does. She needs all of us.” Rage was bubbling from my toes, creeping up my legs, attacking my spine and making my limbs go rigid. I curled my hands into fists by my thighs and took a step in front of Mum—a last-ditch effort to save her from his words.
“There are things you don’t know. There are things…”
“Then tell me them!” I roared.
Dad swallowed again, and it caused his face to crease up and tears to form in his eyes. “I love you, Toby. I need you to know that. But…” He paused and sucked in a ragged breath, quickly releasing it as though it tasted like shit. “Your mum needs help—more help than I can give her, and more help than the boys need to witness. They’re young. All of this is affecting them at school, with friends, with us as a family. I need to do the right thing and get them away for a while.”
“And you’re going to leave me to sort this out? You do know I’m seventeen, right? I mean… fuck. How long have I been away from home? Because I thought it was only one night, but two nights ago, you were all about being here for Mum—protecting her. And now you’re walking away? It doesn’t make sense.” I shook my head and took a step closer to him.
He glanced down at my balled-up fists, his eyes rising up the length of my growing arms and biceps. He looked like he was studying my strength, weighing me up like he was seeing me for the very first time.
Dad’s eyes eventually found mine again, and right on cue, a single tear dropped down his cheek, ran over his lip and fell to the ground like the smallest bomb that had ever been set free.
“There are so many things that don’t make sense to you. I know that, and I hate it, but I made a promise to your mother years ago. I’ve tried to tell her to open up to you, Toby…”
Mum gasped for air behind me, but her speech had deserted her, leaving only the voices in her mind to argue on her behalf, driving her crazy. I heard Lilac slip beside her, her quiet whispers of reassuring words falling on Mum’s shoulder, as she no doubt pulled her in for a hug.
“You’re going to kill her if you leave,” I told him, my jaw tensing as I raised it to stare at him like he was already dead to me. “This is going to kill her.”
“No.” Dad shook his head. “The things she isn’t telling you are what’s going to kill her. The words are in her, but they’re choking her up, Tobe. They’re making her feel like she can’t breathe, and until she figures out a way to set them free…” He pushed himself off the car and stood tall again. “I can’t be around her. I won’t let her hold me accountable. You two need some time alone together. She needs to tell you some things.”
If I’d thought the dread I’d felt turning into this street was suffocating, the fear that now bubbled away in the pit of my stomach like a boiling cauldron was creating so many fumes, it felt like my heart was racing to break free from my chest.
“What kind of things?”
“Please don’t do this, Wayne. I love you. Please,” Mum begged.
I looked over my shoulder to see her. Lilac had her arm wrapped around her, but Lilac’s eyes were heavy with the same dread I felt as she looked up at me in despair. She already hurt on my behalf.
Mum’s body shuddered in Lilac’s grip, her tears cascading down her face as she leant forward and tried to control her breathing.
“This isn’t my fault,” Mum croaked. “None of this is my fault.”
Dad walked over to me, his hand landing on my shoulder. When I looked up, I stared into the eyes of a man filled with both love and regret, and even though he’d just told me he was leaving, and not taking me with him, I couldn’t hate the son of a bitch.
Because I actually couldn’t blame him for leaving.
A selfish part of me wanted to leave, too. To walk away from Southwold and all of its shit and never look back. I wanted a reason to never return. I needed a reason to run, but I had too many reasons to stay.
Dad squeezed my shoulder. “You call me tonight. I’ve begged her to talk to you. I’ve begged her to let me talk to you.”
“You’re scaring me, Dad.”
“I know.” He nodded once, closing his eyes and squeezing my shoulder. “And I’m sorry. It’ll all make sense soon.” With that, he dipped his chin to his chest and walked back to the house. It didn’t take long for him to gather my two brothers in his arms and guide them to the car.
Charlie looked at me like he was helpless, Harry looked at me like he just wanted to get away so he could stop gnawing on his already red-rimmed nails.
“Hey,” I said, bending down so I was at their eye level, my hand landing on Charlie’s shoulder as I glanced between them both. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay, little buddy? Dad’s taking you on an adventure, that’s all.”
“Why can’t you come with us, Toby?” Harry asked, all innocence and youth, a little bit of fear for a monster we couldn’t see wrapped in a soft reassurance that neither Dad or I would let anything happen to him.
“Because of me,” Lilac piped up behind me when I was taking too long to answer. “Toby has to stay with me tonight, boys. I have a surprise waiting for him—one I know he’ll tell you all about tomorrow, okay? I may even have a little surprise for you.” I turned just in time to see her winking at them. She was incredible, even in the darkness of life. Her eyes were alive with excitement, and her bright, beaming smile had the boys fooled.
My brothers both began to smile, and it made me feel better, right before Dad guided them into the back of the car, strapped them in, and then came back around to Mum.
She was still a sobbing mess—unmoving because her body was too weak against the brain when she needed it to fight the most.
Dad stood close, reaching up to lift her chin with a single finger. To anyone else, it would have looked like he was a man in love about to kiss his woman. To us who were close, we knew it was a hard goodbye she would be able to taste on her tongue until the early hours of the morning.
“Fix everything, Darlene,” he whispered. “This has already ruined us. Don’t let it ruin him, too. He deserves more.”
Then he got in the car and drove away, leaving me to stare at my mum, my mum to cling on to Lilac, and Lilac to silently ask me
what she needed to do to help.
I had a feeling the answer was nothing.
That sixth sense was telling me everything was about to change forever.
TWENTY-FOUR
Lilac
“Go home,” he’d whispered to me, my chin pinched between his finger and thumb, his body pressed to mine.
I still held onto his mother, but Toby had a way of making me feel like we were always alone. In this street, in this town, in this world.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“I’ll come and see you as soon as I’ve made sense of everything,” he promised, and for someone who had just been left in the dark by his father to care for his distraught mother, he looked way too calm. Too practised in dealing with such difficulties. He looked too damn grown and wise for his age. “I need to speak to Mum alone, Lil. Something’s going on. Something bigger than Dad leaving.”
I swallowed the ball of nervous tension in my throat and gave him a gentle nod.
“I love you,” he mouthed.
“Promise me you’ll find me. Promise me, whatever it is, that you’ll open my window soon and climb into my room. Promise me that nothing will keep you away. Promise me you’ll—”
“I promise.”
“Okay.” I nodded again. “Okay.”
I was just about to slip away quietly because his promise was enough. It had always been. I wanted to withdraw, making no fuss, but his hand slid down my arm and gripped my fingers, pulling me to him for a soft, yet oh-so-needed kiss on the lips. Then he closed his eyes, and I drifted away, fading into the background of his fractured life.
The carpet of my bedroom was abused as I paced back and forth for hours, chewing on my delicate thumbnail, rearranging the tulips in the vase beside my bed, looking over the photos I’d taken on my phone of us that weekend. As time crawled by, the twisted knot in my stomach pulled tighter.
It shouldn’t be taking this long.
What if his mother was sicker than we realised? What if he didn’t come and find me? What if I wasn’t the one he needed when whatever ugly truth he was trying to uncover came out?
A Girl Like Lilac Page 20
