by Skylar Heart
I raise an eyebrow at her but hand her the cigarette anyway. I know she’s dabbled in smoking in the past, but I don’t think she’s smoked in years. And, true enough, after holding it between her fingers for a couple of moments, she hands it back.
“Almost.” She pulls a face. “I was almost tempted. But, no. Just remembering the taste put me off.”
I let out a laugh as I take another drag. “But you’re okay with Mal and me smoking? Second-hand smoke flavour?”
She slowly shakes her head. “No. But of all the ways of letting off steam, this one isn’t as harmful as some others. Bad, yes, but not as harmful as some other things. Especially if you stay outside when you smoke.” She leans against the wall next to me. “That didn’t exactly go as planned.”
I reach my empty hand out to her, weaving our fingers together. “When does it ever, when we tell them something they don’t expect? Or when they’ve got other opinions about something? Of all the times we’ve talked to them about life-changing plans, this one seemed to go over better than the previous ones.”
She laughs a little, tightening her grip on me. “True. Very true. There wasn’t any loud yelling or banging of doors, and nobody stormed off angry. Which, with our track record, is definitely an improvement.”
“See?” I smile at her. “Just look at it from the bright side, it could definitely have gone worse.”
“Yeah...” And she looks serious again. “What if they say no? What if they come back next week and tell us to get out?”
I shrug. “We’ll find a new house. A place with hopefully a few more rooms and better positioned for all our jobs, instead of all of us having to travel far to get to work.” I put out the cigarette and turn to her, wrapping both arms around her. “We’re going to make this work. None of us wants to give this up, we’ll keep fighting. For you.”
She swallows hard as she looks up at me, her eyes going a little wider and she lets out a soft breath, running her tongue over her lower lip. Tempting...
Right then, the door opens and Elly darts into the garden, giggling, calling back for Dylan to catch her, as the guy goes after, and the whole mood is broken.
Which is probably a good thing, as there’s still too much going on in my head after the chat I had with Dylan and Mal about Oliver for me to devour her like I want to. Too much that I’m still thinking about, that we need to talk about first.
I knew I had to talk to Mia, but I didn’t expect the talk to happen this soon... I’m walking on the beach with Mia, Elly running around us, picking up stones and shells and just generally enjoying herself.
The other guys are getting dinner ready and we’ve been chosen to take a stroll with Elly, who really needs to let some of that energy out, and apparently, we looked like we ‘desperately needed fresh sea air’ and ‘the wind in our hairs’, after the visit from Mia’s parents today.
I don’t know if Mia feels as conflicted about spending time like this with Elly as I do. Time we were never able to spend with Oliver, but now we can spend it with Elly... My heart hurts and I stop walking, taking a deep breath, staring out at sea. Why does it always just flood over me when I least expect it? When I can’t hide this pain from others?
“Jake?” Mia walks back over to me, reaching out. “What’s wrong?”
I lick my lips, they’re already feeling too dry from the cold, salty air blowing across them. “Is it normal to feel guilty about spending time with Elly when we can’t even do this with Oliver?” Tears sting in my eyes and I quickly blink, trying to get them out. Luckily, it’s starting to get dark, so it shouldn’t be too visible.
“I think so. Yes. Maybe. I sometimes feel it too.” She nods and her shoulders slump.
My heart feels like it just went into overdrive. This isn’t just me? “I showed Dylan and Mal a picture of us with Oliver yesterday. That was...” I have to be brave now, trust that Mal is right and he’s not just talking shit about how Mia feels, that I’m not going to make her feel guilty again. “That was the first time in years that I showed someone a picture of him, someone who isn’t my parents or... Or... That’s it actually... I only ever show my parents the pictures we take when we’re with him, nobody else.” And even that’s not very often, as we don’t really talk about him that much. It’s easier to not talk about him, less painful.
I can’t look at the pain that crosses her face, so I instead look around to make sure Elly isn’t doing something she isn’t supposed to be doing, but she’s about as far from the water as she can be on the beach.
Mia nods and quickly blinks. “I’ve not shown... I’ve not... Not in a long time either. It’s... It’s hard enough to have to consider how people are going to react, but it’s even worse when they look at you like you’re a failure. I get that enough from myself, I don’t need that from random people who have no idea about the situation we were in.”
“I agree. Did you show Noah any pictures?”
She shakes her head slowly. “I did, in the beginning, but he’d get annoyed enough about me visiting Oliver, and meeting up with you, that I just stopped after a while. He claimed that I kept holding onto my past, forcing myself to relive bad things, and that it was bad for me. He never liked it.”
Fucking asshole. Of course, he’d twist his jealousy as concern for her... “Did anyone at your old job know?”
She shakes her head again and that just really hurts.
“Friends?”
“How can you make any real friendships when you’re not comfortable enough to share something so significant with them without worrying about their judgments all the time?” Her breath comes out as a gasp. “It was never supposed to be this big a secret, we were just supposed to not share it everywhere. Not... Not this. This pain.”
Oh, fuck. “I know.” I pull her against me, quickly glancing around to see if Elly isn’t getting herself into any trouble, but the girl is playing with some rocks up on the beach, apparently having found some cool things to play with, for now.
She doesn’t say anything, just holding onto me tightly, her face against my chest.
“After a couple of people didn’t seem to understand, some pretending that I got ‘lucky’ because we didn’t have to care for him, and others wondering how I could live with myself for caring so little about Oliver that I gave him up, I stopped trying. I stopped. I... I gave up and... I didn’t bother anymore. If I couldn’t share all of me with someone, I didn’t need them in my life. Not putting myself in that situation anymore seemed like the best solution.”
“Fucking hell, Jake.” I’ve not heard her curse like this in years, almost angry, upset.
“Language.” It’s an automatic response.
“No. Not this time.” She shakes her head and pushes away from me, furious, her eyes flashing in the low light. “Why did you let me believe that you were fine? That you were happy? Dating people?”
“Because you were feeling guilty enough as it was. I didn’t want you to take that blame onto yourself too. I didn’t want you to feel like you messed up even more things, when none of it was your fault to begin with. I didn’t want to hurt you even more.”
“So you were okay with making me feel like I was the only one who was feeling this way? Letting me struggle on my own?” Tears shine in her eyes, angry tears.
“No. Never. But you seemed to be okay, making friends, being in relationships. I thought you were doing okay. I thought you were doing fine, that I was the only who was bad at choosing who to share my life with.” Have I been misreading her that much? “I thought that you had friends, people who supported you. That just me not being good at making friends was the only reason that I couldn’t tell anyone. That I was always alone.” My voice keeps giving out, both out of some weird sense of relief and also because I hate even thinking about her being in pain, especially when I didn’t notice it and didn’t do anything about it. “I thought that letting you think I was doing fine, that we were both moving on with our lives as ‘normal’, would help you not feel
so guilty all the time. You were feeling guilty enough as it was, I didn’t need to add my bad things to it.”
She lets out a humourless laugh, tears streaming down her cheeks as she pulls a face. “We were both trying to not pull the other down and in that, we only brought ourselves and each other more pain. We’re such kids.”
I pull up one shoulder. “We were kids when Oliver was born. We tried our best, even with each other. And once we started, one small lie about how we were doing okay stacked onto another one, onto another one, all trying to protect each other’s feelings, became this big thing, this big thing we couldn’t talk about without bringing everything down.”
“Yeah. Like right now.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry for pretending that I was doing fine when I should have reached out to you.”
“I’m sorry too.” I reach out to her, wrapping one arm around her. “I’m sorry for putting up a front.”
Hell. I always thought we knew everything about each other, but I guess that we were both really good at sharing just specific things while hiding everything else... We got so good at it that we stopped looking beyond what was being shared, taking everything at face value when we should have dug deeper. We’ve both been guilty of this way too much, all in the name of ‘protecting’ each other, when what we really needed was for the other to push through the crap, just once...
4
Mia
I’m so tired. My brain is all fuzzy and I feel like I’ve got to rethink everything I’ve always known about Jake. If he lied about so many things in his life, not that I didn’t do the same, then what has been true and what has just been about trying to appear strong and like life was good?
I understand why he did it, he was trying to protect me, just like I was trying to not make him feel bad that his life was going in the right direction, while I felt like my life was spiralling out of control. But we just couldn’t admit it to each other.
Jake’s fingers run over my back as we’re both sitting on the couch, his touch soft. “Do you want me to get you anything?”
I shake my head, just comfortable where I am. I don’t want to move, at all. I feel like I’ll never be able to move again, for some reason.
Mal is doing something with his music in the back room, now that Tom is putting Elly to bed in the room upstairs for the first time. Elly’s room isn’t fully done yet, but we’ve put a bed there for her so she can finally feel like it’s ‘her’ room, and she actually has her own place here, instead of it being a ‘sleepover’ situation all the time.
Dylan is in the kitchen, doing his own thing, something about making a schedule for all of us for the next week so we all know who is where when. I don’t know, I think that’s his way of dealing with the uncertainty of having to wait a week until we know what my parents have decided.
“We need to talk to Jennifer and Christopher about what we’re doing here.” Jake’s voice rumbles against my back. “They need to know about it so we can decide what to tell Oliver.” His voice is calm, but his movements have gotten more choppy, nervous.
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath. “I’m scared about telling him. He’s been so upset about why we couldn’t care for him and why he can’t just live with us. I’m scared about telling him we’re now living with Elly.”
“Yeah.” He nods. “That’s been a worry of mine too. But we can’t hide it from him, it’ll make him even more upset. If he finds out that she lives with us and we didn’t tell him, his anger will be even worse.”
“His anger sometimes scares me. It frightens me when he gets that upset, no matter that we know that we did the right thing, it doesn’t always look like that to him. He doesn’t understand it.”
“He understands it in theory. But he’s also a kid who doesn’t always understand the world of adults. As long as he doesn’t hate us, he can be angry all he wants, I’m good with that.” Jake pulls me closer. “Hopefully he’ll understand when he’s older, but that’s not now, not yet.”
I lean back against him. “I wish that time would come sooner.”
He lets out a soft laugh. “Let’s hope it’s not when he’s gotten a girl pregnant before finishing his exams himself.”
I smack his arm. “Don’t joke about that. I don’t want to think of him like that yet, preferably never.”
Then Jake laughs more, nuzzling my neck. “I like it when you’re like that, when I get to see that slightly conservative side of you.”
“Pff.” I break free from his arms and sit up, but when I see his soft smile, whatever comeback I had just disappears from my mind. Fine, sexy bastard, but I’ll get him next time.
No wonder he was always able to get into my panties so easily, with a smile like that, so smug and sexy, and filled with love, which I can finally see.
When I get down the stairs from putting some laundry away, I find Tom in the kitchen. It’s Thursday afternoon and he’s bent over his laptop, looking very unhappy and I go over to him. He just got back from work, he’s not even changed out of his work clothes yet, but that look in his eyes can’t mean anything good...
“Hey...” I sit down next to him. “How was today?”
He shrugs. “Fine. I guess. Nothing special.”
“Then, what’s it with the frown and the scrunched up face?” I glance at the computer screen and see it’s his email inbox, not really anything interesting there.
He lets out a long sigh. “Don’t know. Just... I have no idea.” He leans back and pulls me into his lap, hiding his face in my neck. “Sometimes I think having you and the others around will make everything so much simpler, but at the same time, I feel like I’m still drowning.”
“Drowning?” I turn to him more, trying to look at his face, but he keeps hiding against me. “What do you mean?” Because that’s not a good word, definitely not.
He slowly shakes his head. “Forget I said something. It doesn’t matter.”
“Tom...” I move more and take his face in my hands, his eyes are so sad, so troubled. “You can tell me if you need something. Anything.”
He thinks for a moment, I can almost see him thinking, before he decides to ignore whatever is in his head. “It really doesn’t matter. Sorry.” He gives me a quick kiss on my hand. “I don’t want to make you worry.”
And that’s exactly why I worry about him now...
The front door opens and Mal bumbles inside, dropping his amplifier on the floor in the hallway and then carefully puts his guitar next to it, as carefully as he can apparently. Then he opens the door to the kitchen, grinning at us both. “Seems I’m right on time for some cuddling.”
I smile back at him. He looks very... He looks like he’s been standing in a lot of wind for hours, even though I know he’s only been to Dylan’s place to practice his guitar today. If Dylan isn’t there and it won’t bother Dylan’s parents, then it’s a great place for Mal to practice and just work on his music, which he’s been doing a couple of afternoons this week.
I shake my head a little, happiness in my chest. “You ready to go grocery shopping?” Because that’s why Mal is home early today, because we’re going shopping together.
“In a moment.” He smirks. “Got to eat something first. Forgot to bring food with me, and I think Dylan doesn’t have anything edible at that place anymore. I think I finished it all off.” He comes inside and touches my shoulder softly as he passes me.
“I think I’d like to come too.” Tom’s voice rumbles, but he doesn’t seem to move at all, his arms still strong around me.
“Are you sure?” I don’t want to put any more pressure on him, especially with the way I found him just now...
“Yeah. We can pick up Elly on our way out and go all together. Sounds like a plan, and Elly loves it, going all together.”
“True.” I nod, then I carefully slide off his lap, looking back at him, but he looks pretty normal now, not as upset as before. “I’ll go put on my shoes and grab the bags.”
I go to the hallway, grabbing th
e bags and the shopping list we keep there, then I put my shoes on.
I have no idea why Tom is upset. Sure, I’ve seen parts of this before, like he’s lost or something, but every time I try to dig into what’s going on, he just closes off and pretends things are fine. It’s obvious that they aren’t, but he keeps pretending that they are, which is pretty frustrating when you’re trying to help. But if he doesn’t want to say anything, then I can’t help him, we can’t help him.
Pulling on my jacket, I step back into the kitchen. “Ready?”
Mal is stuffing his face with a huge sandwich, pieces of cheese falling onto his leather jacket, as he nods.
Tom looks back at him and smiles, shaking his head before standing up. “Almost.” He comes up to me, giving me a soft kiss. “Thank you for worrying. I’ll be fine. I promise.” Then he walks on, grabbing his coat.
Yeah, those promises don’t make me feel like he’s telling the truth, they make me feel like he’s trying to convince himself of something instead of admitting what’s going on...
But I guess we can face that another time. When we can sit him down, and maybe have some backup of Dylan and Jake, they seem to know how to get him to open up more. And then he can’t charm me into forgetting what we were actually talking about. Although... Sometimes I feel like Jake may be even more easily charmed by him than I can be, so I’m not sure how useful that would be, and Dylan and Tom have been really good at hiding their problems from each other for years...
5
Dylan
The house is quiet as I get home. I’m pretty sure that Tom is already done with work, so he should be here. Then I find a note on the table in the kitchen, from Mal, saying that they’re all off to get some grocery shopping done and that they should be back before dinner. Though, as I look at the clock, if they want to be back before dinner, they’ll have to be back soon, as it’s past six already.
