by E. S. Carter
“You’ve never once asked me about my birth mother. Not once have you asked why she isn’t in my life.”
Everything stops. He’s right. I’ve never asked, never even wondered. I was so caught up in him calling my mother Mum, I never thought about his.
His hands are trembling, and when I look back at his face, I see the swell of tears threatening to escape. He swipes angrily at them and turns to sit on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.
He talks to the floor, yet I hear every word.
“When Dad went away, Mum and your father got together. I don’t know the specifics, only that your dad and mine were close friends once. When he came back and found out about them, he was angry, defeated, heartbroken I guess. He’d missed his chance, and felt betrayed.”
“I don’t understand how that makes us cousins,” I whisper confused.
His head lifts, and he smiles, but it isn’t one of happiness or joy. It’s one coated in a thick sadness.
“He tried to make it work with someone else instead. Someone he maybe hoped to love, but she didn’t make it easy.”
He drags his palms down his face and puffs out a long breath. Telling this story is obviously hard for him, yet he carries on.
“Our mum is a twin. She’s one of a pair. Identical, but so different.”
Twins? She has a sister and never told me?
“That can’t be true, I would know.”
His anguished gaze meets mine, his words heavy and thick, filled with long hidden grief. “I never knew my birth mother. She died before I turned one. The little I know about her is that she was nothing like Mum, despite being her mirror image. She was flighty and uncontrollable, and she went through phases of deep depression. She OD’d during one particularly tough episode. Dad found her when he came home from work. He said he missed the signs. He beat himself up about it for a long time. He probably still does.”
My hand shakes as I bring it up to cover my mouth. “Why didn’t Mum ever say anything?”
“Lena, that’s my birth mother and Mum’s twin, hadn’t spoken to her for a few years. They’d fallen out before my dad left, and I guess Lena knew how Mum felt about him, yet she still hooked up with him regardless. I’m not sure of the details. I think Mum’s never spoken about her because it hurts too much, but again, that’s a guess. I just know how hard my dad finds talking about her and their time together. I think Lena was even more troubled than he’s admitted to me, and I think he blames himself for being unable to love and help her the way he thinks he should’ve.”
“Were they married?”
“No, they lived together, but only because of me. I don’t think they were serious before Lena got pregnant. I think Dad was trying to do the right thing. I also think he was worried about my safety had Lena been left to bring me up alone.”
Silence stretches between us. Galen is lost in his grief, and his confession of our blood relationship. While I stand before him, half naked, counting each of his breaths, and unable to process the bomb that he’s just dropped on me.
Cousins. First cousins. His mother was Mum’s twin.
Legally, I don’t think what we’ve done is wrong, but morally… I’m not so sure.
We’re related. Not siblings, but almost. We share DNA.
“It still isn’t wrong, what we did. Don’t make it wrong, don’t make it dirty,” I whisper, my body shutting down and turning cold.
“Mum and Dad are planning to get married. I heard them talking about it,” he offers randomly.
“So?”
“So we won’t just be blood-related, you’ll become my sister. That is wrong, Fflur. Maybe not in the eyes of any law, but our family would see it as wrong, and I can’t let them take you away from me. I won’t let that happen.”
He stands and takes a step towards me, and I wrap my arms around my stomach, holding myself together, not wanting to fall apart and take a step back. He stills, his eyes begging me to understand. “If the only way I get to have you is as my sister and my friend, I’ll live with that.”
I won’t.
I can’t live with that.
We’re meant to be more.
Visions of us in each other’s arms, limbs tangled between his sheets, lips learning, mouths loving, hearts opened wide and filled with hope, dissipate in the air between us.
He’s leaving.
No, that’s wrong. Even though he’s in the same room as me, breathing the same air, he’s already left.
“Can you forgive me?” Galen asks after minutes of dead and empty silence. “For all of it. For not telling you sooner, for what we just shared. I knew better, and I shouldn’t have let it happen. Please, just tell me you can forgive me?”
I bow my head, and like always, I give him my truth.
“I can forgive you all of that, but I’ll never forgive you for leaving.”
Lathyrus odoratus.
Days later, Galen is gone.
Left in my room is a bunch of sweet peas in a plethora of colours—a tender and gentle goodbye.
No note accompanies the flowers, but I know he chose them for their meaning.
I take a single bloom and press it into my scrapbook. I don’t confess anything to it before doing so. It already knows.
The rest of the bunch I remove from my room and deposit them on the desk in Galen’s bedroom.
They can wither and die in here. It seems fitting.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The first time Galen calls me is at the end of a long week in school. I’m on the bus that will take me back to Dad’s house—it’s my week with him—and when my phone rings in my pocket, I expect it to be Mum or Erin. When a picture of him holding a buttercup under his chin, taken that day in our field, pops up on my screen, I’m torn between ignoring it and letting it go to voicemail or answering it as quickly as possible.
Who am I kidding?
This is Galen. I’m always going to answer it.
“Hey,” he says as soon as I answer, and a big smile spreads across my face at the sound of his voice. “How’s school?”
I lean my head against the bus window, letting the vibrations of the engine tickle my skin, and I tell him about my week. He listens, not offering up any information about himself, and I want to know it all. I’m greedy for any part of his time.
“So, tell me about the tour. How long before rehearsals are over and you’re on the road?”
“We’ve got one more week, and then our first gig is in Edinburgh. It’s a steep learning curve and a lot of long days, but I think I’m doing okay, and the tour manager seems happy with me.”
“How are the other bands? Are they cool with you? It must be hard going solo having only ever played with the boys before?”
Galen’s tour offer wasn’t for his band. His new manager only wanted him as a solo singer, and he’d been given a backing band by the tour organisers.
“Yeah, it was a little weird the first day or two, but I’m in a campervan with the second support act, and they’re all pretty cool. In fact, I’ve gotta go, Fflur. It’s our first night off, and we’re going to hit a few bars, maybe go to a club.”
“Oh.” I didn’t expect our first chat to be so short. “Okay, I guess I’ll talk to you again soon.”
“Yeah, I’ll call again next week. Oh, and Fflur,” he hesitates for a beat before he says, “I miss you.” Then he hangs up before I can reply.
He calls every week after that, but each call is short, containing very little information about what’s going on in his life. We go back to being the kids who used to pretend not to look at each other from across the road while waiting for the bus. We pretend not to care about each other above and beyond our friendship. I pretend that it doesn’t hurt not to know if he’s found someone else, and he pretends not to care about how much it all still hurts.
Every call hurts.
Every wait between calls hurt.
But it’s his next call that hurts the most.
“What are you doing
this weekend?” I ask as an opening question, the sounds of others in the background muffled but apparent.
“We have Sunday off,” he replies, a little distracted. “We’re gonna catch the ferry over to Dublin and explore a little. We have a few days before the tour heads further south. Thought we’d make the most of our free time.”
“We?”
Galen knows what I’m asking just from that one word. Does he have someone like that going with him? Someone he’s interested in, someone who could be more to him.
“Fflur,” my name is both a warning and a plea. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t want me to push.
“Do you have plans this weekend?” he asks when I heed his caution and drop that line of questioning.
“No, nothing.”
I’m uncaring of how pathetic my admission sounds. An almost seventeen-year-old girl, with no plans for the weekend.
Other than listening to All I Ask on repeat.
Someone in the background calls his name, and I hear the muffled fumble of him covering the speaker and yelling back, “Just talking to my sister, I’ll be right there.”
Sister. He’s told his new friends that I’m his sister.
“Fflur,” he says in a rush when he comes back on the line. “We’ve gotta get back on stage for sound check. I’ll talk to you next week, but do something for me, okay?”
“What?” I ask without thinking because it’s Galen and I’ll do anything for him.
“Make plans this weekend. Go out, have fun.”
I don’t respond, and he’s tight on time so doesn’t push me further.
“I’ve gotta go. I miss you.” He ends the call the same way as always, unaware of how much those three words feel like a punch to my gut.
I spend Saturday at Erin’s house.
For some reason, I hated thinking that Galen was off living life, while I was letting mine waste away. His order for me to go out and have fun was an itchy scab in my mind, and I wanted to pick at it, dissect it, and figure out why it was so important to him for me to move on. In the end, I complied because he’d asked. Although, I liked to think I took up Erin on her offer to spend the day together because I wanted to, and not because the boy I was in love with—who’d just dismissed me as his sister to some strangers—had told me to.
In hindsight, I was glad. We had a great day together and even made plans to go out the following weekend. I convinced Erin to come with me and visit Rhys. He’d already told me I could bring a friend, so I knew I didn’t have to check with him. Next weekend I was going to spend time with my brother and have fun. Galen be damned.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rhys’ dorm was nothing like I expected.
It was tidy. Immaculately so.
Everything had a place in the small space, both beds were neatly made, and the shared bathroom was spotless.
“I swear you were never this… neat when you lived at home.”
Rhys tips his head back and laughs. “I won the roommate lottery. Roland has OCD. He’s obsessive about cleanliness and order. I barely have to lift a finger.”
Erin and I share a look.
“What? You should be thanking me. I made him change the sheets on his bed for you two this weekend. A ‘Thanks Rhys’, might be nice.”
As though we’d coordinated it, Erin and I say in unison, “Thank you, Roland.” And then burst into a fit of giggles.
“Where is your roommate?” Erin asks when our laughter stops.
“Home for the weekend, he leaves every Friday, which means this room has seen a lot of—” he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, “—action.”
This time we both groan in tandem, with Rhys snorting like our disgust at his antics is the funniest thing ever.
“Is it safe to sleep in that bed even if he has changed the sheets?” I motion to Roland’s side of the room.
“Yeah,” Rhys replies offhandedly, checking a text on his phone. “I only shag in my bed. It’s a ‘firm rule’.” He adds finger quotes, rolling his eyes at what must be Roland’s instructions.
I like Roland already if he’s managed to get Rhys under control.
“Anyway,” he adds after a beat. “You guys get settled in, this place is yours for the weekend. I’ll be staying with Tash.”
“Tash?” I ask, confused. “I’ve come to visit you, not your room. And who is Tash?”
Rhys smirks at me, “Tash is the fiery bombshell who is currently well acquainted with what I can do with some ‘firm rules’, and you guys don’t want me cramping your style. Enjoy uni-life, have a free sample. You’ll be living this yourself soon enough.”
Great. A three-hour train journey to spend time with my brother and instead all I get is a free room. Albeit, a very clean and tidy free room.
“I wish you’d said before we came all this way, Rhys.”
He looks at me perplexed. He really doesn’t get that I came all this way to see him, and not to have a wild weekend in a university town.
“Have I fucked up? I can call Tash, and tell her I’ve got other plans?” His brow is furrowed as he steps towards me. He’s still unsure if my obvious annoyance is because of him.
I sigh, and my eyes catch Erin’s.
“Nah, it’s okay. I’m sure we’ll be fine. Go, enjoy your plans. I’ll see you when you come home for Christmas?”
He beams at me before grabbing an overstuffed sports bag from the floor at the bottom of his bed. “Yeah, I’ll be home in a few weeks.” He leans towards me and kisses the side of my head. “Oh, and if Mum asks, you were with me all weekend, okay?” he adds on his way to the door.
So, he did know that leaving me was a shitty thing to do.
“Yeah, whatever,” I say to his back just before the door closes behind him.
Erin shuffles from foot to foot. “We can still have fun,” she says with a shrug.
“Yeah,” I offer in return feeling bad that I asked her to come, yet thankful now that I had. Alone at home is one thing. Alone in a strange place is another thing completely.
We try to make the rest of our day fun. We explore the campus, including the library, the arts centre and sports facility, and we eat out at a café packed to the gills with students—ones who, unlike Rhys, came to university to study, not to shag their way through the student body.
In the evening, we catch a movie and stuff our faces with Pic’n’Mix. Despite coming to see Rhys, and my hurt at his unthoughtful abandonment, we have a pretty good time, but by Sunday morning I am more than ready to go home.
I arrive home at Dad’s early Sunday evening. As next week was my one with him, it seemed silly to go back to Mum’s place for one night.
“Hey, Flower,” Dad says when I push through the front door and find him dressed up in his best shirt and trousers, and standing in the hallway. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
Kate comes out of the living room behind him, also dressed nicely in an amethyst coloured knit dress and heels, both obviously about to go out somewhere nice.
I shrug and look between the two. “Seemed silly to stay with Mum for one night.”
“Was it good to catch up with Rhys?” Kate asks, smiling at me.
“Yeah, great,” I reply with about as much enthusiasm as Rhys used to have when he dragged himself out of bed for school on a Monday morning. In other words, zero, zilch, none.
And neither Dad nor Kate misses it.
“We were going to try the new Italian on the high street. Fancy coming with us?”
I take a step towards the stairs, dragging my overnight bag behind me. “You guys go have fun. I’m okay here alone.”
I catch the look Kate gives my dad just before she says, “Actually, a night in sounds great to me too. Maybe we can order in? Pizza or Chinese delivery? Or that new place in the village is supposed to do amazing burgers.”
Dad beams at her as she walks towards the hall telephone, slipping off her heels and pulling out hairpins to let her long tresses fall around her
shoulders.
We decide on the burgers, and I feel bad the entire night for making them stay home. I appreciate that they did, but it doesn’t make the loneliness in my soul subside.
When I climb the stairs to go to bed a few hours later, I look at the closed door of Rhys’ room. Only, it’s not Rhys I think about when I do. I think about Galen.
I think about a door in another house that leads to his room.
I think about opening it and sliding between his sheets in the hopes that they’d smell like him.
Outside Rhys’ closed door, I fiddle with my charm bracelet and each of the flower charms that hang from the delicate links. Before Galen left, I only wore it for special occasions. Now, I never take it off.
It doesn’t bring him back, though.
With a heavy sigh, I take the short walk to my bedroom, strip off my clothes, forgo brushing my teeth, and climb into my bed with a cold and heavy heart, and lawn green eyes on my mind.
The following day I get mail.
Like proper handwritten mail in an envelope, with a stamp. The postmark reads, London, and even before I open it, I can recognise the slanted, almost untidy scrawl anywhere. Galen.
Inside is a note and a tiny sprig of white Gypsophilia– Baby’s Breath—that’s been poorly pressed between what I can only assume is two sheets of toilet paper.
With shaking fingers, I remove the wilted plant from the tissue and carefully set it on the bed next to me.
Fflur,
I know it’s corny to say ‘I saw this and thought of you’, but I saw this and thought of you.
Splinter of Tears, the tour headliners, invited everyone to an after-show party in their dressing room last night, and whereas we all cram into rooms no bigger than a toilet stall, these guys get the works. Hospitality, food, a bar and… flowers. Which is really weird when you see what happens backstage most of the time. It’s hardly a flower kind of environment. Anyway, I saw this elaborate bouquet filled with lilies, and roses, and all kinds of loud and striking flowers, but I was drawn to the unassuming, yet poetically beautiful, tiny white blooms that hid in the background, but to me stood out even more because of it.
