“If you had? You’d have done exactly what you did. Mum, do you know what I thought when I saw that note on the fridge this morning? I thought you might be getting ready to throw me out.”
“No! We wouldn’t. Not ever.”
“Doesn’t matter. I was too much of a coward to take this step before, but I’m not frightened any more. I guess if you had anything to hate Ellis for, it might be this.”
I shake off her hold and head to the stairs. Chris is sitting there sullenly on the bottom step.
“I have to go,” I tell them over my shoulder. “This isn’t my home any more.”
The next twenty minutes pass in a blur.
Dad remains stationed at the bottom of the stairs, still in his work clothes. Chris is playing thrash metal in his room, his way of screaming for attention because, just for once, no one is giving him any. Mum stands in the hall outside my room, watching me throw clothes into a backpack. I know she wants to help – it’s what mums do when their kids are making a mess of packing – but I think she understands now that I won’t be coming home from this particular sleepover. When I go to close the door on her she rocks back against the wall.
I move to the desk, pull out the drawer and untape the sketch you gave me the day of Mike’s party. I can’t look at it. Not this misguided perfection you saw in me. I fold it up and slip it into my top pocket.
Only Dad remains when I head back downstairs. We stand in silence for a minute, listening to Metallica drown out Mum’s crying.
“I can wait at the bottom of the drive,” I say.
“This is still your home, Dylan,” he answers. “You can wait here, if you like.”
I want to say something to him, comfort him, I don’t know. I can almost feel you willing me to, El. But your heart was an ocean and mine’s the meanest little pavement puddle. So we stand and wait.
This doesn’t feel like the huge moment it should. I was actually born in this house, my mum too far gone to get to the hospital, paramedics delivering me, furious and screaming and disgusting, on the kitchen floor. I chipped my front tooth on this stair post, playing Star Wars with Chris, him as Han and me as Chewy – which was ironic, as chewing was painful for a week afterwards. Dad’s office across the hall was the scene of the infamous “sex talk”, a cringe-fest that lasted three minutes and that has haunted us both ever since. My mum taught me how to tie my shoelaces on this bottom step, patient and consoling and ridiculously proud when I accomplished that first bow. And under the stairs was where Mike and I practised kissing. It wasn’t a gay thing, Mike insisted, it’s just we couldn’t convince a single girl in our year to teach us how it was done.
I have never fancied my best friend, but I still remember his mouth on mine, warm and trembling. I thought of it every night for months afterwards, touching the place where his lips had been, grateful in ways I couldn’t understand for that moment between us.
All these memories, acres of them, each in their way defining who I am.
A knock. Big Mike stands on the doorstep, looking awkward as hell.
“Hey, Gordon,” he says, waving and then closing his fist.
“Michael, thank you for doing this.”
“No problem. We’re always happy to have him, as long as he’s still house-trained.”
The two dads share a smile that you probably have to be a dad to understand.
“C’mon then, kiddo. Mike’s got some popcorn on the go and some movie that would’ve scared the hell out of me when I was your age.” He grabs my bag from my shoulder and stands back from the door. “Say hi to Barbara for me.”
I glance over my shoulder, wondering if Mum might appear. She doesn’t.
We walk in silence to Big Mike’s four-by-four and I climb up into the passenger seat.
“Buckle up, Sonny Jim,” he tells me, and starts the ignition.
I don’t know what to say to Big Mike. Within minutes of sending the text to Mike, I got the green light to come and stay at the Berringtons’. I’m family, after all. But I know I’m imposing. Mike needs his rest, and all I’ve brought him these past few days is a barrelful of my unrelenting crap. I feel awful about it, but I just don’t have anywhere else to go.
Big Mike reaches out and shakes my shoulder. “All good?”
Trees rustle by, budding now that the long winter’s finally over. Life invading all this death. I shake my head and look down.
“Nah,” Big Mike murmurs. “Silly question. But you know you can talk to me and Carol, right? About anything. Carol’s great with advice and I can cook a mean double-bacon cheeseburger, which is even better than good advice. Am I right?”
“Right.”
A few minutes later, we’re home. That’s how the Berringtons’ feels. How it’s always felt. A refuge when my real home became confusing and unbearable. Big Mike grabs my backpack and waves to Carol and Mike, who are waving back from the open doorway. Honestly, I want to just sit here and cry my eyes out.
