Then he exhales. “It’s nice,” he says, eyes half-closed. “Being somewhere that feels normal for five minutes.”
Pete hadn’t mentioned the memory stick I gave back to him last time we met. The memory stick of videos that exposed the truth of his and James’s relationship. I wanted to ask him, to be sure that he got it back to the office before James had realised. I presume if he had noticed there would have been repercussions and Pete wouldn’t be calmly lying next to me right now, so I assume the danger has passed.
Pete isn’t aware however that I’ve copied all the videos onto the desktop of my laptop. At some point, I’ll broach this with him, but not today. Not when we are having this blissful moment together.
Pete’s tracing slow lines on my forearm, watching the movement instead of me. “Do you miss you dad?” he asks suddenly, gentle but not hesitant.
I blink, caught off guard. “Why do you ask?”
“Curious, I suppose,” he says.
I stare at the ceiling. “I mean, yes, of course I miss him. But… it’s hard to miss him a connection that was never really there?”
“So, you weren’t close?”
“We were… complicated, he and I. He was the strong-and-silent type, and I was the talk-and-overthink type. Neither of us really understood the other. But near the end, I think we tried. We just ran out of time.”
He nods, quiet. “That’s the worst bit, isn’t it? Time pretending it’s endless until it’s not.”
There’s a lump forming in my throat. “Yeah.” I breathe out. “Mum died when I was nine. Car accident. After that it was just Dad and me, and… we didn’t know how to talk about her, so we didn’t.”
Pete looks at me for a long moment. “My mum died too,” he says softly.
Something shifts in the air between us. “Really?”
He nods. “I was eight. Some heart thing. She was in and out of hospital a lot. And then she died.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because there isn’t anything better to offer.
He smiles faintly. “People always say that. I don’t mind. It’s nice that anyone still does.”
He rolls onto his back, eyes on the ceiling. “After she died, my dad… disappeared. Not right away. But grief got him drunk, and drunk got him mean. One night he just didn’t come back. I waited two days before someone knocked on the door.”
My chest tightens. “Oh Pete, what happened?”
He gives a humourless laugh. “Social services came eventually. I think a neighbour had seen me sitting in the window on my own for a few days. They said I was going somewhere safe. I think they believed it. At the time.”
He goes quiet for a moment, like he’s listening to the memory.
“The first foster house was fine,” he says. “Normal, even. A woman called Margaret. She baked all the time, wore slippers shaped like dogs. Then she got sick and went into hospital, and I got moved.”
His tone changes slightly—flatter, tighter. “After that, it was a carousel. New house, new rules, new strangers. Some were decent. Most were… not. You learn the difference quick. The nice ones tell you when dinner’s ready. The bad ones tell you what it costs to eat it.”
I swallow hard. “Pete…”
He shakes his head. “It’s okay. It’s a long time ago. I’m just… saying it out loud. Some of them were …” He trails off, eyes still on the ceiling. “Let’s just say, some people take in kids because they think it’ll make them look good. Doesn’t always mean they should be near kids.”
There’s a silence heavy enough to bend the room. I don’t breathe.
“By fourteen, I’d worked out how to disappear. Smile, nod, say please and thank you, don’t make a fuss. The quieter you are, the less they notice you. That’s how you survive.”
I try to imagine being ten and knowing that. It makes my chest ache.
“So, when people talk about family,” he says, “I don’t picture parents. I picture anyone who stays. Doesn’t even have to be long. Just long enough to make me think I’m not invisible.”
There’s something in that line that makes my stomach twist.I picture anyone who stays.
I stayed for Daniel, longer than I should have. I stayed because I thought leaving meant failing.
