Chapter Twenty
Mia
Walking home through Sandgrove Park, with the evening sun dappling the ground through the trees, was about as nostalgic as we could get without putting our school uniforms on and stealing my mother’s cigarettes.
Gus slow-rode his mountain bike beside me, face pensive as he considered my inevitable questions about him and Billy.
“It was a few years ago,” hesaid. “And trust me, it wasn’t romantic, but I didn’t get any sense he was particularly worried about anyone finding out.”
I kicked a pinecone along the dirt track we were following through the heathland. “Perhaps he wasn’t. Luke was gone, and I can’t imagine Fran giving him any trouble over something like that.”
Gus shot me a sideways look. “You’ve never liked her.”
I opened my mouthto protest, but what was the point? Gus knew how I felt about most things, even if I didn’t tell him. “It’s not that I never liked her. I just didn’t think she was there for Luke and Billy enough.”
“Her husband was dying.”
“I know. I’m not saying I’m right, but I think about our mum, and how she worked herself into an early grave so we could have choices. Why didn’t Fran do that? Therewas nothing to stop her, I don’t know, getting a job after Stan died, but she didn’t, and Luke left, which meant those boys didn’t even have each other.”
My rant had started softly but had risen in pitch by the time I was finished, and my hands were gesticulating wildly enough to amuse Gus, despite the solemnity in his dark gaze.
“Are you done?” he said.
“Piss off.”
He chuckledbut sobered quickly. “It’s okay to still be angry at him for leaving. To not care about the rest of it. He knows he hurt you.”
“Areyoustill angry withme?”
“For what? For leaving? For doing exactly the same to me as Luke did to Billy, except without the nobility of financial provision?”
“Yes. All of that. Don’t ever think I don’t know how selfish I was back then.”
Gus giftedme another soft smile. The kind that made it impossible to tell how he truly felt. “I was never angry with you. Confused, maybe. But I was young and dumb too. It makes sense to me now. You couldn’t stay here without the two people you loved most. I get it.”
“You don’t. I love you just as much as I ever did Mum and Luke.”
“Yeah, but you knew I’d be okay.”
“I didn’t. I made myself notconsider that you might not be and left anyway, just like Luke.”
“Luke considers everyone. That’s always been his problem. And like I said, he knows he hurt you.”
I wasdyingto know how Gus was saying that with such confidence, Luke wasn’t much of a talker, even to his mates, but I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It does.”
“Nope.” I kicked another pinecone. “It’sin the past.”
Gus rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You think it’s that easy? That you two can jump into bed together like it’s all brand new?”
Of course I didn’t. The letter Luke had left on the doorstep haunted my sleep, and the ghosts I saw in him when I was awake tormented me by day, but I’d carried my anger for so long I’d lost the desire to return the savage hurt he’d left me with. Itfelt stale, and out of date, and I wanted so badly to let it go.
I sighed. “I don’t think anything is easy. Do you think Luke’s pissed off with you about Billy?”
Gus shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think you had it right at the time—I blindsided him, and he needed to think. I’ve seen that in him before.”
So had I. My earnest boy had grown into a brooding man, and my heart ached forhim. “Do you think about him?”
