This evening, I get in from training and see a missed video call from Cleo.It’s the second this week, and I realize with hot shame that I didn’t get back to her after the last one.
I take a hurried shower.Then I creep down to the room with the piano and call Cleo.“Hey.”She looks genuinely surprised to see me, which hurts.“You’re still alive, then.”
“Sorry, Peanut.I plain forgot—there’s so much going on here.”
“So I saw in Olive’s story,” she says, immediately lowering her eyes like she’s let something slip that she didn’t want me to know.
She’s looking at Olive’s stories.Presumably because I tagged her in a photo the other day.Nothing much, but I ought to have known that Cleo would analyze it.
“Sorry, but, hey, I’m here now.”I try to smile, but even I can see how fake it looks.“And I’ll see you soon.”
“So you’re still coming home for your fall break?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know, Colin,” she says.It’s always serious if my kid sister calls me by my full name, but even without that, I’d be able to hear that she’s on the edge of tears.
“What’s wrong, Cleo?”I ask.
“Nothing.”She swallows hard.“You don’t care anyway.”
“I do care.Really.”I have to force myself to sound calm.
“You hardly ever call me.”Her voice is muffled.“Mom and Dad said you must be settling in at last.”
“They don’t know shit,” I blurt.
“But are they right?”Cleo stares through the phone and right into my soul.“Are you settling in, Colin?Are you going to stay in Scotland?’Cause right now, it looks that way.”
“Cleo.”I shut my eyes briefly.“Can we just take one thing at a time?I’ll be home soon and then...”
“And then you’ll leave again?”
“No, I—”
“You know what?I gotta go too.”Cleo’s voice sounds choked.
“Cleo,” I say more firmly.
“Bye, Colin.”
She just hangs up.I clench my fist and call her right back.But she doesn’t answer.
Shit.I could see she was nearly in tears, and the idea of her crying on her own in her room is driving me crazy.But I can’t do a thing.I didn’t even play her a song.I’ve totally failed her.Cleo gets what’s going on here.She’s not dumb, she can read people—she had to learn that growing up with Ava and Eric Fantino.In a family where nothing is said out loud.Cleo Fantino can see through people.Especially me.And I don’t know what I can say to her when I see her during the fall break.
I lower my head and force myself to breathe.
I don’t know what to do.
26
Olive
It doesn’t take long for the others to get wind of the fact that Colin and I...Well, that we don’t hate each other as much as we used to.There are a few days when the stuff with my parents is enough of a distraction, but then Tori starts asking questions.I deny it all, but constantly acting like I don’t care about Colin at midnight parties and in the dining room is no fun.Especially not when Tori and Sinclair are winching, and Emma and Henry are happy together.I want to be happy too.With Colin.
But I’m not happy.It wasn’t easy to face that, but Mum and Dad splitting up was the last straw.One afternoon, after a physio session when I constantly felt on the verge of tears, I found myself—on the spur of the moment—outside Ms.Vail’s office.It’s a long time since my heart’s pounded as fast as it was doing while I wrestled with myself over whether to knock or walk away.But I did it in the end, and since then, one thing’s just followed another.
Ms.Vail is nice; I knew that.What I didn’t know was that there was no need for me to spend time before our first conversationcoming up with explanations for why I need help or what my problems are.She has a bottomless supply of skillful questions.She always succeeds in finding out what I want to say, even when I don’t know myself.And it actually helps to speak to her.She’s impartial, she untangles the threads of thought in my head, and she doesn’t make me feel guilty.I wish Colin could bring himself to go to her too, because I’ve been worrying about him since finding out what he gets up to with his lighter.But it would feel wrong to tell Ms.Vail about him.He needs to do that for himself.When he’s ready.I only hope that’s soon.
