I shove the phone into my jeans pocket and hoist myself upright.
Game face.
I lumber down the stairs. A Colin the Caterpillar cake sits on the dining room table. They might not have noticed, but I’m not seven anymore.
‘Blow them out, then.’ Erin’s leaning back in her chair, scrolling on her phone with one hand, annoyed in the way only a seventeen-year-old dreading her Highers can. ‘The wax is dripping on the icing, and that’s minging.’
‘Gie him a minute, love,’ Mum chides, hovering with the cake slice.
‘Don’t make a fuss. Make a wish.’ David raps his knuckles twice on the table.
A wish? I wish I hadn’t let her walk out of that fucking axe-throwing pub.
I focus on the flames and force a smile. It feels tight, but I hold it there. I will snuff these candles, eat the cake, and prove to my family that I still function and haven’t morphed into a parasite who feeds on their pity.
I inhale and blow. Acrid grey smoke curls up.
‘Cake time,’ Mum announces, ignoring the tension in the room, and starts slicing. ‘Big piece for the birthday boy.’
We eat and the sound of clinking forks fills the room. They’re tiptoeing around me. I feel it in the way Mum places the plate down too gently, in the way Erin keeps checking her phone but never actually typing. The conversation avoids the two craters in my life: the brief suspension and the breakup. They talk about the March weather (‘dreich’), the neighbours (‘noisy’), and Erin’s driving lessons (‘scary’). We all stick to a script, like a fucked-up reality show.
I nod at the right intervals and ask about Erin’s parallel parking. I participate in the farce because if I stop, even a tick, the base will crumble and the pillar will topple, taking the whole house down with it.
‘So,’ my mother smiles too brightly, ‘Evan called earlier. He sends his love. Said he’d pop round the next weekend.’
‘All the way from London? That’s nice,’ I say. ‘Tell him thanks.’ I stab a chunk off the caterpillar and wait for them to fill the gap.
‘You know what would’ve been nice? To go to the leisure centre or the cinema for your birthday,’ Erin says. ‘Instead of sitting here watching you mope.’
I stop chewing. The word cinema acts like a sniper shot to the heart that liquefies my guts. A memory flashes. Popcorn, darkness, a girl with her hair in a bun who settled into my system before I even knew her name.
‘Erin,’ Mum warns.
‘What?’ Erin lifts her head. ‘It’s depressing to watch Mopey MacMopeface. Where is your ballet dancer, by the way? She was fun and made you less annoying.’
Mum stalls with a cake slice in mid-air. David puts his fork down. A vacuum forms in the centre of my chest.
Where is she?
As much as I know, Ava’s been in Glasgow for the past month and a half. I don’t look at my mum, because I can’t handle the sympathy.
‘Oh no. Did she dump you?’ Erin asks, her head too far up her own arse to notice the mess. ‘Because you’re such a grump all the time?’
‘Erin!’ Mum snaps. ‘That’s enough.’
I push my chair back and stand up. The walls are leaning in, compressing the space. ‘I’m off out the back.’
I walk out into the garden and don’t let my feet speed up until I clear the kitchen door, fighting the urge to run.
It’s almost April. The sunlight streaks the lawn and turns the whole garden into a postcard. But the evening chill bites through my T-shirt as I stand on the wonky patio slabs.
In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four.
I try to imitate the breathing technique Ava used. It doesn’t work for me. Only makes me lightheaded. I’m not a fine-tuned instrument; I’m a bludgeon.
The sound of the sliding door opening behind me breaks the quiet. Then the whir of tyres on stone.
I don’t turn around. ‘Go back inside, Dave. Tell Mum I’m fine. Just checking the perimeter.’
