She crossed the kitchen floor with quick, short steps and grabbed what was left of the focaccia. “I’m notfuckingtraumatised.”
And before we could reply, or demonstrate our compassion, or set clear boundaries, she was gone.
Chapter 19
Oliver insisted that we follow her. Which I didn’t think was a great idea, but then my record when it came to evaluating idea-greatness was pretty damn spotty. I mean, my main contribution to the fostering process so far had been showing up late to our first home visit and being mildly resentful our foster kid got on with our dog.
We stopped outside Jaz’s door, and Oliver knocked politely.
There was no answer.
He knocked again. “Jasmine?”
“Ruff.” Once again, not Jaz.
“Jasmine,” Oliver continued, “I understand that this is difficult for you and you’re upset—”
Finally, she spoke. “Fuck off.”
“Ruff.”
“You stay out of this,” I told Spud.
Oliver gave me a don’t-anthropomorphise-our-pet-in-serious-conversations look. Which was a weirdly specific look to have, but he nailed it first time. “Jasmine,” he repeated, “I understand you’re in a difficult situation, but I’m going to ask you to kindly moderate your language while you’re staying with us.”
“Fuck off,” was Jaz’s predictable reply.
Oliver took a deep breath. “Once again,” he said, “I understand that you’re upset, but this is making me feel quite disrespected. I’mgoing to give you some space now, but when you’re feeling ready, I would very much like it if you apologised.”
Jaz didn’t even dignify that with afuck off.
We crept back downstairs. Normally, I’d have said something glib about how Oliver looked as bad as I felt, and that was true in a way, except it was lessas badthanas blank. Because, honestly, neither of us really knew how to react.
“She’ll come around,” Oliver said with a confidence that I’d have called unearned in anyone else and was getting a bit fifty-fifty on, even with Oliver.
“Will she?”
“Clear boundaries,” Oliver repeated as if it was some kind of mystical incantation, “and consistency.”
That made sense, but it made sense in a kind ofwell duhway that, if I were Oliver, I’d probably have had a fancy technical name for. Like, obviously I wasn’t about to cheerlead for unclear boundaries and inconsistency; I just wasn’t sure this was the best boundary-drawing strategy we could possibly be using. The problem was, I couldn’t really think of a better one. I almost envied Spud. He could draw clear boundaries by pissing on lampposts, and right then that had an appealing simplicity to it.
Either way, neither of us wanted to go from feuding with Jaz to feuding with each other, so we sort of let it drop there and did our best to have a nice evening. Which, and this will sound shit unless you’ve lived it, meant crashed out on the sofa together, with Oliver working on his laptop and me quietly watching one of the few reality shows my dad hadn’t been in yet.
Come bedtime, we slunk upstairs, calling out a good night to Jaz as we went. We’d discussed whether to enforce a formal lights-out time for her and concluded that we probably should, except in that exact moment it didn’t feel like the right approach. Besides, Oliver had read some research on how teenage brains are all weird withmelatonin or something, so she could be expected to keep unusual hours.
Lying curled up in the dark, a terrible thought struck me.
“Oliver,” I whispered.
“Yes?”
“You know how…like…you know how a big part of why we had to be strict about Spud sleeping up here is because otherwise we’d never…”
Oliver rolled over to face me. “Are you asking if we can have sex with a child in the house?”
I made a sort ofmm-hmmnoise.
“As in right now, or as in would it be inappropriate in general?”
