We both get dressed. Sawyer offers to drive me somewhere and I tell him I have a lift coming. I wave from his doorstep as he drives away. Baxter is only a few minutes, so I don’t spend much time waiting. When he picks me up, he doesn’t say anything, he just takes us back to where he leaves his bike and walks me back to my room in silence.
Back in my room, my phone buzzes and reminds me I need to pack it away. I check the message and it’s from Sawyer, sending me the picture he took of us. In a different life, we might have been able to pursue the connection we share. In this life, I am destined to live in a lower-class part of Australia, slaving away to make ends meet and taking care of my family. The family that has loved and cared for me, no matter what. That is just how things go. I’m not my mother, I won’t run away when the going gets tough; I will stay and fight for what's mine. Dad, Chelsea,Aadi and Smalls, they are my everything. I won’t leave them behind for a fantasy.
Chapter Nine
Sawyer
It’s lunchtime when I get a call from my father.
“Hey, dad, what’s up?”
“I assume your brothers have filled you in?”
“They might have mentioned something about the meal I missed, yeah,” I tell him rubbing my forehead. I don’t tell him about last night, Slate was out cold by the time I arrived and Onyx managed to get them kicked out for fighting.
It was pretty stressful when Kalen and the twins found me on Monday morning to moan about the family meal that I missed. I don’t make a habit of missing them; they’re tradition. It’s just that now, instead of having one a week with mum and dad, we now have Sundays with dad and Thursdays with mum. My brothers were pretty up-in-arms about Sunday’s dinner.
Turns out, dad sprung the daughter of his girlfriend on them by introducing her at the dinner table. It was a huge surprise for everyone and the boys didn’t take it well, last night's events speak for themselves. I’m yet to see how our mum’s reacting but Kalen said she roasted her in SELF class. I might have to havea word before dad steps in. She wouldn’t normally bully any student, but the girlfriend’s kid might be a particularly hard pill for her to swallow.
“I’ll fill you in tonight,” dad cuts into my thoughts. “I need you to come for dinner.”
“Just me? I thought we had plans as a family?” I ask. It’s not unusual for dad to have me over for tea on my own. We talk business a lot and there’s no need for the younger boys to be there.
“No. Family meal,” dad surprises me by saying. “And I need a favour from you.”
“Okaaaay…”
“I need you to get your brothers to be there.”
“Dad-”
“Please, son,” he begs and I’m done for: I can't say no.
“Sure thing. Leave it with me. I’m guessing it has something to do with the daughter?”
“Just be there.”
“Dad, I know what happened,” I tell him.
“Just make sure everyone’s there. And that your brothers play nice.”
He hangs up.
The conversation leaves me reeling. Obviously, my brothers were shocked and had a lot to say about the surprise announcement. Kalen is already messing about declaring he has a sister to anyone who will listen. The twins are refusing to even speak her name. And then there’s me: I have to make a concentrated effort to mentally refer to the girlfriend as Dad’s partner, not his mistress. So she has a kid? That’s fine by me. So long as they’re not having a kid together. I think that would break my mum. I don’t much care about the kid. But I can’t think of her as a stepsister. The only curiosity I have is why she’s here at Knox Academy.
I arrive late to dinner, having had to spend most of the afternoon talking the boys into coming to the meal. It meant that my free period where I should have been marking, was wasted. I graded the assessments after school and lost track of time.
“Sorry, sorry! I know I’m late!” I call as I race into the house.
“Don’t worry! We’ll be down in a minute,” dad replies from upstairs. Ugh, I don’t want to think about why they might both be upstairs.
I bolt through the dining room without stopping to say hey, passing through to the kitchen to grab myself a beer. “Anyone want one?” I yell.
“Please!” Kalen shouts back.
“Yeah!” the twins say.
I grab three more beers for my brothers, knock the caps off, and carry them all back into the dining room, using my ass to push open the door because my hands are full.
