AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Only Stefan and Marc wouldn’t take the piss if they knew that. They’d set up an arch for me in celebration. Prick their fingers on gorse blossom and be so happy for me if I told them.
Instead, I get back in my vehicle with a coffee and send a text to our group chat.
Hayden:Definitely can’t work this weekend.
I sit in the service station and swallow bitter caffeine as traffic roars past, and I calculate how long it’s been since I started making excuses not to make this journey.
Nearly a year.
Fuck, that’s almost a twelfth of the girls’ lives.
The months have slipped by so fast while I’ve been locked in a whole other landslide. One of Rae’s questions is another boulder I can’t hold back for any longer.
Is a test you failed ten years ago really why you keep your distance from them?
No.
No, it isn’t.
My phone pings, my drink tasting less bitter as I read replies reminding me of a mentor’s advice.
Marc:Good.
Stefan:Because you can’t keep drawing water from an empty well, mate.
Marc:Take off as much time as you need to refill it with your family.
Familyiswhat I need now. I still hesitate when I pull up outside a bright pink front door.
The engine ticks as I hesitate some more while imagining Rae beside me. He’d already be at the door if he were here instead of London. He’d ring that bell first before thinking about the consequences of waking up a trio who need sleep more than they need to see their big brother with the jitters.
That’s what strikes as soon as I get out of the Land Rover to face music I can’t put off any longer.
I hesitate again, a trembling finger raised for the bell because there will be no going back if I show Kirsty why working until I’ve got no fuel left in my tank has seemed my only option. And why short-term distractions are all I’ve let myself have or had the spare headspace to offer to another person.
Until Rae.
A light clicks on inside, glowing like a hot coal of distress does inside my chest—distress that must be a beacon for this woman who wiped my teenage tears and told me we’d survive even if Dad didn’t. That we’d go on as a family unit, no need for blood between us. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t my mother by birth. She’d promised to always be a shoulder to lean on, forbetter or for worse, and yeah, I’ve always called my stepmum Kirsty.
I can’t tonight.
“Mum?”
I hold out both hands and don’t try to hide their shaking.
There’s no point.
We’ve walked a journey that started with these symptoms once already.
Shakinghands are no excuse for almost falling over in the hallway. I trip over suitcases no doubt holding clothes I could have built a wardrobe for already if I hadn’t wanted to stave off this moment.
For her.
I can’t now, or five minutes later in the kitchen when I take the mug she offers across a table cluttered with proof that a flock of Swifties lives here. She moves a pink boa out of the way, feathers shifting in the breeze as she also moves paperwork out of my way—forms I recognise from years of her filling out the same applications for me.
“You’re signing the girls up for soccer camp?”
“Only Isla,” she says. She also immediately cuts off my usual worry. “And don’t you go thinking that’s because I can’t afford to pay for three sets of subs or for three new kits. I keep telling you there’s no need. I just mean that she’s the only one who inherited that gene from your father.” She quickly adds, “For football.”
