“You don’t have to. I’m not holding a gun to your head or anything. I just thought that maybe you don’t get the opportunity to get shit off your chest, and if you ever needed to release that . . . pain, I’m here. And I’m a great listener. If you don’t believe me, ask Jo. She’ll vouch for me.”
I stare a little longer, straighten the hairs on my mo, and refocus my attention on the kids trying out their new toys. But I’m not seeing any of it.
“My dad left when I was about eight. My mum, she was . . . is . . .” I steady my breath. Eggo doesn’t interrupt. “I’d never heard of the term gaslighting until I came to England, but that’s what she’s like. She’s a narcissist who’ll find a way to make any and every situation about her, and if she’s not at the centre of attention, well . . . somebody’s got to pay the price. My dad legged it because he’d just had enough of her bullshit, and in some ways I can’t blame him, but he left us with her.” I turn toEggo and realise how close to tears I am. I’ve never told anybody about this. No one outside my family itself knows.
“Was she violent?” he asks, almost in a whisper.
“Sometimes.”
I don’t go into detail about the time she smashed my head into the car window because I’d left my homework on the kitchen counter, or the time she slapped my sister for accidentally breaking a dinner plate. I don’t think he’d believe me. It sounds like such an extreme reaction to something so trivial. At the time, we just accepted it all as part of normal, everyday life.
“It was more about the constant criticisms, and belittling, and then making us believe we were imagining it all, or that we were blowing it all out of proportion. And we genuinely used to think this too. She was so clever. Even now, when I think about some of the stuff she used to do, I still wonder if I was just being overly dramatic. Like, okay, one time she told me I could go to the shopping arcade with my friend, so I went, but it was her birthday, and when I got home, she lost it. Told me she couldn’t believe I would choose him over her. I was thirteen, but I think I should have realised it was important to her. It was stuff like that, all the time. Always trying to guess what her reaction would be beforehand.”
I suck in a huge lungful of air and puff it all out slowly.
“She would buy us these amazing gifts, and then basically say, ‘Look how much I love you, now if you don’t do this thing I want you to do, that means you don’t love me equally.’ One time she bought me these Puma rugby boots that were about a hundred dollars, and I just kept thinking, of course she loves us, she wouldn’t spend all this money on us if she didn’t.”
Fuck, my throat hurts.
“This is all emotional blackmail,” Eggo says. I can feel him looking at me, but I can’t turn to face him yet. “None of her actions were because of you. You’re victim blaming yourself.”
“My sister had it so much worse than my brother or I did. She fucked off on her eighteenth birthday. Got up in the morning and just went. Took a plane to Sydney. She left me and my brother a note, with some money that she’d saved from her shitty retail job and two passport application forms. I couldn’t get my own passport until I was sixteen, though. I was always thinking I’d move to Sydney to live with her, but I didn’t. I’m not sure why not. Then I met you when I was seventeen and you said about coming to England, and I thought, fuck it, what could be further from Perth? From Mum. But Covid happened, and I was stuck for another two years. My brother found a different way to escape. He’s spent most of his adult life either in jail or rehab.”
Eggo doesn’t say anything, but he wraps his fingers around mine.
“So, yeah. I don’t really want to go back there. Maybe I’ll move to New Zealand and live in theLord of the Ringsmountains. Or maybe Norway. Norway looks beautiful.”
“Okay, but I’d miss you if you moved to Norway,” he says.
It’s such a jarring thing to hear. I whip my head round to him.
“I don’t want you to leave yet.”
I can’t say anything in reply, even though I want to say “same,” so I squeeze his fingers and then let them go. “Sorry for bumming you out on Christmas Day.”
“You didn’t, princess. I’m glad you told me. I’m always gonna be here to listen to your trauma dumps. Always.”
I have to scrunch my eyes closed and angle my face away to stop the rush of emotions, but fuck, it feels nice to have somebody fucking care for once.
After the skate park, we drop Logan back to his mum’s as they have plans to eat Christmas dinner with Jody’s parents, and we drive to the house Eggo grew up in for our meal.
It’s a quaint, detached, three-bed home on the outskirts of town. Because it was built in the nineties and because it’sBritain, the house, its rooms, and its gardens are all teeny tiny. Eggo’s the tallest in his family, but his mum Kelly, stepdad Stu, grandparents Fi and Graham, sister Leoni, and brother-in-law Dale are not far behind him. In fact, at six-one, I may be the second shortest person here after Fi. The place smells of roasting meat and onions, and there’s a heavy, moist quality to the air.
I met Kelly and Stu last night, but everyone else is new, and they all greet me in the same way Eggo’s parents did—a huge, spine-squishing hug with a hand through the curls from the women, and a metacarpal-crushing handshake, sometimes with the other hand through the curls from the men. Eggo had warned me on the drive to Newquay how touchy feely his family were and had asked me if I wanted him to intervene. I’d said no, but I’m already experiencing blood pressure spikes.
“We’ve left Gristle at Nanny’s house,” Kelly says to either me or Eggo. “So Trekkie shouldn’t be too bothered today.”
“I’ve locked the little shit in the utility room with the radio on and a pig’s ear to chew. Should take him an age to gnaw his way through that with no teeth,” Fi adds. I’m pretty sure she’s still talking about Kelly’s demonic dog.
“It’s a shame our Logie Bear isn’t here, but we had him last year,” Graham says.
There’s a small dining table in the kitchen area which will seat four diners at most, and I’m uncertain where the other four adults will consume their roast dinners. It’s providing me with base-level anxiety, and every time I glance at Eggo, I swear he’s trying to communicate a million messages with his eyes alone.
“Are you okay?”
“Do you want to leave?”
“Do you want to go outside for some fresh air?”
