‘I can’t survive two months, Ican’t.’
‘Why did you do it?’
The boy blurts out, ‘I thought he’d make you hit me!’
‘What iswrongwith you that you wanted that?’
‘Because you’d feel guilty!You…’ Jules’ breath snags hard, catches on something sharp, and he stumbles slightly, balance lost.‘You’d be… I… I just.’
‘Press your wrist.’
‘No, no, ohGod… I… what have I done?’
‘Jules, press your wrist.’
Lachlan moves him to his bed, sits him there and crouches in front of him.He guides Jules’ fingers to the inside of his wrist but doesn’t apply the pressure.‘You can make it stop, come on.’
‘He’s gonna host parties here all s-summer.’
‘Press for me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can, it’s easy.’
‘No.I can’t.’He looks at Lachlan, eyes wet.Lachlan’s never seen such horror in a person outside of torture.‘I can’t do this.Mimi… oh my God.’His voice cracks.‘No, no, no, we can fix it.Please.Take me back, show him you have me under control.Do whatever you need to,whateveryou want, I’ll cry if you—’
Lachlan presses the point, massages it.
Jules’ voice crackles apart beneath the immediate sway of relief.
‘It’s all gonna be OK,’ Lachlan tells him.‘Just breathe.Nice and slow.’
‘I’d rather die than have him here,’ the kid sobs.
‘I want you to count the rings in a cut-down tree.’
Jules looks up.‘What?’
‘It’s a trick I do sometimes.You start outside and countin.Count the rings in a cut-down tree.One.Two.Three.But not out loud.Can you try it for me?’
Jules says nothing.
Lachlan keeps massaging the pressure point.
Eventually, Jules exhales shakily.‘What are we gonna do?’
‘We’ll get through it.’
‘How?’
‘If you behave, maybe he’ll—’ Lachlan cuts himself off, knows the old man won’t change his mind.He wasangry, which means he already set things in motion.‘We just have to learn from it, OK?’
‘Learn what?’
‘That your father is always here even when he’s not.And whatever you were trying to get me to do, it wasn’t worth this.’
Jules stares at him.‘I just wanted you to be nice to me.’
