Page 40 of Hate You to Love You

I slide past Jones and stand by the sink. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Mate, I can see it in your face. You miss him and it hurts. It’s all right to admit that.’

‘Of course I’ve missed him. That doesn’t mean I want him back or anything,’ I snap.

Jones’s eyes suddenly go wide at something behind me. I turn around and spot Elliot in the doorway, looking at us blankly.

Crap. Did he hear me? The moment is excruciatingly awkward. Before he has the chance to say anything, I push past him and cut across the dance floor on my way out of the bar. I flag down a taxi and ask the driver to take me to the one place that still feels like home. Even though it won’t for much longer.

When I arrive, Mum opens the door, rubbing her tired eyes. She’s still half asleep, but her face lights up immediately when she realises it’s me. She welcomes me in, then catches sight of the look on my face.

‘Anak, what’s happened?’ she asks.

My heart races and my eyes are heavy, the buzz from my last drink starting to wear off. ‘Nothing. Everything is fine. I just… I just wanted to come home.’

I stop in the hallway. This was the first place that came to mind when I thought of somewhere safe and familiar, but somehow tonight it feels different. Like a stopover before arriving at your destination. Somewhere temporary. Because the faded Mickey Mouse stickers I put up on the wall will soon be in someone else’s room. My beloved book collection still fills the shelves – all the stories that have brought me comfort over the years, like the Heartstopper books and Rainbow Rowell’s entire back catalogue. New people will fill the space in the living room, completely unaware of the lives and memories of those that came before them.

My old room is thankfully still not packed away into boxes, so I drop onto my bed. But sleep eludes me, because I’m lost in fantasies of what could have been. What would have happened if Elliot never walked out of my life? Should I have asked him to stay? If Sal and Laney had never moved out of our share house, would we all still be a lot closer? Would I ever find happiness again, with Dad gone forever?

I drift in and out of sleep until morning light falls into the room, and Mum comes in to move around some empty boxes. The Looney Tunes pyjamas she’s wearing feel like the only source of life and colour in this house now.

‘I was thinking you might be able to help me go through some of these things if you have time today,’ she says, gesturing to the neat piles of clothes and furniture that have been arranged around the room.

‘I’m pretty busy…’ I reply, avoiding her eye.

‘The sooner we do it, the easier it will be for me to pack everything up.’

I don’t respond, hoping my silence will be enough to stop her from articulating what she is about to say.

She hums softly. ‘I found a buyer for the house.’

‘That was fast.’ I bolt up from the couch. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Mum’s started moving clothes into one of the empty boxes. ‘I’ve been trying to call you over the last couple of days,’ she says. ‘You never answer.’

I run my hands through my hair, troubled that this is happening so much quicker than I’d anticipated. Which is exactly why I hadn’t answered Mum’s calls. My heart is caught in a tug of war between guilt and anger. Because while I feel terrible about ignoring Mum’s calls, selling the house seems like the last stop in the journey of saying goodbye to Dad. His DVDs still sit on the shelf. His favourite spot on the lounge is still there, waiting for him. From here, Mum and I were walking distance to his favourite restaurants. Ordering his favourite beef Lanzhou noodles, with a bottle of Sprite to wash it down, was sometimes enough to make it feel like he was still here with us. He may be gone, but as long as we still had the house we still had the place that we built our happiest memories in. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him all over again.

‘Mum, I can’t right now,’ I tell her, grabbing my phone in a huff.

She drops the box she’s holding, and it hits the ground a little too hard. ‘I know work has been busy, but I could really use the help,’ she pleads.

‘Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to sell the house without even asking me.’ The words come out of my mouth before I can stop them.

Mum lets out a long sigh.

‘Don’t do that,’ I say, disgruntled. ‘Don’t act like I don’t have a right to be upset about this.’

‘This isn’t easy for me either.’ Mum angrily pushes an empty box to the side. ‘Sometimes life isn’t about the things you want to do, but rather what you need to do.’

‘You keep saying that Dad would have wanted us to move on, but I don’t think he’d want this.’ I refuse to look at her.

‘He wanted us to live our lives, Carlos. He never would have wished for you to run away from your problems.’

‘I’m not the one running away!’ I bite my bottom lip, trying to hold in my frustration. But it doesn’t work. ‘I remember how hard those first few months were. I know it feels like things will never get any easier. But don’t you think giving up this house is the easy way out?

Mum brings her hands up to her chest. ‘We have a lot of memories here. But they will be with us wherever we go. That’s the most important thing.’

‘Do you see this?’ I ask, gesturing towards the couch. ‘This is where Dad and I used to watch movies together. It’s the spot where he showed me You’ve Got Mail and told me about all the locations in New York he wanted to visit one day.’