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Chapter Six
Like a Nancy Romance Movie.
The next night, Mum had finally got Maddy in bed and was pouring herself a glass of wine. The woman was so exhausted that she looked like she was about to offer me one as well.
That was as good a time as any to get out of there. Mum might spend a while worrying about me but, as long as Maddy stayed in bed for once, then she’d have an evening to herself. It was about the best I could offer her just then.
I grabbed my speaker, my spare packet of smokes and found myself wandering past my ute and down to the lake again. To say I was hoping to see Piper there again was…a fallacy. It was enough that I associated the lake with her now. Piper was peace, so the lake was peace. With all the noise in the house, I didn’t have the mental energy to deal with the noise of seeing people. Even drinking my cares away and fucking someone I’d hopefully never see again wasn’t going to do it for me.
It had been fucking years since I’d just been in nature skimming stones, and here I was doing it two nights in a row. But there was something calming in the repetitive action, in having to focus on something except all the bullshit that usually danced in my head. I trained my thoughts on releasing the stone perfectly and the words of the music as it flowed over me.
But there was only so much they could keep at bay.
Who needed to actually speak to Rocco when his words were on stereo repeat, scratched into the very fabric of my mind?
I was in danger of falling into the deep well that was my father’s disapproval and disappointment, and just when I was having a moment of respite, so I turned around to look for another stone to skim and saw Piper standing behind me. I had no idea how long she’d been there.
“Fuck, Barlow,” I huffed a self-conscious laugh.
She waved as she said, “Hi. Is this a private pity party, or can anyone join?”
I didn’t want to be glad to see her. I didn’t want to have her there after I’d just been arse deep in thoughts about my father. I didn’t want to feel like she could make it all better. I was tired of…everything. I was just fucking tired. Tired of being useless and stupid and unable to change. I was tired of living down to people’s expectations. I couldn’t change, but I needed to take a break to breathe before it drowned me.
“Depends. How are your issues on this fine night?” I asked, as calmly as I could, as I nabbed a few more stones.
“They’re…issues. How’s the niece?”
“She went to bed before she passed out from exhaustion tonight. So, that’s something.”
“Yay,” she said, sounding like she knew that was a piss poor offering.
I huffed a humourless laugh. “Yeah.”
She spread a blanket out next to my speaker and sat down. I thought about leaving her there, but she was like a magnet drawing me down to sit beside her as though without my permission. We didn’t say anything. Just listened to the music. I doubted it was her usual taste, but it suited my mood. I lit up a smoke and tried to relax.
She felt almost as tense as me. I didn’t know why she was feeling so tense and I didn’t know how to ask. I wasn’t the kind of guy who asked. I was the kind of guy to run his hand up your leg, to kiss your neck, to make you melt, and ease your tension in other, non-verbal ways.
But that knowledge didn’t make me feel worse. It couldn’t. Even not having a single idea how to talk to her – even after the honesty of the night before – I was fully content just sitting with her. I didn’t really understand what it was like to feel alone even with other people, but I understood the comfort that came from just sitting with someone who didn’t feel the need to fill in every silence, that sometimes you didn’t want to talk, you just needed to be and not feel judged or crowded or have things demanded of you.
That, I could do.
Non-verbal was my specialty in more ways than one.
I didn’t realise I’d started singing until she said, “You’ve got a nice voice.”
Not knowing what to say to that, I just lay down. I felt my breath come easier when she lay down next to me.
“I didn’t picture you as a singer,” she continued.
I tried to laugh, but it sounded wrong. “I don’t tend to bring it out at school, true.”
“You’re different,” she said and I heard the smile in her voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, at school you’re all cool–”
“Aw, you think I’m cool?” I teased, feeling my mood lift somewhat. Not because she thought I was cool, but because talking to her was ridiculously easy.
