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Chapter Fourteen
Changed. Just not enough.
I hadn’t seen her much over the last few days. We’d had a night at the lake on Saturday after her parents went to bed, but that had been about it. I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t feeling like bursting out of my own skin or that I hadn’t actually gone through far too many smokes.
Steve and Jake had been happy to see me on Friday and Sunday nights, but my heart hadn’t really been in it, so I’d downed one too many drinks in a very short period of time and headed back home.
So, Tuesday was my chance. Chance for what? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I needed to do something. I didn’t think about why, otherwise I’d have talked myself out of it. I was nothing if not good at doing things I shouldn’t.
“Oh, morning, Roman,” Mrs Barlow said as she headed for her car.
I had a cigarette on the way to my mouth and was not at all sure how that looked to her, so all I could do was play it cool.
“Mrs Barlow.” I nodded.
“Waiting for Piper?” she asked.
I shrugged. “No plans, just here if she…wants.”
She smiled and I knew my mum had been talking to her. I could guess how their conversations were going and I didn’t have to guess what she thought about it.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on her this week,” was all she said. “I know she said she’d be fine, and she clearly was, but she said you two had a nice time.”
“Did she?” I choked out a plume of smoke.
Bree didn’t even bat an eyelid, but she smirked. “Not in so many words, no.”
I could only nod. “I… Okay, then.”
Bree pulled open her car door. “I’d best get on. Piper should be down soon.”
I gave her another nod. “Thanks.”
She smiled at me the way no mother had ever smiled at me before, not even my own. At least, not for a very long time. It was all at once friendly and warm and sincere, kindly but in no way suggestive. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that, so I just gave her yet another nod and watched her drive away.
As I waited for Piper, I crushed that butt and lit another smoke. I was going to fucking need it. My stomach was unusually queasy, and I felt that restless energy burning in me. Most of the time I got that feeling, I punched someone. Given the next person I would – hopefully – be seeing was Piper, that wasn’t going to happen.
“Oh, you’re actually going to school today?” she said as she locked the door.
I couldn’t fight my smile, but I wouldn’t look at her. “I thought maybe you might like to avoid the bus and I was going to offer to drive you. But, for that, I might just make you take the bus anyway.”
“It’s all the same to me. I’ll see you at school, then,”
I looked at her and chuckled. “Get in the car, Barlow.”
“Bossy this morning,” she noted.
I was feeling…all kinds of shit and refusing to acknowledge any of it. “Sorry. Maddy was up all night last night in excitement and was a right terror this morning.”
She had been, but I didn’t think that wasn’t the only reason.
“I thought we didn’t apologise?” she said and something in me cracked.
How was she just acting like everything was the same? Nothing was the same. Nothing was every going to be the same again. And she was just standing there like everything was… Well, maybe not the same because we didn’t just chat before, but like everything was fine.
And, the piece of shit I was, I took it out on her.
“Do I apologise for apologising?” I asked. “Or is that not allowed either?”
