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This Friday? Bloody hell. Strike me down now because I’m not ready for any of this. I just want to sleep for days and skip dinner and everything that goes with it. I want to pretend my life is normal. I want my father here and my mother. I want to be a young girl again, playing tennis while laughing at Topper for his ugly, bedazzled racket.
“Can I please go?” I mumble, and Frederic responds with a short nod, but changes his mind by adding more to our conversation the second I’m ready to flee.
“You better behave this Friday or you’ll regret it,” he says, reminding me that the display he showed me moments ago could be repeated or made even worse.
“I’ll behave,” I whisper, my fight completely gone, my self-worth the size of a grape.
“And, Evangeline? Remember why you’re doing this. You don’t want to be the reason Mum loses everything.” My face falls, the threat echoing through my mind, as I finally run out of that awful room.
Chapter Fifteen
Chester
Sixteen years old
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dad screams at the top of his lungs, and I hear it booming over the loud music playing in my room. I sigh, trying to block it out, but their screaming match has hit its climax and there’s no way I’ll be able to finish my homework today.
“I don’t know what I’m talking about? I’m the one who lives with you,” Mum screeches back, and I wince, rubbing my temples. My headache pounds beneath my eyes and I could do with a long nap, but that’s definitely not in the cards today because whatever they are fighting about sounds heated, and my parents rarely let go of an argument until one stomps out of the room, angry and defeated.
The only thought popping in my head now is how much I want to disappear. They won’t miss me. They’re too far gone to care, and at the age of sixteen, I realise there’s no way they can fix their relationship.
“Oh, I remember, you remind me too often that I live inside the same house as you. It’s fucking insufferable,” my dad yells back, and his words hit me in my heart. I live here as well. I thought I stopped caring about what they had to say to each other, but some remarks still hurt.
There will always be a voice in the back of my head begging for them to just love each other. They are my parents after all, but my realistic self understands that it’s impossible. The damage is done and it’s irrevocable.
I used to pretend they could stay together just like that. A couple who fought once in a while, but it isn’t just once in a while. It’s constant. I didn’t see how toxic my parents’ relationship is until a few years ago when Mum told me she never loved Dad.
“Well, no one is stopping you from moving out, Arthur. Please do. That way, I don’t have to stare at your god-awful face.”
“Not happening because then you’re going to yell at me for missing dinner with the Callahans.” I’m surprised by my dad’s answer. He’s not one to enjoy family functions or dinner dates. I gave up a long time ago hoping he’d show.
Dad doesn’t value family all that much and he avoids normal family days at all costs. Instead, he spends his hours in the office, flourishing in an environment filled with people who speak the same language as him.
I’m one of those people now and I like to spend my time in his office after school. It’s exhilarating, liberating, and it gives me the first tastes of what I want in my future. I want to be like my father, without the toxic family life, and I’ll avoid that by never getting married.
“Oh, just leave, Arthur. No one is going to miss your presence.”
“That’s not true, Mum,” I whisper. Even though I know he hates it, I still long to see him there. I’m scared I’m missing crucial moments with my father to learn more about who he is and what he thinks.
“I think I’ll stay,” Dad says, and I shake my head at how headstrong both of them are. When I was younger, he would do everything to get out of a party or dinner. Now, he says yes, just to make my mother’s blood boil.
“Don’t ruin it,” Mum says back, and a second later, a door closes downstairs and silence descends over our house. I quickly turn down the music and breathe a sigh of relief at how soothing it is.
A knock sounds at my door and Mum pushes it open, a small smile on her face as she steps inside.
“The Callahans will be here in an hour.” I nod my head, spinning around in my chair to look at her.
My mother, Felice, is a tiny woman with short brownish hair. She’s the prime example of an English lady. Drinks her tea with milk, talks as if her upper lip can’t move and loves the royal family a tiny bit too much. Furthermore, she’s always dressed like she's going to hunt or go horse riding: brown trousers, a white blouse and a matching blazer.
Mum is gentle and kind, but speaks her mind about literally everything. She’s the complete opposite of my dad. She stepped into their marriage with the idea of having breakfast together every morning, family holidays, activities during the weekends, but instead they butted heads on fundamental ideas from the very start.
“Sebastian will join as well.”
“I know,” I say, relieved because I wasn't looking forward to an awkward dinner with my parents and another couple. But now that Sebastian will be there, it’ll be bearable. We’ll get to take our bikes to meet up with Prescott and just hang out. Kick a ball around and talk about upcoming parties.
“Okay,” Mum says before closing the door, but before it snaps shut, she speaks. “And please take a shower. You teenagers stink.”
I tap my fingers against the side of my leg while I wait for my mum to open the door. It’s Thursday evening, and I finally agreed to dinner with my parents, since there are only so many excuses I can use, but I already regret saying yes.
