“Don’t look now,” Sophie said, nodding as they rounded the corner of the church, “but your sister and Lucas appear to have made up.”
“Oh God…” Win groaned, then gave an apologetic look at the church next to her. “I leave her alone for one second.”
“I thought you liked Lucas?”
“I liked him just fine before he helped beat someone up.”
She felt like she’d been air-dropped as an extra into a final battle, each major character cresting their own arc while all she wanted to do was survive long enough to go home and have a cup of tea. If this was how Freya had lived, no wonder she’d done a runner. Other people’s drama was exhausting.
“That’s enough!” Win clapped loudly as they approached, making the tsh tsh tsh noise that Dad used for scaring squirrels from the bird feeder. “We’re going home.”
Ignoring the outraged Mandarin that Sunny was yapping in her direction, Win waved the rest of them into the car. Before she opened her own door, Win laid her cheek against the roof, just briefly, and closed her eyes.
How had Freya pictured the night ending? Did she really think that nearly five months of silence could be forgiven in a single day? That they’d all know the steps to this dance she’d led them on so that instead of everything falling apart, they’d somehow come together?
She felt awful for Sophie.
Awful for Ryan.
She’d feel bad for Lucas, if she’d not just interrupted him fondling her sister.
She had no idea how she felt about herself other than weary. Whatever was in the letter she’d tucked into her pocket, it had better be good.
LUCAS
There were no lights on downstairs when Win dropped Lucas outside his house. When Vas worked nights, Auntie Helena usually went to bed the same time as Xen, and Kat would still be out. Problem was, Lucas had left his keys in the side pocket of his rucksack – the one he could picture slumped up against the side of Kellan’s sofa in the nook.
When he got his phone out to text Alex to come let him in, there were some messages on there from Fry that started off trying to find out where he was and ended with a photo of him kissing a near-empty bottle of JD. And just one from Kellan: Where u go?
Sighing, Lucas fudged an answer.
Felt like crap and left early. He added the appropriate emoji and sent it. Then another, saying that he’d left his bag at Kellan’s and would come round to pick it up tomorrow. He didn’t know how he was going to square things with Kellan, but maybe he’d have figured something out by then.
Alex answered the door in his shorts, hair fluffy from the shower he’d had before bed.
“The least you could do is come home late enough that I can finish having a wank,” he said, pulling the door open and letting Lucas into the darkened hall.
“I did not need to know what I was interrupting,” Lucas said.
“Gotta take what privacy I can get.” Alex grinned, reaching out to ruffle Lucas’s hair with a hand that (thankfully) smelled only of soap.
The two of them sloped through the lounge to the kitchen, Alex ordering a cocoa from Lucas as payment for letting him in, then interrogating him as Lucas filled the kettle and fetched the mugs.
Where was the party? What did they get up to? Who was there?
Lucas tried to hide the smile that tugged at his lips, but Alex had lived with his sisters too long to let it slide.
“Oh yeah?” He flicked the scrunched-up wrapper of his biscuit bar across the table right into Lucas’s forehead as he set the drinks down. “Who is she?”
“No one you know.” Lucas pushed his cousin’s drink across and took a biscuit for himself from the tub.
“Don’t be so tight. She must have a name.”
“Sunny.”
“And does she have a corporeal form that you could describe, or is she a ghost?”
“She’s this tall and this kind of shape…” Lucas traced a vague “girl” shape in the air, conjuring about as much detail as the white tape marking the location of a dead body in a crime scene.
“Looks like…?”
“I dunno. Pretty.” Lucas took a sip of his drink to try and slow up the questioning, but all that happened was that he scalded his tongue and nearly dribbled the whole lot down his front – to join the smear of blood that had darkened to a brown that could pass for chocolate in this light.
“Wow. Smooth.” Alex sat back and shook his head. “You get with her, then?”
The grin that broke out was so wide it hurt Lucas’s cheeks and it was all the answer Alex needed. Taking a second biscuit, Alex retired upstairs, leaving Lucas alone in the kitchen.
Reaching into his pocket, he took out Freya’s letter.
She’d written his name with the same flourishing capital letters as on the parcel, the envelope posh enough to give the impression of containing something important. For a moment, he wondered whether he actually wanted to know, or whether Freya’s words would hurt him the way they had both Ryan and Sophie.
But then … Freya hadn’t the power over him that she had over them. She’d pushed him away months before she left. By the end they were contented co-workers, nothing more.
Sighing, Lucas tore open his letter.
Dear Lucas,
How’s it going? Bet the tips have gone down now that the best waitress no longer works at Rabscuttle…
I miss it. Dad won’t let me have a job. Thinks I need to spend every spare second on school work. (It’s possible he has a point because OH MY GOD, GCSES!!!)
I have royally screwed up. In quite a lot of ways, but this letter is about you. The person I think about every time I have a packet of crisps. How we got to know each other as strangers and how I was so excited because you were the fresh start friend that I was looking for: you didn’t know anything about me, I didn’t know anything about you and I got to be me. Do you know how rare that is? Finding someone to be yourself with when everyone already thinks they know everything about you?
Finding out you were friends with Kellan kind of took the shine off because how can you be my sparkly new friend when you’re HANGING OUT WITH MY BOYFRIEND? I was gutted and I over-reacted and I’m so sorry. I said Kellan would have been weird about it, but really I meant me.
I wasn’t in a great place at the time. Too many things weren’t going the way I hoped and the way I dealt was to cut myself off from whatever was upsetting me.
Guess I kept going, huh?
Anyway. I’m sorry. Really and truly. I look back now and I think “Dick move, Freya”.
Maybe if we’d been a bit closer I could have talked to you about Kellan. I know how much he likes having you around, but being around Kellan … it’s not always so good once you get too close.
I know what it’s like to be noticed by him. How you feel giddy at having something that everyone else wants, but it’s the other way round. Kellan has you. He makes people into who he wants them to be. The name he gives you, the way he keeps you close when trouble’s round the corner. He makes you feel special because he wants you to stick around. Stay loyal. Stay his.
And you’re someone who lets people have their own way. (Believe me, if I’d really wanted to, I could have got you to eat leftover chips … you’re a pushover.)