Chapter 20 Sab
Sab
Sawdust and screaming. I’m beginning to think that’s all my life is meant to be.
I wrestle Esme into her coat. Rigid as a board, she fights me at every turn. “Stop,” I tell her as gently as the frustration holding me together will allow. “You need to put your outside clothes on so I can take you to Uncle Bhodi, okay?”
A bargaining chip that’s never failed me, but with her red nose and heavy eyes, fever heating her skin, my baby girl doesn’t want to hear it today. She wants to feel better, she wants me, but I can’t make either of those things happen right now.
I sack off the coat and scoop her from the floor, nodding to the nursery worker who called me off a job to retrieve my sick kid.
Third one this morning, apparently, but that doesn’t mean much to me.
I don’t have room in my head to worry about anything that’s not right in front of me.
Anything that isn’t Esme, or finishing the stack of work bearing down so I can get paid before Christmas lands.
So I can pay for the emergency head gasket replacement on my van.
I’m driving Tam’s right now. Big enough for Esme, but too small to carry everything I need for the job I’m on.
A sane person would’ve hired a replacement.
Swallowed the cost and worried about it later.
But I’m not feeling all that sane right now.
Haven’t since Galen walked out on me and left a giant empty space I can’t seem to fill.
A gaping fucking wound that feels as old as time.
Familiar in ways that make me want to claw my eyes out.
A festering itch beneath my skin, whispering the same poison in my blood.
I don’t want drugs.
I don’t.
But this gnawing want, it haunts me, and it doesn’t seem to matter how fast I move, it finds me anyway.
I take Esme to Tam’s place, so grateful Bhodi’s not working today I feel outside of my fucking body. “Thanks for this. Keep her away from Tam, okay? He can’t get sick like this.”
“He’d be okay if he did.” Bhodi presses his hand to Esme’s hot forehead, wincing as she cries and cries and cries. “There’s nothing wrong with his immune system.”
I grunt, reminding myself that even though Bhodi’s a nurse, he wasn’t here all those years ago when Tam was so banged up from the accident. He doesn’t know.
Or maybe he does.
Bhodi sets Esme on the couch with a blanket and the wooden books Tam wrote for her. Then he’s on me, checking my temperature, peering into my face. “Sure you’re not coming down with this too?”
“I’m fine.” I evade him, already heading for the door while my heart hollers at me to stay with Esme. “I need to get back to work.”
“Looks like you need a week of sleep, mate.”
He’s not wrong about that. But sleeping means stopping, and I just fucking can’t.
So I keep going, bouncing between the job site and my sick kid all day long without taking a breath.
Slamming doors, loading wood, losing myself to the noise and rhythm of power tools, driving and driving and driving, as if I can somehow outrun the truth.
That Galen held me like he wanted me, like he needed me, and then he said no.
And look, I’m not so dense I believe the mess in his emerald gaze that night was all about me, but fuck, I never knew rejection could hurt this much.
That losing what we almost had could feel so close to the worst things I’ve ever felt.
I never knew it could be something else that left an indelible mark on my soul. Or that I’d be this weak from it.
My day is long.
Lucky for me, so is Tam’s. He’s still not back by the time I drive to his house to pick up Esme and take her home for the first time in a week.
“Stay.” Bhodi follows us to the door. “If you’re that worried about Tam, we’ll sleep in the annexe.”
“I’m not putting you out of your beds.”
“You think we give a shit where we sleep?”
“I give a shit where you sleep.”
“Sab—”
My phone rings in my pocket. Loud, because I’m scared of the fucking quiet these days.
It’s a stupid Elton John song Esme picked and it should make me laugh, but it doesn’t, and my mood sinks even further as I see the name of my friendly mechanic flash up on the screen and answer with a sigh that could swallow the earth.
“Raff, give me some good news.”
“You’re all done,” Raff’s voice fills the line, too London for me to tell how bad the damage is. “I’m here till six if you want to swing down and pick it up.”
“How much was it all in?”
“Don’t worry about that, mate. We’ll sort it out when you get here.”
Fine.
Fine.
I thank him and hang up. Then consider my options while Bhodi eyes me as if I’m two steps from the edge of a cliff. “Van’s ready.”
“I heard. You want to give that baby back while you walk down and get it?”
I don’t have much choice. It’s a mile trek to the garage and Esme needs to be indoors and warm.
Bhodi takes Esme and returns to the couch where they’ve been together all day.
I feel her gaze on me as I open the front door, and though she doesn’t make a sound, I hear her crying every step I take away from her.
I feel it, and I know I should be grateful for that.
That I love her enough for a wrench of guilt to flay me to the bone.
But tonight, the only thing I’m grateful for is the snow blanketing the pavements, and the bitter wind driving into my face, corralling my focus into putting one foot in front of the other.
I’m tired of fucking thinking.
I reach the garage twenty minutes later.
Like me, Raff’s working late so people have what they need for Christmas. Unlike me, he’s doing it with a smile on his face, an East End grin that made me look twice before I met Galen.
He’s nice too. So fucking nice. I know it even before he slaps an invoice in my hand and shows me to where he’s parked my van.
My van that looks nothing like the shitheap I left here three days ago. “You wrapped it?”
Raff shrugs. “I was bored while Bobbio was putting the engine back together. Figured you’d find it easier to pay off a head gasket replacement if the whole world knew your number.”
“Raff, I can’t afford—”
“Shh.” Raff slaps my back. “Just talk French to me and give me a hug.”
I scan the green and black graphics plastered to a van that’s now devoid of all rust. The carpentry logo Tam doodled on a napkin last Christmas when we were brainstorming business names.
Back then, with Esme so young and my account so far in the red, it didn’t feel like something that could ever happen.
And yet Raff’s pulled it together for me just to be nice.
Maison Dubois.
“You have no idea what this means to me.” I say it in French, but I get the feeling Raff knows what I’m saying all the same.
We embrace. And I like it because he’s my friend. Hate it because he’s not Galen, a state of mind I need to get over if I’m going to survive the rest of my life.
Despite the wrapping, I still owe Raff enough money to make my eyes water as I swipe my debit card. He gives me another hug as the payment goes through.
“Could’ve been worse.” He tries to comfort me. “If it had blown on the road you could’ve lost the whole engine.”
I reclaim my card and consider crushing it in my fist and dropping it down the drain. Then, for the first time in what feels like forever, I climb behind the wheel of the first thing I ever bought for myself after I got clean.
This van—it used to be Tam’s. Sometimes I think I can still smell the cigs he doesn’t smoke anymore. Or the chocolate he’s rarely without. Tonight, I smell spiced apple pie, and I know it’s all in my head, unless there’s an old box of Mr Kipling stashed in here somewhere.
I should probably look; I’ve eaten fuck-all today.
But despite pushing Bhodi’s concern aside, it’s getting harder to pretend I don’t feel like shit warmed up.
My head pounds and my eyes hurt. I haven’t wanted to be in my house since Galen walked out of it and I deleted my FlingIt account, but as I put the van in gear and drive away, my bed calls to me.
Esme’s asleep when I get back to Tam’s place.
“You’re nearly out of Calpol.” Bhodi packs the bottle into Esme’s bag. “You want Tam to drop some off on his way home?”
“Nah, we’ll be all right.”
“You have two doses left.”
“I’ll get some from the petrol station.”
Bhodi doesn’t like it. But he’s too sweet to bully me. He tucks leftover croissants into Esme’s bag and hooks it over my shoulder. “Call me if you’re worried. I don’t start my shift run until the morning.”
Another reason I needed to disentangle myself from the sanctuary of my brother’s cosy home. Bhodi’s working most of Christmas—like Galen. I don’t want to be the reason Tam and Bhodi don’t get the best out of the limited time they have together.
So I make myself leave. Drive to the petrol station at the end of Cosmic Avenue and of course it doesn’t have any Calpol on the shelf. Shithole barely has fuel.
Quelle vie de merde.
This close to Christmas, the supermarket is the last place on earth I want to be. Even this late in the day, it’s still packed enough that Esme wakes up before we get past the towering stacks of festive vegetables.
She’s unimpressed, and I don’t blame her.
“Just a few minutes, mon petit c?ur. Then we’ll go home, I swear.”
Her bottom lip wobbles. I know she’s getting ready to wail and the supermarket feels smaller with every passing second, but I have to keep going. She needs a good night’s sleep as much as I do.
The pharmacy aisle is right at the back by the booze and frozen meat. It’s busy there too. I’m this close to thumping the next idiot with a badly parked trolley when we finally reach the Calpol.
There’s one bottle left. I grab it as Esme squirms in my arms. Head for the self-service checkouts, thankful there’s enough of them that the queue isn’t as traumatic as I imagined when we got here. That Esme hasn’t completely lost her shit by the time we get to the front.
I scan the Calpol, a weird sensation creeping over my skin. Nausea rising. It feels so similar to a craving I almost write it off. Then my skin prickles again and I glance up from the till in time for Esme to take a raspy breath and bellow the name on my mind at the top of her tiny lungs.
“Galen!”
Merde, no.
Not now, surely.
But Esme doesn’t lie. She sees Galen and she wants the whole world to know, even as I marbleise, as frozen as the ground outside, screwing my eyes shut as if it makes me invisible.
It doesn’t, obviously, any more than wishful thinking renders him deaf, and the split second I have to avoid this train wreck slips through my fingers.
I feel him enter our orbit. Open my scratchy eyes and force myself to face him as Esme wriggles, depleted as hell but still wanting out of my arms and into his.
He takes her without seeming to think about what he’s doing. I let him, transfixed by how fast he notices she’s not okay, and it’s in this moment it all becomes clear to me what a colossal fuckup I’ve made.
I’m not into Galen because he’s hot. I’m into him because the concern and affection on his face make my belly twist with a want far deeper than sex.
Because how gentle he is with my daughter lets me know how gentle he’d be with me if any of this was fucking real.
Because the first words out of his mouth are for her, not me.
“Hey there, little lady. What’s got you so hot and bothered?”
Esme just shivers and wraps her arms around his neck, as if he’s Tam and Bhodi combined and she’ll never let him go. And honest to god, I can’t fucking look.
You should never have let him anywhere near her.
Not because he’s bad.
Because he’s good. Even if the footprint on my heart will never fucking fade.
He didn’t do this to you. Your stupid fucking feelings did.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Rational me knows we’ve both messed this up. But I’m so fucking tired I can’t string a thought together, and I need away from him before I do something really fucking stupid.
Like grip his face and tell him how ludicrously good he looks in the casual version of his firefighter uniform.
“Sab?”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
Esme’s not crying anymore. She’s clutching a fire engine keyring he must’ve given her, rolling the wheels along his collarbone.
I want to tell her to be careful, but Galen reels me in, and I realise his handsome face looks as tired as I feel. Red-rimmed eyes, pale skin. A thicker than usual covering of auburn stubble on his jaw.
Fuck, I hate that I give a shit.
That the Christmas music blaring from a nearby speaker has me wanting to wrap an arm around his waist and lead him out of this hellhole.
Oh yeah? Where you gonna take him?
Home? To your fucking bed?
My subconscious laughs at me. I reach for Esme, taking her back. “I’m fine. Nice to see you. Have a good Christmas, yeah?”
I walk away before he can respond, and it’s abrupt enough that Esme really does wail this time, crying her heart out all the way to the van, hiccupping as I strap her in and slide behind the wheel.
We go home.
We don’t sleep.
She cries all night, still holding that fucking fire engine toy, and if I thought this shit couldn’t hurt worse…
Fuck, was I wrong.