Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bryce
After my shower I head into the kitchen.
I’m knackered. I guess shagging like a maniac for hours on end then driving to Melbourne will do that to you.
I miss Claire, though. It’s like a hook inside me, pulling me back to her.
I can’t wait to get back to the coast. But first I need to sort out whatever is going on with Millie.
I also need coffee. Mum seems to have read my mind, a steaming mug waiting on the counter as she wipes down the small coffee machine.
I take a long draught, heat burning my throat. “I’ll have this, then we can head over to Millie’s and see what’s up,” I say.
“I don’t know if this is the right thing to do,” Mum says. “She might not appreciate us invading her privacy like that.”
“Her mum and brother dropping by isn’t an invasion of privacy, Mum.
” I try not to grit my teeth. Mum is a powerhouse, as I say, but she also has a way of brushing things under the rug, or trying to make them out to be not as bad as they are.
Classic avoidance techniques. I suppose that’s where I get it from.
“And we need to sort this out. Come on, I’m here now. We can do this.”
“If you say so.” She sighs, putting her coffee cup down. “This is so much harder without your dad here,” she says. “I still miss him, every day.”
There’s a lump in my throat. “I miss him too, Mum.”
I was eleven when Dad died from cancer. I don’t remember much about it, to be honest. I just remember him how he was before he got sick, taking me out for surfs, helping me stand up on his mal, teaching me about the currents and what was a good wave.
I get my love of surfing from him. It’s always killed me that he wasn’t here to see me succeed in the way I have.
I know he would have loved it. I talk to him before every comp, though.
Not sure if he hears me, but it makes me feel better.
“I know you do. But when it’s your partner…” Mum trails off, her green eyes distant. “You’ll find love one day, I know you will. And then you’ll really understand.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her how I feel about Claire. I shouldn’t, because I don’t want to get her hopes up, or take her focus away from what’s going to be a tough evening. But I can’t resist sharing, the words seeming to tumble from me. “I think I might be falling for Claire.”
“You do?” Her face lights up, and she covers my hand with hers.
“Yeah. I’ve never felt like this about anyone. You wait till you meet her, Mum. I know you’ll love her.”
“I can’t wait,” she says, smiling, but worry still lurks in her eyes. I drain the last of my coffee, then grab my car keys. We need to get this over with. Hopefully it’s nothing, hopefully it was just Millie being nice, and if her ex is there, I can gently escort him off the premises using my fist.
Mum is quiet on the drive from Richmond to St Kilda. The city is gleaming in the summer night, trams trundling along the streets, cafés full of people sipping wine and talking. I love this city, set on the blue curving bay. It’s a beautiful place. But it also has its dark side.
There are humped shapes on the pavements, in between the gleaming cafés filled with glossy people.
Homeless people. Some of them are addicts, I know from experience.
Mum’s lips are tight, her hands twisting together in her lap.
I know she’s thinking of another time when Millie went AWOL and we found her on the street with her ex, a needle in her arm.
I suspected, though I never said anything to Mum, that he’d been pimping her out to get drugs.
Just another reason I want to cave his face in. And part of the reason I stay away.
I know now that I need to face up to things.
Go through my problems, rather than going around them.
Maybe it’s what Matt said to me, the other night.
Or maybe it’s from spending time with Claire, seeing how she dealt with losing almost everything.
She could have run away, but instead she chose to face how her parents died, making a conscious decision to live their dream, making it her own, honouring them with her choices.
It’s time for me to make good choices as well, I realise. Choices that aren’t just about me.
“What if she’s not there?” Mum’s voice cracks.
“She’ll be there,” I say, wanting to reassure myself as much as Mum. “We’ll knock on the door, go in and see how she is. I’m sure it’s fine.”
I’m not sure at all.
If she’s back with her ex, I need to be ready for whatever is waiting for us at Millie’s place.
I’m here to protect Mum, and her. But I keep my worries to myself as we pull up outside the apartment.
It’s in a small block, only four apartments in the building dating back to the 1930s: two on the ground floor, each with its own small walled garden, and two on the first floor either side of a flight of stairs.
Millie has one of the ground floor flats.
Mum bought it years ago, before prices really started to go mad in Melbourne.
It’s worth a fortune now, but she won’t sell it.
It’s much more important that Millie has a home.
We get out of the car and head for the door set beneath the landing connecting the two upstairs apartments. There’s a doorknocker in the shape of a sparkly unicorn head hanging from the door. Typical Millie. I bang it, three times. And I brace myself.
After a few moments there’s the sound of a chain rattling and the door opens a crack, releasing a waft of stale food smell. I glimpse brown eyes, a thatch of unkempt dark hair. And I throw myself at the door, putting my shoulder into it so it flies open before he can latch it shut again.
Marco, Millie’s scum-sucking drug-dealing violent bastard of an ex-boyfriend staggers back, banging into the wall.
“Get the fuck out,” he says, pushing off the wall. But he’s high, I can tell by the pinned eyeballs and the way he’s swaying slightly. I grab him by the throat, pushing him back against the wall.
“Just a friendly visit, Marco.” I spit the words in his face, slamming him into the wall again. I want to kill him, but I need to find Millie first.
“You can’t just barge your way in here.”
“I fucking can. My mum owns this place, in case you’ve forgotten. Besides, I didn’t barge in. Just tripped a bit on the threshold. Now, where is my sister?”
A cry comes from the next room. Mum. I slam Marco against the wall one more time, then release him, leaving him to slide down it like the pile of shit he is. I head into the living room. Fucking hell.
Millie’s decorating style has always tended towards the pink and sparkly, like the unicorn door knocker.
Marco trashed all her old stuff, so it was nice to take her out and buy new things for her, setting her up in the apartment again once it had been cleaned and redecorated.
The last time I visited it had been fresh and tidy, pink roses in a vase on the windowsill.
Now it looks like a hurricane has gone through the place.
Hurricane fucking Marco. The vase on the windowsill is tipped over, the flowers in it dead.
Pizza boxes are strewn across the room, food trodden into the carpet, the vintage embroidered tablecloth on the table by the window tattered.
There are needles in the corners, scattered among the rubbish, dropped on the now-filthy pink sofa.
But the worst thing, the absolute worst fucking thing of all, is the slumped form of my sister, curled up against the old fireplace as though she’s just more rubbish, used and discarded by her piece-of-shit boyfriend.
Mum is on her knees next to Millie. She’s crying, but she takes her pulse, rolling her gently into the recovery position.
“Call an ambulance.” She bites out the words, as though she’s holding back a scream.
I feel like screaming myself, roaring with rage.
But I need to focus. I dial 000 and wait to be patched through.
“Ambulance. Suspected overdose,” I hear myself saying. It’s like I’m detaching from the situation, like it’s happening to someone else. I can’t lose my baby sister, not like this. I listen to the dispatcher, answering their questions before hanging up.
“They’ll be here soon,” I say. “Is she… Is she still…?”
“She’s breathing.” Mum’s face is ravaged, older than her years when she looks up at me. “For now.”
Something hits me, knocking me sideways.
Mum cries out, throwing herself across Millie, protecting her with her body.
I right myself quickly, muscles honed by years of balancing on a surfboard coming into play.
Marco, staggering, swings at me. I want to break his neck.
But I satisfy myself with a sharp punch to his jaw.
His head goes back and he drops like a puppet with its strings cut, landing in an untidy heap.
“Bryce!”
“I know, Mum. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” My knuckles are throbbing, but it was fucking worth it. I’m not sorry at all.
Mum gets to her feet and comes over to Marco. I think she’s going to help him but instead she draws her foot back and kicks him, hard, in the ribs. My jaw drops. She glances at me. “I tripped,” she says, shrugging.
Despite how shitty this is, I almost laugh. Fucking Mum. What a legend.
Millie moans, her body jerking. Mum rushes back to her side, smoothing her dyed pink hair back from her brow. She lapses into unconsciousness again.
There’s a knock at the door, then a bang as the paramedics come in.
Then everything kind of blurs. The medics get to work straight away, injecting Millie with something, getting her onto a stretcher.
Mum is crying again. I can’t bear to watch, pain sharp in my chest, so I busy myself trying to tidy up, grabbing a rubbish bag from the filthy kitchen and starting to bag up the pizza boxes.
“Leave it, mate.” One of the paramedics, kneeling next to Marco, holds out his hand. “You don’t want a needle stick. What happened to this bloke?”
“He ran into my fist.”
The medic glances at me, then at Millie.
“She’s my sister.”
He nods. “Fair call. I’ll get another ambulance so they can be kept apart.”
“Appreciate it.”
I drop the bag of trash, my heart heavy. Mum comes to me, hugging me. We cling to each other as we watch the medics take Millie, then Marco away, leaving us in the shattered remains of Millie’s apartment.
“Come on.” I’m so close to crying, still feeling as though I’m stuck in a bad dream. “We need to get to the hospital.”
I don’t say anything as we drive to the Alfred Hospital, not trusting myself to hold back. I pull into the car park and find a spot, turning off the ignition. I don’t get out of the car, though. I sit there for a moment, then I slam my hand into the steering wheel.
Mum flinches, but her green gaze is steely.
“How long, Mum? How long?”
“Bryce, I—”
“You told me you were worried about her two weeks ago, but that it was okay. I came home anyway. I came to see you both, took her out for the day. I wanted to see how things were for myself. I was worried, but you said we needed to trust her.” I pause, catching my breath, not wanting to yell.
“And when you messaged me and I called you back, you still insisted everything was fine. But things seem pretty fucking far from fine. That apartment didn’t get like that in a couple of weeks!
” I’m so angry I can hardly see straight, my heart racing. But this isn’t Mum’s fault, not really.
“I didn’t know things were that bad.” Mum’s voice is shaking. “I didn’t. I thought she was still going to school. I swear I took her there myself, just a couple of weeks ago.”
“I bet he was already living there,” I say. “Already worming his filthy way back into her life. And now this shit.”
“It’s pretty common, among reformed addicts. They get used to injecting larger doses, because their resistance levels are high. And then they get clean.”
“But when they relapse, they inject the higher dose, because that’s what they know. And their bodies can’t handle it. Yeah, I know that, Mum. And I reckon Millie did, too. It doesn’t change the fact that she”—my voice breaks—“is in there right now, fighting for her life.”
“Oh!” Mum’s hand comes to her mouth, her face twisting.
I pull her in for a hug as she sobs, my own eyes prickling with tears. “Come on, Mum.” I rub her back, my voice softer. “We need to get in there. For her.”
Mum pulls back, sniffing. She wipes her eyes. Then she opens the car door and gets out.