Chapter 10
10
Alex and Avery wandered into my house that next Tuesday like it was their own.
Heading straight to the kitchen, they dished out their own bowls of the pasta I had bragged to them about, and stuffed their arms full of snacks for our movie night. I watched them over the back of the couch with a raised brow, slurping up my own bowl of pasta, as they raided the kitchen before coming to settle next to me, discussing what movie we should watch.
Being friends for the past thirteen years, we automatically made ourselves at home in each other’s homes.
Movie night always happened at my house because of the 85-inch TV, L-shaped couch, and blackout curtains. My dad took pride in that media room, engineering the surround sound system and soundproofing so it felt like a home cinema. It was everyone’s favourite room in the house.
Scrolling through the movie options on the TV, we bickered amongst each other about what to watch.
“Oh, I loved that movie. Paul Walker was so sexy in that,” Avery piped up when I scrolled to the movie Into the Blue .
I hummed, my nose scrunched up. “Not feeling it. I’m thinking rom-com.”
Avery and Alex both groaned at that.
“It’s always rom-coms with you. If it’s not 10 Things I Hate About You , it’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days . You need to broaden your watch list, Kods,” Alex said, twisting in his seat to face me like he was going to lecture me.
“But they’re classics. How can you ever get bored watching them?” I asked rhetorically, but Alex still answered as he shot me a deadpan look.
“When you rewatch them at least ten times a week.”
I held my hands up, grinning innocently. “Hey, let’s not go to that extreme. I’d say only two times at most.”
Something about watching romance movies just made me feel hope to feel that way. To feel the butterflies they feel when the other walks in the room. To feel like you’re the only two in the room. To feel my heart pound when someone touches my cheek or their breath on my mouth or their eyes solely on mine.
Reece popped into my head, and then I thought about the butterflies I felt when he slid his hand up my jaw and stood close enough to feel him everywhere around me. When he almost kissed me, even though he pulled back at the last minute, my lips tingled with the sensation like he had closed that distance.
I shook the thought from my head immediately.
“And that's two times too many.”
“Okay, so let’s meet in the middle then,” Avery interrupted, stealing the TV control to flick through the movies.
She threw out a few options before we settled on Fantasy Island .
We watched the movie in relative silence as we downed our pasta, and munched on the snacks and drinks scattered on the coffee table. It was about seven o’clock when the movie finished, and they both decided to stay the night.
The TV silently played an old episode of How I Met Your Mother as we chatted.
“I cannot wait for your birthday next week. We’re going to throw the biggest party and get drunk as shit,” Alex grinned as he plucked a salt and vinegar chip from the packet on his lap.
Avery and Alex had taken it upon themselves to organise a party at my house. I didn’t have to do anything about it since they reassured me that they would handle it. I didn’t know whether to be relieved, or scared.
“It better not be big. I do not have the patience to clean up that aftermath, and I don’t want a bunch of strange people in my house,” I warned him, but I caught the side-eye he shot Avery, and I narrowed my gaze at him, to which he smiled innocently.
“Alex, I swear to god?—”
“Relax,” he interrupted, smiling from ear to ear. “I didn’t invite anyone you don’t already know. I wouldn’t do that.”
I huffed, “Good.”
“I did send a few invites to a few more people, though, for you,” he shrugged.
My eyes narrowed on him again. “Who?”
He smiled again. “Reece, Jake, and Sage. I thought you might have liked them to come. I had to Facebook stalk them.”
I sagged against the couch in relief before a mix of emotions fluttered through me. “Oh.”
“Oh?”
I shrugged, not knowing what else to say. I didn’t even think to invite them, but I was glad they were coming. Though, after what happened at the game, I didn’t know how to really feel. I still felt hurt by Reece’s words, even if they were true. I just didn’t expect him to throw them in my face like he did. I thought he knew how I felt about the situation between Liam and I. I thought he knew how much guilt I felt from what I did to him.
But clearly, he still felt a tiny bit of resentment towards me for hurting his best friend.
“I thought you might have liked them to come,” Alex paused, eyes flickering over my face for a moment. “But I can uninvite them if you’re not comfortable?”
I shook my head immediately. “No. No, it’s fine. They’re friends. Why wouldn’t I want them to come?”
I could tell the smile on my face was strained and, by the look on Avery and Alex, they could see right through it.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell them about what happened. Maybe because I thought I was overreacting, or that I deserved it. I’m not sure.
But, I shrugged off the concern that they threw my way and steered the conversation back to my birthday.
I was the first one of us to turn eighteen, therefore I couldn’t go out since there was no one to go with me yet. But I was happy to just have a small get-together at my house to celebrate.
Alex had wanted to make it a surprise party originally, but I had caught him talking about it with someone at school, inviting them to come the night of my birthday. He denied it at first before spilling it all.
“Okay, so, on the topic of your birthday,” Avery interjected. “What do you want? We’ve brainstormed everything we know you would like, but everything just seemed too basic of a present. What’s something you want that would mean a lot to you?”
The question stumped me. I was terrible at gift-giving myself, let alone knowing what I wanted. That’s all I’ve been worried about lately, what I wanted.
I shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe a camera or something. Anything is fine, really. Whatever you guys get me, I’m sure I will love it.”
Avery huffed at my vague answer but let it go as she typed on her phone.
“As long as there’s cake, I don’t care about much else,” I added.
Alex scoffed. “Who do you think we are? Of course there’s cake.”
“What type?”
Alex narrowed his eyes. “I’m not that dumb, so don’t even try to trick me into telling you. It’s a secret since you ruined the rest of it.”
I smiled innocently at that.
The conversation died down, and it wasn’t long before we retreated to the bedroom and fell asleep.
My phone buzzed beside me as I sat at the kitchen bench the next morning, sipping my coffee.
Avery and Alex both left after raiding my kitchen again for breakfast and kissing my cheek as a farewell. My neck felt stiff that morning from waking up without a pillow under my head because Alex had stolen it sometime during the night. He tossed and turned in his sleep, and I usually slept through anything.
Dad had come out a little while after they left, and my phone buzzed again as he passed by with an incoming call.
Just like the time before, I was going to ignore it. It was too early to deal with whatever she was upset at me about. Most likely from ignoring her call from the day before as well. Dad shot me a look as he took his place beside me, daring me to decline the call.
“Answer it, Dakota. She’s your mother,” he said.
“Yeah, and a pretty lousy one,” I mumbled.
He heard me and gave me an unimpressed look. He opened his mouth to say something, but I answered the call and pressed it to my ear.
“Hey, Mum,” I answered while I gave Dad the sweetest, innocent smile I could muster. He just rolled his eyes and shook his head.
She hummed. “Ignoring me again, I see. I thought we talked about this. I deserve better than that for all I’ve done for you.”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose and held my breath to try and keep all my thoughts from filtering through.
It was hard sometimes. Especially when she said things like that. Because what did I deserve? I was ignored for the better half of my life, only seemingly interesting when she thought I was throwing my life away. She never paid attention to me when I was a child. And I tried so hard for that attention because I saw how she treated Nate. It was like she only had room for one child in her life. I was just an accident, born into an already shaky foundation of a family. I grew to accept it, though, that I wouldn’t have a mother-daughter relationship I had seen with all the other kids I grew up with. I had my dad, and it was enough. It didn’t make it hurt any less, though.
I released my breath slowly to control that anger before I replied.
“I’m sorry, Mum. I had my phone on silent in my room the whole day. I was with my friends.”
Only a partial truth, but she didn’t need to know that it was only there because of her incessant ringing.
“That’s not a good place to have your phone. What if something happened to me? Or Nathan? Or your dad?”
I closed my eyes, pressing my lips together and mustering the rest of my strength to feign politeness into my voice.
“Is there a reason you called, Mother?”
She paused for a second, most likely biting back all her arguments to my question and the attitude laced in it as she would point out.
“Yes, there is,” she started. “I’m not going to be able to do the seventh for our lunch reservation, so I’d like to move it to today. I only have a short amount of time open, so meet me at one o’clock at Le Jardin Beachfront Restaurant.”
It wasn’t an offer, it was more so like a demand, which was always her way. She never asked, she just assumed you would make time for her whenever she was available.
So, I didn’t argue. I agreed and she hung up shortly after with no casual conversation. No ‘how are you?’ or ‘how are things going?’. It was just how she was. She cut straight to the point.
Dad squeezed the back of my neck. “It won’t be so bad, chook.”
I scoffed. “Have you met her lately?”
“Hey,” he patted my shoulder before squeezing it. “I may not be in contact with your mother much anymore, but I know she only wants the best for you. She had a hard time growing up, and she doesn’t want that for you. It may not be the best tactic she uses, but just know that she does love you.”
My shoulders slumped. I had been told this when I was younger. On the times Mum had given me just the slightest of her attention, she had told me to dream big. That I wasn’t meant for this regular life with minimum benefits. Because she knew how that felt. She had grown up in a low-income and could barely scrape together money for their next meal.
She worked hard to get to where she was, I knew that. But then she had kids straight after getting her law degree, and she never knew how to sacrifice just a little bit of that time for her kids. It’s why, eventually, Dad divorced her. She didn’t have time anymore to love everyone when she was only focused on her job, her first love. It didn’t upset me when it happened. I guess I was already prepared for it. I never really saw them together much and when they were, they would argue like nothing else. They were two different ends of a jigsaw puzzle that never fit together.
I waved it off. “Yeah, whatever. Let’s just watch a movie before I have to suffer.”
He wrapped his arm around my neck and messed my hair with his other hand. I giggled, moving out of his arms before we settled and chose a movie to watch for the two hours before I had to get ready to leave.
When the movie finished, Dad didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He just kissed the top of my head and passed through to the kitchen.
I took my time getting ready, all the while my stomach was in knots, and I chewed my thumb nail right down to the quick.
I chose the perfect clothing to my mother’s standards and kept my makeup light to cover any blemishes or flaws I might have had. I made sure to make everything about my appearance to her high standard to minimise the things she could criticise about me.
I was prepared for the talk about my future, but I was still running on a bit of a high since graduating high school and I knew anything else she would bring up would send me plummeting.
So, I prepared and tried to quiet my nerves all the way to the fancy restaurant she had picked out in the city. My palms were so sweaty that I tried to subtly shake them dry.
But, I knew nothing could ever prepare me for these meals with my mother. I should have known that. I’ve always known that.