Chapter 2
two
The river flows past the bench where I’m sitting, its familiar scent rich in the air. The breeze is cool on my face, and I tilt my face towards it, but it doesn’t calm me, and my foot starts its agitated tapping again.
Footsteps sound, and my eyes fly open. My brother is walking towards me. Everything in me tightens. I try a few deep breaths, but nothing will calm me today.
I look at him, analysing the blond hair that’s a shade darker than mine, the green eyes we got from our mum, and his long, angular body.
His hair is lank today, his face creased in lines that, now that I think about it, have been there for a while.
I don’t think I’ve looked at him like this before.
He’s usually just my brother—the funny, kind man who cared for me when our mum died.
He’d only been eighteen and didn’t have to take charge of a young kid, but he’d never faltered in his determination, and I can’t forget that.
He was my hero, and it hurts me now in some terrible way to look at him with anger and disappointment.
“Wes,” he says as he nears me. “You came.”
“So it appears,” I say coldly.
His steps falter slightly, his face going paler.
I don’t think he’s ever heard that tone from me.
Before yesterday, I idolised him. He was everything to me.
I immediately want to pull the sharp words back.
I can’t bear to hurt him. Then I remember Mum’s furniture, the things she so carefully budgeted for and loved, thrown on a rubbish pile.
And when I close my eyes for a moment, I see Cath’s white, strained face.
He comes to a stop next to me and gestures at the bench. “Can I sit down?”
“I don’t own it. Help yourself.”
He winces, either in embarrassment or irritation at my tone, and settles gingerly down on the bench. There’s a bruise on his cheekbone that makes my stomach lurch.
“Are you alright?” I ask reluctantly. “Did they do anything to you?”
“I’m fine,” he says quietly. “They roughed me up a bit, but it was nothing I didn’t deserve.”
“Would you even tell me if you were hurt?”
“Of course,” he says, startled.
I shake my head. “Don’t look surprised at that. Up until yesterday, I’d have believed you without needing proof.”
His eyes look bruised when he meets my gaze, and his shoulders slump as though he’s shrinking in on himself. But I refuse to have sympathy for him. Yesterday was horrible. But the discovery I made this morning has made everything so much worse.
Silence falls as I turn to watch the river. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him wringing his hands.
Finally, he bursts out, “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
I turn to him. “I’m not sure where to start, Tyler.”
“Wherever you want.”
That almost calm reply sends my anger up a few notches. “How fucking generous of you!”
His eye twitches, but he stays silent, solemnly staring at me, and that makes me even more angry.
“Should I start with the fact that the home we grew up in is gone?” I say. “And that Mum’s furniture is all on a bonfire somewhere?”
“Wes—”
“How about Mr Jackson’s thugs holding Cath in the house while they smashed all the furniture?”
He startles. “She never told me that.”
“You’ve spoken to her?”
“This morning. She’s at her mum’s. She’s staying there.”
“Are you surprised?”
“No.” He licks his lips. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, this should be good. So, you’re sorry about the house and Cath?
” He nods. “Well, how about my bank balance?” My hand thumps on the bench between us, and his arm twitches away.
It’s a tiny gesture, but one that stuns me.
It doesn’t stop my rage, though. “How about the fact that I had savings a few days ago and now they’re gone,” I continue.
“And I have an unauthorised overdraft? How about that, Tyler?” I sit back. “Fucking hell ,” I shout.
An old couple walking by quicken their steps to move past us.
“I’m—”
“If you say you’re sorry again I will knock your fucking teeth down your throat,” I say through my clenched jaw. “What the hell have you done, Tyler?”
I jump up and walk to the river’s edge. He moves to follow me, and I snap, “Stay there.” I look at the water for a few moments, breathing in the air and listening to the birdsong.
It makes the anger die a little, but it doesn’t ease the icy sludge of terror in my stomach.
The world has shifted, and my safe patch has gone, leaving me on a ledge over a steep drop.
“That was the money I’d saved for my master’s,” I finally say. “You know I won’t get a grant now. Everything’s gone.” I swallow hard.
“I’m sorry.”
“I told you not to say that.” I turn to him again.
His face is sheet white, with black circles under his eyes.
I take a breath. “Sorry means nothing in this situation. Sorry is for hurting someone’s feelings or forgetting a birthday.
It is not for losing our home and draining my bank account.
” My chill becomes hot anger. “What the hell, Tyler? You don’t gamble.
Not apart from the odd flutter on the Grand National. What’s going on?”
He shakes his head. “I know. I still can’t work out how I got here.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “Start at the beginning.”
“Someone at work gave me the name of a horse six months ago. Ginger Biscuit. Said he was a sure thing. Everyone was having a flutter, so I thought, why not? And I won, Wes. I won big .”
“How big?”
“Twenty grand.”
“What the hell ?” I breathe. “You never said one word. Not one fucking word.”
“I know.” He shifts on the bench, leaning forward, his eyes taking on a strange light.
“The thing is, I thought it was a sign. I could buy a bigger house for Cath and have enough money for kids. You know we’ve been thinking about starting a family.
” He sighs, the temporary energy fading away.
“I just wanted more than Mum had, you know?”
“Yes, I do.” Silence falls, and I stir. “And so, what happened?”
“I thought if I put a bet on something else, I could make more money.”
“Oh, Tyler.” I scrub my hands over my eyes. “And?”
He licks his lips. “I lost that and then more and more, and before I knew it, it was all gone, and I owed money.”
I contemplate strangling him. “So, you bet the house?”
“Not immediately,” he says at once. “But I got into bad shit with a group of men, and I just needed one big score and then everything would be okay.”
“And then you bet the house?” I continue remorselessly.
He sinks back. “Yes,” he whispers.
“And my bank account.” I can’t help the rage in my voice. “I know the house wasn’t mine, but…”
“You know Mum would have wanted you to have your share.”
“Her will never said anything about me.” She’d died, and we’d found that she’d left the house to Tyler before I was born. She’d never made another will.
“But I always thought of it as half yours. You know that.”
“Well, now I have half of nothing.” He flinches again. “No, worse than that. My bank account, Tyler. Fucking hell. There’s nothing left.”
“I know. I’m so sorry. I wrote your card number down as an emergency.”
“And I take it there was one. For you.”
“They threatened to break my legs.”
“I make no promises about not doing that myself. You took everything . How am I going to pay my university fees now?”
Sick fear fills me. I couldn’t believe it this morning when I checked my balance.
I thought I’d accidentally got onto someone else’s account for a moment.
There’s nothing left. My savings from the part-time job I had throughout uni have gone, along with the money I’d put away from my old grant.
I’d gone without so many things in order to save.
My friends all went out, spending money on booze and parties, but I didn’t because I had a dream of a job where I wouldn’t have to live like I did as a child.
“You know I’ve signed on to take my master’s. I have to pay those fees in September, or I’ll lose my place. Not to mention, where am I going to live? My job finished a few weeks ago, so I have no income, nowhere to live, and no money.”
“I’ll get the money back,” he says, urgently trying to take my hand.
I pull away sharply, cursing the fact that I still want to comfort him. “How? By gambling some more?”
He subsides and rubs his face. When he drops his hands, his eyes look red and raw. He starts to say something and then stops.
My eyes narrow. “What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more. I know that look on your face.” Dread seizes me. “Oh my god . What aren’t you telling me, Tyler?”
He licks his lips. “I fell behind with the household bills, so I took out a loan with the bank to help.”
“What the fuck?”
“I’m so—” He stops when I glare at him. “I missed some payments on the loan and the interest just kept going up, so I took out some credit cards too.”
“Let’s call a spade a spade, Tyler. You took on more debts.” I feel sick. “Because it’s obvious from the way you’re acting that you haven’t paid off those cards or the loan.”
“I used to stay home until the post came in the morning and take the statements.”
“How much do you owe?”
“A lot, Wes.”
I slump down on the bench. “Shit.”
“That’s not the worst bit,” he whispers.
“ Really ? What else could there possibly be? You owe Camilla Parker-Bowles a monkey?”
He hesitates and then, with the air of someone confessing his sin to a priest, he says, “I took out the credit cards in your name.”
“ What ?” I jump to my feet and almost face-plant. He puts a hand out to help me, and I slap it away. “How much?” I say fiercely, leaning over him, so he cowers back into the bench. “How fucking much?” I shout.
“Forty grand.” My legs feel suddenly weak, and I sink back onto the bench. “Forty grand. I owe forty grand. Oh my god .”
“I’ll make this right,” he says.
I laugh loudly, the jagged sound tearing at my throat as if it’s edged with razor blades.