Chapter 17 Sebastian #2
Soon we were gathered around the dining table and hopefully, I’d won some points helping Lily take the food, drinks, and cutlery over to it.
“You understand the premise of the game?” Liv asked.
“Sure.”
“Okay, this is for everyone,” January said as she held her burger to her mouth. “Would you rather eat nothing but kale for the rest of your life or eat what you want but have chronic diarrhea forever?”
“Really?” Liv glowered at her. “We’re eating and you start with that?”
“It was the food that inspired the question.”
Smothering my grin, I looked at Lily across the table and saw she was struggling not to laugh around her bite of burger.
“Chronic diarrhea,” Nate answered seriously.
“Agreed.” I nodded.
“Me too.” Jan took an aggressive bite of her burger.
Lily and her mother exchanged a look and then nodded in unison. “Me too.”
“Would you rather live in Stranger Things or The Last of Us?” Nate asked.
I frowned because I hadn’t seen The Last of Us.
“Stranger Things. Eleven and I would be BFFs,” January said with authority and seriousness.
“The Last of Us,” Liv said.
Her husband glanced at her. “Pedro Pascal?”
“Maybe.”
“Then I better choose The Last of Us, so you don’t run off with the bastard.”
“He’s probably going to die in season two,” January opined. “If that helps.”
“Lily-Billy?” Nate asked.
I almost choked on my burger. “Lily-Billy?”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Don’t even think about calling me that.”
“But it’s so very tempting.”
“I will end you. I will drag you into The Last of Us with me and end you.”
Shoulders shaking with laughter, I replied, “I’ve never seen it.”
Nate gestured at us. “Lil, you need to fix that. Watch it with him. It’s a great show.”
I nodded because I’d use any excuse to spend time with my friend. “We should definitely do that.”
Lily smiled. “We’ll pencil that in to our already bursting schedule. Anyhoo, would you rather spend one month out of your entire life living your version of a perfect, blissful existence, knowing the rest of your life would be mediocre? Or live a mediocre life never knowing bliss?”
“Trust the psychotherapist to go deep.” Jan groaned in exaggeration.
“Well?”
“You know I’m picking a month of bliss.”
“Me too,” Liv decided.
Nate considered it. “Aye, a month of bliss is better than nothing.”
“Agreed.” Lily leaned into her dad with a smile and then they stared expectantly at me.
I shrugged. “I’d rather not know. Mediocre life never knowing.” I sensed Lily’s attention turn scrutinizing, so I changed the subject. “Would you rather spend eternity at a philosophy lecture or at a concert where they play the same song over and over again?”
“They like you,” Lily announced as we walked to the bus stop hours later. “My family likes you.”
Mid-October meant it was dark at this time and getting chillier by the day.
January had left not long after dinner to record a podcast episode.
She’d needled Lily for being more absent on the podcast than she’d expected her to be.
“But then you’d have to date to have anything interesting to say, wouldn’t you?
” she’d said pointedly to her big sister.
Lily glowered at her.
Now I let her words about her family penetrate.
They felt good. After dinner and the fun Would You Rather game, Nate had shown me his photography studio at Lily’s urging.
His passion projects were my favorite. He played around with filters and digital art to make his photographs almost painting-like.
We had fun and I was relieved Nate seemed to like me.
I told Lily as much. “I’m glad. I like them too. ”
We stopped at the empty bus station and Lily shivered against the cold. I reached out and buttoned up the last button on her coat.
She smirked. “Thanks, Mum.”
“You looked cold. So … the podcast. You haven’t spoken much about it these last few weeks.”
Lily sighed. “I feel terrible because you know how much it means to me, but I haven’t had time.”
“To do the episodes or to date?” My heart hammered in my chest, and I didn’t want to think about why.
“Both. This year … the coursework is more than I even expected.”
“Yet you still find time for your friends?” For me.
“Of course. Dating is different, though.”
“In what way?”
“The mental energy it takes, for a start.”
I frowned, genuinely confused.
Lily laughed, but it was humorless. “You wouldn’t understand, Sebastian. You only have to look at a girl and speak to her in that posh voice and she’s telling everyone it was the best date of her life.”
Feeling rather smug she thought so, I couldn’t help my answering grin.
She smacked my arm. “Ego!”
I snickered. “You were the one who said it, not me.”
“My point is, when I go on a date, I overthink what I should wear. I overthink what I’m going to say.
I then beat myself up mentally when I say something that was stupid or banal.
By the time I’m done with a date, I’m exhausted.
Drained. And then I spend the rest of the next few days worrying about what he thought of me.
How I could have been a better date. Why didn’t he like me?
Why I told him I liked peanut butter and pickle sandwiches when I was thirteen. It’s horrible.”
“I agree, peanut butter and pickle sandwiches sounds disgusting,” I teased.
Lily playfully shoved me, her lips curling ever so slightly. Yet there was sadness in her eyes.
My gut clenched at the idea of Lily putting herself through such mental gymnastics for something as simple as a date. “You didn’t seem all that bothered with that finance guy that night at Whistlebinkies.”
“No, because I didn’t like him from the moment he showed up. But if I think someone has potential, I’m a nervous wreck on the first few dates. It takes me ages to relax.”
“It didn’t take you ages to relax with me.”
“Because there’s no romantic intention here.” She shrugged as if that were obvious.
I mean, she was right. There was no romantic intention. Didn’t mean we both weren’t fighting an attraction to keep our friendship afloat.
Then I remembered something. “You were pretty nervous when we first met.”
Lily groaned, covering her face with her hand. “Don’t remind me.”
I tugged gently on her wrist, uncovering her gorgeous features. “Look, we’re friends, so I feel like I can tell you this and it might help.”
“Okay …”
“I found your nervousness adorable. Truly. You should stop worrying so much what blokes are thinking and just be you.”
“Oh, if only I’d thought of that.”
Her sarcastic response made me grin. “I’m serious.”
“I wish it were that easy.” She sighed again and contemplated me. “How was home?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do actually.” She squeezed my arm. “I saw the look on your face when you first got here. It was bad, wasn’t it?”
Letting out a slow exhale, I leaned back against the bus stop shelter. “Lil … I … I feel like these people I thought I knew better than anyone have turned into complete strangers. It’s fucking with my head.”
“Of course it is.” She settled beside me, her side pressed to mine. “What happened?”
“Dad has moved into one of the cottages in their village. I was to spend Thursday night and Saturday with him and then Friday and Sunday with Mum at the house. Juno came up on Friday too. Dad was very, very drunk for the most part. He rarely ever drank before. A whisky at special occasions. Maybe share a pint with the locals during the village on Field Day. It’s like a day of celebration.
There are activities and a parade and all that stuff.
Anyway, suffice it to say Dad is not dealing with the separation at all well and has turned into a very angry drunk who said nasty things about Mum and said something so cutting about Juno, I almost punched him. ”
He’d called Juno a flaky waste of space just like Mum. I knew he was drunk, and I hoped when he was sober, he’d feel awful about it. I was glad Juno wasn’t there to hear him speak of her like that.
“Sebastian.” Lily tangled her fingers in mine, squeezing them. I laced my fingers through hers, seeking her warmth, her comfort.
“Mum, on the other hand, veered between talking shit about Dad and discussing her busy social calendar. Oh, and there were the boxes of my father’s stuff she was throwing out without telling him, so I had to rescue those.
To top it all off, Juno discovered Mum’s on a dating app.
When that became a discussion, I heard more about my mother’s sexual needs than any son ever, ever bloody well needs to hear.
“The pièce de résistance was Saturday evening. We heard loud rock music blaring from out on the estate and discovered my father there. He was rip-roaring drunk again, he had one of those old boom boxes I didn’t even know still existed, blaring Led Zeppelin, and he was digging up all the beetroot.
Beetroot he insisted he was the one who wanted to plant so it was his to take.
Juno and I stood there while they got into a physical tug of war over fucking beetroot.
The shrieking and yelling … I’m surprised they didn’t hear them all the way to the village.
Christ, it’s like they’re caricatures of a separated couple.
And anytime Juno and I try to press for a real answer as to why they separated, my dad just shouts and stomps around and Mum zips up tight like a fucking airlock bag.
” I looked down at Lily. “You don’t understand …
these are two people who were so mild-mannered …
and, like, unusually content with life. It would be like your parents suddenly turning around and telling you they were getting a divorce. ”
Her fingers tightened around mine. “I am so sorry. I think parents have this bad habit of assuming because their kids are grown up that their actions and words don’t affect us the same way.
But it’s a bond unlike any, and you can’t change that drastically on someone you love without it hurting them.
What you need to keep in mind is that they were and still are, deep down, the parents you love and remember, and so for them to change like this … they must be in so much pain.
“Whatever happened between them … well, things always have a way of pushing their way to the surface. Like a splinter beneath the skin. And it’ll hurt like hell while it’s in there, but when it comes out, when the truth comes out, there might be some pain, but there will also be relief.
The truth will come out, Sebastian. It just takes time. ”
A swell of emotion tightened around my chest, crushing almost in its intensity. My voice was gruff when I eventually replied, “I was in a shit mood before I got here. But you and your family … you made it better. Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re welcome anytime, Thorne.”
We sat in silence for a while, and it wasn’t until the bus arrived that I finally let go of her hand.