SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
"Sit down with me a moment, Sebastian," Aunt Judy urges me as soon as I've stepped through the back door into the kitchen. She pulls out the chair beside hers at the table and pats the seat. Despite her warm smile, the weary lines of her face betray an unnerving solemnity. "Please."
I frown at her while kicking off my mud-caked wellies and shutting the door behind Dobby, who immediately bounds over to his water bowl. Judy's worked a twelve-hour shift today, and it's well past time she should have retired for the night. The two steaming mugs of tea set out on the table indicate she has been explicitly awaiting my return from the farm. She holds her silence, however, until I'm settled next to her. Angling around so that we're facing each other, I rest my elbow on the table and give a prompting nod.
"Before I tell you this," she says, fixing me with a stern stare, plump lips pressing tight. "I need you to promise me you won't lose your head, Sebastian, thinking there's anything you can and need to do. Okay?"
Dobby pads over to me and lays his head on my lap. His compassionate brown eyes look up at me as if he knows where this is going. I have the awful feeling that I know it, too. And should my suspicion be proven correct, there's no way I can promise what she's asking.
"Okay?"
"Just tell me."
A flicker to her expression suggests she's all of a sudden doubting the wisdom of continuing this conversation. Then, "I'm not comfortable keeping this from you, but no good will come of you getting yourself involved. You can't—"
"It's Mum," I cut her off. "Right?"
The lack of denial is all the answer I need.
My gaze drops to Judy's rumpled blue scrubs. "At the hospital?"
"Yes," she relents after a pause, furrowing her brow. She reaches for my hand, and I let her take it. Her tension seems to ease a tiny fraction, reassured that I'm willing to at least hear her out before bolting into some rash action. "Your mum came into A he's on her shit list at the best of times. And there's not a chance I'm taking him to one of his loser mates from the fucking Pit. He has no one else."
"This…" Again, I can't resist toeing him in the shoulder. "This is not my problem, Alex!"
Ashleigh drops to her knees beside Craig as he groans. She glares at me, but if she were aware of how much self-control I'm implementing right now, she'd be grateful.
"I'm worried about him, okay? Usually, he'll have one too many, and he'll just get dumb and mouthy until he passes out. But tonight, he flipped. I've never seen him so aggressive before."
There's not a worse appeal Alex could possibly have made. "Aggressive? And you've brought him here? Ash, seriously?"
She's quick to avert her amber gaze.
"Look at the state of him, man. Who's he a danger to now besides himself? He's going through some stuff at the moment, and I just need for him to be with someone I can trust to watch out—"
"Hey, Al? Al!" Craig interrupts him, rolling onto his back — with Ashleigh's help — to stare up at us. "Don't even pretend like you know what I'm going through, okay, bruv? Or that you care. None of you do."
In the following beat of silence, glances are exchanged, and that's all the time it takes for my temper to riot. I glance back at the farmhouse, where Judy's probably already tossing and turning, where Dobby's fretfully awaiting my safe return. And I think of Clark, playing my mum like a stringed puppet in my childhood home, warping her mind with his piteous tales of woe. Then, I'm grabbing hold of Craig's limp arm, yanking him viciously. His startled grunt of protest has me tightening my grip.
I lean in, positioning my mouth close to his ear. "Pick your super-special butt up off my driveway, snowflake!"