Chapter 5
On Friday evening, Mom knocks lightly on my bedroom door. I quickly close my sketchbook and slip off my headphones.
“I was thinking of ordering some takeout,” she says, smiling at me. “How about a girly movie night and Chinese?”
I grin. “Yes please. That sounds perfect.”
We haven’t done that in ages. Dad used to watch the movies with us, too, even if he’d grumble through half of them and secretly enjoy them, but it’s always been my and Mom’s thing, really. She’s a sucker for a good romance.
I guess that’s why she hasn’t suggested watching any for months now. A bitter, drawn-out divorce must make Julia Roberts going after her best friend at his wedding tricky to swallow.
Maybe since Dad moved out a couple of months ago and they’ve both gotten some space, they’re finally getting over themselves?
It sounds brutal even as I think it, but it’s true.
Everything recently has been about the failure of their marriage, the counseling that didn’t work, that endless back and forth with divorce lawyers, the fights that culminated in flipping a coin to see who’d move out and who’d stay in the house with me.
The very least they needed was space from each other—I’m just glad it seems to be working.
“What’re you working on?” Mom asks, nodding at my sketchbook. I wish I’d shoved it farther out of the way and made it look like I’d just been scrolling TikTok or something instead.
“Just something for school. Coursework.”
Which it is, sort of. It’s another sketch of Téiglin the stag creature, this one a rough outline for the version I want to do on canvas with acrylics, a little more abstract and less precise.
It fits in with the nature theme, and it’s certainly more technical than a rose in a vase and would get me a better grade—or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
Not because I’m enjoying it, or intrigued enough by OWAR that it’s inspired me…
“Can I have a look?”
I tug the sketchbook a little way off the desk, like I’ll hug it to my body if she comes too close. “It’s not ready yet.”
Mom clicks her tongue and laughs, used to me not showing my schoolwork.
She jokes that it’s because I’m a perfectionist like her, and I let her go on thinking it.
The truth is, in the past couple of years it’s been more a case of not wanting to show off my artwork, because it usually leads to a fight with her and Dad and then they end up at each other’s throats.
Dad was an artist, when they met. He would do wedding photography, and he liked painting in his spare time.
He even sold a few pieces, and had been looking into a gallery exhibition, but ultimately he gave it all up for a more stable job working for a marketing agency.
I’m not exactly sure what his job is these days, but I know it’s more corporate and a lot less creative.
Lately, he’s blamed Mom for “stifling” him and forcing him to give up his passion, although I haven’t seen him pick up a paintbrush in forever.
I found all his old art supplies in the garage when I was little. Half-dried-out tubes of acrylic paint and stiff paintbrushes and a stack of unused canvases.
Mom threw them out when she found out I was using them, although I had just spilled a big blob of scarlet paint on my cream bedroom carpet. Dad bought me a new set of supplies, but these days I’m pretty sure it was in retaliation, and less about supporting my new hobby.
I hated feeling responsible for their fights, even in a small way.
Whenever I think too hard about it, I end up with more questions than I honestly want the answers to; but I know my pull toward art is tangled up in a lot of messy emotions for both my parents, so I’ve learned that it’s easier to bury it away, rather than thrust it in front of their faces.
So I appreciate Mom asking and showing some interest, but I wish she wouldn’t. There are a lot of things I don’t bother sharing with my parents these days; a rough sketch of a woodland scene is the very least of it.
Mom goes back downstairs to order the food, and when the doorbell rings with our delivery I pack up my stuff to go join her.
We lay everything out on the coffee table and load up our plates, resting them on our laps to eat while our movie of choice plays on the TV. Tonight, Mom’s chosen Notting Hill.
She asks me how school’s going, and I tell her it’s fine. She asks if I’ve made any new friends, and I say sort of.
“There’s some girls in a few of my classes I’ve been eating lunch with” is about all I offer up, not really feeling like getting into it now.
Once upon a time I probably would’ve agonized with her over every exchange, every Instagram like and in-joke, but this is probably the most we’ve really talked in a while.
It’s a nice change; that distance from Dad and the divorce stuff must really be helping.
Adults are always saying teenagers are a law unto themselves and don’t talk to their parents, but it’s really the other way around.
My parents are both so wrapped up in their own lives—and their ongoing divorce—that I’m just…
there. I guess I’m old enough to look after myself now, though, so maybe this is what it’s like for everybody my age?
Maybe this is just their way of treating me like a grown-up, like the teachers at school who don’t need us to ask permission to go to the bathroom during class anymore.
“Haven’t you got any plans with them this weekend?” Mom asks me.
“No…not yet.”
“Well, you can always invite them over here, if you like? Order in some pizzas or something.”
It’s all I can do not to laugh in her face, and instead I choke down my food, spraying a little egg fried rice out on to my plate as I cough. I cover my mouth with my hand and Mom hands me my glass of water.
In what world could she ever think I’d want to invite people over here? I don’t even want to be here sometimes.
But I just say, “Maybe. I’ll see. It’s early days, so we’re not really that sort of friends yet.”
“And what about Jake? How’s he been?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. He’s busy tonight with the soccer guys.”
They’ve gone to someone’s house to play Xbox. I bet Max is there, since he’s on Jake’s team. I grit my teeth just thinking of his smug, judgmental face from the convention last weekend. The fact he’s probably there tonight feels like a point for him, a loss for me.
Which is silly, I know. We’re not competing for Jake’s friendship, but…
We are.
We’re absolutely competing for it, even if Max doesn’t realize that yet.
Mom senses there’s something I’m not saying, because she lowers the volume a bit on the movie and pierces me with a worried look over the top of her thick-framed glasses.
Her eyes aren’t the deep mossy green mine are, but ringed with a hazel that makes them look gilded.
“Are the two of you not talking very much anymore? You’ve hardly mentioned him recently, even after you saw him in town on the weekend. ”
“Oh my God, Mom—”
“It’s really normal for that to happen, Cerys, you know. Especially at your age. Going off to different schools, then universities, living all around the country, growing up…Lots of friendships just fizzle out. Life gets very busy.”
“That’s not what’s happening,” I snap, a little too sharply. She raises a blond eyebrow. “There’s just not a lot to say, that’s all. We still text loads. And I might see him Sunday, actually.”
I’ve asked if he’s free, if he wants to hang out and watch a couple more episodes of OWAR with me, but of course he hasn’t replied yet; he’s busy with the boys. I messaged in the Discord, too, about how I need some more Téiglin content for my art projects, but Jake hasn’t replied there, either.
There’s a hollow, raw feeling in my chest, and it doesn’t go away even after Mom pulls a blanket over both our legs so we can snuggle into the sofa with our food comas for the rest of the film.
My phone finally pings a little while later—a text from Jake.
Jake
Agh I’m over with the grandparents on Sunday! Nan’s doing a roast, and it’s Gin’s last weekend home before she’s back to uni. Maybe in the week, after school? I’ll get some snacks! x
The kiss makes my heart flutter more than any single letter in a text message has any right to.
I try telling myself that sometimes Jake sends a kiss when he’s being extra-nice, or even an “xo” if he’s being snarky and goofing around to make me laugh, but it doesn’t dampen that giddy feeling, or the way my brain immediately starts planning an outfit for our not-quite-date after school to watch OWAR.
Maybe I should watch the episodes in advance, so I can think of smart things to ask him and he can show off his knowledge of the show?
Mom and I watch another film—Four Weddings and a Funeral, as Mom decides she’s on a Hugh Grant kick tonight—and by then it’s late enough that she sends me off to bed.
“Your dad’s coming over for dinner tomorrow, by the way,” she says when I’m almost out of the room—launching the grenade she’s apparently had her thumb on for the past few hours. I grit my teeth, wondering if that’s what this whole “film and takeout” night was about.
Not about just spending time together, after all.
“Oh. Right. So, um…” Is this her way of telling me to make myself scarce? I don’t know how to ask that. “Do you have more stuff to go over together, for the lawyers?”
Mom gives me such a look of exaggerated shock, then laughs. “No, you silly thing, he’s just coming over for dinner! We are still a family. We thought it would be nice.”
NICE? I want to scream. Nice? Dinner? With both of them? I can’t remember the last time that was nice. Tense, maybe, and full of long stretches of silence broken only by one of them asking me to “pass the salt.”
“We discussed it in couples’ counseling this week,” Mom adds, which is the grenade exploding. My stomach drops away.
“I thought you stopped going to those sessions?” I manage, my voice sounding at least halfway normal.
“No! No, we started them back up a little while ago. They’re helping lots!”
Are they? Shit. I don’t want them to get help, I want them to get the divorce they’ve been on the verge of for years!
I can’t cope with walking on eggshells around them both for another two years until I can leave for uni.
They’ve tried this before—all the back and forth of “learning to communicate” and “doing the work,” and it never actually helps.
It’s not that I don’t want to see my dad more—I miss him a lot since he moved out, even if he’s still been around plenty. I just hope to God this isn’t some latest attempt at any kind of real reconciliation.
I’m almost about to make up some excuse to get out of it, but I’ve already admitted to having no plans this weekend, so I’m stuck saying, “Great, that’ll…be nice, yeah,” before making a hasty escape up to bed, already emotionally drained at the mere thought of tomorrow’s so-called family dinner.
As I tuck myself into bed and check my phone, there’s a Discord notification, and my mood instantly lifts.
@runicrascal
Just wait for episode 4. It’s a DOOZY.
Assuming your Friday night plans were more exciting than watching your new favorite obsession, Of Wrath and Rune. Hope you had a good one
@mythicwitch
V exciting, thank you. The kind of plans involving Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and a bookshop.
…wait, what happens in episode 4? DOES he die?
I’m unduly attached to this stag-skull character. I can’t tell if that’s just because he’s a perfect subject for my art coursework, or if it’s the banter with @runicrascal spurring me on. It’s kind of fun, if only for the excuse to chat with Jake.
@runicrascal
Notting Hill? A classic choice.
@mythicwitch
You know it!
@runicrascal
And about ep4…that would be telling. I thought we said no spoilers?
@mythicwitch
I’m starting to see where you got the “rascal” part of your username, Runic.
@runicrascal
:D