Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
ME:
Are you okay? Caleb said your leg is in a cast. Call me xx
ME:
Caleb said you didn’t want to see anyone tonight. Can you just let me know when you get to your grandparents house? Please? xx
Wednesday, 26 February, 7:38 am
ME:
Are you awake? How are you feeling?
Wednesday, 26 February, 05:11 pm
ME:
Are you okay, Grim? Can I call you?
Thursday, 27 February, 11:46am
ME:
Please let me know you’re okay. I’m getting worried. Why won’t you answer my calls?
Thursday, 27 February, 8:12pm
ME:
I miss you. Is there anything I can do? I don’t understand. Please talk to me xx
***
I stare at my phone, willing the dots to dance and jump across the screen, but it just does what it always does: goes from sent to read.
“Still nothing from Gage?” Mum asks softly, kicking off her shoes before getting comfortable on the couch beside Dad. I’ve been here the last two nights, since the accident. Mum just got back from group therapy, so Dad and I have been keeping each other company.
I shake my head, turning my phone over so I can’t see the screen.
“No.” I pull the magazine I was barely reading back in front of me, and flick to the puzzles at the end.
There’s a pen on the coffee table, where it always is, ready for Dad to do his Sudoku puzzles each morning.
I click it open, then start reading down the clues for the crossword, unable to comprehend any of the questions.
My mind just keeps circling back to Gage.
I slam the pen down, then twist around from my spot on the floor to face Mum and Dad.
“What should I do?” My body slumps, mimicking my mood for the past two days.
“I think Gage is scared because of what he went through with August, but I thought he could talk to me. I thought, after everything we’ve been through, the way we’ve grown closer the last few months, that he knew I would be there for him.
” My eyes drop, focusing on where my fingers run over the smooth yellow polish Wren chose for me yesterday. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sure he knows that you want to be there for him. I’ll bet he even wants you with him right now. Hard things change you, darling. You never see life the same, you just learn how to react differently,” Mum says, and I know she’s drawing on her own experience with the past.
Dad picks up Mum’s hand and brings her palm to his lips, pressing a kiss there before he threads their fingers together and sets them down on her lap.
“It can be hard to learn the balance of loving someone who’s always healing.
You so desperately want to take their pain.
Slay their demons. But part of it is giving them space to reclaim their own peace and safety.
They gotta know they can do it themselves, and that we’re just there to be the extra muscle when they need a break from carrying the weight.
But you can’t take it from them straight away.
Give them the time and opportunity to see if they can keep going, let them know it’s okay if they need help, and that you’re proud of them either way. ”
Mum quickly wipes under an eye as she keeps her attention on Dad.
“While they’re busy working, we’re in the background, quietly making sure that everything else is safe.
It’s listening to the everyday things that they need, those little worries they’ll overthink, that then make the big things feel too big.
It’s reminding them on their good days, and their bad ones, how much you love them and how important they are in your life.
Some days, your mum feels like her troubles are too much for me, and she’ll overcompensate by making my favourite meal, adding my favourite chocolate to the grocery list, buying me an extra expensive birthday present.
So even on the mundane days, and especially on the harder days, I tell her I can’t believe how lucky I was that day I saw an angel, and three little cherubs stroll past my shop.
” Dad lays a hand over his heart with a big smile.
“I’ll never forget that moment. The clouds parted and sunshine rained down as if to say, Look, here they are, everything you ever wanted. ”
Tears gather in my eyes, but don’t fall. I was so young when Dad came into our lives, I forget sometimes that he’s not my birth dad. He’s never loved me and my sisters any differently. We’ve always been his girls.
“Just keep showing up, darlin’. He’ll pull his head out of his arse soon enough. Let him get there. The journey’s still going, the road’s just a little messy.”
“It’s hard to learn how to trust someone new when you know what it’s like to be broken.
” Mum’s voice wobbles over the words. “You’re always worried that you’re making the same mistakes.
Scared of the same thing happening, but next time, you won’t be able to pick up the pieces and put them back together again.
Then things go right, and you’re gripping onto them so tight you wonder if you’re suffocating them, ruining everything because you’re not meant to have good things.
It can be a dark place, and when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t realise how far you’ve come until someone points it out.
If you really don’t want to give up on this guy, then don’t.
Just be there, waiting with the light for when he’s ready to find you. ”