Chapter 3 MAEVYN
“In conclusion, those are my reasons for exemption from participating in all future sporting events. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.”
I’m barely containing my laughter as I push an assortment of green vegetables around in the saucepan, having listened to Aurora’s shining example of why, though she is brilliant, she’s highly uncoordinated and embarrassed herself spectacularly during today’s gym class.
She’s just survived her first two days of high school, and yes, survived is the proper term we’re using, according to her.
She’s adamant she should be excused from physical activity, since her debut into hurdles resulted in clipping the first hurdle and making the whole line go down like dominoes, somehow managing to get the second hurdle attached to her gym shorts and finally folding herself like a lawn chair over the third one.
“It sounds like, in the interest of everyone’s safety, the teacher may ask you to sit out anyway, babe.”
Aurora shakes her head with conviction. “No! You should have seen the look in her eyes when she told me she’d have me running hurdles with my eyes closed by the end of the term. The woman needs hobbies. Honing my non-existent athletic abilities should not please her this much.”
A snort slips out as I push diced chicken off the chopping board and into our stir-fry. Aurora groans as she slinks back from the island bench and wanders into the lounge room, dropping onto the couch with an exaggerated sigh.
“Please, Mum. It happened in front of literally the whole school,” she calls out.
“I think the whole school is a bit of a stretch,” I say as I measure out two servings of rice.
“Okay, the whole class. But by the end of the day, the entire year heard about it. Some of the guys started calling me ‘hurdles’.”
I can’t help the bark of laughter. No one tells you how hard it is to stay in parent-mode when your kids do hilarious shit.
Like when they’re four years old and innocently drop their first F bomb.
You’re meant to remain stern and unimpressed when you calmly remind them that those words are adult words.
Not laugh when you end up side by side at the traffic lights with the fucking dickhead who cut you off moments earlier, and your daughter decides to wind down her window and tell him just that.
“Sorry, Superstar. High school embarrassment is a rite of passage. Barely any of us manage to avoid it.”
Aurora pouts as she leans forward, collecting her crochet supplies off the coffee table.
I smile as I continue making dinner while glancing at my daughter as she easily moves the needles through the yarn of her next creation.
I think we’re into sea creatures this month.
I surely defied some laws of reason in raising someone so polite, mature, and creative, considering her only source of inspiration was me.
“Liv said she’s happy for you to come over again this Friday while I’m working if you want?”
I work Monday through Saturday at Parlour Tricks—with Wednesdays off—which is my main source of income.
But Friday and Saturday nights are my shifts at The Matchbox, where I dance.
I’ve been at this club for almost two months, and dancing for eight years.
Even though I don’t need the extra money I earn there, they pay me in cash.
After years of running, you never know when you need to drop everything and run again.
More importantly, dancing makes me feel free, beautiful and confident and that was something I chased growing up just as much as safety.
When Aurora and I first started over, Royal managed to get me jobs in motels and servos doing overnight shifts, where the owners didn’t mind if I had a toddler who slept in the back office for the night.
It was by chance that he sent the wrong information to me one day, meant to go to someone else, that led me to the office of an older woman with auburn hair in big Hollywood curls and a voluptuous figure that was the envy of every ambitious pinup model.
She realised the mix-up but made me stay and talk to her anyway.
After that, I realised the tips were way better, and some of the other dancers had similar stories to mine. Runaways. Single guardians. Women chasing a dream or digging themselves out of a ditch.
Those women became my safe space, and before long, Aurora and I found ourselves a new way of living. It was fast-paced, late nights and coated in rhinestones, and it was all ours.
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “I’m happy to hang with Liv and Daisy.”
“What about Saturday? Did you like the sitter who came last time?”
“Umm… I think I’m ready to stay home alone.”
My heart clenches. Familiar panic and paranoia bleed in with memories of those first few weeks after she was born. That tingling feeling of being watched. Gotta keep her safe. I take a slow breath. We’re okay. They haven’t found us in years. We’re as far away as we can be. And we’re stronger now.
My hand finds my bangles, spinning them around my wrist as my heart bangs against my ribcage.
“Are you sure?” I ask, trying to loosen the reins and let my daughter grow up without the traumas I had.
“Heaps of kids at school stay home alone, and I feel safe here,” she says. “Mike and Jessa are next do—”
“What?” I ask.
Aurora lifts an ear towards the open back door, her eyebrows pinching as she listens.
“I think our other neighbour is finally home,” she hisses before tossing her crochet project aside and slipping out the door. We’ve been in this new place for five days now and have yet to see the guy who lives there. Mike from next door told me it was an older guy on his own. “I can see a dog.”
“Oh, god. I hope it’s not a barking one.”
“Mum.” Aurora laughs. “They all bark.”
I turn the dials down on the stove and tiptoe out the door, joining Aurora in her snooping.
“You know what I mean. The ones that bark because they saw a bird fly past, or heard someone moving on their own property. They bark at every stupid little thing,” I say, trying to catch sight of either said dog or its owner through the slats of our side gate.
“Dogs are protective.”
“They can also be a pain in the arse,” I argue. Someone whistles, and the answering pitter-patter of paws follows before the closing of a door.
I go back inside, pull two bowls from the cupboard and give a final stir to our dinner simmering in the saucepan.
My mind strangely casts back to another recent encounter I’ve had with a dog.
Yesterday, outside Sweet Escape. The lovable mutt, who seemed well fed on dog treats and his owner’s affections.
Then, the owner himself, with his barrel chest and those thick, burly arms. I may be the one dancing on a stage, but there had been plenty of nice views from where I was standing, too.
Maybe it’s been too long since I was actually that close to a man to appreciate him.
In twelve years, I’ve barely had the desire to.
A fleeting romance, met too often in a darkened closet where only our bodies did the talking.
When my craving for human connection and the excitement of flirting made me cave in, but my mind knew it wouldn’t go further than that. Not when Aurora was my priority.
The man yesterday caught me off guard, that’s all.
With his muted green eyes, and that easy smile hidden behind his thick, dark beard.
My head felt clouded as his presence wrapped around me, a spell cast in sweet apples and woodsy sage.
It was calm and masculine, and I do not have time for that kinda shit. I’ve got a young woman to raise.
“Mum?” My world comes back into focus with my daughter standing before me, looking concerned.
“What’s up?”
She points to the serving spoon in my hand, poised over the pot full of rice. “Are you gonna serve dinner, or am I meant to do a trick first?”
“Sorry!” I shake off the dirty daydreams and finish filling our bowls.
Aurora drops a fork in each one, then we move to the couch, where we settle in to eat and watch the latest TV show to fall victim to our obsession with teenage romance and complex family dynamics.
This time, it also includes werewolves. I’m not even a little concerned that I find the psychotic uncle a total daddy.
A few episodes later, I notice Aurora has checked her phone four times in the last few minutes.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
She finishes typing a message, chewing on her lip as she places the phone face down on her lap. “One of the girls from school.”
“A friend?”
“Maybe,” she answers hesitantly. “She’s in my English class. She was making sure I didn’t hurt myself earlier. I said I’m fine and that I’ve rethought my Olympic ambitions.”
I laugh just as her phone beeps again. She turns it over, and I watch as a grin spreads across her face, letting out a little chuckle under her breath before she types at speed. My chest fills with warmth at the sight.
“Is it okay if we keep watching tomorrow?” she asks, pointing to the TV.
She wants to talk to her new friend instead of me. I’m thrilled, while at the same time devastated by this change of events. This is it. This is when I slowly step aside and let my child have a best friend other than me—well overdue, but I’m still not ready for it.
“Of course, babe.” I shut off the TV and reach for our now-empty bowls. “I’m gonna shower and head to bed myself.”
“Thanks, Mum.” She reaches up to kiss my cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you too, Superstar.”
I rinse out the bowls, load them in the dishwasher, check the doors are locked, and head upstairs to my bedroom.
After the hottest shower that leaves my skin on the brink of first-degree burns, just the way I like it, I smother myself in cocoa butter before throwing on a pair of sleep shorts, my slippers, and an oversized T-shirt. Then I head out to my balcony.
Our townhouse backs onto a community oval, leaving a huge open space in front of me, perfect for watching the stars.
I cross my legs underneath me, getting comfortable on the single lounge I have set up out here, before pulling on my telescope.
Dragging it towards my eye and looking through the finderscope, I align it with the moon.
I pull up the stargazing app on my phone, then adjust the lens to the lowest magnification and start mapping myself within the night sky. There are so many bright lights in the city, preventing the view from being truly breathtaking, the way it’s meant to be.
Aurora and I used to settle in towns on the outskirts of big cities, never too close to the hustle and bustle, the areas where people might stay if they were starting over. I’m going to have to get used to a whole new view now that we’re in a busy place like Heart City.
I’m slowly moving the lens, trying to hunt for all the points within Orion, when the hushed sound of a sliding door opening and closing tickles my ears to my right.
“You.”