Chapter Twelve Eliott
I’m a masochist.
That’s the only logical explanation I can come up with as to why I’m leaving the supermarket with Dane’s number saved in my phone. Clearly I’m someone who thrives on pain.
Because Dane and I absolutely do not need to be friends. I meant what I said to Sasha.
Dane is off the table.
As much as I can tell he’s hoping otherwise, I’m not planning on reneging on my rule. It’s in place for a reason. To stop people – people like Dane – from using me like a toy they’ll inevitably get bored of once they realise they’re not going to get the result they’re hoping for.
SASHA
Lolllllll
So why’d you give him your number then?
I’m parked outside Nan’s house, glaring at my phone. I don’t have a rebuttal for Sasha, and I refuse to admit that she has a point.
Why did I give him my number?
Ah yes. I’m a masochist.
I shove my phone into my pocket without responding and start hefting Nan’s shopping bags out of the car.
Stepping into Nan’s house always feels like coming home. Josh and I practically grew up here after our dad dipped out of the picture and Mum realised she needed help raising two young kids.
I never thought twice about it – the extended periods of time Josh and I spent sleeping head to feet in Nan’s tiny spare bedroom, blocking out the muffled sounds of Mum, Nan and Grandad arguing about things I was too young to understand.
It was our safe space. Where we’d come when things with Mum’s latest boyfriend didn’t work out and we had nowhere left to go.
‘Just for a few weeks,’ Mum would always say when we’d turn up on their doorstep with hurriedly packed bags missing most of our things.
I started making a list after the third time it happened.
Josh’s favourite teddy bear.
Mum’s EpiPen.
Our passports.
Money.
Anything that could make our lives a hundred times harder if we forgot them inside the home of a man who no longer wanted anything to do with us.
I was seven.
I think two years was the longest time we spent away from Nan and Grandad – when Mum met Leanne’s dad and we played happy families for long enough that I thought it might finally be it. Gavin was always nice enough, but nice wasn’t enough for Mum. She got bored.
Restless.
She’s a free spirit and can’t be tied down for long, and it turned out that two years was her limit, anyway.
Nan and Grandad kept us after that. It was Nan and Mum’s biggest argument yet and, at twelve, I was old enough to understand most of it. Mum was free to come and go as she pleased, but there’d be no more new boyfriends for me and Josh.
We both lived here until we went off to university, with Leanne visiting on sporadic weekends, since she lived primarily with her dad. Mum would flit between Nan’s house and whatever boyfriend she had at the time.
She’s finally got her own place – now that all her kids have grown up and flown the nest – but it’s never felt like home to me. I’m always a guest in her house, no matter how many times I’ve visited.
But Nan’s house is different.
You can’t take two steps in Nan’s house without seeing some memory of my childhood. Her walls are filled with photos of us, documenting every single awkward phase of our lives. There’s even one of me and Sasha at our graduation, beaming at the camera as we toss our hats into the air.
It really wouldn’t take much for us to clear out the spare room for me if Nan really needed the help.
It would just be like coming home again.
I could do it, and I will if she needs me to. There’s no question about it. I just wish she’d asked first.
I wish anyone would ask first.
‘Eliott, do you might lending Leanne some money?’
‘Is it cool if Wes moves in?’
‘How do you feel about helping Nan out a little more?’
Would it really be so hard for them to ask and not just assume that my answer will always be a yes?
A familiar wave of irritation threatens to drown me as I shoulder open Nan’s front door.
‘Oh hello, love.’ Mum pokes her head out of the living room and gives me a wave. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to.’
She disappears back inside the living room and I hear the faint sound of laughter and music coming from the TV. I frown as I stomp further into the house, letting the front door slam behind me.
‘What’re you doing here?’ I ask as I unceremoniously drop the shopping bags to the floor.
Mum is sitting on Nan’s sofa, a cosy-looking blanket draped over her lower half and a steaming cup of tea on the coffee table in front of her.
On the other side of the room, Nan is settled in her favourite armchair and one of her legs is propped up on a footstool.
She gives me a smile, but it looks strained.
She shifts in her seat and I swear the movement makes her wince slightly.
Panic begins to trickle through me. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ Mum says flippantly. ‘Did you get the biscuits I asked for?’ She doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she leaps up from her seat and starts rifling through the shopping bags. ‘Oh, Eliott, you are a star .’
‘I thought they were for Nan,’ I grumble. ‘And if you’ve been here all along, why couldn’t you do the shopping?’
‘You were on the way,’ Mum says, with a dismissive wave of the hand.
‘I wasn’t though,’ I mutter, but it falls on deaf ears.
Because what does it matter that I was actually working on some edits when Nan messaged to ask if I wouldn’t mind picking up a few things for her?
At least, I thought they’d been for Nan.
Mum grabs a few more items from the shopping bags and sets them aside for herself and I realise that I’ve been played.
But I’ve got more pressing issues right now. Namely, the fact that the wince on Nan’s face has definitely become more pronounced.
‘Nan?’ I ask. ‘What’s wrong?’
She sighs and nods to her leg. ‘I’m fine . I was putting the laundry out and I tripped on the patio. I’m a little bruised, but nothing to worry about.’
A flicker of recognition sparks in me. Nan’s patio is nothing short of a death trap. It was Grandad’s passion project before he passed. He kept insisting that he’d get round to fixing it up and but he never did.
Five years on and it’s never been worse.
Large pieces of the stone tiles are broken or coming loose, making it a game of Russian roulette whenever you step onto one.
Even I’ve twisted my ankle on one of the wobbly tiles more than once.
The idea of Nan having to cross it in order to get to her lawn has always made me nervous.
Like she’s just one ill-placed step away from doing some serious damage.
I glance at her leg. There are no open wounds or any bones jutting out at awkward angles, so I have to trust that she’s telling the truth, and it is just a bruise.
‘I thought Josh was supposed to get someone in to fix it?’ I ask.
Nan rolls her eyes.
‘Right,’ I say. Stupid question. I don’t know why I even left it in Josh’s hands to deal with in the first place. Wishful thinking, I guess.
‘He’s been busy with work,’ Mum chimes in defensively. ‘I’m sure he’ll get round to it once he has the time.’
She’s always quick with the excuses when it comes to Josh. There’s no point in arguing, because the excuses are endless.
He’s busy with work.
His girlfriend’s been giving him grief.
You’re just better at dealing with these things anyway, Eliott .
I’ve heard them all a million times before and I’m not in the mood to hear them again.
‘I’ll get someone in,’ I tell Nan, already reaching for my phone to do a search for contractors in the area. ‘And we should really make a doctor’s appointment for you. Just to check that there’s no damage.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Mum says absent-mindedly. ‘Good idea, Eliott.’
Nan purses her lips but gives me a reluctant nod.
I’m about two pages deep into a Google search when a notification pings across my screen.
DANE
hey. just checking you got to your grandma’s all right?
also. it was nice seeing you. let me know when you’re free, we can grab coffee or something
I have to hand it to him, he’s persistent. My thumb hovers over the message, ready to swipe it away and ignore. But then I remember Sasha’s question. Why did I bother even giving him my number if I wasn’t planning on giving this whole friendship thing a go?
And besides, it suddenly hits me that Dane could be of particular help right now.
I’m typing out my reply before I have the chance to talk myself out of it.
ELIOTT
Weird one. But do you know anything about patio repair?
DANE
pls don’t tell me you only agreed to be friends to get construction tips
this can’t keep happening to me
ELIOTT
It’s happened before?
DANE
long story
but yes, i know everything about patio repair
why?