CRAIG
CRAIG
I’ve been alone in my room all day, the house beyond its closed door as silent as a tomb, and my nerves are stretching ever closer to mutiny.
Returning home to find it empty is nothing unusual, nor is it cause for suspicion that it has remained that way for so long. Honestly, I should just be grateful for the reprieve, taking full advantage of it to pull myself together. Instead, the deathly quiet rests hard and heavy in my gut, each passing second weighing more than the last. My mind is an unfocused tangle of dread.
Not even a hot shower and a clean change of clothes have helped.
Now, I’m lying flat on my back across my bed, staring vacantly up at the ceiling.
I’ve long since abandoned any hope of sleep.
After an early escape from Derek’s flat, sneaking past the sofa where he snored and mumbled, I’d made the walk of shame across town back to Roxy. I took pains to evade notice, skirting a wide berth around the high street and taking back alleys. My clothing was rumpled and my eyes bloodshot, but the restful Sunday morning streets felt like a blessing. A fine rain refreshed my parched skin, and the familiar purr of Roxy’s engine eased the pounding in my head exactly as I knew it would.
But then…
Then, I hadn’t counted on my brother. I hadn’t thought to anticipate him at all.
Barely before the seat got a chance to warm beneath me, Alex bolted from his house like he’d been poised for the sound. My heart leapt at the sight of him, only to plummet like lead with its next beat as his gaze met mine. For the briefest moment, the urge to flee him — to slam down on the accelerator and burn rubber — had been fierce.
I lowered the window, smiling to dispel the obtrusive tension. He’d not granted me the same courtesy, his thick brows bunched as he ducked his head to the widening gap.
“Where’ve you been?”
“So, you’re talking to me now?”
“Bas left me a message. He sounded worried, said you freaked out and disappeared on him. I’ve been trying to call you all fucking night. Where’ve you been?”
He could not have made a poorer choice of words. It required near enough my whole restraint to bite back a caustic retort, but my silence served me no better.
“Seriously, bro, still?” His chilly eyes raked over me. “Still with this shit?” He missed nothing with that look, I’d swear. My every misdeed of the past 24 hours pulled from me, a hollowed trench of reproach left in its wake. “Guess I underestimated just how determined you are to crash and burn, huh?”
And that…
That had been the full extent of our exchange, our first in a fortnight.
When I looked away from him, Alex turned away from me, and when I hadn’t called him back, he’d given up. Vanishing into his house without a backward glance as rapidly as he appeared from it, the slam of his door shuddering my bones.
For two weeks, I’ve been ghosted by him. Two goddamned weeks, I’ve gone out of my way to get him back on my side. Yet, it was at Sebastian’s behest, not mine, that he responded. And it’d taken him barely two minutes to condemn me.
I found sixteen missed calls and a dozen texts awaiting me upon retrieving my phone from the kitchen counter exactly where it’d been left, seemingly untouched. None were from Mum or Dad. One message was alarmingly from Gary, deleted unread. But that’s as much notice as I spared before retreating to my room and tossing the cursed thing in the wastepaper basket.
It’s buzzing—the fourth time since I ditched it there and the second this past half-hour—vibrating against a noisy bed of cola cans and crisp packets. I should’ve probably turned it off.
Removing my arm from my forehead, I push myself up to sit and swing my legs off the side of the bed.
There must be something I can do for distraction. A scan of the room draws an uninspired blank. My eyes skip over the stack of Law tomes and scattering of papers beside my PC, falling to rest on the mocking face of my alarm clock, neon digits declaring another minute lost. Or somewhere else I can be…
The phone stops, and I release a heavy breath into the resumed hush. But it doesn’t last. No sooner have I rolled my shoulders and got to my feet than the offending din from the basket starts up again, beating a demand against my temples.
And, ‘ to hell with this,’ a scowl from the wardrobe mirror spurs me on, jaded eyes revealing nothing of the turmoil hiding behind. I’m quick to look away. Grabbing a hoody from my desk chair, I yank it on over my t-shirt and force purpose into my stride as I move for the door. Because screw staying here, I cannot stand my own company any longer.
So what if I have no plan for someplace else to go? There is, at least, still someone who has not yet shut me out.
I’m already across the landing when another call follows straight after the last. In the next moment, I plummet down the stairs to where my Vans are, as ever, ready and waiting by the welcome mat, my old windbreaker hanging from a peg above them. The dissuasive torrent of pelting rain outside isn’t spared the chance to turn me around, and with my hooded head bowed, I make a heedless dash from the front door to Roxy’s side.
Then, just as I’m about to dive into my car, “Craig!” I hear an emphatic shout that altogether throws me for six. “Hey, wow, am I glad to see you!”
My spine stiffens, and I lift my face to squint through the downpour in a sweep of the driveway.
The voice is unmistakable even before I spy the blue-headed figure peeping around a gatepost at the barred entrance. Yet, still, it seems far more plausible that I have finally and completely lost my mind. “Ash?”
For all the world looking as though willed by my thoughts into being, Ashleigh waves as our eyes lock, stepping out from behind the pillar into open view. “I was beginning to worry I’d have to buzz the gates and risk your parents’ wrath,” she grins like nothing whatsoever is beyond her. “You going somewhere?”
“Yeah, I was just, uh… My parents aren’t home.”
“Excellent. Think you can let me in then? I’m getting a little bit soggy here.”
S oggy is certainly one word for the state of her. Although it’s not the one I’d use, shivering at my own worsening chill as I take her in. The girl’s drenched, her hair and clothes plastered to her like a second skin. She has a hood on her coat; heaven only knows why she’s choosing not to use it. Blinking down at the key in my hand and the fob attached to it, I recover myself enough to press my thumb on the button. The gates start to open, and she nips through them the instant there’s a gap wide enough for her to squeeze.
I’ve yet to budge from Roxy’s door, and I still don’t. “You’re the one who’s been phoning,” I guess, watching her swift approach. “How long have you been out here?”
Coming to a halt in front of me, Ashleigh gives her head a vigorous shake. I baulk from the resulting hair-whipped spray, and she laughs. “Maybe, like, about five minutes longer than I would’ve needed to be if only you understood the point of your mobile.”
“And why are you here?”
“Ah, now that’s a question for someplace warm and dry.” Her eyes slide pointedly to Roxy. “So, where are we headed?”
Where, indeed? As if I ever had much of a clue. Darting another glance down to my key, I look past Ashleigh’s shoulder at the smoothly closing gates. She waits me out for a moment while I deliberate.
She does not hold her patience long. “You could just drive me back home if you want? At least the car has heating, and we can talk on the way.”
“No.” I finally move, turning back toward the house.
I’ve taken several steps before I realise she’s not following. “You’re inviting me in?”
“Not quite,” I shrug without hitching my pace. That wouldn’t be at all wise. I’m far too conscious of my parents’ impending return and too unsure of the reception I can expect from them. But, “I have a hideout, of sorts, around the back.”
A few hurried footsteps bring her up beside me as I change course away from the front door, swerving onto the paved walkway that skirts the house to the grounds behind.
“You’re inviting me to your secret den?”
“Don’t get yourself too excited. It’s nothing much.”
“Oh, yep. For sure.” She delivers a light and enthusiastic slap to my arm. “Because underwhelming is your middle name.”
I side-eye her, noting the patent look of awe she’s casting across the garden. Although my smile is small, it’s wholly genuine. “For sure.”
We break into a jog, then, as we clear the side of the house. The rain seems to be falling harder over the wide-open space. I take the lead, cutting around the pond and through a lattice archway to the secluded nook beyond the wall of shrubs.
Ashleigh lets out an audible gasp when our destination comes into view. She trails my approach around a curve in the path and holds back a step as I type in the four-digit code on the red door.
“You wanted warm and dry, right?” A sweep of my arm gestures her forward.
“Holy-moly, Craig, it’s so prettiful I want to cry!”
“Shut up and get inside,” I scoff.
The tucked-away Summer House has had many purposes over the years. Built for my mum as a pottery studio when I was tiny and she felt in need of a place to hide, it’s since been renovated into a playhouse for me, a games den for Dad and then, guest accommodation for Dad’s clients. Now, it’s rarely ever used by anyone but the Tinwells on the odd occasion they choose to stay over. I know that Mum still oversees its upkeep every week.
Admittedly, it’s an attractive little cottage, built of stone and thatch with a mini-garden of its own. Shame, though, that my memories of the place aren’t all that great.
This is where I spent much of my time during that dark period two years ago when my existence felt unwelcome at home.
I shut the door behind us and switch on the light. It flickers and settles, specks of fine dust dancing in its muted yellow glow. “So, how was your weekend?”
“It was good.” No pretence of restraint is implemented before Ashleigh starts prying around. “Dad’s on a new medication; seems to be doing well with it. We went shopping yesterday, got him some groceries, and he didn’t have a meltdown. Even got him some new shirts, so yeah, promising.” She notices the ladder leading up to the mezzanine bed room and, next, opens the door to a compact wash closet, her grin widening with each discovery like she’s already moved herself in. “But it’s not my weekend I’m here to talk about.”
And it’s got to be handed to her, neatly done; she’s straight to the point regardless of distraction.
“Figures,” I huff out a dull laugh. Because, of course, Ashleigh already knows more than she should. I turn away and shirk out of my jacket, hooking its hood over a peg on the door. When I look back around, gesturing for her coat to hang, she has me fixed with an odd frown.
Or, more specifically, the hoody I’m wearing, which was — is — Sebastian’s.
It’s the one he loaned me that fateful morning we met. Her lips curve into a smirk that I refuse to indulge, resisting the urge to fold my arms around myself. After all, the thing had been nothing more than a grab of convenience. “How did you get here?”
“There are these things called buses you might want to google.” Finally, she takes my directive, wrangling herself from her sopping coat and tossing it to me. Her clothes underneath don’t appear much drier. “Then, I utilised my trusty legs.”
“You ran from town?”
“I did.”
“In the rain?”
“Yes.”
“Even though you had no way of knowing I’d be in?”
“Even though you weren’t answering my calls,” she nods, “and would most likely ignore the buzzer, too, as many times as I pressed it.”
My gaze flicks guiltily away. Crossing by her to a chest tucked in behind the ladder, I pull out a couple of thick towels from the neat stack inside and toss them to her. She immediately wraps one into a turban around her hair and drapes the other across her shoulders.
“Thanks.”
“Welcome.” I move around her again, crouching down and turning my attention to the electric log burner. “The last thing I need is to be the cause of your pneumonia.” There’s a button somewhere along one side, investigative fingers search, or maybe it’s underneath. I don’t let myself remember that morning at college when I’d watched Sebastian utilise his trusty legs to escape my spiteful ignorance. I also don’t glance up as Ashleigh commandeers the rocking chair beside me. “Idiot.”
The chair creaks at my ear as she starts it moving. “You’re stalling, Craig.”
“Maybe,” I admit. The button is precisely where it’s always been. “And maybe you’re well past the point you should’ve just given up.”
“Not in my nature.”
“Still—”
“Not in Bastian’s either, no matter how much he may claim otherwise.”
Flames blaze over logs, a fire as thoroughly artificial as I am, heat sweeping my face. I pull back and stand, burying my balled hands deep into the hoody’s pockets. Too dumb to learn; that’s the term Sebastian once used for himself. Those are the words I saw stark and wounding in the way he looked at me last night in Derek’s flat. The warning I hadn’t the good sense to heed until too late. Turning an eye to the two-seater opposite her, I draw up short of letting my body collapse onto it.
“He hasn’t spoken to me. Just so you know,” she cuts through my brooding. “If you’re worried, I honestly don’t know anything about what’s happened between the two of you this weekend.” I sense a ‘but’ coming. “Bas has far more skill than you do at dodging my questions.”
It isn’t easy to lift my head and meet her shrewd stare, and it isn't simple to keep hold of my tongue as she continues.
“But I’ve become fluent enough in what he chooses not to say to know that something’s amiss. He seemed extra cagey when he picked me up from Dad’s, and he disappeared back out as soon as we got home. He wouldn’t tell me where, and he didn’t take Dobby with him. And, clearly, he’s not with you.”
“I haven’t seen him today,” I shrug her off.
“It’s not him I’m here about either.”
“No?”
“No.” Ashleigh shrugs back at me, rocking steadily back and forth. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Craig, okay? I only came to check in on you because… well, Judy’s at the hospital and Bas skipped out on me. And I guess,” she adds, “it kind of felt like there was this weird Craig-shaped hole in my homecoming. Like, I’d just taken it for granted that you’d be around.” Her tone sounds sincere even as her mouth seems to tease. “I happen to very much enjoy having you around.”
It’s exactly this unsparingly candid shit she rolls out that never fails to blindside me.
Braced though I thought myself to be, the thunk of my butt hitting the sofa cushion is jarring. “Bastian’s first impression of me was spot on, Ash.”
“Don’t be daft.”
“No. It’s true. I’m more trouble than I’m worth.” I lean back and press my eyes tight shut. “And for whatever else Tinwell is, he’s not a liar.” If she wants my honesty, then here it is. “As hard as I’ve tried to deny it, everyone knows. All I do is hurt people, and now, even my brother has thoroughly washed his hands of me. I’ve messed up. I keep messing up, and I don’t know how to stop.”
The creak of her rocking ceases. “You can’t think that way, Craig.” Her voice has lost its chirp. A moment later, she’s at my side, filling the space next to me. “What Gary said about you, what he did, what he’s still doing — it’s wrong. What he’s taken from you is unforgivable.” Her hand takes mine, and she presses in close. “Nobody should ever have to be in the position he put you in.”
I don’t resist her contact, not this time, not even as her hair dampens my shoulder. “You’re exactly who I needed last night,” I say, feeling suddenly altogether wiped out.