Freddie
My temples throb. My eyes itch from lack of sleep.
When I make my way up to the canteen to make myself a quick coffee, I find myself swaying, lifting onto the toes of my feet then dropping back down to my heels with a thud that makes my teeth click.
I stumble and slap a palm down on the table behind me for balance.
Screw this. I’ve been standing downstairs, working for six hours straight.
I need to sit down. My collapse onto the nearest chair is as ungraceful as it can get, and I ignore the coffee machine as it beeps in impatience.
It’s too much effort to grab my cup.
I’m having my break today and to hell with the consequences.
I need these thirty minutes for my heart to slow and my dizziness to ease.
The doctor would simplify my exhaustion with the word stress, but I know why I’m drained like this.
It’s the job. It’s the lingering effect of my dad.
It’s the tension with Keegan. And it’s my ended friendship with Ryker and Liam.
I sit in the canteen, hunched over with my elbows on the table, as I move my fingers in slow circles against my temples.
The door opens and closes a few times, and there are hushed whispers as others use the break room.
“Fuck it,” someone says.
Chair legs knock against the tables as they’re dragged out, and I realise I’m not the only one who’s hit breaking point.
Rather than grab a coffee, or a chocolate bar to scoff down while leaving the room, my colleagues sit at the tables.
I crack an eye open to spy on them. It’s been so long since any of us have sat up here, and the sight of me seems to have had a domino effect.
More and more people come into the breakroom and stay for an actual break.
Someone turns the TV on, and the voice that comes out puts a hitch in my breath.
It’s Ryker. He’s on the local news being filmed as he presents a fire safety talk to a school assembly.
Kelly and Olivia fawn over him, calling him sexy in his uniform, and I’m tempted to tell them he’s gay and whatever fantasy they’re creating in their heads won’t ever happen.
The door to the breakroom swings open on Stephen.
He takes us all in with his hands on his hips.
We brace ourselves, but instead of clapping his hands and driving us out of the room, he deflates.
His eyes ping-pong between all the tables, all the haggard, worn-down expressions, then he zeros in on me.
“Freddie?”
I have to lift my head to meet his eyes, and I wince at the bright lights buzzing above. The pain at my temples radiates to my jaw.
“Headache,” I tell him.
He gives me a once-over, then turns his attention to the TV. Ryker’s still on screen but is no longer the focus of the broadcast. The news reporter speaks over him, explaining why the fire department have deployed him to the local schools.
“Friend of yours, isn’t he?” Stephen says.
“Yeah,” I say automatically, before tweaking my answer. “Yeah, used to be.”
The picture on screen turns to shaky footage of a fire. It glows white with the ferocity, and whoever is filming cheers at the destruction. Seeing any fire on the news makes me fear for Ryker, as does hearing about an assault on a police officer. I immediately think its Liam.
No doubt it annoys them when I ask if they’re okay, but this time I didn’t.
The fire was last week, and I didn’t message Ryker to check he was all right. I trusted the news telling me there were no casualties, and switched off, but the fierce blaze on screen grows a heavy guilt in my gut. It’s painfully bright to look at, and I don’t think my headache is to blame.
“Petrol,” someone says. “It’s got to be.”
The news report doesn’t go into details on why that particular fire is so blinding, but the building collapses as flat as a pancake and I shudder.
Stephen frowns. “They think it’s those kids again, don’t they?”
I’m assuming that’s the reason for Ryker’s tour of the schools too.
“How did they know it was kids in the first place?” Stephen murmurs.
I vaguely remember Ryker saying something about evidence but can’t remember specifics. “I think they left something at the scene.”
Stephen shifts his focus back to me. “Something kid related?”
I shrug.
Someone else takes over to speculate. “Both fires went up quickly. They said on the news that whoever set fire to the barn did so at both ends, and in the case of the portable office, they think there were two fires again, one on each side. They didn’t see the kids on the CCTV, but they did record the building from start to finish, and a witness saw a group riding away from the scene. ”
I may not have checked on Ryker, or watched the shaky footage until now, but I did read about the fire, and that summary sounds about right.
Stephen’s stare returns to me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Freddie, but you’re not looking so good.”
I’ve been massaging my temples the entire time he’s been in the room. He cocks his head. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”
That’ll be disastrous. I could take out all his workforce with a common cold.
“It’s a bad headache,” I tell him. “I’ve had some aspirin, but it’s not taken the edge off yet.”
He studies me. “Do you think you’ll be able to continue working today?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say yes, absolutely, I don’t want to give him any reason to fire me, but right now I’ve got nothing left in the tank. I slowly shake my head and prepare for him to tell me to “man up” like my dad did.
Instead, he sighs. “Get yourself home.”
“But—”
“No buts. You’ve been working your arse off the last few months, don’t think I haven’t noticed. Go home. Shut yourself in a dark room and sleep.”
Everyone in the room is staring at Stephen, shocked at his compassion.
I nod and shakily get to my feet. Stephen pats me on the shoulder as I pass him.
Getting into my car is a blur, but I feel better knowing I don’t have to spend another six hours standing in one place.
I twist the key in the ignition, and the radio turns on to the music channel I’d been listening to that morning.
There’s breaking news.
The indie rock band Heavy Handed have broken up.
I widen my eyes. They’re Ryker’s and my favourite band. They’d been together for over fifteen years. Ryker, Liam, and I had been together longer.
As I drive home, I think about the first time Ryker and I saw them live.
We were down by the stage being elbowed and pushed about, but the atmosphere had been electric.
We’d jumped up and down in time with everyone else, arms slung over the other’s shoulders, shrieking out lyrics.
At one point Ryker had given me a piggyback so I could see the stage better.
It had been a fun night, and afterwards, with our ears ringing, Ryker’s dad picked us up outside the stadium and drove us back to his house.
Liam had been sitting on the doorstep, radiating tension.
He took in our smiles, then retreated solemnly into the house.
Liam hates crowds. He hates ringing ears and jumping up and down on sticky floors. It wasn’t his scene.
After Ryker had fallen asleep, I found Liam downstairs in the conservatory sitting in the dark.
Heavy Handed played from his phone in his lap, and from his scrunched expression I knew he wasn’t enjoying their tracks.
I think he was trying to make himself at least tolerate them, but I came into the room, sat down beside him, and took his phone.
I put on his favourite music, which at the time happened to be David Bowie, and I told him I liked it too.
Listening to a quiet version of “Moonage Daydream” and sitting with Liam in the dark made me as happy as bouncing up and down in the stadium with Ryker did.
Despite being twins, they’re very different, and each attract part of me to them like a moth to a flame.
I’m a moth without a flame now. I’m on my own. A moth in the dark.
No, I tell myself, I’ve got Keegan. She’s my flame, and I’m flying—or more accurately, driving—back to her.
I arrive home before four, and school children walk the paths.
I wonder if they saw Ryker today, whether they had to sit through his speech while he tried to terrify them away from arson as a hobby.
It’s ironic in a way. Ryker loved to detonate deodorant cans as a kid, and he loved tearing open fireworks to get the gunpowder inside too.
He’d collect it to make a bigger one with a super-duper bang that Liam would always shield me from despite my protests.
I don’t notice the car I park behind—well, I do, I notice it’s not my dad’s Ford but an old-looking mini—then spare it no further consideration. It’s no threat to me. It’s a random car that could belong to anyone.
I unlock the front door, and trip over the trainers on the mat.
They’re not mine.
Neither are they Keegan’s.
They’re men’s trainers, and I frown down at them stupidly. There’s also a man’s coat hanging off the banister, and it smells strongly of Lynx Africa. I part my lips, poised to shout out to Keegan, tell her I’m home, but I stop myself.
I wasn’t being quiet when I came inside, but now I make a deliberate decision to be.
There are voices upstairs, one giggling and sweet, and the other a baseline rumble.
There are two rooms upstairs, our bedroom and our en-suite bathroom.
There’s no reason Keegan should be up there with someone else.
I creep up the stairs, gaze locked on the bedroom door.
There’s no reason it should be shut either, while she’s in there with someone else.
I know before I know.
I only open the door to confirm it for myself.
Keegan screams, and yanks the duvet up to cover herself, as if I’m the one who shouldn’t be seeing her naked.
And Ben, fucking Ben her stepbrother, shoots from the bed—our bed—and runs naked into the bathroom.
The lock turns with a clunk. Keegan’s eyes dart, and her lips wobble, and I know she’s thinking of something to say, but what can she say?
What can she possibly say to bleach the image of her and him from my retinas?
What words can she wield to save my pride?
What can she do to stop that cracking sensation in my chest?
“I wasn’t expecting you home until later.”
That’s what she goes with. It’s almost an accusation.
What she really means to say is, “Why didn’t you tell me you’d be home early?
” If I’d told her, she could’ve hurried Ben out of the house, kept me in the dark for longer, enjoyed her illicit tryst while I continued to grovel and wait on her after my outburst over my dad.
There are questions that go through my head, like the most obvious, “Why and how long?” And other ones, like “Did he use condoms? Was it always in our bed?” And even the typical masculine doubt, “Was he better than me? Bigger than me? Did he last longer than me?”
A glint on the bedside table catches my eye.
It’s the ring I proposed with, and I laugh.
I laugh until my lungs ache, and I bow over while spittle runs over my lips.
At least she took it off before fucking her brother.
She had some kind of morals about being engaged.
Oh, she can justify betraying me, as long as the commitment I made to her and she to me is gone from her finger for however long it takes Ben to finish inside her.
“Freddie,” she says, standing from the bed.
She pulls the duvet with her, keeping herself covered from me.
I wonder why she’s so adamant about it. Has he marked her skin?
Is his release over her belly or snaking down her legs as her eyes fill with tears.
“I’m sorry. It’s not . . .” She stops, biting her lip.
They’re plumper than usual, and the lipstick she put on for him has smeared.
It’s on the tip of her nose. I imagine it all over his chest too, leading south.
Maybe I should’ve shouted by now, or burst into tears, or turned around to vomit in the corner of the room, but my reaction to walking in on my fiancée in bed with her stepbrother is to laugh hysterically while dribbling, followed by . . . nothing.
A big fat nothing. That probably means I’m in some kind of shock.
“Say something,” she whispers, as if I’m the one who needs to explain.
I don’t say anything, not even the cliche “How could you?” while breaking down at the betrayal.
What I do is turn around and walk out the room. I rush down the stairs, and pause to grab the vase I bought her, the overpriced purple one with gold leaf, then leave the door wide open behind me.
I stroll as casually as I can up to Ben’s car and slam the vase down on the windscreen.
It goes opaque with a spider web of cracks, and I nod at the pattern, satisfied with the destruction.
Keegan calls my name from the doorstep, no longer wrapped up in the duvet.
She’s managed to hastily tug on her dressing gown, and is securing the belt as she watches me.
She’s crying.
Why the hell is she crying?
I ignore her, get back into my car, and drive away with no idea where I’m going.