Chapter Two Tom #2
him. Now he did his best to engage with her as little as possible, but for his six-year-old sister, he had all the time in
the world. In particular when it came to her eating, because Martha did not like to eat anything that wasn’t pure sugar. Not
without force, or coercion, or the threat of her very much older brother stealing it from her.
“Where’s Dad?” Tom asked, pulling out the chair beside Martha.
“Staying with Glenn while he recovers from his hip replacement,” Laura replied, a smile playing on her lips.
“The joys of the older man,” Tom muttered.
“Dad had to wipe Glenn’s butt,” Martha said, giggling through her mouthful of toast.
Laura rolled her eyes. “I see your father’s been letting you watch those American cartoons again.
We don’t say butt, we say bottom, or bum.
Anyway, he didn’t, sweetheart, you misunderstood what Daddy was saying on FaceTime.
” Laura attempted to wrangle Martha’s loose strands back into her plait.
“And I’d rather it isn’t the first thing you tell Miss Knight when Tom drops you off today. ”
“I’m going to,” Martha said, a cheeky smile breaking across her face.
“If you don’t, I will,” Tom added, so the smile turned into laughter.
“Right. Got to go. Gary Newman is literally going to ruin my day. May he rest in peace. The Beat readers love him. Tom—thank you,” Laura said, bending down to kiss Martha on the head.
“And I’ll see you later. Don’t let her run, please.
Her asthma’s been bad this week. And make sure she wears a coat. ”
Tom rolled his eyes. Martha was born five weeks premature and he was fairly sure that fed into at least ninety percent of
Laura’s anxiety about her, but—and he really was no expert—it seemed a bit over the top. Martha was robust. Strong. Healthy.
And he suspected she’d be a lot more of all of those things were she allowed to be.
“Have you spoken to . . .” Tom trailed off. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ask. The second he received the message from
Laura, he’d said to himself that he must not bring up Sophie. It was bad enough that his dad’s wife had befriended his now
ex-girlfriend without him giving her the satisfaction of his heartbreak.
“I have,” she replied and then she turned around and left the room, which was fair enough. Anyway, it didn’t really matter.
He still had his little spy hard at work.
“Auntie Sophie was crying when she came over the other day,” Martha said as Tom held her hand and walked her up the road toward school after successfully wrestling her into her raincoat. He could feel his hand squeeze hers tighter at the information and loosened his grip.
“Oh dear. Poor Sophie,” he said. Martha was a useful spy, but she was also hard to work with. She offered information when
Tom didn’t ask for it, but he’d learned over the last few months that if he asked direct questions, they were either not answered
at all or answered with something entirely off topic. He desperately wanted to scream at Martha, Why was she crying? but instead he waited.
“Did you know my favorite Pokémon is Scorbunny?”
He sighed. He’d lost her so soon. “I thought it was the pink one?”
“It was, but now I hate pink.”
He held his hand to his chest. “This is new information to me. Why didn’t you send me a voice note? I need to know these things.
What if I’d turned up dressed all in pink?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
Martha jumped up and grabbed a leaf from the tree above her, handing it to him as though it were a rare treasure, when in
fact it was her next words that he valued the most. “Sophie told Mummy she thinks she made a mistake,” Martha said. “So I
gave her my eraser. Then she cried more and said it wasn’t that kind of mistake. Then she hugged me.”
Tom stared down at her, jigsaw pieces long ago discarded suddenly coming back together and slowly reforming into a picture he could analyze.
He had fifteen years’ worth of memories to scan through.
Sophie walking into that café in Byron Bay on her gap year and Tom recognizing the British accent.
His body gravitating toward her before he could even consider it.
His awkward hello and her dazzling smile.
How quickly they became inseparable, traveling the rest of Australia and New Zealand together before returning home.
Since then, they’d been by each other’s side through everything.
Different universities. Two different cities.
Five different homes. Jobs. Successes. Failures.
They were an unbreakable team, the two of them.
Until they broke. Until, in one conversation, on The Worst Day, Sophie picked up the entire jigsaw of their life and crumbled it into one thousand pieces.
“Lucky you. Sophie gives the best hugs,” Tom mumbled.
“Daddy says you didn’t just have a breakup, you also had a breakdown,” Martha said, looking up at Tom with wide brown eyes. “Then he started laughing and Mummy told him off, even though she
agreed with him. Is it true?”
Tom frowned. “No, of course that’s not true. I absolutely did not have a breakdown, I . . .” He thought back through the weeks post his breakup with Sophie. What was he? “Look, I just . . .”
“You were a bit funny when you stayed at our house.”
“Fine, but remember I’d had—”
“The Worst Day,” Martha said in a voice that made it clear she’d heard that sentence many, many times.
“Exactly. And one day you’ll have your Worst Day and you’ll understand. I was allowed to feel a bit shit. Sorry. A bit . . .
miserable. That’s very different to a breakdown.” Frustration was rising in Tom’s chest, and he took a deep breath in to push it away. It had been a truly awful day. The
worst. Surely he was allowed to need some time to recover from it? Why would his dad find that funny? “Why did your mummy
tell Daddy off when he said it?”
But just then Martha spotted a friend from class and shouted, “Otis,” letting go of Tom’s hand and running as fast as she
could up the hill toward school.
“Don’t run,” Tom shouted half-heartedly, before breaking into a jog to catch up with her. “Your asthma . . .”
That was it. That was all he was going to get, but she’d offered up some valuable information: Sophie thought she’d made a
mistake. It was enough. It was more than enough.