CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Caden is leaning against an old silver car parked out the front of my house, swinging his keys around and around a gloved finger. When he sees me approaching, he stands up straight and catches the car keys in his hand, smiling.

“Guess who got his licence,” he says smugly when I near him, as if he’s completely forgotten that barely five minutes ago he was lecturing me about my self-pity.

I frown and come to a stop in front of him. “You’re seventeen?”

“Well, no. I got my Learners Licence.” He gestures to the back of his snow-coated car, where the yellow L is stuck next to the number plate.

“You do realise that you can’t drive without an adult present when you’re on your L’s, right?”

“Of course,” he says, then opens the car door. I watch him sit down, shifting in his seat until comfortable. “You getting in or what?”

I remain still for a second longer, running the risks over in my mind. The road is covered in ice, he’s just got his licence, he’s probably been taught nil about driving and is asking me to accompany him in his car without an adult present, which is incredibly dangerous, not to mention illegal.

I sigh and cross to the other side of the car, slipping into the passenger seat. “Just…don’t kill me, okay? And if we get pulled over by the cops, you will tell them that I did not consent to this – you forced me to come against my will, understand?”

He smiles. “Don’t worry, I’ve been driving for a while today and nothing’s happened. It’ll be fine. Trust me – I’m a natural.”

“Sure,” I say sarcastically and strap myself in, smiling. But the grin sits uncomfortably on my face, and my mind is screaming too soon! as if it’s trying to remind me of the events of this morning just in case I forget. A second later, the muscles maintaining my happy expression go limp and my face resets to default – a look that mixes sadness and boredom with disinterest, like its cooking a meal for people who lack tastebuds.

Caden starts the engine and the old Toyota kicks into life, coughing and spluttering as if waking from a one hundred year sleep. When he presses down on the accelerator, I grip onto the edge of the worn seat, squeezing until my knuckles turn white and the padding flattens to the size of paper.

But the initial few metres turn out to be the worst, and only because the car is still waking. I quickly realise that Caden wasn’t joking when he said he’s a natural. He drives straight ahead, just under the speed limit, with a grace that would be impossible for even Rand to manage. Not that that’s an accomplishment – Rand drives as if he’s just escaped prison and is jacked up on drugs.

When we near the corner, Caden turns on his blinker as if it’s second nature, and he comes to a smooth stop at the traffic lights. I find it in myself to relax.

“How many driving lessons did you say you’ve had?”

“None,” he says, and as I look out the window to my left, I catch him grinning to himself out of the corner of my eye. I sigh. I hate to think that I’m about to spoil his mood. Again.

I allow for a brief silence before speaking. “How did you know to come to my place, by the way? Who told you?” I try to ask the question as if I’m only talking about something casual, being as vague as possible and hoping he’ll catch on.

He does. I watch his smile vanish from his face as if it was never there. “You weren’t at school. I knew something must have been wrong, so I told Sarah and she agreed to come with me to your place. When we got there, we stood on the doorstep for ages until your dad finally opened the door. We told him we were your friends and he told us what had happened and that you wouldn’t be coming to school today. Then he shut the door.” He shrugs. “I tried knocking again, but he wouldn’t let us in and Sarah was… She just needed to get away. So we drove for a bit and then she wanted to go to the shops, so I dropped her off came back to get you.”

In the silence that follows, my thoughts are set on Sarah. She never got to meet her real mum, just like I never got to meet my real dad, but the difference is, she had the opportunity, and I stole that from her. The contents of my stomach threatens to rise up my throat.

“How’d you get in?” I ask after swallowing it all down – the bile, the thoughts, the emotions.

“Though the front door. You’re dad must’ve cooled down or something because he let me in that time. Well, that or his head was elsewhere. Are you sure he’s gonna be alright? He looked…empty.”

I cast my gaze downwards, staring at the lines on my palms. “I honestly don’t know.” My voice is soft, barely above a whisper.

Caden doesn’t say anything further.

I close my eyes for a second and focus on breathing deeply. My train of thought is going a million miles an hour and I keep waiting for the train tracks to end – for the thoughts to dry up and the train to tumble into oblivion. But it never happens, and my mind runs over conversation after conversation, sifting through the words of others for no apparent reason.

And then, suddenly, a single thought emerges from the rest and I realise that I haven’t asked about the details of my mother’s passing – that I’ve been too caught up in the fact that it’s actually happened to wonder how.

I swallow hard. “What did my dad say had happened to her – to my mum?” My words shatter the quiet, breaking it into hundreds of pieces that bite at my ears.

“Heart attack,” Caden says softly, as if for him, the quiet is not yet broken and still very much breakable.

I frown, and the anger I trapped in the bottle starts seeping through the cork. “Heart attack? What kind of bullshit is that?”

Caden looks concerned but just gives a small shrug. “It happens.”

The cork loosens. “Things like that don’t just fucking happen – not to my mum and certainly not when she’s in the safety of a hospital. No one dies in hospital from a heart attack when they’re recovering from a car accident. That just doesn’t happen. People recover and go home to their families and move on. And then maybe a year later, when they’re getting older, that’s when they have the heart attack. Not when they’re still getting better – not when they have a daughter – no, two daughters – who need still them.”

Caden looks at me sadly. “They do happen, Melissa, just not very often.” And that’s the end of it, our short argument evaporating faster than it formed. I look back out the window and force the tears away until I’m just a cold and staring being who wishes she could be emotionless as well.

Ten minutes later, the depressing atmosphere in the car has all but vanished, leaving behind a silence that doesn’t feel uncomfortable, but not completely comfortable either. It’s then that, in the comfortable-uncomfortableness, it finally occurs to me to ask where we’re headed.

“I’m picking up Sarah from the shops,” Caden says in reply to my overdue question.

“And from there we’re going…”

“To Rand’s place, where else?” he says, as if finding it stupid that I asked. But I catch the slight delay in his response and the unnecessary breath between his words. Obviously, he was thinking on his feet.

I nod and accept his answer even though I’m pretty sure he’s lying. “Why’s Sarah at the shops again?”

“She wanted to get something to eat.” No hesitating this time. Truth, I decide.

“Do you know if she bought me anything?” I ask, and my stomach grumbles even though I ate an apple just under twenty minutes ago.

“Probably not. But if you’re really that hungry, we can stop and give you time to buy something.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll just eat when I get to Rand’s place.”

 “Suit yourself.” He waits too long to reply, reinforcing the idea that he’s hiding something from me. Doesn’t matter, I tell myself before I get the chance to question him. I’ll find out what it is soon enough.

It’s not much later that we spot Sarah on the sidewalk, a plastic bag in hand. Caden pulls up in front of her and rolls down the window. “Get in,” he says, and she does, rushing over to us where we’re stopped on the road, holding up the traffic.

The car behind us beeps as Sarah opens the back door. “Patience!” I hear her shout angrily, and a smile slips onto my face, managing to last a second longer than my previous grin. Sarah hops in and shuts the door just moments before Caden slams his foot on the accelerator, launching us down the road as if preparing for take-off. Maybe I spoke too soon when saying he drove with grace.

I turn around in my seat just as Sarah finishes strapping herself in. “Did you get me any food?” I ask as way of greeting.

She smiles, but I can tell the smile feels as unnatural on her face as it does on mine. We’ve both lost a parent today. “Unfortunately, no. I didn’t know whether you’d be joining us, or whether you’d be hungry if you did. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. I didn’t expect you to have bought me anything any–”At that moment, Caden slams on the breaks, sending me flying backwards. I manage to get a firmer hold on the seat before I fly out the window, but my back still manages to hit the dashboard. Turning hurriedly back around in my chair, I say, “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention to the traffic lights,” Caden replies, but he looks far from apologetic, and I can see that he’s working hard to hold back a laugh.

I roll my eyes. “You alright back there?” I ask Sarah, sending a look over my shoulder. She nods, and, satisfied, I turn to look out the window, allowing the dull grey light to wash over me as the snow continues to fall.

We’ve been driving for a short while when Caden starts asking Sarah questions like, “Is it this corner?” And, “Right or left?” Slowly, I realise that he’s asking for directions, and it takes me even longer to conclude that we have a destination that’s not my place or Rand’s.

“Where are we going?” I ask, finally giving voice to my thoughts. I glance at Caden. “You said we were going to Rand’s place.”

“I lied,” he states simply, and all I can’t think is, Knew it.

“So…where then?”

Sarah startles me by answering instead of Caden. “My place.”

For a moment I just sit there, not really comprehending what she means, but then I remember my conversation with her from yesterday and I feel like someone just loosed a thousand butterflies in my stomach, their furry wings brushing against my organs and sending shivers down my spine.

Not today, I say to myself. Any day but today.

But no, today I will be meeting my real mother, whether I like it or not.