Sidelines ✔️

06 • It's Nice To Have A Friend• 06

"And that's news?" Joe replied, raising his eyebrows at me.

"Sort of — I am kind of pleased that my Mom will want to pull her hair out when she sees me."

"Why's that?"

I gave Joe a sly smile. "I want to poke holes in her bubble wrap."

"What do you mean?"

"It annoys me sometimes how my Mom goes on like nothing happened. She wants to box up our old life and pretend it didn't exist. Then in our new life, she wants to wrap everything up and make it perfect. She wants me to be her perfect little doll and play along."

"Maybe she's just trying to heal?" Joe suggested.

"What do you mean?"

"Charlie, your Dad was a bastard to her. She was probably hurt by him, and this is like her do over." Joe explained.

"My Dad is a good person," I paused, "most of the time. And it's not like she wasn't a bastard to him. They were both as bad as each other."

"True, but he was a good person until he left his wife after his daughter died."

"It's weird to think how Alice's death changed everything. Who knows — maybe my parents would still be together, and the Lakewood brothers never would have become my stepbrothers?"

"Possibly. There's no point in speculating. What's done is done." Joe sighed.

"I know." I huffed, kicking a stone.

Joe gave me a sympathetic smile and turned to me. "You know Charlie, he maybe your Dad and all, but as your friend, I think you should try your best to forget about him. He left you and never looked back."

"You're probably right. The guy may have been my hero as a child, but I don't need him or anyone else now. I'm fine on my own." I smiled.

"That's my girl!" Joe grinned, but I didn't miss the hint of sorrow in his eyes when he looked at me.

Joe knew I had trouble letting go of the past, but he knew as little as I did about how I could really move on from it. We were both in the dark.

It didn't take long before we arrived at the pier that was near my house. Joe was due at work at 8:00am so hopefully we had estimated the time right otherwise he was either really early or really late.

"Isn't Bill going to kill you for your appearance? I mean we did just sleep in an abandoned old hut." I said to Joe as we approached the Cafe.

"I have a spare change of clothes in the back. Bill won't get in till eleven — as long as it's not gone eleven, I should be good."

I watched as Joe made his way to the door of Café Rocks and tried the door handle. Joe smiled nervously when the door pushed open. One of his co-workers or Bill had already arrived and unlocked it. We weren't alone.

However, it seemed to be okay as I saw Joe sigh with relief. He turned to me and smiled, waving me inside the café.

"Billy's here." Joe told me as I came inside and shut it behind me.

I looked back at Joe and then to the counter where Billy was stood, steaming milk next to the coffee machine. He smiled when he saw me, and I returned it.

"Do you two come together or something?" Billy smirked.

I laughed. "Something like that."

"My car signed itself off last night." Joe sighed and headed into the back, seemingly to get changed. With Joe's absence, Billy turned to me for an explanation.