At three o'clock on Saturday, I sit with Owen and Oscar in our living room, watching reruns of some crappy TV show I'm only half interested in. My attention is mostly on the phone in my hand as I wait for a reply from Dylan.
Dylan's parents have him back on house arrest, an entire two days earlier than expected. We had the whole weekend planned. Tonight, we were supposed to be going to the cinema—there's a new comedy out today that looks good—and tomorrow he was going to be spending the afternoon here. He messaged me five minutes ago to cancel. His parents are worried that he'll start slacking now that he's only got one exam left. I'm concerned that if he revises as much as his parents seem to want him to, he'll fry his brain before he even gets the chance to flip the test over.
My phone buzzes.
'I know, babe. I'm pissed, too. Didn't have any warning this time, they just turned around at lunch and gave the usual "you need to use your time wisely" crap. They promised to invite you round for dinner one evening once exams are over—sorry in advance :( xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
I hold back the sigh, frowning down at the words on my screen. I still haven't recovered from the last Butler family meal I was forced to endure. His parents, Frank and Gina, are a dangerous mix of ruthless and tactless—a girlfriend's worst nightmare.
The last dinner we shared had ended with his parents shouting at Dylan as he stormed from the room, dragging me with him as my face burned with complete mortification. The conversation topic? Grandchildren—more specifically, that Gina didn't want any until her precious son was a successful lawyer.
From the very beginning of our relationship, Gina had seemed overtly aware of the fact that I'm older than her son—only by a year, might I add, so not exactly the monster age gap she seems to think it is. Still, it had always been a problem for her.
The question, "so are you two currently having sex?" had been the final straw for Dylan. He'd spat some colourful language at his mother, which resulted in another screaming match (this time between Dylan and Frank) whilst I, not knowing what else to do, had just sat and awkwardly ate some cheesecake.
It was good cheesecake, though—silver linings, and all that.
'Can't wait :/ xxxxxxxxx' I reply, before typing out another message. 'It's okay, though. Not your fault. Guess you'll just have to make it up to me after Thursday... ;) xxxxxxx'
His reply returns in seconds. 'Don't worry, I plan to... ;) You gonna miss me? Xxxxxxxx'
I laugh out loud, earning a weird look from Owen as canned laughter floats out from the TV.
'Nah...... xxxxxx'
'Ouch, that's cold. You're cruel :( xxxxxx'
'And you're a dumbass but do you see me complaining? Xxxxxxx '
'All part of my charm ;) xxxxxx'
I giggle, the TV now completely forgotten as I type out my next reply.
'What charm?? Xxxxx'
'Ouch. Again with the ego-bashing, woman? You're such a meanie! Xxxxxxx'
'Yeah but I'm YOUR meanie, and that's what counts :) xxxxxx'
A cushion smacks me in the face and I nearly drop my phone.
"Please," Owen starts. "Either stop sexting your boyfriend or go upstairs so I at least don't have to watch."
"You don't have to watch," I reply, throwing the cushion back at him. "Watch the TV."
He rolls his eyes and returns to watching the program as my mind wanders back to Dylan. My smile fades as I picture him sitting at home, revising whatever the hell it is that math geniuses revise, whilst my Psychology book is currently sitting on my desk upstairs, unopened and unloved. My smile is replaced with a grimace as I remind myself that my exam is two days before his. I stand up with grim determination, prepared to start some revision of my own. It's my last exam for the year; I can't give up—if only to prove Frank and Gina wrong about slacking at the last hurdle.
"Gross," Owen mutters as I leave the room.
"I'm not sexting Dylan," I call back, laughing as I head upstairs.
With my bedroom door shut behind me, I slump down at my desk and open the textbook to the first section. I even put my phone on silent this time. How's that for studious?
After two hours with my nose stuck in the textbook, I deem myself worthy of a much-needed pee break. However, when I open my bedroom door, I'm distracted by the sound of bickering. This time, it's not Bailey. It's the boys, their raised voices drifting out from behind their bedroom door.
I leave them alone for a few hours and world war three breaks out—go figure.
I give one final, wistful glance towards the bathroom door, my bladder screaming at me, before I walk over to their door and tap my knuckles against it a few times.
"Come in," Owen's voice barks, irritated.
I push open the door. The boys are both sitting on their beds, scowling at each other from across the room. My exasperated smile becomes a frown—this doesn't seem like the usual Oscar and Owen fallout. Owen looks pissed—really pissed—and it takes a lot to rile the kid up so much, he's usually relatively laid back.
"Everything okay?" I ask, looking between the two of them.
"Fine," Oscar says quickly—a little too quickly—and turns his gaze to the floor.
Things don't seem fine.
"You sure?" I ask. He doesn't reply so I turn to a still-scowling Owen. "Owen?"
He's silent for a few seconds, his eyes darting back and forth between Oscar and me as he appears to contemplate what to do.
"Don't," Oscar demands, glaring at him. "Shut up."
I wait.
"Oscar's planning on skipping school on Monday to go and see his dad," Owen blurts out, and Oscar's face drops in shock at the fact that he's been outed.
"What?" I ask, equally as shocked but for an entirely different reason.
Oscar's dad isn't allowed to see him anymore—ever. I can't believe the kid would even be considering it.
"What the hell, Owen?" Oscar shouts. He looks angry. Oscar never gets angry.
"Is it true?" I ask Oscar, regaining his attention. I don't miss the shine of tears in his eyes.
"I—he said he's really changed this time. I think he's telling the truth," Oscar mumbles, looking lost and confused and extremely upset.
"But he won't have! Why won't you just listen to me?" Owen argues, looking beyond frustrated. Clearly, they've been having this argument for a while. "I can't believe you're going to let yourself fall right back into his trap!"
His words only upset Oscar more.
"Hey, Owen, why don't you go back downstairs and watch some more TV?" I suggest calmly. He needs to cool off just as much as Oscar.
Owen, thankfully, takes my advice, grumbling to himself as he climbs off his bed and makes his way out of the room.
"Knock some sense into him, Jade. I'm done with trying to be the voice of reason," he mutters before leaving, closing the door behind him with a little more force than necessary.
The second Owen leaves the room, whatever barrier Oscar had been putting up begins to break, the dam bursting as the first few tears start to fall. Within seconds he's sobbing.
I sigh quietly and walk over to sit next to him on the bed, wrapping my arms around him in a hug as he rests his head on my shoulder and continues to cry. My heart rips painfully at the sound of his hurting. He doesn't deserve this, no kid does.
From what Oscar's told me about his past, I know that his upbringing was a bit similar to Owen's.
His mum died giving birth to him, which is something his dad has never been able to see past. His dad blames Oscar—entirely unfairly—for her death. Instead of stepping up to look after his son, the most important remaining tie he has to the woman he loved, his dad took to the bottle and never looked back, measuring his grief in units of alcohol.
He turned nasty, booze and grief mixing to create an ugly, abusive side of him that, unfortunately, Oscar became the prime target of. It was awful. When Oscar first came here, he was a walking shell. He never laughed, never smiled, and hardly ever spoke. It took months of counselling for him to even start to make progress.
I can understand why Owen is so pissed—nobody under this roof will ever let him go back to that life. Even if he went about it the wrong way, yelling at Oscar in the hopes that his words would break through, his heart was in the right place. With Owen, it always is.
After about a year of living here, Oscar's dad managed to contact him. He wanted to meet up, apologise and make things right. George, Stella and Karen (with great persuasion from Oscar) finally agreed to an hour meet-up between the two of them, provided it was here at the house and under supervision. The rest of us were told to make ourselves scarce and Charlotte took us all to the park so we didn't get in the way. When we got back it was pure chaos: Oscar was crying, George and Stella were fuming and his dad was nowhere to be seen.
I've never found out what really happened that day but, honestly, I could make an educated guess. Whatever happened, his dad had stayed true to form, turning into an asshole to make his son's life even shittier. It's become an addiction for him now, I think, taking out his grief on the one person helpless to stop him—it's an addiction much stronger than the liquor that laces his veins, and he'd needed another hit. A restraining order was obtained and, thankfully, his father now isn't allowed near or to contact Oscar ever again, for Oscar's own mental well-being.
"Talk to me," I murmur when Oscar's calmed down a little.
Sniffling, he pulls away from me and reaches under his pillow, retrieving an envelope and handing it to me. The envelope is white, with Oscar's name scribbled messily in the top left corner.
Upon opening it, I can confirm that it's a letter from his dad, and I skim over the words quickly. It's basically along the lines of 'I'm sorry', 'I've changed' and 'I'd love to see you again so we can be a proper family'. The last paragraph is about how he wants to be a 'real dad' now. He wants to meet him on Monday outside the bowling alley in town.
"Are you going to tell Stella and George?" Oscar asks quietly, picking at a bit of loose thread on his sock and refusing to meet my gaze. The kid is literally radiating tension, his stress and worry cocooned around him like a butterfly struggling to bloom. It's difficult to watch.
"That depends," I say, my voice calm. He looks up at me. "Are you?"
He shakes his head dejectedly, biting his lip and looking back down at the thread on his sock.
"They need to know, Oscar," I sigh.
"They won't let me go," he says.
"Why do you want to go?" I ask, confused.
"He's my dad," he says with a shrug, as if that's reason enough.
"He is," I agree. "But not once has he ever treated you like a son."
"He's the only family I have, though," he argues.
"That's bullshit, Oscar, and you know it," I say. "We're all family. We may not share the same blood but everyone living under this roof is your family. You don't need him."
He's silent for a few seconds, thinking. I sigh when he doesn't say anything else.
"Look, I can't tell you what to do or how to live your life," I say, "but I can say this: if it was my father asking for another chance, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. He's not even worth the breath it would use to tell him no. Some people just aren't worth it, Oscar."
"What if he really has changed, though?"
"You already gave him a second chance. He blew it, remember?"
"Yeah. I know," he sighs, still picking at his sock.
"How did he even get the letter to you, anyway?" I ask.
"It was in my locker yesterday morning," he explains.
Well, fuck.
"Your dad broke into the school to give you a letter? That's... creepy."
How does he even know which locker is Oscar's?
"Well, how else was he supposed to get a letter to me?" Oscar asks, immediately jumping to his dad's defence. "There's no other way for him to contact me!"
"That's because he's not supposed to, Oscar. You know that," I sigh.
"Why the hell not?" he asks, clearly annoyed. "He's my dad and so it should be my choice!"
"Not if it isn't in your best interest," I say with a shrug.
"And how do you know that it's not in my best interest?" he asks, sounding half accusatory. His tension is fast developing into a defensiveness so palpable I can practically taste it on my tongue, the air around us disappearing from the room as Oscar's breathing becomes fast and shallow, like he's struggling to suck enough into his lungs.
Anger and defensiveness: both typical coping mechanisms for self-preservation, but not ones I've ever seen from Oscar. Bailey is the hothead of the family, usually.
He hasn't even been to see the asshole and Oscar's dad is already affecting him.
"Because I remember what you were like when you first arrived here, and after your dad came to visit you, even if you don't," I say. "I don't want to upset you, Oscar, but I'm not going to lie to you. I'm just trying to protect you, and so are George and Stella."
"Well I don't need protecting! He was just grieving, okay? Any husband would be after losing his wife!"
"Not at the expense of his son."
"Why not? It was my fault, after all," he snaps back, his voice breaking halfway through, his anger deflating as fast as it arrived as his eyes glisten with tears once more.
"What?" I ask, shocked. A single tear rolls down his cheek but he refuses to wipe it away, watching as it plops down onto his knee, darkening the blue material of his jeans.
My heart breaks for him all over again.
"Well, I mean, she wouldn't be dead if not for me, right? So it's my fault," he concludes with a shrug as another tear falls.
Broken—that's the only word I can think of to describe him right now. Well and truly broken... and it's all his dad's fault. This is why I don't want him going to see him on Monday, why I know Stella and George will never let him. Oscar doesn't need any more shit in his life.
"That's not—no," I whisper, pulling him back for another hug. "No, no, no."
"So whose fault is it then?" he challenges, his tears soaking my shirt.
"Sometimes bad things happen and there's no one at fault," I explain through the lump in my throat, my eyes tearing up as I try to convince him that everything his dad has ever told him is a complete pile of crap. "It's like the universe likes to play sick games sometimes, at the cost of ripping entire families apart. There's no reason for it, it just happens."
"So then why does my dad hate me so much?" he cries.
"Because he's an ass that has his priorities backward," I tell him, silently cursing his dad. "He's the one who doesn't deserve you, Oscar, not the other way around."
We stay quiet for the next few minutes, still locked in a hug, before Oscar pulls away and speaks up.
"So you think I should tell Stella and George?" he asks finally with a sigh.
"I think that if you don't then I'll kind of have to, Kiddo" I admit apologetically, stuffing the letter back into the envelope and giving it back to him. They'll both have my head if they find out that I've kept them in the dark, and I'd never be able to forgive myself if something bad happened to him and I did nothing to stop it.
He nods at that, still looking glum. "Okay, I'll tell them."
"Good," I say, relieved. "Do you want me to go with you?"
"Nah, I've got it," he sighs. "Sorry for dragging you into this."
"That's okay. You can come to me any time you need big sisterly advice, you know that."
"Yeah," he says with a half chuckle, clambering off the bed.
"Oh, Oscar?" I call after him as he starts to leave.
"Yeah?"
"Talk to Owen, okay? He was just trying to look out for you. You know as well as anyone that he hates snitching."
"Yeah, I know, I will," he promises before heading downstairs in search of Stella or George.
A protest from my bladder reminds me of what I was doing before I got distracted.
I still need to pee.
*********