Canberra was a shithole, but I usually didn't mind spending two weeks in November with Mum's cousin Carlos and his two adorable kids. Unfortunately, this year was different. Because all I really wanted to do was spend the time with Kai.
It felt as if I'd been robbed of time. We'd spent all night doing anything but talking, and instead of spending the morning wrapped in the afterglow, we'd been rudely awakened by Isabelle banging on the door, yelling something about being picked up in like fifteen minutes. So, instead of whispering sweet nothings for the rest of the morning, we scrambled out of bed and threw on the first outfits we could find, with only a minute to spare to try and disguise any evidence of the night before. Given that Will rolled his eyes when we arrived in the kitchen, breathless from our efforts, we clearly hadn't done a particularly good job.
So, when I saw Mum's car pull into Zac's driveway, I was a little bit disgruntled to be forced to say goodbye to Will and the three Delaney siblings, though I hoped I hid it well. I gave Zac a perfunctory wave and thanked him for his hospitality and quickly hugged Will and Isabelle.
When I got to Kai, who'd walked me out to the front decking to meet the car, I could do nothing under the watchful eyes of my mother except shoot him a secret knowing smile that spoke volumes to what we had spent all of the previous night, and this morning, doing, before pulling him into a tight embrace.
His arms were warm around me, strong enough to hold me up, and the stir of his breath in my hair made me so unwilling to leave I wanted to pitch a fit.
"I'll miss you," he whispered into my ear.
"Call me," I murmured back.
"Try stop me."
I pulled back to meet his eyes. "Now, why would I do that?"
"Hurry up, lovebird," my mother yelled out of the window. "We can't wait forever."
We?
It was in that moment that I realised I couldn't possibly go to Canberra. I was going to cling to Kai's leg, and if Mum wanted me to go, she would have to physically force me. Her incomprehensible texts from this morning suddenly made vicious, evil sense.
(7:23AM)
Mum: don't be bitch pls
Mum: you can have AUX if you cooperate
Mum: making friends with everyone is a critical part of life
Valerie: what
Valerie: why are you sending me random advice
Valerie: did you read a handbook
Mum: pls don't hate me u are my favourite daughter
Valerie: ??
Valerie: I am ur only daughter
Because this year, there was a girl installed in the passenger seat of Mum's car.
"Kill me," I muttered to Kai when I caught sight of the blonde girl sitting in my seat. "Fast. Please."
Sophie was sitting upright in the passenger seat, looking the perfect picture of boredom and vexation, as if waiting five minutes for me to say my goodbyes was some great suffering she was forced to piously endure. Unfortunately, the look quite suited her. Sophie Mansfield was unfairly pretty, and she knew it. Big blue eyes and ice blonde hair, she looked like a Nordic princess, or an additional member of the Plastics.
Sophie was Carlos' ex-stepdaughter, but he was nice enough to maintain contact with her despite the decade that had passed since the divorce. And the fact that Sophie was a vicious bitch. I would have taken any opportunity to avoid prolonged contact.
That was perhaps unfair, given that the girl was fifteen. Maybe she'd changed since last November.
But the meetings I'd had with her hadn't left a particularly favourable impression. She was judgemental and cold. She'd also ripped the head off one of my dolls when we were younger, and while I wasn't prone to grudges, I thought it spoke to her evil nature.
When Mum caught my eye through the window, she gave an apologetic grimace that said sorry for not telling you, I knew you wouldn't come if I did. And she was right; carpooling with Sophie for 8 hours would have driven me to drastic measures, up to and including cutting off limbs.
"Why?" Kai asked.
"The girl is evil," I hissed.
Kai peered through the car window at Sophie. She flickered an uninterested look back at him, and then scrunched her nose as if disgusted at what she saw, and looked away. Kai grinned at my obvious agitation. "I'm sure she's fine."
"I liked Sydney and Tommy, and I think she's insufferable."
Kai winced. "Yikes."
"I know," I moaned, even as Mum beeped the horn demandingly, urging me to hurry up. "So, kill me. Please."
"Couldn't do that," said Kai cheerfully, kissing the top of my head, even as I pouted up at him. He traced my cheekbone with his finger. "Survive two weeks and come back to me, hey?"
I didn't want to say goodbye to him. I wanted to live and die in that little room on the top floor of his brother's house, and never come out again. It was a relationship forged for the sake of appearances, for other people, and now all I wanted was to greedily horde him for me and me alone.
"Fine," I mumbled.
"Goodbye, Little Valerie," he said. "I'll see you in two weeks."
I didn't say goodbye in return, because I could hardly bare it. I was being ridiculous—two weeks was nothing, and I could call and text him–but I would miss him all the same. Instead, I turned away and hopped down the porch stairs, climbing into the backseat of the car without looking back.
"So," Mum said, when I shut the door. She kept her eyes forward as she pulled out of the driveway, but I saw the lifted corner of her lips. "How did it go?"
"Oh, it was fine," I said lightly, thinking of all the things that were a whole lot more than fine. The only fine thing about the weekend was Kai Delaney in a suit, and that wasn't the kind of casual fine my tone implied.
"Who was that?" Sophie demanded.
I gritted my teeth. So, not different then. Hi to you as well, Sophie. Mum didn't bother to intervene when Sophie's rudeness came to the forefront; all she did was tell me that Sophie had had a hard life, but she never deigned to share the details with me. So I was disinclined to forgive and forget her continual bad manners.
"Hi, Sophie. That was Kai," I explained. I didn't want to share the news with my mother in front of Sophie. I didn't know how she would attempt to overshadow my excitement, but I was certain she would have something rude to say. "We go to school together."
"Huh." Sophie tilted her head contemplatively. "He's very good looking."
I hummed in assent, and Sophie didn't bother to ask me anything else.
Mum felt the need to make pleasant conversation with Sophie—being an adult meant that you were forced to be kind to even the bitchiest of teenagers—though Sophie was at least polite to her. I only half-listened to Sophie's monosyllabic answers about her classes or her new baby brother, instead taking the time to respond to the text messages I'd received in the past 24 hours, when I'd been too wrapped up in Kai check.
Cora: oh my god!! i just saw your photo! you didn't tell me you would say yes if he asked you out but i'm so happy that my two favourite people are together
Madeleine: for a fake couple, you look very hot and in love
Cora: i knew the wedding meant something
Unknown (Lena): congrats. i told you that you couldn't bitch it
Cora: we have so much to gossip about when you get back! call me when you arrive in Canberra safe xx
Cole: Lena is trying to tell me she is personally responsible for your relationship? pls tell me that's a lie she's already insufferable
Tommy: can we talk?
I ignored the last message. Tommy had his opportunity to talk at Jameson's party, and I was done with anything he had to say to me. Instead, I revelled in the effectiveness of my plan, and blocked his number with a vicious tap of the screen.
Instead, I spent the next few hours scrolling aimless through TikTok and Instagram, and fell asleep with my phone on my chest. I was woken when the radio cut off hours later, and blinked the sleep from my eyes to reveal a single petrol station surrounded by acres of paddocks and fields.
"Where are we?" I mumbled, my voice a croak from disuse.
"Little Billabong," Mum explained, yanking her door open and stretching her legs just out of the door with a groan of pleasure. She pulled herself up. "I'll just fill up and we'll be on the road again. Not too long left, sleepyhead."
I yawned and prepared to shut my eyes again, but as soon as the door shut, Sophie spoke. She'd never addressed me unprompted before. "I think I know him. The good-looking one."
"Kai?"
Sophie nodded. She wasn't looking at me; her eyes were firmly set on a distant point through the windscreen, as if, by never meeting my eyes, she could pretend she was conversing with a distant void and not a living person. "Yeah. I think my father dated his mother."
I raised an eyebrow. "Really? Your dad dated Maria? When?"
"Few years ago. She was always really nice to Kai," Sophie told the horizon. "I remember liking her for that."
Mum had reminded me on numerous occasions to be kind to Sophie, that her life was harder than mine. It was the first time I really considered just how hard Sophie might have it, if Maria was an example of quality parentage. It was also the first time that I considered that Carlos may not invite Sophie to spend the holidays with them just because he loved her company.
"I... don't think she's the best mother in the world."
Sophie shrugged. Her shoulders were tense, even if her movements were casual. She wanted to ask me more, I could tell. But something within her seemed to have a complete aversion to the idea of asking anything of me.
So, I tried again. "If you wanted to talk to him, I could ask?"
"Why would he listen to you?"
I looked out the car window, where Mum had her arm rested against the roof, pumping fuel steadily into the tank. I wanted to tell Mum about Kai myself, but Sophie was so steadfastly against conversation that I hardly thought she was at risk of betraying my confidence.
"Ah, well. He's my boyfriend," I said, the term still sounding unnatural on my lips. But I couldn't 't deny the thrill of claiming him as mine, even to Sophie.
"Oh," said Sophie, picking at her nails. "I thought you in love with the other one."
I was surprised she'd listened to me talk enough last year to recall that I had a boyfriend. Every time I'd tried to confide in her, she had made a face and turned away with folded arms. You could never say I hadn't tried with her. "Tommy and I broke up."
Sophie looked up from where she was examining her hands: she had delicate white skin, free of freckles or colour, but the nails were bitten down almost to the bloody quick. She scrunched her nose. "Okay? I didn't know you had a boyfriend."
Frustration leaked into my voice. "Well, why did you ask then?"
"I didn't, actually." Sophie sounded bored. I wanted to throttle her. But, to be fair, she didn't actually ask. "But I was actually talking about the girl who was up here last year. She was kind of bitchy, so it didn't really seem like it would work."
Last year, we hadn't been forced to drive Sophie to Canberra, because she was already staying with Carlos. But I'd brought Sydney along for company, and we'd shared the little attic room at the top of the staircase next to Sophie's. We didn't invite her to hang out with us, partly because she told us on the first day that we seemed boring, and she wouldn't want to if we asked. And mostly because Sydney thought Sophie seemed like a stuck-up brat, and I listened to whatever Sydney said.
I frowned. "Are you talking about Sydney?"
"Sure," Sophie said, carelessly. "If that's the bitchy girl who came last year. The one you were a whole thing with."
"Sydney and I were never a thing."
Any goodwill I'd felt toward Sophie before dissipated in a flash. My face felt hot, burning with anger or embarrassment; I couldn't tell. Sophie was insolent and rude and she couldn't just say shit like that.
Sophie made a face that suggested she didn't particularly care either way. "Okay. I don't really care. She was out of your league anyway."
"That doesn't matter. We weren't a thing."
Sophie had barely spent any time with Sydney and me, despite the two weeks we'd spent under the same room. She'd been aloof at best, rude at worst, and didn't seem to care either way whether we liked her or not. So what the fuck would she know about it all?
"I don't care," Sophie repeated, slowly. "I was just saying what I thought."
"Well, you thought wrong," I snapped.
"Okay."
We sat in silence for several minutes while Mum paid. I was watching Sophie's face, cataloguing every minute change that betrayed the artfully curated stillness of her bored stare. She barely moved until Mum was walking back to the car, a receipt and a packet of chips lodged in one hand and a coffee tray balanced in the other. Sophie leaned across the console to open the door for her—the only concession to manners I'd seen from her—before leaning back in her seat with her arms folded.
"Your boyfriend is out of your league too," Sophie told me, without looking at me again. "It's interesting that that's your type."
They say it takes 10,000 hours to perfect any skill. For fifteen, she had really mastered the art of being a cow. I was going to grind my teeth to dust over the next two weeks. And to think, only this morning, I was bathing in a patch of sunlight, wrapped in the arms of the most gorgeous boy I'd ever known.
I resisted the urge to kill a fifteen-year-old. "I thought you didn't care?"
"I don't," she said sullenly.
Once Mum was back in the car, Sophie and I didn't speak for the rest of the trip. Instead, I just stared out the window at the sunburnt countryside, wishing, for the very first time, that the next two weeks would pass in the blink of an eye.