| FOURTEEN |
SWALLOWTON
There were exactly eight white tulips in the bouquet.
He was almost certain. Of course, he'd only counted them five times. And, just for fun, he'd even memorised the employee reference number on the receipt he'd gotten from Shiro's mother's gift shop.
The lady opposite him sent him a warm, knowing smile. Isaiah smiled back, wishing he could tell her that no; he wasn't taking a thirty three minute train for a significant other. That those flowers were not for a faceless boyfriend, girlfriend. He didn't though, because he quite liked how happy the lady was to assume that romance wasn't dead.
He checked his phone for the tenth time since putting it on Do Not Disturb. Messages from his friends, either starting, continuing or referencing a conversation beckoned. A message from his father, about one thing or the other. He'd reply to them eventually. Maybe when he was on the bus to The Home.
It was half past 12 when he got off the train, bouquet pressed to his chest and phone tucked into his pocket. It had rained earlier, and the sun was only just beginning to bashfully peek out of the bleached clouds.
As he ambled down the streets of Swallowton, he vaguely registered his bus pulling away from the stop, but he knew he was already thinking about the extra 5-10 minutes that he'd have to wait for it. He was going to be behind schedule. But somehow, he didn't mind as much. It didn't seem like such a big...deal.
He sat at the stop, flexing and unflexing his fingers, watching the cars speed past him, watching teens and tweens on scooters and skateboards zip past him. This visit seemed different. He couldn't place it. He didn't know what it was about it, because he wasn't doing anything particularly special that he didn't do every weekend. He wasn't doing anything at all. So what was it?
On the twenty five minute bus ride to his destination, he tried to ask himself that question. What was so special about today?
When he alighted, he felt the curious, wary stares of the passengers on him. It wasn't a secret what this stop was. It was named Evergreen Avenue, but everyone knew that it was where people got off to get to a place that wasn't so cheery.
After he'd braved the seven minute walk with nothing but birds, park spaces, passing cars and harmless wildlife for company, he reached it. The home looked like a country mansion with towering flowering hedges, creeping ivy and an idyllic sign.
The Swallowton Home Of Hope and Rehabilitation.
The guards posted opposite the sign nodded to him, familiarity in their greeting. Isaiah nodded back.
When he got to the large, looming marble doors, he stood, feet apart and arms out for the customary brief pat down and polite rummage through his belongings. As usual, it was Dave patting him down. He liked Dave.
Isaiah beelined for the garden immediately. It was surprisingly sunny day despite a chill every so often, and many of the residents were taking advantage of this.
They dotted the expansive, impressive green space in their weekend wear. People were sat on the stone benches or on the grass, some even lingered around the imposing, treacherous hedge maze that first saw on a tour. That was the only time he'd been allowed to the dorms.
Isaiah, strangely, found the entire scene peaceful. It was easy to see those who were easing their guilt by visiting. People like him.
He ambled down the garden, unsure why he felt slightly on edge. This feeling faded on his third visit all those years ago. As he got closer, Isaiah saw children stroking the statue of the weeping angel and whispering to the ear. It probably shouldn't have, but it made him smile.
The bouquet felt heavy with the new addition of a singular tulip. He always got seven. One for everyday in the week. But today, he'd gotten eight because he had to tell her something that was becoming more and more important to him. Someone, anyway.
He saw her the instant he began to search for her. Faith Matthews, in a lilac dress and with her blonde hair plaited to the side. From afar, she didn't look like a mother of three.
From afar, where her bags weren't visible and her skin couldn't be scrutinised, she looked young. But her bags were dark and veiny, and her skin wasn't as bright and fresh as it used to be when she actually took care of herself and the responsibility wasn't on people who were paid to do it.
She was singing a song under her breath, one that Isaiah didn't know. The words died on her lips the second she laid eyes on him. She smiled, dulling the pain in her eyes.
"Hello, my sweet boy." She cooed, gathering him into a hug. She kissed his cheek and held him there for a while, simply content to feeling another human being. Her human being.
"Princess Willow told me you'd be coming." His mother said, a little excitedly. "She knows everything."
"You know I come every week, Mum." Isaiah sighed.
Princess Willow was his mother's...friend. His mother insisted she was a psychic, and Princess Willow pushed that notion, probably. He'd only ever met her once, and even then he'd felt uncomfortable under her stare. He'd felt the strongest urge to cover up his most personal thoughts. She was a silver haired 20 year old girl with dark skin and contrasting white tattoos. He couldn't blame his mother for thinking she was ethereal in at least one sense.
"How are you, sweet boy?" His mother asked, pale blue eyes glinting with affection.
Faith stared at the tulips lovingly, counting their number with her eyes. It was when she landed on the number eight that she looked up at her son, question in her eyes.
"I'm alright. So is Hope, so is Micah." Isaiah omitted Amélie was doing fine as well. His mother had never met her before, and frankly he wasn't sure if she knew she existed. She probably did.
His mother gathered larger his hands into her smaller, softer ones. "What is it? Princess Willow said–" she stopped herself, seeing his face. "What's the matter?"
Isaiah looked into her eyes, mirrors of his own. His mother looked worried. He let out a sigh. The next words he said caused a free, genuine smile to grace his mother's face.
"There's this girl..."
+++
"How's your father?" She asked, eagerly. "Are you watching his blood pressure?"
Raising it, more like. Isaiah thought.
"Yes." He lied. If he said no, he'd worry his mother. She had enough on her plate, being fed enough drugs to weaken a running race horse.
"Good. You know how he gets, so caught up in the world of work that he forgets about his other ones. That's you kids. He loves you all so much. You have to understand, honey..." she said, in a way that made Isaiah feel like he was twelve again. "Your father is a good man. He just doesn't know how to treat the people he loves with...love."
Isaiah wondered if he was the same. Had he inherited that curse from his father? He didn't think so. Did genetics even stretch that far, first of all? Besides...he treated the people he loved with love. Didn't he? He treated his friends with love. He knew that. He'd treated...his girlfriends with love. He'd treated...he treated with siblings with love. He loved people. He wasn't like his father. He actually showed love, he knew that.
...Right?
Isaiah looked at the looming brick building of The Home. Most of the windows were open, curtains fluttering in the odd mid-autumn breeze. A few storeys high, he caught the gaze of two young girls, eyes locked right on him. He felt uncomfortable. He looked at his mother.
"...your father just needs time. He loves you all so much. He's not good with showing it, but he's trying, honey..."
No he's not.
"...Raising you kids alone...it's must be so hard for him. Good thing he has Rosa." She sighed. "When I get out, we can be a family again. I can finally start writing properly! I don't think I'll need notebooks anymore..."
Isaiah stiffened. That was his answer. His mother really didn't know. His mind raced as his mother continued her excited foretelling. His heart squeezed with guilt, with shame. How was it possible that she didn't know she and his father had gotten a divorce, and that he'd had another child? That he'd married a hotshot fashion designer that nobody could deny looked very similar to his mother? Surely, she'd had to sign divorce papers?
His mother smiled at him, blue eyes brighter and chapped pink lips stretched in a smile. "...You were always so understanding." She cupped his face with her hands. "I'm not sure who you get that from."
Isaiah looked away from his mother's adoring eyes. It was getting harder and harder to pretend that their family life had come to a standstill since she left. Mel had been born, Hélène had moved in, Hope could construct full sentences and hold a conversation, Micah was beginning to explore his teen angst...his mother's office had been transformed into Hélène's.
Life had changed drastically since she'd been here. Isaiah wasn't a psychiatrist, but he thought her psychosis seemed...subdued. Or maybe, his mother was good at pretending. It seemed his father was too.
Isaiah wondered if he got that too.
+++
Isaiah had realised that evening that, from the string of Karim's unanswered texts, that the giant would decide to come to his house. He may bring reinforcements in the form of a pink haired girl and an artist so reckless he got paint stains on everything he owned.
It was for that reason that Isaiah decided he wouldn't be there when Karim burst into his room. No. He'd be at Beans n Stuff, pretending that he wasn't there to see Eira. Like he wasn't there to see if she really did spend every waking moment out of home-school at the indie coffee shop.
As he was sat in the coffee shop, he got a text from Shiro asking him if they can meet up and hang out that night. Isaiah would've rolled his eyes at the pathetic attempt to bait him out if he had the energy.
He knew his friends were only trying to...be his friends, and he knew they knew how he got visiting his mother, but this time was different. He felt...ashamed of himself. He went there weekly to absolve guilt that he had no business feeling, and now found it. He found his guilt. How could he explain that?
When the hovering waitress (Mallory Jones, she was in his math class and always laughed loudly at whatever he said) brought him his second hot chocolate, he didn't take his eyes off the area of wall that he'd been staring at for the past hour and five minutes. How did his mother ever get to where she was?
The woman he spoke to, the woman who could only just hold a conversation was not his mother. What, along those years where she lived at home and acted like a mother, had changed for her to get to the home? Isaiah knew, from his young brain, that his mother wasn't all there. But she had regular treatment and did a lot of swallowing with water, so he assumed she was in control. He never should have.
But what, Isaiah thought, about Dad? The closest person to her. He didn't notice anything?
"Why do I feel like that's not your first?"
He sensed her before he heard her. Sensed her with that radar of his. Her voice wasn't tentative, or hesitant. It was soft, concerned. Worried. Curious.
Eira sat opposite him with the grace of a fairy. She was wearing her reading glasses and a hoody that he hoped kept the nightly near-winter chill away from her, and Isaiah didn't understand why regardless of how she treated him again –never answering his calls, but answering his texts almost forcedly– the way his heart sung and beat a little faster, the way he felt a lot calmer, the way he felt as though he could talk his turmoil out to her, and even if he couldn't he could just...be with her, made him scared. And relieved. But mostly scared.
Her voice was soft, but it managed to pull him out of his thoughts. "Is something wrong?"
The truth was, something was wrong. It wasn't just his situation with mother. The wrongness stemmed from the facts that;
(1) Isaiah had seen Eira the same day he'd finished telling his mother about her. He didn't believe in fate or the universe or any of that hippy, floaty crap (terribly illogical, he reasoned, to base your existence on why things happened because of the stars in the sky or the solar system), but if he did, he might have suggested that it was those working towards him and Eira.
(2) that he was becoming a little uncomfortable and conscious about how much of himself he shared with Eira. For you see, it was this exact moment, sitting opposite her in a nearly deserted indie coffee shop where he was helpless with how much guilt he felt about his mother, this moment where Eira stared at him concernedly, that he realised he didn't know any thing about his beautiful hazel-eyed companion.
She knew he wasn't an avid smoker. She knew where he lived. She knew about his mum. She knew he had a stepmum and a half-sister, along with two siblings. What did he know about her? Nothing. Not even her favourite fucking colour.
"I don't know a single fucking thing about you." Isaiah breathed. They were his first words since he got off the train. He'd pointed his order to the waitress, Mallory.
"You know...you know so much about me, and I don't even know where you live. How many siblings? Are your parents divorced? Your favourite colour?" He said quietly. "Jesus Christ, Eira. I don't know anything about you except the way you make me feel. I don't know anything..."
"Isaiah..."
"No," he said to the wall. "I'm not an idiot."
"I never said you were." She said, so firmly that he glanced at her.
There was a silence for a few moments. Mallory pretended not to watch them, and the person behind the register pretended not notice them. Everyone else in the shop was not as polite.
"If you," he started, slowly. "Don't want me," he continued, looking into her hazel eyes. "In your life, then tell me."
"How can you say that?" She almost gasped. "How can you look at me and say that? I'm here, for you. For you, Isaiah Matthews. Not for anyone else. I'm asking you what's the matter. I texted you–"
"Yes, because everyone loves monosyllabic responses." Isaiah said dryly. Eira recoiled. Isaiah's heart squeezed but his brain frowned. "You know what, Eira? Forget it. I gotta go."
"What?"
Isaiah wasn't paying attention to her. He was pushing in his chair and putting a tenner on the table. "I have to go." He shrugged and before she could blink, he was walking out of the shop.
Isaiah was digging out his keys, hovering at his car door. The minute he pulled out his keys, he felt the metal disappear from his grasp.
He looked at Eira. She was clutching the keys and giving him the most determined look she'd ever seen.
"What are you doing, Eira?" He sighed, dragging his palm over his face. He didn't want to be around her now. She confused him. He was tired. He wanted to go to his house.
"I'm not letting you drive when you're upset–"
"And who said I'm upset? Because of you?"
"I never said that."
"Give me a break, Eira." Isaiah sighed. "Give me keys so I can go home and help my little sister stop crying herself to sleep."
Eira blinked.
"I'm not letting you–"
"Give it a rest, Eira!" He erupted, shocking the two of them. "Just give it a fucking rest." He sighed.
His breath turned frosty wisps. The streetlights behind him gave him a orange glow and aura. Eira thought he was like an angel. A tired one.
"...my keys, so I can go. You don't want me in your life, but I've got people who do. I'm sorry for bothering you, and I'll see you around. Just give me–"
"Stop talking," She whispered.
"What?" He frowned.
"Stop talking,"
"You don't get to tell me that." Isaiah scoffed.
"Just stop talking! I care about you, dammit, and I'm not going to let you drive off upset and upset with me without explaining myself! I care about you, Isaiah. I'm sorry for making you feel...this way, but I just want to..." she trailed off, words lacking conviction and hesitation seeping into her tone.
Isaiah put his face in his hands. When he clasped his hands together, she must've realised he looked...tired. And she closed her mouth.
"My mother doesn't know she's not married to my dad anymore. She doesn't know I have a new sibling. She thinks my brother's still in art club, and she doesn't know he's doing drugs with a bunch of future school leavers. She thinks I'm taking care of my dad, but all I'm doing is raising his blood pressure.
"One of my sisters thinks my mother is dead, and the other cries herself to sleep because she's never properly known her mother, and she sees her in the mirror every day. She's wondering why our father keeps calling her Faith..."
"Isaiah–"
"No." He said to the road. "Eira, I don't...I don't have time for this." He sighed. "You don't care about me. I thought...you don't mean all that you've just said. You wouldn't have ignored me if you have. Just...stop being so performative." He rubbed his eyes.
He glanced at his car, and looked up at the sky.
"Please, just give me my keys."
She made no movement to do so. Isaiah wanted to stomp his foot. Why wouldn't she just let him leave?
Slowly, she held out her palm. Isaiah plucked the keys, unlocked his car and drove off a little higher than the speed limit. He glanced at his mirror.
Eira hadn't moved. She was standing in the same spot on the street, staring after his car.
~~~
A/N:
I am so so so so so sorry I haven't updated in like, five months? I've had exams, and sixth form and revising and uni and coursework and basically ripping my hair out so I actually amount to something!
I've also got another surprise for people who read my other story, Kryptonite (R.I.P. 😢)! I'm rewriting it! It's on my profile: Beware Of Dogs! I've explained everything on there. Thanks for sticking with me. This isn't going to happen again, I promise!
-Nana xx