Page 13 of The Two Halves of My Heart

“You can’t fight me to see her.” Oliver pulled up as tall as he could make himself, but it didn’t work.

“I can, and I will. You don’t get to boss me around. Besides, don’t you have any other friends to play with?” I rubbed the fact that he didn’t in his face.

“Don’t you? Why do you keep hanging around with us, anyway? Go and play with your mates.” Oliver scowled and stormed past me.

Not a chance he was getting away with that. I waited for him to think he was walking away, then rushed up behind him. This time, when I shoved him, I made sure I put all my strength into it. “I hate you. You know that.”

He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t wait around to hear anything he might say in return. In fact, I hoped he was crying in the dirt. My legs raced me home, and before Mum could say anything, I rushed to my room to hide until the fallout, which I knew would come. Oliver was too much of a cry-baby not to go running to Mum or Dad. Luckily, they only had his word over mine, and in this circumstance, they’d assume we were both to blame. Easy to manipulate when you’d been fighting your brother for as long as you could remember. Although, I couldn’t remember being this mad at him before. It was harder now. I was on the verge of anger all the time. For everything and nothing, and it didn’t matter what we did, nothing helped. Except for Grace.

A rare choice for me, I got on and wrote out the list of spellings we had for homework that week. It would save Mum yelling later on and put me in her good books for the arguments that would finally happen when Oliver got home. He should have crawled back by now. We were only on the green. And even if I assumed he’d spent a good ten minutes crying on the ground, he should have come racing in complaining at the top of his lungs about me.

But nothing.

Another thread of annoyance curled in my stomach as I battled to stay in my room and out of trouble, but I wanted to know where he was. I wanted to know what he was playing at.

“Mum!” I yelled down the stairs. “Is Oliver home?”

“No. He’s still out. I’m surprised you aren’t with him. Dinner will be in fifteen minutes. You can go and fetch him from Grace’s.”

Like hell. My footfalls thundered downstairs. “He’s not at Grace's,” I protested to Mum in the kitchen doorway.

“Okay, then he’s somewhere between there and here. Go and find him please.”

“He should have been back ages ago. She said she was busy tonight before I came back.”

“Oh, I see. Is that why you’re walking around with a storm cloud over your head?”

“No. I am not.”

“Go and get your brother and stop arguing.” Her tone changed, and I knew my choices were to comply or risk being grounded for the rest of the week.

When I reached the spot I’d left him in, Oliver was nowhere in sight. We didn’t know anyone else on the road, not enough to go to their house, anyway, which left only one answer to where he’d gone.

“Hello, Charlie, is Oliver here? It’s dinner time.” I asked politely when Grace’s mum opened the front door.

“Yes, he is. Hold on a minute. Oliver? Time for tea. Grace, you can see the boys tomorrow.”

Oliver bounded down the stairs from Grace’s bedroom—no sign of tears anywhere. He did have a secret smile that made me want to shove him to the ground all over again. I held the urge in and let him walk past me. Before leaving, I glanced back up the stairs. Grace was sitting on the top step with Bob on her lap. She didn’t look very happy, and all of a sudden, I was worried that Oliver had run to Grace for help and told her what happened.

The thought that she might take Oliver’s side over mine only added another layer to the anger bubbling away. By the time I stepped out of the house, Oliver was already crossing the bridge and out of danger.

The rage was so close to the surface; it overcame me, forcing the heat of tears into my eyes. I wanted to scream, to see if that would empty what I was feeling inside, but I swallowed it all back. I was stronger than this. I would beat this. And I would beat Oliver.

He’d played me and showed me up in front of Grace, getting what I wanted in the first place.

Well, I wouldn’t let that happen again.

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