Page 38 of Tough Love

“That’s nice of them.” Dad’s eyes glaze over, his thoughts taking him elsewhere.

“Aunty,” Briar exclaims, tugging on my sleeve. “Granddad got me this.” He produces a Milky Way bar from his pocket.

“Yum.” I remove his hat, staring a little too long into his eyes. “Let’s head up to your bathroom and you can have a long bath to warm you up.”

He’s off like a rocket before I can say another word, thankful for the distraction.

“How did you both go, anyway?” Dad asks, seeming to come around. He gestures to where Mum still sits at the table, head down as she scrolls through something on the laptop.

“Productive,” I say simply.

He doesn’t need to know we’ve spent the better part of half an hour not saying a word to each other, that the air is so thick between us that I swore I almost tripped over it when I got up to use the bathroom.

I’m sure if Mum thinks he needs to know, she’ll tell him later.

“Hot drink?” I ask, noticing Dad’s sodden hair. “Something to eat?”

“Lunch would be lovely,” he says, shaking off his jacket. “Just whatever we have. Don’t go out of your way.”

“Coming right up.”

I spin away and head for the kitchen, wanting to laugh like a maniac and cry in despair at the same time.

Things are back to exactly how they’ve always been: everyone being nice as pie to each other and pretending that once upon a time, many years ago, they didn’t just about lose this daughter too.

THIRTEEN

Twelve years prior

I don’t understand why the school insists our winter uniform be a woollen kilt. Warm? Maybe. But so would pants be. A kilt though … the wool gets wet in the rain, the fabric stinks after a day of warming up in the classrooms only to get wet again between periods, and it’s heavy as hell.

As in, ridiculously heavy.

I bump my backpack higher, cursing at my wet socks as I feel the beginnings of blisters on my heels.

School should be cancelled on rainy days—simple.

Checking both ways, I scurry across the street to the main road of our town, thankful for the partial respite from the weather as I step under cover. Our town is historic, and so most of the buildings are the original 1900 to 1930 construction with the curved tin veranda out front.

Loud laughter erupts across the street, and I look up to seethem:the boys’ rugby team. Well, at least eight of them, congregating around one of the park benches the council installed for the elderly to rest on.

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone over forty use them yet.

Ignoring the pointed stares, I turn my head away and concentrate on getting home. First, they ridiculed me for being fat. And then I was too thin. I got mocked for having the wrong friends. And now they pick holes in the fact I walk home alone.

Some of us just can’t win.

The voices near, and I buckle down, pulling my backpack higher as I hustle as fast as my growing blister will allow.

“Where you going, Missy-Moo?” A nickname that’s stuck from my pudgier days. At least they don’t back it up with ridiculous cow sounds anymore.

I ignore the question, recognising the voice as that of Jarrod, the cocky self-centred fullback for the school team.

“Talking to you, bitch.”

No doubt he’s pissed at being made to look stupid in front of his mates. “Don’t engage,” you’re told when you ask the school counsellor for advice, and yet when you walk away, it only maddens the bully more for not getting that cherished reaction.

“Hey.” My body twists violently when he shoves a hard hand into the back of my shoulder.

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