Page 96 of Swept Away

I stare at the back of Jeremy’s head, trying to figure out what the hell’s going on in my brain. I’m feeling…scattered. Everything’s too much, even though I’m just sitting here, doing nothing.

I press my hand to the wound on my stomach, my broken nail throbbing. Somewhere back there at the marina, with Mum bossingaround the paramedics and Lyra disposing of hovering news reporters as though she’d been getting rid of journalists her whole life, I started to feel the way I used to feel. Fidgety, uncomfortable, sad. Like I’m always in the wrong place.

I sag back in my seat, turning my gaze to the world outside. Sitting here among them all, the reality’s still that I don’t fit in. I guess that whole childhood fantasy about having another father was wishful thinking. An explanation for why I don’t belong. Embarrassing, really. Especially as it turns out there’s no excuse for me being the way I am—there’s nobody else to blame.

“What did you miss the most, Ezekiel?” my mum asks, with forced cheer.

I wince. She’s trying to make conversation. She did this all the time when I was a kid, because I was so quiet—she was always trying to get me to speak up when all I wanted to do was listen.

“I dunno,” I say, trying to turn my thoughts that way.

I see the slight tilt of Lyra’s chin and I know she’s rolling her eyes. She’s never had any patience for my slowness.

“You, probably,” I tell my mum after a moment.

It’s true, but the part I don’t say is, there wasn’t all that much else I missed. I had so much on that boat, and now that I’m back, seeing the huge ripple effect we left behind us…I feel kind of guilty for not thinking more about home. For me, out there, it was all about getting Lexi back to Mae. That was my focus.

My mum starts to cry.

“Oh my God,” Lyra says, without turning around. “Don’t, Mum.”

Mum never cries. She just doesn’t hold with that sort of thing. Straight-backed, sharp-eyed, she’s a push-on kind of person. But here she is, weeping, and reaching to clutch my hand. I see it again, just a flash of it: she’s not the disapproving figure I built up in my head as a child. My mother’s a full person, as messy as I am, asmessy as the version of my dad that I found in those logbooks. I grip her hand tightly in mine.

“Pull it together, Mum, he’s back now,” Lyra says, glancing over her shoulder. “Look, he’s right there, see?”

“Let her cry, Lyra,” I say sharply. “Not everyone copes the same way you do.”

The car goes very quiet. I can feel the collective shock. This is not a thing I would usually say. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever snapped back at Lyra like that before.

“All right,” Lyra says after a moment, and though I can’t see her face, I can imagine her expression: eyebrows raised, slight amusement on her lips. “I was just trying to save you the sight of what a wreck you made your family, actually, but sure, I’ll zip it.”

“You don’t have to save me from anything,” I say, turning to look out of the window again. “I can save myself these days.”

“Noted,” Lyra says.

This time, when she looks over her shoulder at me, her expression is almost…I don’t know, interested. She’s never looked at me like I’m interesting before. Maybe if I’d had the balls to stand up to Lyra before, instead of following her and Jeremy around like a lost puppy, my childhood would’ve been a bit different.

Mum sniffs, looking straight ahead, wiping her cheek with her spare hand. “I do apologize,” she says. She squeezes my hand again. “It’s just been a little bit of a stressful time.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I say, my voice rough. “I’msorry. You must have been so scared while I was gone.”

I hate the hurt I’ve caused her. Not just the last two weeks—she’s dealt with a whole lifetime of crap from me. I fought her whenever I could, broke the rules, disappointed her so many times she must’ve wanted to give up. Thing is, I always thought she was lying to us—and I guess I was right. Shedidhave an affair, and shenever told us that Jeremy had a different biological father from me and Lyra.

But now that I know the truth for sure, I wonder if it was really the lie that bothered me, as a kid. I remember once I told my therapist that my mum probably regretted me—the kid she shouldn’t have had, the proof she cheated. It was an offhand remark at the time, but seeing how much my mum is feeling right now, seeing the pain she’s been through since I’ve been gone…in an awful, twisted kind of way, it feels good. I can see how much she cares. And that feels new.

“We were rather worried, yes,” she says, her voice still wobbling slightly. “Was it dreadful? Was it just—was it torture? I understand if you don’t want to talk about it. But I have to ask. I’ve imagined every kind of horror you can think of.”

This time my answer comes instantly. “No,” I say. “No, it was amazing.”

The car goes silent again as Jeremy pulls onto the motorway, joining the stream of traffic. The wind thunders against the windows. I flinch. I wonder if it’ll ever stop feeling make-or-break when the breeze picks up.

“I mean,” I say, skin prickling, too aware that they’re all waiting for me to speak. “I mean, it was awful. But I fell in love. So…that bit was amazing.”

“You fell inlove?” Lyra says, incredulous, turning her whole body to look at me over the back of her seat.

The flow of traffic on both sides is starting to make me feel a bit dizzy. I see a sign for the hospital, and suddenly I can’t wait to get there.

“Of course you did,” Mum says. “What an experience to share with someone. It’s only natural that the two of you would bond.”

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