Page 59 of Want It All
I was obviously not going to say any of that to my mother, so instead I answered: ‘I think they’re fine.’
My mother looked up from her tablet screen. ‘Hmm.’
‘Hmmwhat?’ I collapsed to sprawl in the only armchair not covered in dead trees.
‘Justhmm.’ Mum studied me for a moment, then changed tack. ‘I got an interesting email the other day.’
I quirked an eyebrow. ‘What kind of email?’
‘The kind that my Executive Officer insisted I read immediately.’ Mum turned the tablet around so that I could see the subject line and sender.
‘Tristan sent you an email?’ I said, bewildered, then took the tablet when she offered it.
And almost crushed the thing when my fingers began to curl into fists.
‘Heathcote didwhat?’ I snarled. ‘Fifty-two? Rose?Are you fuckingkiddingme?’
‘Okay, Mr. Hyde, pipe down,’ my mother said, completely unperturbed. ‘So Tristan’s concerns are legitimate, then.’
‘Entirely. Rose couldn’t get that kind of mark if she tried.’ I scanned the email once more before I handed the tablet back, noting its dispassionate tone and the dates and times Tristan had provided for other notable incidents, along with the fact he’d copied in the Banksia Houseboard.
Tristan Grace was apparently scared of nothing.
‘I can verify everything Tristan says, though Rose didn’t tell me she got fifty-two. Fuck, it must have been killing her.’
‘You know her so well?’
I looked across to see that dad had stopped reading through an article and was studying me with a hopeful look. ‘I, ah,’ Istarted hesitantly. ‘I know her well enough to know she’s a high achiever. That isn’t a mark she’d get under usual circumstances.’
‘Then a re-mark it is.’ Mum didn’t sigh, though I knew how much extra work remarking an entire cohort would be, especially because there would need to be extra checks, and she’d have to manage Heathcote’s reaction, along with complaints from students whose new mark might be worse than the first. She simply grabbed her laptop from the side of the couch and opened it. She liked reading on a tablet but refused to write on it; everyone in my family had their little quirks.
‘So … breakfast?’ I queried. ‘Or has dad already eaten all the bacon?’
‘No, but only because we haven’t cooked it yet,’ my dad answered, going back to his article. ‘Do you want some help?’
I tried to groan, but it turned into a laugh instead.Sneaky fucker. ‘I’ll remember this when I’m putting you both in a nursing home.’
Mum snorted. ‘That was Tina’s favourite threat,’ she said, her voice at once fond, and very, very sad.
I fled to the kitchen before I could see her tear up.
I heard her sobs anyway, even over the sizzling of the frying pan. Dad was murmuring to her, and if I went back out there, I knew I’d see his arms around her, and mum crying for the daughter she missed so fucking much.
It was my fault, I knew. Mum could hold it together like a trooper until I was there. Because Tina and I had looked so similar – all dark hair and grey eyes and matching smiles – and we thought the same way, too. We loved the same TV shows, read the same books, played the same sports. There was only a year between us, after all.
We’d both revealed our designations far too early: Tina at fourteen and me at thirteen. I’d revealed a month after Tina, as if something in my body had kicked into overdrive, knowing I’dhave to protect my omega sister. And I had, for years. No one fucked with Tina, because her scrap of a brother stood like a shadow behind her, always ready to bloody someone’s nose with his fists.
Until.
Until. Until.
It didn’t matter that it had been seven years ago. It could be seventy and the grief would still be there, lurking just below the surface, waiting for an opportunity to smash our hearts again, again, again. Tina simply wasn’t the kind of person whofaded. Even now, her voice was so sharp in my memory that she might have been standing beside me.You don’t cook bacon like that, B. Fuck, who raised you?
I fried some eggs and got the hashbrowns out of the oven. By that time, mum had recovered enough to get the juice from the fridge while dad made me a coffee, going through the everyday motions as if they hadn’t just broken open with grief.
‘I have to tell you something, mum. But before I do, I want you to know that I think you should let it happen.’
She frowned at me, setting the salt and pepper on the table. ‘That sounds ominous, B.’
