Page 18 of Thick as Thieves
Aged14
Yorkshire, England
She’s wanderingaround the churchyard at the top of Windy Hill. She's been here a lot recently. The view is spectacular as it looks down on the village at the bottom of the hill. It’s a quiet place, but, as you can imagine, it’s windy and cold when other places are warm and sunny. Set further up the hill, out on its own, the vicarage is not a place you would casually pass, a place you would go to visit loved ones or use the church. Marcus said her mum has died and there’s a gravestone she puts flowers and sometimes stones on, small pebbles, anything to mark she’d been there.
My mother died just a month before hers, just before Christmas. I’m still trying to come to terms with it. Not because I loved her and miss her. I don’t. She hadn’t wanted me, made that very clear to me from a young age, but never to my dad. Always when he was there she was nice. It was cruelty in my book, showing what she could be and then not being it at all.
I actually don’t think she was capable of love, that’s why she could only manage it as a pretence for a day tops. I had grown hard to it, which is why I stayed with my friends all the time. She wasn’t bothered, she was happy I stayed with the Russells. She eventually got to where she never pretended she wanted me, and Rowena was happy if Marcus was happy, so I stayed with them.
I’d stopped trying to tell my dad. He just didn’t get it. He still wanted me every holiday with him, but I kept him to Christmas and birthdays and the rest I spent in Yorkshire.
From age nine I loved it—the hassle of fighting, scheming, winning and losing. I loved it all. And the Greystones and this girl were a part of that.
I can see she’s hurting, I recognise it. The pain, it calls to me. I want to take it away for her, but I know I can’t.
My mother dying hadn’t given me a chance to get back at her, not given me a chance to ask her why? I was fucking furious about it. I wanted to hit things, shout at the fucking world for taking that chance away from me. Would it make me feel better? Probably not. She may have told me to get lost and not answered my questions. But at least I would have asked them.
So instead I fought, I drank, I smoked weed. I had to calm it a bit, as they were threatening to call a therapist—or worse, my dad—and I would be hauled up to the Highlands, out of the way, to sort my head out. And I needed to be here with my friends and my frenemies, as I thought the Greystones were now.
Since Marcus had lost the plot after kissing Evie in the river, he was besotted with her. He wanted to be wherever she was. We had sort of called a truce, inviting them to come over and use the stuff they had been using anyway but fighting us over it. Now we were doing it together. They were a bit wild, but I loved that more and more. They were game for anything, especially Evie and Jonno. They would go anywhere, do anything, nothing had a limit on it and I couldn’t get enough of it.
She’s sat cross-legged at the side of the grave. “You can come out, I know you’re there, Xander,” she shouts out but doesn’t turn her head.
Her hair is down, it’s so long. I didn’t realise it was so long as she usually has it up in a ponytail. Blonde, but going a bit brown. Boring, she always said. But I never see it as that. I see all the colours threading through it. A skirt and black tights, a school uniform, shirt and a coat, no blazer, she’s sat on that.
I step out of the shadows, standing behind her. Looking at the grave that has her mum’s name and the dates, loving mother, beloved wife, and a Celtic trinity knot underneath. I sit down next to her, and she shuffles a bit so I can get on the blazer.
She looks at my zip-up hoodie, fleece lined, and grins. It’s new. She’s asked for one, but they’re school ones so not really any good for her. But she’s bugging us about them anyway.
“No,” I say, smiling. Which turns into a massive grin.
She starts to laugh. “Never said a word.” She's side-eyeing me and the fleece.
“You don’t have to, I can see it in your eyes.”
She laughs at that, and takes my hand, threading her fingers through mine. She’s never done that before. The softness of her skin, blanketing me into calm.
I’d seen Kellen grab her hands. He was constantly touching her hands. He was constantly touching her anywhere he could without getting punched, but she rarely moved to touch him.
“You make my heart hurt,” she murmurs quietly, turning her full grey eyes on me. Eyes that looked into my soul when I was nine and have done every minute since—prodding me, probing me, challenging me, soothing me, I had felt it all.
“Why?” I splutter out.
“Do you miss her? I didn’t think you loved her, she sounded horrid. I know people say you should not speak ill of the dead, but if they were horrible, why should we not?” She shrugs at me. “Don’t you have a grave you could go shout at?”
“No. She was cremated, no ashes, her wishes. No one would have wanted them.” I laugh out sarcastically. “And she knew it.” I grip her hand tighter.
“Good. I’m glad she knew you wouldn’t want her. But she’ll be here, you know, listening. Tell her, tell her what you want her to hear. My mum was a shit mother in a lot of ways, but she was a great listener, weren’t you, Mum.” She pats the headstone, with a soft loving smile.
I gape at her. “You can’t say that. It was your mum.”
“Pfft! If I can’t say it, no one can. There’s no point saying she was great, because she wasn’t. You can’t do a lot from bed, you know. Limits your options.”
I stare at her, this girl sat here on the cold ground, being more truthful than anyone ever has. Unafraid. Unapologetic. Telling me it’s okay to say what I feel, to her at least. Stating it like it is. The flood gates open, and I feel the release as I start to talk.
“I am sad, mad, pissed off and fucking fuming. She was a bitch. She never wanted me and told me that every fucking week until I stuck with Marcus and wouldn’t go home.” My face is getting hotter and hotter. I can feel myself boiling. “I fucking hated her for that. Why? What was wrong with me?”
I stop as an involuntary tear has rolled out of my eyes, and I refuse to give her anything. Evie hangs onto my hand, moving her fingers further through mine and maintaining contact at all times. She waits a minute for me to collect myself together. Then turns to face me.
