Page 39 of A Wonderland Wish on Ever After Street
The gate to Bram’s house opens as I pull up to it that night, and he’s sitting on the steps outside, waiting for me. He lifts a hand in greeting and I do the same through the car windscreen as I stop under the magnolia tree and park on a carpet of fallen pink blossoms.
The early-evening spring sun is behind me as I get out of the car and crunch across the gravel. I’m unsure of everything now. I don’t even know if I’m angry at him. The panic of being expected to cater a wedding has obliterated everything else. It feels like weeks since I found out who his father is, not mere hours.
‘Hi.’ He holds a hand up to shade his eyes as he squints up at me. He’s got a zip-up grey hoodie on with the sleeves pulled up to his elbows and the hood half-up, partially covering his longish hair where it frames his face, soft and wavy now after a shower.
‘Hi, Bram Hastings.’ I climb the stone steps and sit down beside him.
He groans and buries his head in his hands. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You can hit me now, I don’t mind.’
Without lifting his head, he holds his right arm out so it’s infront of me, but instead of hitting it, I trace my fingertips along his skin, letting my fingers rub across the fine dark hair covering his strong forearm. ‘I don’t want to hit you. I want to know why you didn’t tell me.’
‘Oh come on, really?’ His chin is resting on his other arm, almost on his knees, but his eyes are trained on the spot where my fingers are touching. ‘You were wary of me from the start because I’dphonedhim. If you’d known we were related, you’d never have let me in.’
‘And wasn’t that a huge…’ I was going to sarcastically snap ‘mistake’ but I stop myself. It doesn’t feel like it was a mistake to trust him. No matter who his father is,hehas done nothing but build me up and help The Wonderland Teapot to thrive.
He tilts his head to the side and meets my eyes, and I know he’s heard the unsaid word and recognised that I didn’t say it. ‘His shadow is large and impossible to get away from. My whole life, I’ve had people befriending me because of who he is, because they want me to “put in a good word”, or for a million other reasons that all revolve around him. The other night when you said you didn’t care who he was, my heart kind of leapt and did a fluttery thing. I wanted that to be true, but it never is. That shadow looms too large for anyone to ignore.’ His voice sounds strangled and quiet, and he’s talking to the concrete of the steps rather than to me. ‘I know I should have told you, but honestly, I liked you not knowing. If you liked me, I wanted you to like me for being a good Mad Hatter, not because you thought I would have some influence over your lease. And if you hated me, I wanted you to hate me for being me, not because of who my father is.’
I can’t help noticing the anomaly in those two options. Like him for being the Mad Hatter or dislike him for being himself. Why is there no option for simply liking him as he is?
As I’m thinking about it, I realise my fingers are still on hisforearm and pull them back quickly, and he jolts in surprise, like he hadn’t noticed either. ‘I meant what I said the other night. Idon’tcare who your father is, Bram. I care whoyouare. Your father’s shadow has bully written all over it. Who he is has no bearing on who you are, other than to ensure you’re the complete opposite of him.’
His smile starts off small and gradually widens until he’s beaming wider than any Mad Hatter grin he’s ever thrown my way, but for once, it’s a completely genuine beam that makes it impossible not to return until we’re both sitting on his steps, smiling at each other.
There’s something about him that’s infinitely trustworthy. From the nervous habit of card shuffling to the instant slip into character when Mr Hastings refused to shake his hand. It’s clear that Bram’s been on the wrong end of his father’s boorish behaviour many times. ‘Why’d you do that with the confetti today? And don’t say it’s because you’re obnoxious, becauseyouaren’t. You must’ve known it would only make him angrier…’
‘Because I’m sick of being told there’s something wrong with me.’ He says it instantly and then stops and thinks over what he’s said. ‘If I know someone doesn’t like me, I want to bemoreme. I want to wind them up. I want to drive them crackers. I want to give them a reason to hate me. When I’m told that I’m too much, I want tobetoo much.’ He lets out a long sigh. ‘I’m an adult. I don’t need my father’s approval, but sometimes I want it. I want something I do to be good enough. I’ve tried,so hard…’ His voice cracks and it sounds so aching and desperate that it makes my heart leap into my throat. ‘But I’m never, ever going to be who he wishes I was, so I may as well be ornery and cantankerous. It’s easier to be hated for a character I play than for who I am.’
I didn’t intend to take his hand, but suddenlyI’m holding it, clasping it between both of mine. ‘So your level of annoyingness is based solely on how annoyed people are with you…’
‘The sign of someone who had a screwed-up childhood and has a plethora of deep-rooted issues, I’m sure.’
He says it with such a frivolous tone that it makes me smile, but it also confirms something I’ve been trying to figure out. Bram has been nowhere near as annoying lately as he was at first, and I hadn’t yet worked out whether it was him being less annoying or my tolerance level growing. ‘I’ve noticed that, you know.’
‘The plethora of deep-rooted issues?’
I laugh. ‘No. That you haven’t been anywhere near as annoying as you were at first.’
‘You haven’t been anywhere near as annoyed with me as you were at first.’ He moves his hand in mine until our fingers line up and then slots them together and squeezes. ‘I’d go so far as to say you might even like me, just a little bit.’
It makes me laugh out loud, because I know he doesn’t mean it inthatway, and because it’s unequivocally true. He’s impossible not to like when you get to know him. ‘Nah. Notat all.’ I’m grinning as I say it. ‘Not even the teensiest little bit. No siree.’
He’s laughing too. He knows I’m joking, and I know how good he is at reading people. There’s no point even trying to hide it.
His eyes gleam as he disentangles our hands and reaches over, clicks his fingers from somewhere behind me, and pulls a tulip out from behind my ear.
‘Bram!’ I want to be mad at him but it’s impossible to stop smiling. ‘I hate it when you do that!’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he repeats, that familiar mischievous glint in his eyes again. We both know that’s exactly why he does it.
He holds the tulip out to me and my fingers brush against his as I take it. His hand lingers just a moment too long against mine andit sends a little shiver up my arm when he pulls away, and I fight the urge to chase after it and catch hold of it again.
I twirl the stalk between my fingers. I don’t know where he got it from; the tulip planters are at the bottom of the steps and I’d have seen it if it was already here. I let my fingers stroke over the pinky-white satiny petals. I know I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t stop myself. ‘Didyou have a screwed-up childhood?’
I can feel his eyes on me but I keep my focus intently on the tulip, because if I look at him, I’m not entirely sure I won’t hug him.
It takes him a long time to answer. He’s obviously considering his words carefully and probably weighing up how much he wants to share, and I’m moments away from standing up and pretending I didn’t say anything before he speaks again.
‘Things cut deep in young children, and the way to mess a kid up is to constantly question why he’s like he is. I spent my childhood being dragged around to a steady stream of child psychiatrists and psychologists while my father insisted that they needed to diagnose me with something, anything, because he wanted to know there was really something “wrong” with me, but I never fitted into any of their parameters. None of their tests defined me.’ His voice is barely above a whisper and I’m certain he’s never told anyone this before. ‘I was shy, I didn’t like being told what to do, and I never wanted to be anything like my father. That wasn’t an acceptable life choice in his eyes, and he needed to believe that there was a label to explain it, rather than put up with me being…’ he shrugs, at a loss for how to finish the sentence.
