Hooked By Love (4 page)

Zack

What a dick head.

I switched off the TV and threw the remote control down on my bed. I’d just watched the news segment about the closure of Young Minds and the big fallout from the community. Some opposed it and others wanted the closure if it meant bringing jobs into the neighbourhood. I pitied the fools. The tactics Berkley-O’Neil used were typical: send in the good-looking front man to win the public over, then while no one’s looking, do whatever the hell you want. I’d seen this game played out so many times and it sickened me. I couldn’t believe anyone with more than one brain cell would believe the claptrap these news outlets were spewing.
And people say teenagers are thick.

I was considering what to do with myself for the rest of the day, when a soft knock on my door caught my attention. I looked towards it in surprise, as I wasn’t expecting anyone and it was way too early in the day for it to be my uncle. Knowing him, it would be midnight by the time he finally managed to drag himself away from the office. Not that I gave a damn.

Before I could ask who was there, the door pushed open and Hope stood in the doorway. Sleek blonde hair framed her heart-shaped face.

‘Hi, Zack,’ she said quietly.

‘Hope,’ I said, gesturing for her to come in. I wasn’t rude about her unexpected intrusion but I wasn’t exactly welcoming either.

Unruffled, she stepped into my room, which thankfully I had tidied that morning. Normally I left things until it was a battle to enter or exit, but that suited me fine; it kept my uncle at bay.

I flopped down on the bed and looked up at her. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing much,’ she said, lowering herself onto the bottom of my bed.

We were both silent for a few moments before Hope spoke again. ‘I came round to see if you’d told your uncle you’ve been suspended from school.’

She let the words trail off when she saw me frown. She knew how I felt about sharing things with my uncle, so I knew straight out she was lying. Adults weren’t the only ones guilty of it.

I ignored the question and took out a can of beer from my stash under the bed. ‘Do you want one?’

She shook her head and averted her gaze. For a girl as good looking as Hope, she didn’t have much confidence, whereas girls with less beauty walked around like they were God’s gift.

‘Did you mean what you said in your text? About, you know …’

Yes, I knew. The text I’d finally sent in reply to her about Mel and me. I cracked open a beer and drank deeply. The can was half empty by the time I looked at Hope to address her question.

‘Of course I did. I wouldn’t date Mel if she was the last girl on earth,’ I said with meaning in my voice, because it was true.

Hope glanced over at me and a slight smirk touched her full lips. Booze fuelled, I was going to tell her I wouldn’t date her either but managed to stop myself in time.
Why should I hurt her just because I’m hurting?

Instead, I jerked up into a sitting position and said, ‘Wanna play Xbox?’

She didn’t look like she was leaving anytime soon and I wasn’t in the mood for talking, so if she stayed, she’d have to be content with me playing my game.

‘Okay,’ she said, slipping out of her jacket. Her breasts peeked over the top of her pink vest and she gave me a knowing look when she saw my eyes widen and my eyebrows rise.
If she only knew.

I turned away but not before I saw the disappointment in her eyes. Unlike most of the guys at college, I didn’t fall over myself upon seeing a bit of flesh. I thought she should be grateful that I saw her more as a person than as a pair of tits, but it didn’t seem that way.

In any case, that was her problem, not mine. I drained the rest of my beer and threw it under the bed, making a mental note to put it in the bin before I went to sleep. The last thing I needed on top of everything else was my uncle going on at me about my drinking habits.

I pushed myself to my feet then strode over to my glass TV unit and switched on my game. Two hours later, with hundreds of zombies killed and enough points to move me to a level I’d reached before, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I snapped my head. I’d been so wrapped up in my game I’d forgotten Hope was here.

‘I’m gonna make a move,’ she said, standing.

‘Laters,’ I mumbled as I turned back to the screen.

‘Aren’t you going to walk me to the door?’ she asked in a whiny voice.

‘Oh shit. Nooooo,’ I said out loud as a zombie rounded on me and bit greedily at my neck.

Lack of concentration had got me killed.

‘All right, let’s go,’ I said, hiding the irritability from my voice. I wouldn’t mind being the perfect host if I’d invited her round, but I hadn’t.

I trailed behind her as we made our way downstairs. Once outside, we stood awkwardly on the doorstep. I shifted from foot to foot and she looked at everything but me.

A slight wrinkle formed between her eyebrows and a minute later, she asked, ‘Don’t you like me, Josh?’

I stilled and looked at her. I would have liked to tell her the truth but the words caught in my throat. I realised I was just like all the adults in my life after all.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment as if steeling herself for my response. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Hope. I actually liked her, just not in the way she wanted. If only things had been different. My stomach twisted as I leant against the doorframe and crossed my legs at the ankle.

‘You’re a great girl, and I respect you, Hope. I’d just prefer to take things slow,’ I lied. I leant forward, kissed her cheek then retreated indoors before she could say another word.

Josh

Driving around Hyde Park on the A5 towards Chelsea after work, my eyes grew heavy. The day had been trying enough, especially after I’d had to jump through hoops for Priscilla and her pet nerd, Henry. At first I thought I should have dinner in town, but the interview had worn me down, and besides, it was Monday, a day to be endured, not enjoyed. And so, with way too much acid reflux, I decided to head straight home after I picked up a Chinese take away meal and a bottle of English Whisky.

I wasn’t in the mood to cook, but I was in the mood to leave behind my bully of a brother and the stuck-up idiots in broadcast television. The skies looked threatening as I passed along Sloane, so I had a solid idea of what my night would hold, hopefully. If it rained, I’d relax with a film and some fine whisky. Tonight was Josh Time.

Pulling into my driveway, I looked up at the tall oak trees that flanked the edges and towered over my car. Their tips bent under the sweep of the hastening wind that brought the stormy clouds ever nearer. I parked my car in the garage, walked out and closed the electronic door behind me.

‘Looks like a storm,’ I told Agatha, my housekeeper, when she met me outside the garage.

‘They said there was a heavy rainfall predicted for the next two days,’ she replied, lifting her bulging eyes up to the heavens.

Agatha, a plump fifty-nine-year-old widow with a strict regimen of discipline and religion, had come by to collect some garden chairs I said she could borrow for her sister’s upcoming birthday party.

‘Come, let’s load the chairs before the rain drenches us,’ I suggested, sounding far more cooperative and energetic than I felt.

‘Oh, I can’t thank you enough, Josh. How has your day been?’ she asked as I opened the door to the storage unit next to the garage and started to pull out the wrought-iron chairs.

‘You don’t want to know,’ I told her. ‘I just want to eat, drink and then disappear into my bedding like a trip to Narnia, I tell you.’

She sniggered at my melodramatic complaint. ‘That’s so unlike you. You’re normally such a charming extrovert with boundless energy.’

‘Not today, Aggie, not today. If I make it through the first hour after my shower without falling asleep, I’ll consider it a valiant feat.’

My skull was throbbing with a budding migraine that warned me not to drink, but I wasn’t prone to listening to wisdom this evening.

‘Only two things can drain a man’s will like that,’ she said. ‘Women and work.’

Her eyes wouldn’t leave me, as if she was genuinely waiting for an answer. I’d had enough of women asking me questions today, but I accommodated dear old Aggie.

‘Both. And not in the good way. Not in the profitable way either,’ I moaned as I pushed the third chair into the back of her hired van.

‘Ouch, don’t worry, love. Tomorrow is a new day. Of course, if you intend on drinking that tonight,’ she warned, pointing at my bottle of whisky, ‘you might lament more things by tomorrow evening, hey?’

‘I frankly don’t care, Agatha.’

‘Good grief, Josh. What has you so flat?’ she asked with worry in her voice that I actually appreciated. It was nice to be genuinely worried over for once.

‘Come into the house with me. I have more chairs in the conservatory,’ I said. ‘And I want to give you that external hard drive for your son, remember?’

‘Ah, yes,’ she said and followed me inside. The house was far too quiet. It was never a haven for the boisterous, but normally the telly was on, or I’d hear commotion in the kitchen from a hungry teenager.

‘Zack,’ I called. ‘Zack, are you here? I need help with the garden chairs.’

Nothing. Agatha and I exchanged glances.

‘I haven’t seen him either, not since I finished the carpets this morning. He did have a lady friend round earlier. Maybe they had a lovers’ tiff,’ Aggie informed me quietly. ‘Not to worry, the chairs we loaded will be more than enough, love.’

My nephew’s absence annoyed me. Of course such behaviour was expected from someone his age, but I was growing increasingly intolerant of his teenage ways. Not only was he distant, but he was also drifting further away from addressing the important matters he was supposed to be dealing with.

‘You can’t worry so much about him, Josh. He’s just withdrawn for now. He’ll be all right, when he’s ready.’

Aggie soothed my waning confidence in my aptitude to reach out to him. Outside, the wind wailed. For now, I felt okay, but once Agatha left, all cheer would vacate the house, as well as my spirit. I dreaded her departure. She was the glue that held my life together, and I wanted to keep her positivity around me awhile longer.

‘How about a quick libation?’ I asked her when we reached my home office to get the storage device from my drawer.

Agatha folded her arms over her bosom and stared me down like a reprimanding mother.

‘It’s bad enough you’re going to jump into the Devil’s piss tonight, love. Don’t drag me down with you,’ she jested and shook her head.

I poured myself a stiff drink at my desk. Agatha clucked disapprovingly, but her natural warmth softened her pretend fierceness. I had to concede she had a point. If I were going to feel sorry for myself over Zack, Craig and the issue with the bloody youth centre, I had no right to poison my friends with whisky.

Handing the device to Agatha, she gave me a long hard glare saturated with care. Her dark brown eyes studied my face until I felt compelled to speak if only to spare us the awkwardness. I cleared my throat, grateful for the rain that clattered against the grey flagstones outside my office window, distracting us from the uncomfortable silence, but Agatha didn’t say anything. All she did was look at the Letter of Suspension from Zack’s school that was lying on my desk, where I had left it the night before.

‘I know. You say he’s withdrawn, but I think there’s more to be worried about,’ I told her outright, tired of smiling and acting like everything was peachy. And this was Agatha. Our Agatha. Confidant and friend to my family since my parents, and my sister, were alive. I could tell her how I felt and not expect a sermon or judgement.

‘He needs time,’ she started but I responded immediately.

‘He’s out of control, Aggie. You know, I’m still trying to deal with all of this myself.’

I raked my fingers through my hair. It was as if my thoughts needed to get out regardless of whether I should voice them; they were like water gushing out before I could stop them pouring from my lips.

‘I feel that I’m letting him down because of my own weaknesses and inability to work through this mess,’ I told her, clutching my glass of alcohol like a buoy in a stormy sea. ‘Aggie, tell me straight: Am I losing my grip on Zack the way I did on my sister?’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone has suffered a major loss, under such tragic circumstances as well. Time heals all that ails the heart.’ Agatha had a way of removing emotional thoughts from guilty consciences. ‘Nothing here is your fault. Zack needs time. I’m sure he’ll reach out to his favourite uncle when he’s ready. He knows you’ll always be there for him, so give him the space to withdraw and deal with his pain in his own way. He’ll come out of himself soon enough, and when he does, he’ll need you to help him face a life he doesn’t want to face. Until then, just be a dry leaf on the river stream for him.’

‘Go with the flow, you mean?’ I asked, my voice breaking while I swallowed down the lump in my throat.

‘Yes, go with the flow, Josh O’Neil.’

If only it was that easy.

‘Now’—she snapped back into her usual control mode—‘I have to get going or I’ll have to raise the sails and row home with this dreadful wetness.’

‘You had better, yes,’ I said in my best normal voice, and as she turned her back, I finished what was left of my first double and put the glass down next to the offending letter.

I walked Agatha out to the driveway, and as I watched her brake lights disappear in the grey downpour, melancholy crept up on the back of my ribs and seeped its way into the base of my skull. Its cold fingers wrapped around my brain and my thoughts spun in response.

Zack was my charge, my older sister’s only child. I was responsible in ensuring he emotionally survived his mother’s suicide and the terrible pain and guilt she’d left in her wake. That he wasn’t ready to talk with me about it was understandable. Hell, I was barely making sense of any of it myself, and my grief, I admit, was a black iron demon with a firm grip on my heart and my ankles. It moved with me with my every step and my every breath.

When I thought of my poor nephew losing his mother, the depth of my ineptitude to help him due to my own deep sorrow for him and the loss of my sister swamped me. I still didn’t know what had tipped her over the edge and made her take her own life. Her death was still a horrible, nightmarish mystery that was so raw none of us could touch it. So we left the giant elephant in the room and walked around it every day.

God, I need a drink.
I poured a second large whisky and shifted my take-away food aside to eat later, if at all. My stomach wasn’t ready for nourishment, just as my heart wasn’t ready for healing. Both organs craved the poison of ignorance and oblivion, no matter the threat it presented in the long run. The whisky incinerated my feelings as it burnt down my throat, warming me while the rainy evening turned into a cold night. I switched on the TV screen, but took no note of the action thriller I’d wanted to watch.

‘What’s the point?’ I picked myself up from the sofa, bottle in hand. I was too awake to go to bed and too tired to sit on the sofa and pay attention to the plot, so I resorted to the only thing that kept my mind occupied and benefited me: work—my saving grace.

I switched off the movie with its overly loud sound effects and suddenly my home was draped in silence that soon became cloying and mocking.

‘Are you listening to me?’ I shouted in my solitude, the question aimed at my troubles as if they could hear me. ‘I’m going to work now. You will not subdue Josh O’Neil.’

Realising I was drunk enough to talk to the walls, I thought it best to abandon the bottle. I put on some inane music that filled the silence and allowed me to concentrate. I opened my purchase contracts, knowing the numbers would sober me up fast. This was better than wailing about my sister’s suicide and my nephew’s downward spiral. Yet, while I worked, a thought vied for attention through the columns of figures:
What else is Zack upset about?

I hadn’t anticipated the change in Zack over the past few months. Something else existed below the understandable grief and anger, something as heavy as his mum’s sudden death. I wished, for the umpteenth time, that he would open up to me. Everything had been so much easier when he was younger. I was the first person he came to when he had a problem. I would converse with him for hours then take him for a spin in my sports car to take his mind off whatever was troubling him. We’d had what I considered a really good relationship. But everything was so different now.

While I completely understood his withdrawal—hell, we had all withdrawn after Claire’s death. Unless he told me what was weighing on him, I couldn’t do anything about it. Feelings of helplessness enveloped me until I opened the purchase contract of the Young Minds building, and then all thoughts vaporised out of my head like mist in the sun.

‘Amber Cross,’ I said tenderly with my willing mouth and lazy tongue. In the background music of pattering rain, her name sounded as sweet as she was beautiful. ‘I can’t wait to meet you, my beautiful nemesis.’

Putting the file aside, I went online and watched the video clip of her television interview on the local news archive.

‘Amber Cross.’ I rolled her name across my lips as her earnest eyes looked directly at me, staring into my soul as if she knew my every thought, memory, dream and fear. Her lips, her beautiful light green eyes, the way her vibrant hair coiled and jumped when she moved drew me in. Her voice was to me like what the rain was to the earth outside. It washed away the dirt and dust and made everything new, fresh and clean again.