River of Lies (6 page)

“Are you going to storm off too?” Tilly snapped as she stared at me.

I rolled my eyes. Tilly sounded just like mum, nothing was good enough.

“Tilly, please, let her be, it’s not been easy on her” dad said sadly, Tilly grunted a half snort.

I eased my way into the chair, and suddenly realised the pain that was in my legs from my running. I had become so tired, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep, and not wake up for a week.

“I’m tired, I’m going to go to bed, night Tilly; night dad” I said, as I stood up and headed towards my room.

That night, sleep came easily, it was a dreamless night, and when I woke the next morning, I felt more refreshed than I had in many weeks. 

Chapter Seven.

Throughout the week, I tried my hardest to avoid my dad and Tilly.  Dylan would take me and pick me up from school.  After school we would sneak out somewhere and be all over each other’s bodies in the back of his van. When we got home on the Friday night, we could see other cars parked in the driveway. I recognised Michael and Shelly’s Volkswagen. I looked over at Dylan who frowned.  My stomach sunk.  I reached over and took Dylan’s hand. He looked at me, and touched my face.

“We’ll do it together ok?” he said, as he kissed me on the cheek.

“Hey you too, you gonna come in and join this party or what?” I heard the familiar shriek of Shelly.

I sighed as I got out of the car, and walked solemnly up to the front step, I didn’t want to go inside, and wished I had somewhere else to go. I wished I could run away with Dylan and not come back. As we got to the front step, Shelly wrapped her arm around me and hung off my shoulders, Michael came out, beer in hand.

“Hey you two, yer missin’ all the fun” he said, as he took Dylan’s hand in his gnarled dirty hand and shook it firmly.

“Glad to have yer dad back squirt?” he asked as he tussled my hair.

I just smiled in response, because they just weren’t ready to hear the truth.  Shelly dropped her arm off my shoulders, as Michael took hold of my hand, holding me back from entering the front door.

“We need to talk Mon” he said.  He looked down at me, his eyes unreadable.

“What about?” I asked, as I tried to read the look on his face.

“Your mum” he ran his hand over his face, and I felt my stomach drop.  I didn’t want to talk about my mum.  She was gone, and I didn’t want to hear anything more about her.

“What about her” I said. 

Before he had a chance to answer, I saw my dad come to the front door; his face was twisted into a frown.  Michael shook his head, and left me standing on the step as he went into the lounge room.

“What was that about?” Dad asked as he reached me.

“Nothing” I said.

As I went inside, I could see on the table the array of drugs, and that familiar smell of dope hit my nostrils as I rounded the hallway. Sitting on the floor, legs sprawled out in front of her, bong bubbling away, was Chantelle; she gazed up at me and waved unsteadily. I forced a tight lipped smile. I could feel that familiar feeling of disgust build up.

On the couch sat Tilly.  Dad moved past me and sat with a beer between his knees, next to Tilly, he gave Michael a hard stare, but Michael seemed to refuse to meet his eyes. Tilly looked over at me and smiled, I could see by the redness of her eyes that she had, had her fair share of marijuana.

“Well here she is, her royal highness” she spat with contempt.

I raised my eyebrow.  As everyone in the room laughed, I shrugged and began to leave.

“You see, too fucking good for us, royal fucking highness” Tilly yelled.

I forced the tears down, as I opened my bedroom door.  I looked down the hall to see Dylan, he watched me with his face full of concern.  I stayed in my room, and listened to the laughter that roared from the lounge room. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I imagined it was stories of my mum.  I wasn’t interested in hearing it. I heard the knock on my door as the door opened a crack. Dylan’s head peeked around the corner, he smiled when he saw that I was still awake a book wedged under my chin.

“You ok?” he asked.

I nodded.  

“Dylan, what made you fall in love with Tilly, you’ve never done drugs, she screams at you, you seem to have nothing in common?” I asked.

Dylan shrugged as he sat down on my bed next to me, he began to rub my leg, and his touch was soft and felt delicious on my bare skin.

“I don’t know, maybe it was all just to be able to meet you”

I laughed, his smile lit up his face, and his eyes began to dance.

“We should sneak out, run away” he said.

“How, they will hear us?”

Dylan shrugged again.  It would have been nice though to run away and never come back. He leaned over and kissed my lips, as he searched out my tongue with his.  I fell into his arms, and kissed him back hungrily. I heard a movement at the door, and opened my eyes, to see my dad’s face, his brows pulled into a tight frown.  I pulled away from Dylan, as my dad moved off. A mixture of fear and excitement pulsed its way through my veins. I had no idea what my dad thought, I didn’t know if he would tell Tilly, I just knew I had to get out of there, away from the stink of bong smoke, away from Tilly and Shelly’s high pitched giggles, away from the memories of my dad, just away to be alone with the man I had fallen so deeply in love with.

“Let’s go” I said, as I grabbed Dylan’s hand and lead him out the back door.

When the car fired to life, I saw Michael look through the window.  We backed out the driveway fast and sped up the road, and away into freedom.  We drove aimlessly, with no particular place to go and soon found ourselves at the beach. When I wound down the window, I could smell the oceans salty air mixed with fast food shops and seaweed.  We sat in the car, looking out at the blue waves as they caressed the sands edge, Dylan’s hand entwined with mine. As we watched the world go by, and the freedom, the freedom that you get only by being with the one you love.

We knew that freedom would come to a crashing end when we got back home, but at that moment it was nice being away from the chaos that had seemed to suddenly envelope my brief peaceful existence. We sat and watched the sun begin to come up over the ocean, the birds, flew against the pink and orange hews of the sky.

“We better go face the music” Dylan said, as he fired the car to life.

I sighed, and wished it didn’t have to come to an end.  We drove back in silence, but not an awkward silence, we were both at peace.  The house was quiet; Michael and Shelly’s car still was in the driveway.  When we went into the house, the place was dark, with the curtains pulled, the smell of dope and beer lingered in the air.  Beer can’s littered the lounge room floor, ash trays were filled with cigarette butts, and the bong looked like it had been knocked onto the floor.  Michael was sprawled ungracefully on the couch, with Shelly curled up in a ball next to him on the bean bag.

I went into my room, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and I didn’t wake again, until I heard Tilly yelling.  I couldn’t make out what she was saying in my half asleep state, but I knew it had something to do with me when she swung open my door, near off its hinges.

“Where the fuck were you last night? I nearly had to call the fucking police” she screamed into my face.

“But you didn’t did you?” I said, terrified of the crazed look on her face.

Her slap stung as it hit my cheek. I stared into her face and refused to let her see how much she hurt me. As she went in for the second slap, Dylan grabbed her arm.

“Don’t you touch her” he snarled at her, his voice full of venom and anger, if I wasn’t so frightened I would have found it sexy.

Shock took over her whole face, as she looked from me to Dylan.

“So why are you protecting her Dylan, your meant to be my boyfriend” she pouted sulkily.

He nodded. A look of repulsion filled his face.

“I am, but I promised I would protect Mon, and that meant from you too” he said. 

The vein in his neck pulsed and his face reddened. I could see the anger that was filled in his dark eyes. I pulled the blanket up to my chin; the air was thick with tension. She wrenched her arm out of Dylan’s hand, and pushed past him out the door.  Dylan looked at me and mouthed “you ok?” I nodded, and flopped back onto my pillow. I covered my eyes with the palms of my hands.  I felt someone sit on my bed next to me, and when I removed my hands from my eyes, I could see my dad.

“Mon, do you love Dylan?” his face had softened, he had shaved the stubble and brushed down what was left of his hair, he was a different man there at that moment, not the man I had come to hate but a man that I longed to have as my father. I was confused by my feelings, I couldn’t understand how just in one moment, he could change repulsion into almost love for him.

I looked at him, and remembered that he saw our shared kiss the night previous. My face said everything and I knew there was no point lying to him.

“Yes” I said.

Dad nodded, and patted my leg.

“You’re a good girl Mon, and Dylan is a good guy. But it would tear your sister’s heart out if she knew”

I looked away, and stared at my wall.

“Well I’ve kept enough secrets for you, maybe once in your life you could keep one for me” I looked back over at dad, and stared into his eyes, my anger was overwhelming, as that love I felt, suddenly dissipated and turned back into disgust. 

I noticed his eyes begin to well up and my heart suddenly softened once more.  I couldn’t keep up with the changes in my emotions and it made me want to scream. Dad nodded, as he ran his hand through what was left of his hair.

“Your right, you have kept a lot of secrets for me, and that was wrong for me to expect you to do that, but what you’re asking me is to choose between the two girls I love.”

I looked away again. Tears formed and threatened to overflow, I pushed my palms into my eyes, to stop them from coming.

“I’m going out with Chantelle, I’ll be back later” I heard Tilly say from my door, with a sharp tone in her voice.

I felt dad get up and heard him as he left the room. I lay in bed and cried silent tears, until I had nothing left.  When I finally left the safety of my bed and went into the lounge room, I saw that Michael and Shelly had left too.  I went into the kitchen, to start the tedious job of cleaning the house, to make it look more respectable again. As I was wiping the beer and bong water off the last of the bench tops, I heard the front door open and heard Tilly call out goodbye to Chantelle.  I could feel a headache beginning to form in the base of my skull.  Tilly came into the kitchen, and put her bag on the counter that I had just cleaned.

“Thank you for cleaning” she said, not looking at me.

“It’s ok” I mumbled.

When I heard her shut her bedroom door, I went into the bathroom, and locked myself in to run a bath.  My head was now pounding.  I looked at my face in the mirror, and could see huge dark bags had formed under my eyes.  I suddenly realised just how tired I was. I laid in the bath, and soaked in the hot water, until the water turned cold. When I came out of the bathroom, I could hear Tilly talking with dad in the kitchen, it sounded like she was crying. 

“Mon?” Tilly called.

I went into the kitchen, tears streamed down her face, and dad sat holding her hand.  He looked up at me, with concern on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked frowning.

“Dylan says he wants to break up with me, he says he can’t live with me while I’m mean to you.” she sobbed. “Did you tell him to leave me?”

I looked at my dad, who was staring at me; His face told me that Dylan had chosen me. His looked urged me to come clean but I didn’t know what to say.

“Where is he?” I asked. Tilly shrugged her shoulders.

“I dunno, probably gone to his mum’s.  Are you fucking him?” she said into her cup of coffee, as she wiped her face with tissues.

I stared at my dad, whose eyes were pleading with me.

“Um, no” I said.  “I’m tired; I’m going to go to bed”

I didn’t even look at my dad as I turned to head to my bed.

“Mon?” Tilly called before I left the kitchen.

I turned to face her, she had lifted her face from her coffee, and I could see her face was stained with tears and her eyes bloodshot.

“You’ll know I’ll kill you if you have fucked my boyfriend”

I nodded and turned away, and locked myself in my room, as tears flowed down my face, wetting my pillow.

That night my dreams were filled with images of Dylan and my mum, they were both talking, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying.  When I woke up, I felt like I hadn’t really slept at all. I got up and went into the toilet, when I looked down at my pants, worry was starting to grip me, I had been due for my period for two days, and yet there was still no sign of it. While I sat on the toilet pondering what I could do, and worrying about what I would do if I was pregnant, I heard the familiar voice of Dylan.