Inevitable (33 page)

“
You’re home!” my mum exclaimed, standing from the sofa. She
reached out to hug me and my body involuntarily
stiffened.

“
I can’t. Not yet. I just want to go to bed,” I
said.

“
Okay. Take as long as you need.” I nodded and made my way
towards my bedroom door. “Maddie?” Mum called.

“
Yeah?”

“
Thank you for coming home.” I forced a smile and opened my
door. I considered showering again - Blaine’s scent was engrained
into my flesh. But in some twisted way – despite how he’d just
treated me – it comforted me. And so I crawled into bed, smothering
my covers over my body and buried my nose into my shoulder, letting
his delicious smell dance into my nose until it lulled me to
sleep.

Blaine

“
Downstairs. Now!” my dad blared
when he burst into my room as I was
pulling my jeans back on, just minutes after Maddie had left. He
wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow and whatever happened to
cut his trip short would almost certainly be my fault.

My stomach
twisted and I felt sick as I made my way down the stairs. I knew it
was coming. I could see it in his eyes when he yelled at me.

Trudy was
waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

“
Why was Maddie here? Is she okay?” she asked urgently. Damn,
they’d seen her leave.

“
She came to see her mommy,” I shot back. Trudy stiffened and
threw a hand over her mouth.

“
She… she… knows?”

“
Yeah. She knows.” In that moment my dad emerged from the
kitchen.

“
Mitch, she knows. Maddie knows!” Trudy beamed as if it was a
joyous fucking occasion. My dad made some kind of annoyed/disgusted
grunting sound.

“
Well she better not think she’s getting any money out of
me. She’s not part of this family.”

Trudy let out
a small gasp and for a second looked like she was going to reply to
Dad’s statement but seemingly she thought better of it. Instead,
she turned to me.

“
How is she? How did she take it? Was she here to see
me?
”
I waved her off with my hand. Maddie was most certainly
not
okay and I felt like
if I said the words aloud I would literally double over from the
pain in my chest. “Wait… did
you
tell her?” she accused.

“
No, I didn’t. Annie did.”

“
Annie?
I have to see her. Mitch, I’m taking the Audi.” My dad
shrugged nonchalantly. He couldn’t have given less of a shit if
he’d tried.

“
Gym,” he ordered the second Trudy closed the door behind
her.

No. Please.
No.

I nodded.

“
Bend over. Face down,” he said slowly, menacingly as he
followed me into the gym. As ordered, I meandered over to the bench
press and, still standing, lay my chest along it.

“
I warned you about associating with trash did I
not?”

“
Yes, sir,” I choked out.

Just do it
already. Get it over with.

“
Then do you want to explain to me why she was in our house
alone with you? And why when I reached your bedroom you were
pulling your pants back on?”

“
I-I don’t know.”

“
Oh I think you
do
know. I think you’re lying to me. I don’t tolerate lies,
Blaine.” I felt his body hovering over me, digging into the back of
my thighs. My hands grew so sweaty they were slipping as I gripped
onto the bench press. “I think you need to remember your ranking in
this family. You are
not
in charge here. You are
not
important. You do
not
have the authority to override me! Do you
understand?”

“
Y-y-yes, sir.”

“
I don’t think you do. How many goddamn times are you going
to force me to remind you? I don’t like punishing you, Blaine. But
I will
not
have you blatantly disrespecting me or my rules. Do. You.
Understand?”

I bit
down on my lip and blinked my eyes to wash away the stinging tears
which were flowing freely. I balled my right hand into a fist and
visualised me spinning round and ramming it into his skull until it
caved under the pressure. I willed my body to move. It wouldn’t. I
was frozen. I was… weak.

“
Yes, s-sir.”

“
You’re a failure, Blaine Elwood. You’re failing school. You’re
failing football. You’re even failing to make yourself look
presentable. Take a goddamn shower. Shave once in a while. Give me
a son I deserve to be proud of god dammit.”

Grabbing the waistband of my jeans he yanked them down to
my knees whilst I prayed for
the first time in my life.

“
You need reminding what I expect of you? I’ll fucking remind
you, boy.”

Help me.

Climbing into the shower
what could’ve been minutes or hours later,
I adjusted the water to the hottest setting. I rested my head
against the tiled wall and my body shook violently in protest as
the scalding water streamed over my skin. It hurt like hell and I
slammed my fist into the tiles until bubbles of blood appeared on
my knuckles.

But it still wasn’t hot enough. I could still
feel
him. I could still
feel the burning sensation ripping through body. I could still feel
his sickening breath crawling across the skin of my neck. I could
still feel his fingers digging into my bare hips.

Grabbing a small towel and dousing it with shower soap I
scrubbed at every inch of my skin. I scraped it back and forth
against my blistering flesh until it started to sting. The top
layer of my skin started to peel away when I rubbed where the
boiling water had hit. That felt good. So I scrubbed harder –
removing any skin which had been in contact with
him
.

When the pain
got so bad that I struggled to hold myself up, I shut the water off
and sank to the floor. My skin was raw. I was bleeding. Yet I was
still dirty.

I drew my
knees into my chest and sobbed like the pathetic and spineless
prick that I was.

Maddie

When I woke up
late in the afternoon my eyes were so swollen from crying they felt
like they were welded shut. I started to open them but then gave up
- resigning myself to a day spent crying and wallowing under my
quilt. How in hell did I get here? How can life spiral so far out
of control in such a short space of time? Just the thought made me
dizzy.

When my tears
turned to dry sobs I reluctantly peeled my sore eyes open and
climbed out of bed. My arid throat felt like it was closing up – I
needed water. The second my toe stepped onto the living room carpet
someone started knocking on the front door.

“
Maddie? Maddie are you in there?”

Fuck.

My mum,
who I’d not even had chance to talk to yet, brushed past me to open
the door to Treacle.

“
Leave it,” I deadpanned. Mum flashed me a sorrowful look –
bursting with guilt and maybe even sympathy.

“
You need to talk to her, Maddie,” she said but I could tell
by the crack in her voice the mere idea of it was cutting into
her.

“
Annie?” Treacle changed tactic as she continued to bash crap
out of our door.

“
Besides, if I don’t let her in she’s going to bust that
damn door in.” My mum rolled her eyes and ambled eerily slowly over
to the door. As it opened Treacle practically flew through it. She
stopped just inches away from me and threw her hand over her mouth,
gasping as if she’d just seen me rise from the dead or
something.

It was too much. It was all too much. My mum that wasn’t my
mum, my other mum that wasn’t my mum either,
the creep from the party,
Blaine… oh dear god, Blaine…

“
Maddie?” One of my mums called after me. I was running too
fast towards the bathroom to tell which one it was.

I
skidded on the cracked tiles as I made a dash for the toilet.
Flipping the lid up I collapsed to my knees and dry heaves ripped
through my body until it became painful. There was nothing left in
my stomach since this morning’s spew-fest yet my stomach continued
to roll and every inch of my skin started to sweat.

“
Maddie? Are you okay?” my mum asked cautiously through the
door – my
real
mum. Actually no, I suppose Annie
wasn’t
technically my real mum was
she?

Christ this
was some fucked up shit.

Standing
up I reached for the sink and splashed cold water over my face
letting it trickle down my front and saturate my t-shirt… and my
hair.

“
Not really,” I admitted after reluctantly opening up the
door. My mum –
Annie
– held her arms out wide as her eyes pleaded with me to let
her hold me. “I-I can’t. Not yet.” She gave me a knowing nod and
slowly dropped her arms by her sides.

Cautiously I
stepped out of the bathroom and with two steps I was in the living
room. Treacle was sitting on the sofa but stood up as soon as she
saw me.

“
You left me.” The words rolled off my tongue before I realised
I was saying them.

“
I know,” Treacle replied, stopping a rogue tear in its tracks
with her finger as it trailed miserably down her
overly-foundationed face. “And I’ve regretted it every single
day.”

“
Well I don’t,” I bit back. Treacle’s mouth fell open and a
series of stutters spilled out as if I’d just told her I enjoyed
wanking off puppies. “I love my mum.”

Risking a
glance in my mum’s direction she had her hand clasped over her
mouth.

“
I love you too, baby girl,” she choked out.

“
But… after all she’s put you through?” Treacle muttered
incredulously. How the fuck I didn’t smack her right in the face
I’ll never know.

“
Don’t you DARE! Don’t you FUCKING DARE!” I blared. “You
knew damn well what you was leaving behind...
Who
you were leaving behind. But it
wasn’t enough was it?
I
wasn’t enough to make you stay?”

“
Maddie, please…I-”

“
Now you think you can stroll back into my life and take
over where you left off? Pretend you never wanted fuck all to do
with me for the last thirteen years? That woman right there,” I
pointed towards my mum – my
real
mum, “she might not be perfect, might not always
get things right… but I have grown up safe in the knowledge that
she would
never
leave me. She loves me. She wants me. She’s
always
wanted me. I don’t
need anything else in a mother. So,
Treacle
… you can fuck right back off to where you
came from. I don’t need or want
anything
to do with you!”

I was
expecting some huge dramatic scene to unfold in front of me. For
Treacle to fall to her knees and wail, or plead with me to forgive
her.

Not one
fucking tear.

“
What about your sister? Do you want nothing to do with her
either?”

“
What? I don’t have…”

Holy fuck
. How the hell had this never so much as crossed my
mind?

Kara.

Blaine’s
sister.

My
sister.

“
I’m gonna throw up again.”

Seconds
later I was back in the bathroom, bile burning my throat like pure
acid as I retched into my new friend, the toilet. The heaves
gradually morphed into sobs and before long I was rocking back and
forth hugging my knees and crying until it felt like my eyes were
about to explode. The most painful part of the whole thing was that
the only person I could think about was… Blaine. I’d never wanted
him to hold me so badly. But… he didn’t want me either.

How in hell
was I ever supposed to accept that?

When I finally resurfaced from the bathroom in what seemed
like hours later I prayed that Treacle had gone. No such luck. When
I stepped into the living
room she and my mum were sat side by side on the
sofa… chatting. Fucking chatting!

“
Well isn’t this cosy?” I uttered with as much disdain as I
could summon.

“
Maddie,” they both said at the same time.

“
So what, we’re a big happy family now?”

“
Please, Maddie. Come and sit with us,” my mum asked gently,
patting the space in between her and Treacle.

Every other thing disappeared from the room and the only
thing visible was
that
spot on the sofa. It seemed to have quadrupled in size and
it lit up like it was resting under a giant spotlight. I felt like
a game show contestant as I made my way towards it. All eyes were
on me as I made my way down the aisle to take up my spot on the
stage.

Wedging myself
between my two mums, they both tried to talk to me at the same
time.