The Problem With Crazy (24 page)

Why had I thought I could do normal things?

Why had I thought a normal boy would be interested in me?

I quickly shoved my hands under the tap and gave them a speedy rinse. I didn’t want to go back; I couldn’t. I pressed up against the wall, ignoring the dirt and grime that was probably caked there. I shouldn’t have even gone to dinner. I had to sort out problems with my family, and myself. I didn’t need this in my life.

What am I doing here?

I grabbed my phone from my clutch and started texting Stacey furiously.

Hey babe, I don’t feel well. I have to bail, I’ll

“Kate?”

Lachlan’s voice interrupted my text, and echoed through the room.

I remained silent. He’d leave soon, anyway, and I was going home. I didn’t need to see him again, not tonight.

I focused on making my breath steady and quiet—long, deep breaths in, and a slow, controlled release out. I could do this. Everything would be fine.

After five minutes had passed with not another sound from outside I finished up my text, and released my stronghold on the wall, letting it keep upright without me. I put my phone back in my purse, took my shoes off and dangled them from my hand with my clutch, ready for the long walk home.

“Kate.”

When I rounded the corner, Lachlan was still there. He was leaning casually against the wall, like it was the most natural thing in the world, hands in his pockets, head tilted back.

I felt my heart pound, my pulse quicken. What was he still doing here?

“I … I don’t feel well. I’m going home.” I charged past him and headed across the park.

“Why?” He kept pace with me, easily matching my short, emotion-fuelled strides with his long, controlled ones.

“I just told you, I don’t feel well.” My eyes focused on the ground, only seeing the patches of grass and gnarled branches beneath my feet.

“Why really?”

“None of your business.” I barked the words out like they were weapons. I hoped they hurt.

“Can I walk you home?”

“You’ll miss dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.” I spoke loud, much louder than I’d intended. I turned to face him, my arms wide. “I don’t need it.”

Lachlan took a step back. His studied me, from my feet to my face. Not in the way Dave had earlier, judging, but with a solemn look, a firm set of his mouth, as if he were working out the answer to a problem he’d long wondered about.

“I don’t feel sorry for you.” His voice was soft. He took a tiny step closer to me and reached out as if he were going to touch my arm, then thought better of it, and put his hand in his pocket. “I just want to walk you home.”

He wasn’t angry. He was calm. I took a deep breath. He’d been through hard times too.

“Okay.”

I turned on my heel and started walking again. My pace was less frantic, now, my breathing less heavy. I took it all in: the grass and the trees around the edges of the field, the road up ahead, and the houses beyond that.

We walked for ten minutes in that direction then swapped, taking a main road and walking along a grey footpath. Lachlan never faltered in pace, never interrupted my thoughts. It was good, because I had a lot of them. What did I ever see in Dave? Why was Lachlan here, now that he kind of knew the truth? What the hell would happen to me in the future? Why was I so embarrassed about it all, anyway?

Would I ever stop looking at my dad like a stranger?

When we reached the track that led to my house, the one that hugged the opposite side of the nature reserve where we’d skinny-dipped, I’d had enough.

“Can we stop for a second?” I halted in my tracks, staring down at the tiny drops of water on the long green grass spiking up around my shoes. Lachlan didn’t say a word, just froze next to me. I stared at his black skate shoes, less than a foot from mine.

“So, my dad has Huntington’s disease. It effects the motor system, and he basically loses control of everything.” I gripped my left hand with my right one and pressed my nails in.
Hurt, Kate.
Make it hurt.

When the release of physical pain came, I felt in control again. I was able to continue. “One day, he’ll die. And, it’s hereditary. So I could have it, too.”

For a moment, I was open. The gun was in my mouth, the trigger in between his forefinger and thumb. It was half the reason Dave had left me, one of the key factors in why I couldn’t trust Lachlan’s interest.

Quite simply, it was everything.

Go on.

Pull the trigger.

“I …” Lachlan started a sentence, but couldn’t finish it. He opened and shut his mouth then stepped in closer to me, till there was less than an inch separating our faces.

“I have cancer.”

Whoa
.
Not what I was expecting.

“But you’re … so …” Words failed me as I studied this incredibly sexy, non-sick-looking guy. How could someone who looked so alive have cancer?

“I know. I’m in remission, and I haven’t had any problems for more than two years, now,” he said. His liquid chocolate eyes locked with mine. “But it could come back. I’m not completely in the clear.”

“Is it the same kind your … your dad had?”

Lachlan gave a single nod, and I felt a little piece of my heart fall away. How could I be so caught up in my own shit, when he had so much more; and so much worse? His parents were both dead, and he was sick, too.

“Hereditary illnesses, huh?” Lachlan gave a wry smile, and I laughed.

We stood there on the corner, just staring, processing—learning. I was acutely aware of how close he was, how his shoulders stood just around my eye level, how the white fog from his breath hitting the night air was misting toward my face. I felt small and vulnerable, looking up at his clouded eyes, like he could snap me in two with his next sentence.

“Kate?”

“Yes?” My breath caught in my throat. My eyes were drawn to his lips, slightly parted, a wet sheen glistening there.

“You’re just … you’re just so beautiful.” Lachlan moved closer to me, millimetres from my face. I looked at his mouth. It was so near to mine in the moonlight.

I licked my lower lip and heard him inhale, sharply, felt his eyes watch my every movement, and then the pull of tension became too much and he pressed forward and melded his lips to mine. I widened my eyes then parted my mouth. His tongue darted between my lips, and my own moved to receive it, touching it, melding with it.

His kiss was amazing, everything I’d wanted it to be. He ran his hands up my sides, over my hip bones and higher till I could feel them rest at the bottom of my bra. I thrust my hips forward, wanting to close any gap between us, needing to feel my body pressed against his solid form.

We kept going, feeling the wetness of our mouths colliding until there was no he kissed me, no I kissed him, but us, only us, making out in the light of the moon.

This was happening. Lachlan knew, and he didn’t care. We were making out, and I could have Huntington’s disease. My heart had gone from frozen to pumping at a million miles per minute as I lost myself in him.

“Kate,” Lachlan groaned, his voice aching in my mouth. I teased the edge of his shirt up, letting my hand roam underneath and feeling the shape of his back, the trough of his spine under my hands. I pressed myself against him again and gave a slight moan into his mouth. I felt him shudder as he gently bit down on my lip. It only made me want him more.

“Kate,” he said again, this time pulling back, holding my arms in his big, strong hands. My breath was coming far too fast, my chest heaving up and down.

“Yes?” I looked into his eyes. His pupils were dilated, his cheeks flushed, and I wondered if that was how I looked to him, too.

“I—this is a new thing for me.” He dropped his hands and shoved them into his pockets, pulling out the pad of paper I’d seen that first night.

“What?” My mouth hung open. “You’ve never kissed anyone before?”

“Of course I have.” I swallowed.
Idiot, Kate.
“But I’ve not really done anything else, like—well, with the cancer, I wasn’t exactly beating the ladies off, and I just—I really like you. But I have to go now. I’m going to go home, and … and draw.”

This wasn’t happening.

Was I
cursed
?

“So you don’t want to kiss me anymore because you need to sketch up an image that captures this first for you?”

If my eyes went any wider, they’d fall out of my head.
I was the one who was having tests regarding my mental health, for Christ’s sake.

“No.” Lachlan gave me a sheepish smile. “But I don’t want to kiss you anymore in case this first turns into another first, and another, and another.” A light glinted in his eye.

“I want to do this right, take you on a proper date, not make out with you on a street after your loser ex-boyfriend was a jerk.” Lachlan ran his hands through his hair. “And I worry that maybe I’m taking advantage of you in your emotional state.”

I shook my head, no.

“Either way, I do like to draw all my firsts. And you need them for the launch.” Lachlan pulled me close, and pressed his lips gently to my forehead. “Good night.” He turned away and walked down the street, not looking back.

I had no idea what I was supposed to feel. Was he making an excuse, or was he serious?

I watched Lachlan go, a lone figure on our quiet street, highlighted from streetlight to streetlight. I’d liked walking by his side. I’d liked that he didn’t seem to care about Dad or my potential illness.

I wrapped my arms across my chest and squeezed tight. If he could survive—could run a business, act like a normal guy, and have
feelings
for girls—then surely I stood a chance.

“K
ATE, IS
that really what you’re wearing?” Mum raised her eyebrows at me. I was lying on the bed in my room, black sweatpants and grey tank on, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Or, it had been a messy ponytail at one point. After two hours of lying on my bed, working on Lachlan’s upcoming event and wondering how on earth I’d act when I saw him next, it may have simply turned into a mess.

“Looks like it.” I smiled gaily back at my mother.

“We are leaving in fifteen minutes.” Mum gave me “the look”—you know, the one that says, “I’m the parent, and if you want to live under my archaic roof, you obey my archaic commands.”

I exhaled slowly, letting the air puff out of my cheeks. I didn’t want to do this. After the last time I took Dad to Sideways, I’d refrained from taking him out of the house. My babysitting of him was restricted to our home address, with no excursions permitted.

Which is why I was less than ecstatic to be going out on a family dinner.

O-u-t.

I clicked the home button on my phone and saw, to my disappointment, that there were no new messages. Not that I’d wanted Lachlan to get in touch, or anything, more that I’d thought maybe he’d feel he should. You know, after kissing me kind of oh-my-God-passionately, then leaving me in the middle of the street.

It had only been one day. If he really liked me, he’d text me.

Right?

I sighed and sat up, pushing my hair out my eyes and thinking about tonight.

Lachlan and Johnny make an effort to be a family.

I had to go. How could I not when they had so little?

With the weight of ten thousand Acme pianos on my shoulders I headed to the wardrobe and pulled out a dress I hadn’t worn since Before.

Before my dad was sick.

I yanked my shirt up and threw the dress over my head, then pulled my sweats down, lifting them from where they pooled on the floor and placing them, along with my shirt, in my dirty-clothes basket.

“Ka-ate,” Mum called from downstairs as I pulled my hair from its tie. For a brief moment it hung loose around my shoulders. I stared at myself in the mirror, brown wavy hair, dark hazel eyes. Yep, I still looked the same. When I’d been normal, when I'd found out about Dad, when an incredibly sexy guy had kissed me—somehow, I still looked the same. How did that even work? When everything else had changed irrevocably …