Page 62 of The Deviation
“I held on to the house as long as I could. Because they couldn’t be serious. They were our parents. Hannah was only thirteen. They couldn’t stay gone forever, right?”
He nods in understanding.
“Between rent and food, the money on the Visa dried up fast. My savings account was next. Every cent I’d ever earned stacking shelves and serving coffee. When those dollars ran out, I started selling stuff. Smaller items at first. Kitchen appliances. Framed prints. Anything that would score me a few bucks. Before long I’d moved on to the furniture.
“Hannah lost it when she saw me listing an armchair online. ‘That’s where Mum sits,’ she cried. ‘She’s gonna be so mad.’ I told her Mum could scream at me all she liked when she got back and then I hit submit. Two days later the chair was gone, and I had the extra couple of hundred I needed to pay the rent.
“Every day after was a race against time. When I wasn’t working my shit job, or looking for a new one, I was deciding what to sell next. We had no other family, and I was too scared to ask anyone else for help. I thought if anyone found out we werealone they would take Hannah away from me. We both broke the day she came home to find the couch gone.”
Words continue to spill out of me, revealing the story I’ve never once given voice to. But I’m no longer in the room with Johnny. I’m back there, in that empty house, terrified out of my mind…
“You’re destroying our home,” Hannah screamed at me, tears streaming down her face. “There won’t be anything left for them to come back to.”
I’d looked up at her from where I’d crumpled to the floor after the couch was taken away hours earlier.
We were running out of food again. Rent was due. The utility bills were starting to arrive. “They aren’t coming back, Han.” The thickness in my throat made the words difficult to say. I hadn’t even allowed myself to think them until that moment. “They left us, and they’re not coming back.”
Hannah’s backpack thudded to the ground and then she knelt in front of me, her green eyes wide and her body shaking. “But who will take care of us?”
Panic gripped me by the throat. I looked around the bare room, truly seeing it for the first time in weeks. Not much was left. I’d already sold almost everything that wasn’t nailed down. We still had the bedroom furniture. I could get some money for that. Mum left some jewellery behind, and I was about to get paid again.
Taking a couple of deep breaths, I tried to slow the rush of blood through my veins. I was going to be eighteen in six days. A legal adult. Old enough to sign a lease for a smaller place. We could walk away from this house. Leave behind what little was left, along with the unpaid bills and the memories of the family we’d thought we belonged to.
Starting fresh would take every cent we had, and some we didn’t, but choices were a luxury we couldn’t afford.
“I will,” I told Hannah, trying to keep my voice even so she wouldn’t be scared. “I’m the big brother here, and I’m going to take care of both of us.”
Her bottom lip quivered, and fresh tears pooled in her eyes. “You won’t leave me too, will you?”
A sob escaped as I pulled her into my arms. “Never.” We clutched tight to each other, because there was no one else left to hold on to. “We need to stick together, okay? No matter what.” I whispered the words in her ear, and she nodded against my shoulder. “It’s you and me against the world, little sister. I promise. I’m gonna take care of you.”
Warmth envelopes me, bringing me back to the present, and I realise Johnny’s body is wrapped around mine. He’s all but sitting on my feet. His chest is pressed against my legs where they’re folded up in front of me. His arms are as far around me as he can reach, and his lips are pressed against my knees so only his eyes are visible. Those warm, brown eyes, are full of pain… for me.
“It sucks, I know,” I say, forcing a shaky smile.
His brow furrows. “It does more than suck,” he says in a rough voice. “The thought of you scared like that, of Hannah scared, it breaks my fucking heart.”
My heart is broken, too. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it work the way it used to.
“Did you ever hear from them again?” he asks.
“They called one more time,” I tell him. “On Hannah’s fourteenth birthday. I think they expected her to be happy to hear from them. Instead, she started crying and screaming obscenities. By the time I got the phone off her they’d already hung up.” I give a slow nod. “That was the last time.”
In the silence that follows I take a deep breath, glad to have reached the end of my woeful tale. “For the first year or two we talked about them constantly. We would hunt through ourmemories for clues as to why they left. Try to figure out what we’d done wrong, but… the truth is, they never wanted us in the first place.” It was a hard realisation to come to, but it’s the only one that has ever made sense. “We knew neither of us were planned. They told us often enough. They were never particularly affectionate. I don’t really remember them ever playing with us or spending time with us. But I never realised… how much of a burden we were to them.” I shake my head in a sense of disbelief I know will never fade.
“Did you ever find out what happened to them?” Johnny asks.
“Hannah searched for them, obsessively, on social media. She managed to find a few photos through the profiles of friends they visited interstate.” I swipe at a stray trail of moisture on my cheek. “They looked… fine. The same as they always did. She stopped looking, after that.”
“Arseholes,” Johnny mutters. I don’t disagree. “She didn’t try to contact them?”
I shake my head. “I think she just wanted to know they weren’t dead.” Sitting forwards, I drop my legs into a cross between us. “She had nightmares for years, about me leaving her. I’d have nightmares about not being able to find her. We were a mess.”
Johnny strokes his hands up and down my arms, grounding me in the room with him. “You’ve done such an amazing job, Cal. You took great care of her and yourself.” He lifts the leg that was down beside the couch and presses it against my side, as if his arms alone can’t provide enough comfort. “You are the most incredible person I’ve ever known.”
I huff a bitter laugh. “Not incredible enough to stick around for, apparently.”
“No, don’t you believe that. Not for one second,” he insists, lifting his hands to cup my face. “Those people who gave birth to you, who abandoned you, they aren’t worth shit. I see you,Cal,” he growls, a tumult of emotion in his eyes. “I see everything good in you. The way you take care of Hannah. The way you take care of me, Ned, the whole band.” He scoots in under my legs until I’m all but in his lap. “You are so strong and so talented. You drive me crazy with how determined you are to do what’s right. Being near you makes every cell in my body light up and my heart go into overdrive.” His face is so close, his breath warm. “You don’t have a clue how much…” His whisper crashes through the otherwise silent room. “There are so many reasons why…”