Page 151 of Vying Girls

CHAPTER 25

Nic

Now the fire’s out, it seems an appropriate time to finally do what I came home for. I slam the door of the washing machine, groaning as I straighten back up. This fucking day. It’s taken it out of me in more ways than just physical.

It’s quiet down here. They’re all upstairs, doing whatever throuples do. Though, suppose they’re not really a throuple. Can’t imagine Haz and Elly wanting to do much with each other. Whatever their dynamic, it leaves me firmly on the outside. Which, to be fair, I don’t blame them for.

Maybe the sickness runs in the family. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, listening to a silent house, wondering when Iwent from denying what he did to comparing our techniques. Well—without the paedo bit. Just the hurting Tilda bit.

Maybe this is what I’ve been running from this whole time. If Dad was fucked in the head, did that mean I, by extension, was too? I don’t have another parent to compare myself to. Sometimes I forget I ever had a mother, being too young to remember her, hearing Dad’s different versions of why she left over the years. There was only him, and I was so like him. At least I tried to be, tried so fucking hard. I had none of the charm, the confidence, just that pervasive solemnity, the matching intensity and, of course, the height.

It’s awful, letting the truth finally settle in. For the first time, I understand Tilda’s compulsion to cut. If I could cut him out of me, I would. But what if there’s nothing left afterwards? There was only one person who ever exalted me, who saw me for everything good I could be. And she’s upstairs, cuddled in the arms of my friends and wondering why I hate her so much.

Tilda, who never did anything fucking wrong.

I all but collapse at the table, thankful for the whirring of the washing machine behind me. It drowns out the roar in my head.

With my hands outstretched, I watch the flexing tendons, the snaking blue veins. His blood in them. Damien’s, too, in a different way. It was Blakely who told me early trauma changes blood metabolites. That if I was to ever bear a child, all the harm could be passed onto them, and then on and on and on.

Damn Blakely and her enviable breadth of knowledge, so unaware of the utter panic her seemingly innocuous conversation had caused. The promise I’d made to myself to never, ever have biological children. The cycle has to end somehow. If I can’t save myself, or Tilda, I can at least spare some innocent, non-existent child.

I can almost hear Tilda’s voice in my ear.

Yeah, but, it works both ways. Happy things affect our blood too. Stop being so mardy.

It lifts my lips, just for a moment, before my brooding’s interrupted by Haz entering the kitchen. She doesn’t look my way as she crosses to the fridge, like she missed me hulking here at the table.

‘Hey.’

She removes a carton of milk and slams the door. ‘Hey.’

Still no looking at me. I feel myself bristle, taking a steadying breath against my rising defensiveness.

‘Are we out tonight?’ I ask, casually as I can.

‘No. Tilda wants to stay in.’ Now she looks at me, her expression a hair away from a glare. ‘She’s kind of had a day of it.’

‘I know. I was there.’

‘Yeah, you were. Always there for her bad times, aren’t you, Nic? Funny that. Almost like you’re the cause of them or something.’

I watch as she makes up a protein shake, careful to keep her back to me. My voice is resigned, almost tentative, when I ask, ‘What did she say?’

‘Enough to get the picture of things.’ She turns, one arm folded as she gulps down the shake. ‘You never said. About your dad. You never mentioned that.’

I open my mouth, about to ask what, but there’s no point. I know what she’s implying. Clearly Tilda’s told her everything. I don’t blame her for her anger but, god, it hurts. For the past four years, I’ve relied on Haz being on my side for everything.

Is there anyone else? I shake my head at my moroseness. It’s not the time and I deserve everything I get. The reckoning’s finally here. Should have known it was coming for me.

‘Fucked up, Nic. All of it. Thought you were a fucking feminist. Girls like Tilda, they don’t lie, man.’

‘I know,’ I say quietly, wishing with everything that I was saying this to Tilda. All she’s ever wanted is for me to believe her.

‘She was sexually assaulted,’ Haz goes on, her voice rising in volume, ‘as a child, byyourdad, and you tell her it’s her fault? That’s fucked, Nic.Fucked.’

‘I don’t think it’s her fault,’ I snap. ‘Jesus, Haz. Of course I don’t.’

‘But you think she lied about it, don’t you?’ When I don’t answer, she continues, ‘We’ve all had shit happen, Nic. Real fucked up shit. But we don’t go round blaming other people.’