I wanted to be a good man, that much I knew. I had morals. I had a good heart. I thought I was a pretty decent guy with just a few demons to try to fight off here and there. I wasn’t anything special or anything damned. However, as soon as I pushed through the front door of my mum and dad’s house that afternoon, I felt like the biggest damn tearaway in England.

Twenty-five years old, and there I was creeping back home with my overused tail dangling between my legs.

When I’d finally checked my phone that morning, I’d had seven texts from Sammy—some extremely abusive, while others asked if she could have my bedroom if I were lying in a gutter somewhere—and several missed calls from my mum. I couldn’t blame them for worrying. I had some apologies to make.

“Dickhead’s home!” I heard Sammy cry from the kitchen at the back of the house, causing me to roll my eyes.

“Oh, thank God,” Mum whimpered as she ran to the front door to see for herself.

My mother, Lois Anderson, was classically beautiful. Even I knew that. Her face was an instant heart warmer. She was short as Sammy but with brown hair and brown eyes that didn’t match either of us. She felt like home because she was home, and even though I was adulting and doing my thing, trying to figure out my own life, I never wanted to take her for granted or not see her for the fucking angel she was.

“Hey, Mum.” I reached around to scratch the back of my neck as she ran towards me and threw her arms around my shoulders.

With a grunt, I accepted her into an embrace, enjoying the calm before she unleashed her storm. That storm came in the form of a firm slap around the arm that had me hissing for effect, even though it didn’t really hurt. The tougher I could make her feel, the sooner this would be over. This was not my first rodeo.

“I deserved that.”

“Marcus Edward Anderson,” she said sharply. What was with all the middle naming around these parts? “I know you are a grown man, and at twenty-five you feel like you should not have to tell me of your whereabouts. But when you are staying in my home and living under my roof…”

Pressing my hands to the tops of her arms, I lowered my head so my eyes were level with hers and gave her my best I’m-your-favourite-and-only-son face.

“You’re completely right. I should have let you know that I was alright.”

“Yes, you should have!” she cried, her voice cracking a little. “You had me worried sick. I waited up for you until the early hours.”

“Shi—I mean… I’m so sorry, Mum. Truly. I didn’t think.”

“Clearly.”

“I ended up back at my place. Force of habit, or what, I don’t know, but I’d been drinking with Cam, and one thing led to another.”

“Oh, I know exactly what it led to. I phoned Aunt Erin and she told me Cameron had told her exactly where you were and who you’d ended up with.”

“What?” I pushed out, my eyes widening.

“You should look ashamed. Seriously, Marcus. I brought you up better than that.”

“Hey, hey, hey. Whoa. That’s not fair. I didn’t… I mean… What exactly did he say?”

“That you’d taken some floozy home to…” Mum closed her eyes and feigned a shudder. “I do not need to say it out loud. It's bad enough hearing it in my own head.”

That fucking arsehole Viking was going to get a mouthful of abuse when I saw him next. Pushing down my irritation while trying to remember that I was the one in the wrong, I shook my head and focused on Mum. Sometimes a little white lie was necessary. There were some things a mother just did not need to know about her son.

“I don’t know what he told you, but he’s got it wrong. I took a girl back to my place, yes, and we sat around drinking wine all night. But she fell asleep on my couch. This morning I made her some breakfast and then watched her get in a taxi and go home. That’s it, Mum.”

She didn’t want me to see it, but a look of relief washed over her face. I caught sight of Sammy over her shoulder, pretending to extend her own nose while going cross-eyed, knowing for certain that I was lying.

“Okay. Good. Good. That’s… good.”

“Happy now?” I smiled back at Mum.

“A lot less worried about some bimbo rocking up and knocking on my doorstep in nine months with a baby in a Moses basket.”

“Never going to happen.”

Sammy started at it again, blowing up her cheeks and pretending to push her belly out while waddling around like a duck. Another person I was going to have to kill when I got her alone.

My mother grabbed me by both cheeks and quickly pulled my attention back to her.

“Marcus, I love you. I love you like no mother has ever loved a son before, but I am worried. I see you changing. I see a difference in you. I don’t know if it’s sadness, awareness, or a feeling failure of some kind because you broke up with Natalie, but I need you to promise me you’re going to be okay. I need you to talk to me if there’s something wrong. Please, please don’t have me sitting up all night worrying where you might be or wondering if you’re hurting yourself somehow. If anything ever happened to you...”

“Mum,” I said through a heavy breath as my hands came up to circle her wrists. “This is me you’re talking to. I’m not an idiot. I’d never hurt myself. You shouldn't even need to think that of me.”

Her eyes filled with tears she wasn’t going to be able to hold on to for much longer, so bowing her head, she tapped her fingers against my cheeks one last time before she spoke. “Just make sure you come home next time. Or phone me. That’s all I ask while you’re staying here. Okay?”

“You got it.”

“Thank you.”

With that, she took off back into the kitchen, leaving me standing at the end of the hallway staring helplessly at my little sister.

“You look a lot like you're about to choke on the lecture you're holding in.”

“Better to choke on my thoughts than say something I'll regret later.” She smiled sarcastically.

“Just get it over with, Sammy.”

Her eyes drifted up and down my body, giving me the full disapproving inspection before she folded her arms over her chest and let out a heavy breath.

“I spoke to Natalie last night.”

“Oh. Good.” I nodded once and looked around the hallway, wondering what the hell that had to do with anything. “She okay?”

“Yeah. She’s great. She and Alex are in Greece at the moment. They’re staying with Danni in her villa before she heads back to London, and Nat and Alex go travelling to a load of European cities during the winter.”

“Must be nice.”

“Think she mentioned Rome.”

“She always did like that Gladiator film.”

“I don't think she’ll find Russell Crowe waiting outside the Vatican if that's what she's expecting.”

“Anything is possible for Natalie.”

“She wanted to know how you were doing. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her that you were screwing some random bird from the pub. I told her you were fine.”

“Who I do or don’t screw isn’t anyone’s business but mine. She’s got Alex. I’ve got my life. And… I am fine,” I confirmed, ignoring her reference to Tasha as just some bird. After the morning Tasha and I had had together, I preferred to keep the memory of her as a happy one. A pleasant distraction. Something I was determined to not regret.

“Be that as it may, Nat still wants you to call her.”

“What is with her?”

“It’s Natalie. This is who she is. Just speak to her and get it over with.”

I shook my head, not hiding my annoyance and frustration this time. “No way. I told Nat the last time we spoke that she had to let this go now. She doesn’t need to feel guilty for walking away from us. I had to push her out the damn door. I don’t need to check in with her every two minutes and let her, as well as my own mother, know that I’m not hating life as much as you and everyone else seem to think I am. Christ, I split up with her. Nobody has died. Plus, imagine how Alex will feel knowing that she’s speaking to me all the time. It’s not right.”

“You’re concerned about Alex Law now?”

“I never said that. I said it wasn’t right. Just because I don’t particularly want to sing love songs about the guy, it doesn’t mean I want to come between them again.”

Sammy frowned harder, her head tilting to one side. “Again?”

Memories of the morning I told a young Alex Law to stay away from a vulnerable Natalie Vincent flashed through my mind. How I kept my fists away from his face that day, I’ll never know, but he was lucky to walk away without any permanent damage. I wondered if he’d told her about the part I played in their journey, and if he had I wondered if she even cared, but I didn’t linger on it too much. They were together now. I wasn’t a problem anymore. All was right with the world.

“I’m going to go take a shower,” I told her before I grabbed a hold of the bannister and pulled myself up on the bottom step.

“Yeah, go wash the woman off you.”

Leaning over the bannister, I called out her name and waited for her to look my way. When she did, I knew she saw the seriousness on my face, the hurt at her derision, and most probable of all, the fucking exhaustion of everything.

“Sis, I get that you’re pissed that Nat and I broke up, even though you're trying to pretend you’re not, but really? Do we need to do this? Don’t make me push you away, Sammy,” I told her calmly. “I love you, I really fucking do, but don’t for one minute treat me like a fool and look down your nose at me. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve messed things up, but when it comes down to it, I’m just a guy trying to do the right thing and sometimes getting it wrong. That doesn’t make me a villain.”

She had the decency to look a little bit ashamed of herself before she swung her hips, looked down at her shoes and mumbled a weak apology.

I walked upstairs with tiredness seeping into my bones, eventually collapsing onto my bed in a heap as I tried to figure out how everyone out there in the big wide world did it so easily… How did they keep everyone else happy without making themselves miserable in the process?

Because right then, in that moment, it felt like the most impossible thing in the world to me.

I sent Cameron a text to let him know what I thought of him and his big mouth, and in true Cam fashion, he sent me a photo of his middle finger in response, telling me that payback was a bitch. It had slipped my mind that while I was making out with Tasha, who by all accounts was a sweet girl, I’d left my best mate with some chick called Grace who he really didn’t want to have to babysit. I guess I deserved him telling Aunt Erin about my antics for that.

With no baby sister to play basketball with, no best mate to go drinking with, and parents who were slightly pissed at me, I had the whole evening to try to settle into this new life back at home. That shouldn’t have sounded as difficult as it did.

After spending some time in my bedroom, looking through old high school photographs and sports pictures from the teams I used to be on, I picked up my old sketchbooks and flicked through them, trying to remember what moods had pulled which drawings from my fingertips. The pencil sketch of a mermaid I’d drawn sitting upon a rock, looking out to sea reminded me of the first time I’d ever really fancied a girl from afar. Lila Evans had been a beautiful auburn-haired, shy girl in the year below me at high school. I was confident as a teenager, but I’d never been arrogant. At least I didn’t think I had been. I preferred to think of myself as a rock to my buddies and a mischievous mystery to the girls. But Lila Evans always used to look at me with this shyness in her eyes before she blushed and turned away. She intrigued me. I often thought about going up to her, striking up a conversation, and getting closer. Only Lila seemed untouchable. Fragile, even. I used to stare at her from across the school hall—my mouth open with a hint of a smile there as my scowl gave away the fact that I was studying her. I wanted her… I just didn’t want to ruin the illusion of her. The mermaid represented Lila to me. She was a vision, a mythical creature to watch from afar, to daydream about and imagine rather than stumble on top of and feel.

I smiled to myself at the memories, wondering what she was doing with her life now, before I turned the page of my book and stared down at the image of the ocean that stared back at me. Even I had to admit that the detail I’d captured on the crest of the wave was something else.

Why had I given this up?

“Women,” I muttered to myself quietly. “Women, booze, and chasing life.”

Releasing a sigh, I closed the sketchbook and placed it down next to my bed, vowing to pick up the pencil again sometime soon. I missed it. I guess I missed me.

I eventually made my way downstairs to eat dinner with the family. It was a sombre affair. Mum fussed and brushed my hair to one side constantly, not hiding the fact that she was proud to have me home and, while I was there, would be treating me like the seven-year-old boy she’d lost a long time ago. My dad Raymond—Ray for short—who was my absolute double with his floppy black hair and green eyes, was quiet for the most part. Sammy and Mum did most of the talking while we ploughed our way through three courses of food, with Dad only piping up to agree or disagree with his usual grunt. I found myself focusing on him a lot during dinner, and as I studied his indifference to the goings on around him, I began to realise how badly I didn’t want that for my future.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the guy. My father was a hero to me. He’d gone to work for twenty-five long years, doing a job he hated just to bring home a salary that would keep me, my sister and his wife in comfortable surroundings. We’d wanted for nothing and had some of the most amazing holidays two kids like us could ever dream of experiencing. Dad had taught me everything I needed to know about having a sense of humour, ensuring that I was able to laugh at myself from an early age.

“There’s one thing that will set you apart from the rest of the world, Marcus. There’s one personality trait that few can carry off but everyone loves to have in a friend. Be able to laugh at yourself, son. No matter what happens, don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t feel like you’re entitled to have everything perfect. If perfect comes along then good luck to you. I wish that for you and for Sammy. But it might not, and the best thing you can be is a man who laughs in the face of his struggles. And I’m not going to lie to you—sometimes bad things happen. You might not understand why at the time, but somewhere in the future you’ll know. You’ll look back and smile, and even though you may never want to thank fate or God or whoever you believe in for the strange path they’ve set you on, you’ll be thankful for having had the strength and the laughter to get through it.”

That piece of advice had come from him some years ago, but now, as I watched him staring down at his plate of cheesecake with a vacant look on his face, I began to wonder if he was happy being the quiet guy at the table.

“Dad?”

He looked up in surprise, blinking away whatever thought he was lost in and smiling up at me. “Marcus.”

“You okay?” I asked quietly, giving him a look, a silent message that begged him to impart something new on me—something I didn’t know about him.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You looked a little lost.”

“Lost?”

“You know. Not present. Stuck in a daydream.”

“How can I be lost when I’m right where I belong?”

I contemplated answering him and questioning his vacant stares, and all the times he seemed to be with us but away from us, but in the end, I just found myself nodding and smiling while I returned my attention to the dessert in front of me.

A few minutes passed by, neither Sammy or my mother taking much notice of our exchange, when I felt his hand on my arm, and I turned to look back at him.

“Are you okay?” he asked me in a very un-Ray way.

I found myself shrugging, my smile twisting down into some weird kind of grimace. “I will be.”

“You just need to remember how to laugh again,” he whispered. Then he leaned back in his chair, looked down at his cheesecake and stuck his fork right in the centre of it.

I glanced back around the table as Sammy said something that made Mum throw her head back in a fit of laughter before she tapped my sister on the shoulder and told her to behave. My own smile grew as the two of them interacted, and when I glanced at Dad again, he was grinning, too. When he flashed a wink in my direction, I liked to believe that he told me everything I needed to know while sitting around that table.

Family was what mattered. Family.