Chapter 38
She hated getting those kinds of calls. The ones where her dad fell to pieces and couldn’t get out of bed or go to work.
They were lucky that his foreman at the local factory was good. He’d been one of the guys who’d worked for her father back when her father had a business that was thriving. But there was only so much slack the guy could cut him.
So she had gone home, hoping to help her father through another bad period. If it hadn’t been for the extra money she had been making working for Xavier, she wouldn’t have gone back so soon after her last trip. And, although she hadn’t told him the specifics of why she’d rushed back, she’d taken Xavier’s advice and got a flight over instead of taking the train.
“You didn’t need to come back for him,” her mother had said, the moment she had walked through the door.
“I could, so I did.”
“Won’t your studies suffer?”
They would, but what choice did she have? “I can’t stay long,” she replied. “Where is he?”
“In his room, where else?”
At least he didn’t drink himself to oblivion when his bouts of depression came—they were deep, and dark, and spiraling, and alcohol would have made things worse.
Too bad she had a statistics exam to prep for, but she knew her priorities, and knew she had to step in when her mother—bless her—had run out of patience with the man she’d fallen in love with.
So she sat with her father, and hugged him, and held his hand, and tried to buoy him up. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t looked especially happy to see her, and hadn’t asked how she was doing. He’d been a good dad, the best he could be, and sometimes the roles reversed and your parents needed you to parent them instead. Now was such a time.
She listened again, with a sinking heart, as he talked about being a failure, and how he could not provide, and what had been taken, and how different things might have been. And she did her best to counsel him, and move him out of living in the past, which was where he seemed to drift to, for it didn’t serve him to revisit that part, that relentless hamster wheel of negative thoughts of what could have been.
He always refused her suggestion to get counseling because he was too proud a man to want to think about getting help. “Nothing wrong with me, Izzy. He didn’t break me.”
“I know, dad.”
“A man can have his down days, can’t he?”
“Sure, dad.”
But don’t be having those down days where you want to start over. He’d said it before a couple of times, that he wished he could start his life over. That he wished he could reboot. Words like that scared her to death. Words like that made her push college out of her head, and get on the next flight out.
Her coming to see him had done him good. At least, she liked to think it had. But it wasn’t a quick fix. She knew that, too.
How could she get a proud man to admit to his depression? To not want to give up? She couldn’t. She could only be there for him as best as she could, and it was a lot more than her brother ever was. In the few days she’d been here, she’d only seen Owen late in the evenings, usually after soccer practice. He was only living at home until he graduated high school.
A few days weren’t enough. Sometimes she worried more than a girl of her years should have, and there were days when she envied Cara her easy life with two normal parents and a solid, loving family life.
“Aren’t you going to fall behind in your studies being here for him?” her mother asked two days later.
“If you were here for him I wouldn’t need to do your job.” She’d apologized straightaway, because after spending days trying to lift his spirits, her own spirit was sagging.
Four days she stayed with him, four days before she felt she could leave. She’d needed to leave two days ago, but what could she do? Stay and help him, or run back so that she could revise for another test?
So she tried to do both, and only gave half of herself to each. She wasn’t even sure if it had been worth it.
There would be hell to pay at college. Too much to catch up on, a test to do, and coursework piling up on top. As well, Savannah had called her earlier to ask if she could babysit Jacob but she’d had to explain she was out of state. Savannah had also asked if she could continue doing ad hoc days on weekends, and she promised that she would come and see her about it on her return.
And then there was Xavier. Apart from a few stilted conversations, and a couple of texts, she hadn’t shared much of what had gone on at home. It was better this way. It was better keeping the two parts separate—her family, and Xavier.
The Stones were from a different planet to most ordinary people.
~ ~ ~
“When did you get back?” Cara asked her the day after she returned. She’d returned late last night while Cara was sleeping.
“Last night.”
“And you’re not going in today?”
“I’m shattered.”
“I’ll go in the afternoon.” She couldn’t go back into lessons and catch up if she was dead tired.
“Good idea. I’ll see you at the cafeteria? We can catch up then.”
“I need to go into the library and catch up on all my work, first.”
Cara sat down on her bed, causing Izzy to budge up. “Shouldn’t you get going?” Otherwise her friend was going to be late for her lessons.
“I’ve got a few moments.”
“And?”
“I bet lover boy must have missed you.”
“Don’t call him that,” said Izzy, snuggling under the duvet.
“What else can I call him?” Cara asked, raising an eyebrow. “How come things changed so fast between you?”
“Can we not talk about this right now?”
“Can we talk about it later tonight?”
Izzy gave her a look that indicated otherwise.
“How’s your dad?” She’d told Cara that her father had been ill. It was always better to gloss over the facts. The truth was always so much darker, so much more depressing.
“He’s feeling better, thanks.”
“We’ll talk tonight.”
But tonight she needed to cram for the test. Tests, tests, always more tests. No wonder that when she had finally slowed down enough—even though she’d gone through an emotionally draining time with her father—her body seemed to want to do nothing. She lay in bed, feeling sorry for herself, indulging herself for a change.
“We’ll talk tonight,” said Cara, getting up and leaving.
When she heard the front door close, she texted Xavier:
I’m back.
He texted back almost instantly:
Want to get together this evening?
She had the stats test tomorrow, and while she was contemplating what to reply back, another message from him appeared:
I’ve got some more work for you, if you’re interested
She was interested, and replied:
I can come over on my way back from college
You know where to find me
He texted back. And then she remembered she hadn’t even asked him about his car.
How’s your car?
Been replaced, will show you later. Gotta go
Later that afternoon, once she had explained the reason for her absence to her college tutor, and managed to get the notes for everything she had missed, she jumped on the subway.
A part of her felt slightly on edge. She wasn’t sure how to be around Xavier, not after the last time. Things might have been different if she’d seen him the next day, after that evening, but a lot had happened since then and everything between them seemed new again, at least it did for her.
It would be awkward.
“I can’t stay long,” was the first thing she said, when she walked in. Because as soon as she walked into his apartment, she was reminded of what Cara had told her, that the kind of place he lived in must have come with a multi-million dollar price tag.
People like Xavier had no clue about the types of pressures people like her were under. Life wasn’t fair. Some had it easy, and some didn’t and some, like her father, had tried to do better and had been cheated out of building a better life by someone who probably hadn’t been too different to the Stones.
“Oh-kay,” he said slowly. She could tell by the way he looked at her that he was puzzled by her demeanor. “How’s your dad?”
“Better.” A part of her wished she hadn’t told him. Wished he’d been as ignorant as Cara.
“Better?” He looked at her, as if he could see through her hesitation.
He had his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. All the previous times she’d seen him he’d normally worn a hoodie and sweatpants at home. Today he was in jeans and a t-shirt, and she wondered if he was going out, because he usually didn’t look so smart for working at home.
“Because you had me worried there, rushing home like that,” he told her. She walked towards his huge windows and stared out.
“You shouldn’t have worried. He’s fine.” She stared out of the windows at the views over a park. It was a stunning view. A multi-million dollar view, from a multi-million dollar apartment. It must be wonderful to wake up and have the city and its sunshine streaming in. It was a stark contrast to their windows, a fraction of the size of these, overlooking a street with broken street lamps, and the sound of police sirens which penetrated the silence at least once a day.
He was leaning against the brickwork, his shoulder resting against the wall, and with one foot over the other. He looked relaxed and casual. As if he didn’t have a worry in the world.
“Are we good, Izzy?”
She looked at him, not completely understanding why she felt the way she did. Why coming back from home, from dealing with her father, had suddenly made her feel a touch of hostility towards Xavier.
She had to forcibly remind herself that he wasn’t like the others. “I’m sorry. I got back late last night, I’m a little tired, and cranky, that’s all.”
That seemed to please him, made his mouth turn up into a smile, and then she saw the twitch in his jaw. A tiny little movement that told her that maybe she hadn’t totally convinced him.
“You’re not regretting what happened the other day, are you? Because I’m not.”
Trust him to allude to that straight away. “The other day,” she said, raising her hand to move her bangs away from her face. “That was … that was … something unexpected.”
And he was putting her on the spot. She couldn’t come back from that darkness with her father and step into the light with Xavier. “Your car,” she said, turning to face him, and relieved to have something neutral to talk about. “Did the insurance pay out?”
He didn’t seem to like it, the way she’d casually moved away from discussing them. “I bought something safe and sensible like you recommended. A runaround.”
“You listened to me?”
“Believe it or not, I listen to you more than I listen to most people.”
His words made her smile. “What did you get?”
“A BMW.”
She almost choked in shock. “You’re calling a BMW a runaround?” Their worlds couldn’t be further apart.
“It’s safe and sensible, you can’t argue with that.”
“I was thinking maybe you’d get something like a Ford.”
“Can you see me in a Ford?” he asked, grinning. “I mean, that is so not me.”
No, a Ford wasn’t Xavier at all.
She started to melt, then. Started to ease slowly. It had been a huge switch, going home and dealing with everything there, and then to come here and be with Xavier, but he had a way of making her feel better, and that was what she needed after the draining few days she’d had back home.