I can’t escape him. Wherever I go, I see him.

Galen.

He’s like a bad smell. Like a stain in my favourite pair of jeans that won’t come out no matter how many times I put them in the washer.

We haven’t spoken since that day, but whenever I seem to lift my head and check my surroundings, he’s there.

The schoolyard.

The library.

The gym.

Playing rugby on the same team as Rhys.

Waiting for the bus after school.

He doesn’t get on the same one as me. My bus to our house always pulls in on the left side of the school driveway, while his stops on the right.

We’re both connected by this fragile thread, yet both going in opposite directions. Life is weird like that. Full of connections, many of them unfair or don’t make sense. Many of them we didn’t ask for nor want.

The crowds waiting for the buses to arrive are always large and noisy. Like today, Rhys is talking to a pretty red-headed girl I’ve seen him chatting to a lot, but she’s playing hard to get, which only makes him keener. I’ve watched him every day this last two weeks trying to flirt with her. It’s been my after-school entertainment. Especially as I know he won’t give up. He’s always liked a challenge.

Everyone gathers right at the kerb, wanting to be the first ones to board the bus, pushing and jostling for their favourite seats, while I wait a few feet away from everyone else, uncaring of where or sit or even if I have to stand.

While on his side of the school drive, Galen sits on some railway sleepers that border the edge of the school running track. His position allows me an unhindered view, should I choose to look. Which I do often. And so does he.

It's a game we play. Even though neither of us has set up rules and there will never be a winner. I pretend not to look at him, and he pretends not to look at me.

In my head, I call it ‘The Battle.’

Sometimes—like today—we use props. I open my notebook full of pressed flowers and stare at a blank, white page. Across the drive, Galen is glowering into a math book. That he’s holding upside down. I flick glances, counting the time between each one, trying to up the score I keep in my head, before I go back to my notebook. Moments later, I know when he's staring at me because goosebumps appear on my arms and the fine hairs on my skin stand on end.

It’s exciting, almost dangerous.

What if we get caught? Will something bad happen?

The something bad already happened.

“Wanker," I mouth, making sure my lips exaggeratedly form the word, knowing he's looking at me and can likely read my lips.

The game ends abruptly when he changes the rules, and when I next lift my head for my glance, Galen is right there before me.

"What did you call me?" he demands, his eyes narrowed, but I can see the glint in their emerald depths.

"I called you a wanker," I state boldly, surprising myself with my brazenness. "So what do you want, wanker?"

"You're staring at an empty page. No flowers today?" He motions to the notebook in my hand.

"What’s it to you, Galen?" I inject enough venom into the two syllables of his name that it drips from my mouth like treacle.

He ignores my question. "Did you remember that Mum's birthday is next week?"

His question makes me want to push him into the road and hope a bus is passing, but, instead, I opt for a Cheshire Cat smile. "She's not your mum," I say through my teeth.

He ignores my childish jibe.

"Dad's throwing her a birthday party."

My father never threw Mum a birthday party. Is that why they split up?

“So?”

“So, grow up and stop thinking the world revolves around you. You can end this shit, Fflur. Show up, and become the girl that Mum always told me you were. Because so far, I haven’t seen any evidence she exists.”

"Fine," I say, hoping I can convince Rhys to go with me. Maybe Mum will be happy we're both there and see how much she's missing us.

"What? You’re coming?" he asks, shock evident on his face.

I nod sharply once.

"That’s—" He seems confused by my agreement, his words failing him. Maybe he thought he’d have more of a fight. “—great.”

He twists to walk away but stops and adds, "I found something this morning in a crack in the pavement."

Galen drops his rucksack on the floor, bends to open it and then gently removes a Dandelion. He straightens and places it into my hand. It's droopy. It's been in his bag for a while.

I look from the wilted flower—most would call it a weed—back to his face, but he's turned again and is halfway across the drive.

We go back to doing what we always do while we wait. Pretending not to see each other.

Let ‘The Battle’ begin.

On your marks. Get set.

Galen.

Did he give me a weed or a wish?

This is the question that plagues me as I stare at Galen’s dandelion the entire journey home.

Does he know what I would wish for? Or did he see a pitiful, seemingly ugly, yellow flower pushing its way through the cracks and decide that's what I am—a weed in his emerald green lawn. A blight on his perfect life with his dad and my mum.

My mum.

When I get back to my house, it's empty. Dad is still at work and Rhys has gone out with friends. I take my weed back to my room.

I should press it in my scrapbook. I should keep it, tell it my burdens and then look at in the future and remember. I should press it between two crisp new pages.

But I don't.

I place the dying stem on my dressing table, and I leave it there.

Dad comes home a few hours later. He can see there's something wrong. He hovers over me at the kitchen table while I’m trying to do my algebra homework. Rhys still isn't back yet. He's probably with the redhead that he's still chasing.

Dad sits next to me.

"I know there's something wrong, Flower."

At least he still calls me flower.

"Will you and Mum ever talk again, even as friends?"

Dad leans back in his chair and exhales deeply. His breath puffing over his face and ruffling his hair.

"I don’t have the answer to that question, Flower.” He glances at me, his features honest, open and somewhat… pleading. “I wish everything was different, but it isn't and it was never going to be, no matter how much we tried. And Flower, I promise you that we tried hard. I know it doesn't makes sense, and it doesn’t feel right to you, love, but for me it does. Sometimes everything has to break apart for something new to be made, something better, something stronger.”

"She was with another man, for years. She made you look like a mug. Doesn’t that hurt?"

He laughs mirthlessly.

"What? It’s not funny, Dad.”

"No,” he says, shaking his head and running his palms down his face. “Nothing about all this is funny, but sometimes you’ve gotta laugh, you know?”

He gets up from the table and puts on the kettle shaking his head at random points as it boils, his lips moving to form words and then thinking better of it. Eventually he sits down and places one cup of black tea before him and slides another topped with milk and sugar over to me.

"I thought your mum had talked to you about all this already. She wasn’t unfaithful to me."

"Don’t lie to me, Dad. I’ve had enough of all the lies. For once, please just tell me the truth. You’re not protecting me. Trust me, if I didn’t know before, I do now. Lies cut deeper than truths ever could.”

"Max and your mum have been friends since they were very small children. Me and your mum were never meant to happen. I can see that now, but at the time, it wasn’t so obvious. We wanted to do what was best for everyone and not what was best for ourselves.” He blows the top of his hot tea before taking a sip. “She was miserable, Flower. And so was I. Something had to give, something had to bend, and I guess it was around seven years ago when that something happened.”

His words are a confession of guilt. A softly spoken admission of lies. And a final gift of the truth.

"You have to remember that we thought we were doing what was best. We came to a sort of agreement, I guess. We wanted you and Rhys to grow up together in one home, with two parents that love you. We just didn’t love each other, at least not in the right way. As I said, it wasn't working for us. We were both unhappy, and your mum was right to leave so she could live with the man she's always loved.”

An agreement?

He knew about Max?

He let her go to him for seven years and gave her his blessing, and then welcomed her home like nothing was wrong?

"You might call that an agreement, but to everyone else, everyone normal that’s fuc—"

"Flower," he warns. “I know you’re upset, but I won’t tolerate that language.”

I want to laugh at him, but not because I think any of this is funny.

“What?” So, I can’t say a swear word but you can sit here and tell me that my entire life has been a lie? That is f—messed up, Dad, and you know it.”

His hand shoots across the table top and grasps mine.

“You listen to me, and you listen good.” He’s angry, so very angry. “You and Rhys, this house, our family, our love, is not a lie. Do you hear me, Flower? Yes, we messed up, yes we wish things were different, but we. Love. You. If you take anything away from this, know that we messed up with your best interests at heart. Not ours. Yours. Because we love you both. So very much.”

His words strike hard. A direct hit to the centre of my chest and my bruised and battered heart swells painfully.

"But she left, Dad. She left because we weren’t enough, and they are.” My eyes fill with salty water and I bat the wetness away with the back of my hands. “But I’ve been there, they are not any better than us. They're not, their family is not, and their house is not. Their grass isn't greener. And yet she still left."

I want Dad to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything is going to be okay, but I told him I wanted the truth, so he doesn’t fill me with babyish lies.

Maybe I was wrong. The lies would hurt less.

Instead, he nudges the edge of my mug. The mug with a huge sunflower emblazoned on the front. The mug Mum bought me one day at the supermarket when she still lived at home.

"Your mum misses you so very much. Don’t you think it's time for you and Rhys to give her chance?"

Time? Is it time?

How do you know?

Do you just guess?

Or is it when someone else tells you it’s time?

This is Dad giving us his blessing, and maybe that’s enough for it to feel like we aren’t betraying him. That we aren’t choosing her over him.

“Okay.”