Page 27 of Malaise
“Because I’m none of that,” I whisper. “I dress like this to push people away, because I like to be the outcast since fitting in is so much harder to do. I’m not confident with who I am, because every day I question if the people who are slinging insults my way could be right. Are they seeing something I’m not?” I shake my head and sigh. “And I’m definitely not brave when the only place I feel safe is in my dead brother’s bed, pretending he’s still here. I never realised how much I depended on him to reassure me of who I am until he wasn’t there to do it anymore. I feel as though I’m unravelling, like something’s not right and he’s the only one who can tell me what.” A tear tracks a path over my cheek and I swipe it away in frustration. “Most of all I feel so damn pathetic that I relied so heavily on him to make me okay, to keep me together enough to face another day. How fucking sad is that?” I ask with a pained smile. “I can’t find it in me to love myself enough to give a shit anymore.”
“You’re not pathetic, Meg. You’re finding your place without him.”
I shake my head vehemently. “But I never wanted life to be without him. He was more than my brother, he was truly my best friend.” My head hits the back of the seat. “My only friend. I mean, I know we would have gone our separate ways eventually. He was training here, and once he had his qualifications he was going to look for a job overseas. But he would have been there when I needed him, when I needed advice. I could have phoned him up, or visited on the weekend. But now?”
“Don’t cry, babe.” Carver reaches between us, wiping away more tears I didn’t realise were there with the backs of his fingers. “It sucks, and yeah, it’s unfair. But it’s only been a few days. I promise, things will settle down.”
“I hope.” Especially at home—I’m not sure how much more of that fresh hell I can endure before things go nuclear.
“If you need someone to talk to, you know you’ve got Tanya and me now, eh?”
“We’ve only known each other for a few days, Carver.”
“Brett,” he corrects with a smile.
I slap both hands over my face and groan. “I’m sorry—it was kind of what I called you in my head before I knew your real name.”
“Yeah?”
I nod, smiling with my bottom lip pulled between my teeth. “Sorry.”
“Babe,” he says on a sigh, stretching out in his seat. “You can call me whatever you want as long as I get to see that cute smile again.”
God—could he get any sweeter?
“I don’t know about you,” he says as he tugs the keys from the ignition, “but I’m starved. How about we get that bite to eat?”
“Yeah.” Anything to step out of this hotbox of emotion.
“And after we’re done, I’ll take you home so you can try talking to your olds again.”
My light and loved mood sours in a heartbeat. “Why should I bother? They made their feelings, or lack of, pretty damn clear.”
“Because family is key, Meg. Friends come and go, but your parents will always be your parents. They love you, and that’s something you shouldn’t turn your nose up at.”
“You finished going all Dr Phil on me yet?”
He sighs, my joke flatter than a pancake, and drops his forehead onto the steering wheel. “Just listen to what I have to say, okay? And trust me when I say that a family like yours is something to hold on to.”
I shove my bag out of sight under the dash with my foot and huff. “You clearly don’t know our family that well then, because I wouldn’t call it loving, and I wouldn’t exactly say that home is a nice place to be right now.”
“Your brother died, Meg,” he snaps. “It’s bound to be tense.”
“Isn’t grief supposed to unite people?”
Carver drags a hand over his face, keys clenched in the other. “No. It’s not. Stop fantasising about how this is supposed to be and face the reality. They need you as much as you need them, so talk it out, scream it out if need be, but just sort it out.”
“What the hell makes you the expert?” I reach for the door handle, yet halt when his fingers wrap around my elbow.
“Experience. You said I obviously know nothing about your family, well, you only know about mine what you’ve heard from the same people who are picking on you. Let that simmer for a bit, Meg, and tell me what the takeaway message is when you’ve figured it out.” He withdraws his hand and settles back in his seat with a sigh.
Silence fills the car as I stare out the window at a pair of young men checking the tie-downs on their dirt bikes. One of them wears the same riding pants that Den owns. Owned. I swallow hard and force the frown from my face before I turn to Carver.
“You’ve made your point, so should we eat?”
“Whatever you want, Meg.” He tosses the keys repeatedly in his palm, staring down at the mass of clinking metal. “No matter what else I say, I’m sure your stubborn mind’s made up already.”
I ball my fist in my lap, wanting so badly to reach over and sock him one. “You’re being an arsehole.”