Leaning on the wall by Jacqueline’s usual escape door, I watched her emerge with the guy who sat next to her in class. He’d attended one or two of my sessions at the beginning of the semester, three months ago. They both seemed to notice me at the same time, and I could have sworn they were discussing me as they approached. After wishing her a good break, he headed towards the opposite exit, and I examined Jacqueline’s face for signs that he’d told her I was the class tutor. Her expression was jumbled as she stared up at me, her forehead holding the slightest crease. Unable to read her, I fell into step as she passed, pushing the door open as we exited together. Her elbow brushed against me and her now-recognizable scent revived my memories of Saturday night.

‘Can I see you tonight?’ I asked.

‘I have a test tomorrow in astronomy,’ she said. She would be studying with classmates all evening. Nothing strange about that, except for the brief pause that made it seem more pretext than reason.

Dogged by a nagging sense of exposure, I scanned the mass of people, looking for the source. Intuition told me that source was right next to me – but that had to be wrong. ‘Tomorrow night?’

‘I have an ensemble rehearsal tomorrow,’ she said, and the buzzing in my ears increased. She talked about missing practice Sunday morning and packing her bass for the break – familiar ground – but my brain faltered, comprehending that it was familiar for Landon – not Lucas.

I was sprinting headlong into a concrete wall, and I had hit that wall before, hard. I didn’t have to feel the wretched crunch of everything shattering to know how it would feel. I needed this break. I needed the waves on the shore, and my dad’s silent presence. I needed to see if I could break this obsession.

Staring into her eyes, I asked her to text me if her plans changed. With every speck of willpower I possessed, I said, ‘Later, Jacqueline,’ and walked away without touching her or kissing her goodbye.

18

Landon

I thought hitting Clark Richards would make me feel better – and it did. It felt too good, if there’s such a thing as too good. Every blow I landed, and even the hits I took, numbed and transformed the pathetic freak I’d been, bringing to life an unfeeling motherfucker in his place.

My fight with Boyce last year rattled that cage, but hammering the shit out of Richards’s face was the watershed moment. I’d found something better than combining molly and weed, better than alcohol, better than sex for smothering the voices in my head – because even when those things worked, and they sometimes did, the voice I still heard was my own, and it would never let me completely forget. Ever.

‘I’ll only be gone three days,’ Dad had said, his hands cradling her face. ‘We see Charles and Cindy this weekend, right? We’ll plan that Christmas in Rio trip you and she have been harping about for years.’

She pouted at him with a fake scowl. ‘Oh, harping, eh? Maybe you can just stay home, Mr Grinch.’

He slid his hands down her shoulders to her elbows, loosening her crossed arms and pulling her hands to his chest before towing her close and tipping her chin. ‘You can’t leave me behind, Rosie,’ he murmured. ‘Not after last night.’ He leaned down to kiss her like I wasn’t sitting twenty feet away.

‘God, you guys, get a room.’ I clutched the controller in my hand, eyes resolutely staring at the screen and my skateboarder guy doing ollies over spaces between buildings, aerials off walls and slides down escalators – stuff that would kill me in real life. I tried closing my left eye so I couldn’t see my parents, who were standing by the door, saying their long, mouth-sucking goodbyes.

‘This is why we bought you a television and game console for your room, son. So your mother and I can enjoy …’ He smiled down at her. ‘… the rest of the house.’

I hit pause and lay back into the sofa cushions, both hands over my eyes. ‘Oh, man. Seriously?’

Mom laughed. ‘Stop teasing him.’

‘I can’t. It’s too easy,’ Dad said.

Sighing, she straightened his perfectly straight tie. ‘I was actually thinking that we should visit your dad this Christmas. He’s always alone, Ray …’

My dad’s relationship with his father was the definition of complicated. ‘He chooses to be alone. He likes it.’

‘But, honey, he’s so happy when we visit. He adores Landon, and he won’t be around forever.’

My mom’s parents had been in their early forties when she came along – a surprise baby long after they’d accepted the idea of being childless. Prominent professors in analytical fields, they’d spoiled their curiously artistic daughter rotten – her words. They were both gone by the time I was five or six. Mom missed them a lot, but I barely remembered my grandmother, and couldn’t remember my grandfather at all.

Grandpa – Dad’s dad – was the only grandparent I had left.

‘He just thinks he’s finally got a sucker to take over the Maxfield family business,’ he air-quoted, ‘because Landon likes to go out on the boat with him. Plus, we just saw him a couple of months ago, in July.’ In spite of these claims, I heard the surrender in his voice, caving to whatever Mom wanted. He pretty much always did. ‘When I escaped that town, I never intended to go back at all. And here you are making me go every summer. And now Christmas?’

‘Because it’s the right thing to do. And because you aren’t a sulky eighteen-year-old boy any more – you’re a grown man.’

He kissed her again, wrapping his arms round her and growling, ‘Damned right I am.’

‘Minor in the room. Right here. On the sofa. Having his innocence corrupted. By his own parents.’

‘Go get ready for school, baby boy,’ Mom said, calling me the thing she only said in front of Dad or when we were alone. Thirteen-year-olds couldn’t have their moms saying crap like that in front of friends or the general public.

I shut down the game and my parents were still kissing.

‘Gladly.’ I made blinders with my hands as I passed them.

‘Hug your father goodbye first.’

I did a one-eighty at the base of the staircase and leaned into him for a quick hug. He patted my shoulder and looked down at me, still inches taller, though I was gaining on him.

I’d picked Mom up the other day just to prove I could and she squealed and laughed. ‘I used to change your diaper!’