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My heart broke for Mia and how little she was cared about by the people surrounding her. How could they not see how much darker everyone’s world was without her in it? I looked off to the side, unable to lock eyes with the man who created Mia, brought her life, when there was so much anger in mine. “Ethan Scott. Where is he?”
“Probably home, sleeping. The same thing you should be doing at this hour.”
Getting Scott’s address out of Lynch would be like pulling teeth. Jinx would have no problem giving me the information if he had it.
I drove around Guildford, passed by Dolor, and by three in the morning, the car turned back into the car park of the motel. My thoughts twisted, believing my brother had, somehow, something to do with this. It had Oscar’s name written all over it.
As I pulled into a parking space, I grabbed my mobile and looked up visiting hours for the prison. My eyes glazed over as I read the small text on the screen. An eight-day advanced notice was needed to arrange a meeting with a prisoner. Eight days was too long, but I rang High Down Prison anyway to book an appointment with Oscar. Office hours were closed, and I made a mental note to ring back at nine in the morning.
I never pla
My phone rang, and I immediately answered with my heart in my throat.
“Find him?” Jinx’s boom box of a voice rumbled into the mobile against the beat of the bass in the background.
“Yeah, it was no use.” I stared at the motel room door from the car. Sleep would be impossible and a waste. “Do you know where Ethan Scott lives?”
“Nah,” he grumbled as a girl whined beside him, vibrating my eardrums. “We don’t talk to Scott.”
“What do you mean, ‘We don’t talk to Scott,’” I wiped the exhaustion from my eyes, “Where are you?”
“I’ll send over the address, and you can meet me. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
After Jinx sent the address over, the drive had only been twenty minutes before parking outside a gated property. With my arms crossed over my chest, I posted against the vehicle as music and bodies spilled from inside the house. Red cups, tea lights, and different shades of skin tones decorated the pristine lawn. Everyone was partying, laughing, and having a proper time, living life without a care in the world. But for me? My head spun, and panic surged with every passing second wasted waiting out here in the cold for his arse. I shouldn’t have come, but desperation pulled me under. If Jinx had information on Scott, I needed to know—anything that would lead me closer to Mia.
Finally, Jinx spotted me from the large doorway with a lazy, drunken smile plastered over his face, lights bouncing off his gold teeth. He walked toward me with a girl under his arm. She was tiny against his broad build. Instantly, she made me feel uneasy with her red lipstick smeared and a cigarette between her smoke-stained fingers, forcing me into a time I’d tried so hard to forget.
The window doesn’t close all the way, leaving a small crack where the cold slips through. It’s dark outside, and the buzz from traffic turns the city into a nightlife musical, slipping a lullaby through the window along with the chill. It drowns out O’s snoring. He gets to sleep in the bed with mum. But, Mum isn’t home yet.
I turn the page of the book the lady with kind brown eyes gave to me from the library. She said I should choose another from the children’s section, but those bore me. The two clutched in my hands were thick, and the text on the back promised a mind-provoking change within my heart, which could possibly change the world. I wanted to be a part of that, and I’d fly through both books this week. She said I could only choose one and come back for the other, but only after I returned the first book—in the same condition as I took it. She didn’t trust me, but I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t trust a young kid with a piece of history either. Trust is earned.
I’ll show her.
My eyes steer from the page to the clock in the kitchen with bright yellow numbers. It’s four in the morning, and mum should be home any second now. Sometimes she’s late. Sometimes she’s early.
I return my eyes to the book and sink under the window sill, where I’m allowed to sleep. I wanted this spot because there’s a small cushion over a bench, and it’s cozier than the floor. Sometimes, when I get really cold, I use the curtain from the window. It’s long enough to blanket around me.
The lock slides and Mum’s giggles allow my heart rate to steady. She’s back. A man mumbles through the doorframe, saying his goodbye’s, and she drops her keys over the side table and closes the door behind her.
She’s wearing a top which shows her belly and a small skirt. She has to be cold, which makes me feel bad, but it doesn’t seem to bother her as she kicks off her heels and stumbles toward me with a cigarette between her red lips. She pulls the cigarette away and blows out smoke before leaning over to kiss me. “You worry too much,” she reminds me when she sees I’m still awake, and my fingers reach out to touch the warm skin on her belly where the scars crawl up, but she slaps my hand away. “You like what you did to me?”
“They’re different. Unique.”
She calls them stretch marks, and they are my fault. She says Oscar gave her beauty, and I took it away. But I tell her she’s beautiful, they’re beautiful, even though she doesn’t agree. The stretch marks are like the lines of a book, each one a sentence telling a story. I’ve caused this, proof of my existence written over her skin. And she hated them.
“No, Oliver. They’re ugly. You completely ruined me. I could be making more money if I hadn’t had you.”
It should hurt me, but it doesn’t. Not anymore. It did the first few times she said it, but I’ve realized she’s in pain and uses me to release it, so I don’t respond. I’m just glad she’s home, and I take a second to remember my page number before closing the book and using it as a pillow. Mum puts her cigarette out in an ashtray over the floor, then falls beside Oscar, twisting her arms and legs around him, finding warmth.
“You made it,” Jinx bellowed with a pat over my shoulder, pulling me from the memory. I flinched, and his expression twisted. “Come inside. You can meet my crew.”
Laughter and conversations rang from all directions, filling the background noise and making my head spin and my palms sweat. It had been a while since I’d been around a crowd of this size. Panic doubled within me, and I couldn’t find focus. Rap music thumped, a song I’d never heard before, and the hype from the party crawled over me, pushing my boundaries. “I’m not staying.”
“You doing alright?”
“I’m fine. I’m okay.”
A smile of scattered teeth stretched across Jinx’s face as my brain pounded inside my head. “Get my mate a drink,” Jinx ordered the girl. She nodded and twirled to head back inside the house.
“Is she your girl?” I asked, leaning against the car and propping up my foot to steady myself. Too much chaos moved around me, and the anxiety within only worsened the more I noticed the little control I had at the moment, attempting small talk to distract myself.