Page 221 of Swallow Your Sorries

I catch sight of Gant holding onto Aria’s waist as she spins around and my twisting intestines immediately work themselves into a knot.

Slipping away, I slip into an empty corner and bring up Mum’s contact with shaky fingers. Each ring seems to conflict with my heartbeat and the lack of synchronisation triggers a shitstorm of anxiety within me as I wait. And wait. And wait.

I’m about to hang up with the intent of blowing her phone up until Mistress calls the chorus back on stage when a groggy ‘hello’ croaks through the speaker.

“Ellie?”

“Mum.” It doesn’t come out as angry, irritated, or even concerned as I’d intended because the moment I hear the word, Ellie, I know there’s no use. Suddenly the whirlwind within me spins to a standstill. There’s more than one way to skin a cat right? “Is everything okay?” I ask instead of ‘why didn’t you pay the rent in advance like you’d promised me’.

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I haven’t heard from you for a few days.”

“I’ve just been…”

“Reminiscing? Going through a nostalgic phase?”

“That makes it sound like a midlife crisis.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You think it’s a crisis?”

Seeing as we’re about to get evicted, I’d say so.

“I don’t think it is. I feel like I’m just getting back to me,” she says. “The me you’ve never met before.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Mine. Your father’s…look, Elle, I know I’ve been absent lately but it’s the first time I’ve been on my own. It’s the first time you’ve been on your own. You can understand the new freedom aspect, right?”

Begrudgingly I could.

“Is this who you were before Jarett? Always at bars? Always partying?”

“Yes and no. I was always at bars, but not to party or drink. Just to dance. Just to feel the musical vibrations.”

I sink to the floor, and catch sight of Gant and Aria again, turning in perfect harmony to the music.

“It’s the band, That Night, that lured me to the bar scene. They recently got back together again after decades of fighting.”

Is their reunion giving Mum hope about hers and Jarett’s?

“I fell in love with the first song I'd ever heard from their album. They were big on the bar scene when they were still too small to have their own concerts."

“It’s that how you found The Watering Hole?”

“Yeah, they were performing there, back when they could barely book a gig. I’d been following them for at least two years at that point. Well, following them as best I could without social media. You have no idea how hard it is to be a groupie without IG.”

I don’t want to smile, but one cracks my lips. I thought Mum could only be a groupie for Jarett.

“I was big into music and art back then. Heavy into my ceramics. Anyway, I’d just had the worst year of my life. Well, up to that point.”

It’s hard to imagine worse years than the ‘Jarett Years’.

“I’d gotten rejected from the art school of my dreams.”

“I thought you couldn’t afford it?”

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