Page 40 of Waiting Game

Antoni shrugged, “it was a change of scenery.”

“Why? What were you doing at that age?” I asked, shifting my position on the damp log that I was sitting on to avoid the clouds of smoke that seemed to follow only me.

“Normal teenage things, I was running amok in the city,” she chuckled, taking a bite into her burger.

“We were all a little sick of the city, I think,” I shook my head, and Antoni and Val nodded in agreement.

“It was impossible to have any fun,” Val said as she chewed, “everyone knew who we were, who we were related to. If we stepped a toe out of line, our parents would know about it before we even got home.”

We always just stuck to each other.

It was hard to make friends with people who weren’t a part of our world. The kids at school knew exactly what our parents did for a living, and our parents were equally as suspicious of everyone who wasn’t involved.

We couldn’t afford any weak links, and it turns out that teenagers were not the most trustworthy of people when it came to keeping certain secrets. Gossip spread quickly about us anywhere we went. Especially about Antoni, who in our school bore the brunt of many rumours.

Most famously, the one about how he had killed his first man at only twelve years old.

Though this wasn’t quite true, it was close enough to the truth that our parents forbade us from even mingling with the normal children for fear of getting reported.

After dinner, we roasted marshmallows and Valerie took the opportunity to tell Rome all of Antoni’s embarrassing childhood stories.

“Enough of that,” Antoni stood, wiping his hands on his pants, “let’s go for a swim.”

He stretched out a hand towards Rome and she took it. They went together towards the deeper end of the creek, downstream and away from the bridge. I noticed they both started to strip off when they were far enough away from the light of the fire, and I looked away.

Valerie looked intently at the fire, the trees, the creek - anywhere but at me.

I sighed, getting up and moving to sit on the log next to her, and she folded her arms across herself in a hug. She must have felt my eyes on her, because she looked over at me.

With a frustrated groan, she stood, and walked over to the end of the creek where Rome and Antoni were swimming.

I watched her walk away.

Which seemed to be all that I did in the past few days, and the past ten years.

I pulled out another beer from out of the esky, then popped off the top and threw it into the fire. The metal lid warped under the heat, and I stared at it, trying to distract myself.

Then I took a swig as I watched Valerie disappear into the darkness.

A car drove over the bridge, and the loud clanking filled the silence for a few seconds before I was alone with my thoughts again. I looked up, at the underside of the bridge, and walked towards the rock wall. I climbed it again, back to the top, which was much harder in the dark.

I sat and drank by myself, and could hear the splashing from down the creek.

I wondered what Valerie would say if I was to tell her that I was leaving The Family, leaving the life behind.

Would it make any difference after I had already done so much evil?

Would the saint in her ever be able to love the sinner in me?

Even though my mind was running away with all sorts of fun scenarios, I knew that I didn’t have the balls to ask Antoni for an out. I wasn’t sure how he would react.

I knew exactly how he would be expected to react - by killing me.

But could he do it?

Could I actually get away?

Really there was no use in thinking as I was, without first knowing if Valerie would even consider being mine again. It would be dumb to risk my future, and my life, without knowing if I was doing it for nothing.

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