Page 93 of The Lucky Escape

The night before moving day I’d walked around the house slowly – in a way, I suppose, saying goodbye. I stood in the kitchen and thought about all the meals cooked and passive-aggressive arguments seethed, and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror for a long time, finally deciding I liked how I looked. The next morning I piled everything I was leaving into one corner and threw a bedsheet over it so that there wouldn’t be any confusion when Dad and Freddie came to help, and sealed up the last two boxes of stuff that would be coming with me. I tried not to think about Patrick, because every time I did I wanted to call him, but when I rehearsed what to say every time a different version came out.

Let’s be friends.

I want to be with you.

Don’t break up with me.

Marry me.

You made me whole.

You ruined me.

I don’t know what I want – you choose!

The doorbell rang.

‘It’s us!’ Freddie said through the letterbox. ‘We’ve got a van!’

I opened the door to them, shocked to see that Mum was with them too.

‘You’re all here!’ I said, more than a little uneasy.

‘As instructed,’ Mum replied. ‘We couldn’t leave you to do this alone, could we?’

It turned out they’d hired a van so we could do everything in one trip instead of the several back-and-forths I thought we’d do in Dad’s Ford Focus, but now I could see the size of it I knew I’d been naïve in thinking we could do without.

‘Whoa,’ said Freddie, wandering down the hall. ‘It’s so different in here.’ She looked around the mostly unfurnished house curiously. ‘HELLO!’ she said, and her voice echoed in the hall. The only thing that remained untouched, as he’d requested, was Alexander’s flat-screen TV.

‘Come here, you,’ I said to her. ‘I haven’t seen you in ages!’

‘You’ve not invited me to stay with you in ages,’ she said, matter-of-fact.

It hit me right in the heart. ‘Things have been crazy, Freddie-Frou,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Crazy with your newboyfriend,’ she teased. She must have seen something flicker across my face. ‘What?’ she said. ‘Why do you look like that?’

‘Like what? I don’t look like anything.’

‘He broke up with you, didn’t he?’ Mum offered. I hadn’t seen her at the other end of the kitchen. Dad looked at me sadly.

‘No,’ I said, an edge to my voice. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. We’re in the process of breaking up with each other, I think,’ I said. And then for Mum’s benefit I added: ‘Not that it was ever serious.’

Freddie said, ‘But I thought you said you were falling for him?’

I blushed crimson and said, hurriedly, ‘Yes, I was. And then I wasn’t. And anyway, I’ve got a lot on. There’s the moving, and the counselling course, which I can pay for if Alexander gives me back some money I gave him. So. End of story.’

‘I’m shocked,’ Mum said, meaning exactly the opposite. ‘The redeeming factor in you taking Patrick away on your honeymoon was that at the very least you were serious about each other. But oh no, another one bites the dust, is it? Poor man. He probably never even saw it coming, did he? The hurricane that is my eldest daughter.’

I don’t know what expression my face made at that comment but Freddie looked from Mum to me, to Dad, back to me. Old Annie would have let that fly, but I wasn’t even expecting Mum to be here today, let alone for her to potentially ruin what was otherwise a super important day. I wasn’t taking her bullshit into my new home.

‘Mum, did you come today just to make me feel bad?’ I said. ‘Because I won’t let you. Moving today is supposed to be a joyful, happy thing. This is a fresh start for me. So don’t come and piss in my punch to spoil it, okay?’

‘Oh don’t be so melodramatic,’ she replied. ‘Honestly.’

Dad tried to calm things down by suggesting he’d start loading the van.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said. ‘It’s all through there, and I’ve labelled everything so we know where it needs to go when we getthere. Freddie, would you get the two suitcases from my bedroom?’

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