Page 6 of The Story of Me
“But it does get easier to bear, George. It never goes away, but you do learn to live with it.” He wipes away his own tears and looks down at me. “You’re doing great. Some days will always be shittier than others, but you’re doing just great.” He drapes his arm over my shoulder and kisses the top of my head.
Jax knows all about loss. When he was eighteen, he had stupidly piled into a car with seven of his mates, including his then girlfriend, Melanie. They were drunk and stoned, and the driver managed to wrap the car around a tree on the five-kilometre journey back into town. Only Jackson and one other boy had survived. He was a grown man of thirty-five now and had a hard time dealing with survivor’s guilt. He’d been in trouble with the police for fighting, drinking and drugs and had ended up in prison for three months, followed by a six-week stint in rehab. By the time he was twenty-five, he had turned his life around. He now ran his own surf school and boat charter company, and worked as a volunteer counsellor at a drop-in centre that helped young people in danger of going off the rails. He had finally settled down with the beautiful Emily. I hope and pray that one day I will find the peace he has.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper and let out a long breath. “I’m sorry if me being here has stirred up horrible memories for you, Jax.” He tightens his grip around my shoulder.
“George, the horrible memories are with me every day. I just hope that in some tiny way, you coming here and being able to talk to me about what happened has helped you, even if you don’t realise it yet.”
I stay quiet. I don’t know yet if I feel better, but I certainly don’t feel any worse than I did leaving England under the horrible circumstances that were surrounding me.
* * *
I survived my first birthday without Sean, thanks to his flowers and the beautiful letter he had sent me, but by the following weekend, my world had come crashing down again.
Unusually for me, I had slept in. When I turned in my bed and looked at the time on my phone, it was almost ten in the morning, then my bedroom door opened. Marley walked in, and I realised it was the sound of someone knocking that had woken me.
“Big brother Marley, this had better be good.” I knew as soon as my eyes met his that it wasn’t. “What’s wrong?” I croaked with my raspy morning voice.
Marls raked both of his hands through his short, spiky hair; he walked over, kicked off his boots and lay on the bed beside me. I could tell by the frown he was wearing and the creases in his forehead that he wasn’t happy, and I needed to know why.
“You’re scaring me, Marls. What’s wrong?” He pulled me to him, resting my head on his chest. I could hear his heart beating rapidly, and I started to get pins and needles in the tips of my fingers and toes, something that happened when I was getting nervous. Marley kissed the top of my head.
“Some bird’s gone to the papers, saying she has Maca’s kid.” My eyelids suddenly felt heavy and I wanted to go to sleep. My stomach roiled and I swallowed a couple of times to keep the bile rising in my throat from escaping. My tears were instant; I didn’t cry, but they were there anyway. They just appeared. Was that still crying? I laid there and wondered to myself: if you didn’t cry but your eyes still leaked, did that count as crying?
“George?”
“Yes, I heard you, Marley,” I snapped, taking in a big gulp of air and trying to steady my breathing before I attempted speech. “Who is she, what’s she saying?” I looked up at him from where my head rested on his chest; he looked down at me and shook his head.
“Her name’s Amanda Jones. She lives just outside of Manchester, and the boy’s almost five.” I sat up and shook my head; now I cried
“No, no Marley; why, why would she do that?”
“I don’t know, George; I don’t fuckin’ know, babe.”
My bedroom door flew open and Jimmie walked in, followed by Lennon.
“She’s a lying fucker, George. I don’t believe a word from either of them.” She threw herself on the bed next to me and gave me a cuddle.
“Please, don’t get yourself in a state over this, G. It’s complete bullshit. Len’s got the solicitors onto them.” I pulled my neck back so I could look from her to Lennon.
“Them?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “The girl and the newspaper?” Lennon shook his head and sighed.
“No, both the girls. There’s another one crawled out of the woodwork after this morning’s headlines got out.”
I didn’t want to cry, but I did.
“Why don’t they just get in touch with me? If it’s true, why don’t they contact me? Why don’t they come to me privately? If these children are Sean’s like they claim, then why the need to go to the papers, why would you put your own child up for scrutiny like that?”
I looked between all of them, but no one seemed to have an answer.
“I would make sure they were properly looked after. If they are Sean’s children, I wouldn’t keep his money from them.” I looked around the room again; my parents were now standing in the doorway and my mum was crying along with me. I breathed in through my nose and blew out through my mouth as I tried to calm myself down. “Why do they hate me; why do they despise me so much that they would do this? Don’t they get how hard it is? Don’t they get how fucking hard I’m trying to hang on here, to keep going?” Jimmie let out a loud sob from beside me.
“They’ve gone to the papers, babe, because it’s not true. They won’t come to you, because they know they will have to come up with evidence and they don’t have any. There’s no truth in any of this. They’re just a pair of scheming, conniving bitches who don’t take anyone’s thoughts or feelings into consideration, not even their own kids.” She held my face between her hands and made me look at her. “These stories are a load of crap, George. Let Len and the solicitors take care of it. Don’t let any of this set you back. You are the bravest person I know, strong and brave, and we won’t let these fuckers bring you down.”
“But why do they want to hurt me like this, Jim? What the fuck did I ever do to them?” Lennon came and knelt in front of me and held both of my hands; from where I was sitting on the side of the bed, he looked me square in the eye.
“It’s not personal, George. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about Sean. They’re just selfish people out to try and make a quick quid.” He wiped my tears from my face, something my big brother hadn’t done since I was a little girl. “The lawyers are all over this, all over these women and all over the piece-of-crap newspaper that’s run the story. We’ve got this, Porge; it’ll be old news by tomorrow.” He stood and kissed the top of my head.
“Get the bacon on, Ma. I’m starving,” Marley said from beside me on the bed. He cuffed his nose on his sleeve. “We’ve got this, Porge. We’ll sue the shit out of these fuckers, I swear. For you, for Beau and for my best mate, we’ll get this shut down.” He kissed me hard on the forehead. “I love you, little sister, Georgia. Clean your teeth. You’ve got morning breath.”
