Page 142 of Almost Ours

Dad takes another drink, his eyes never leaving mine. “Which is why we’ve decided we’re going away on Christmas Day.”

“Oh?” Shock slams into me. “Where are we going?”

“No. Not with you. Just your mother and I.”

I blink rapidly. “Right. Okay. And I’m…?”

“You’re staying here.”

“Oh.” What the fuck do I say to that? Why have me come home if they didn’t want to spend Christmas with me. “Okay.”

“You’re not a kid anymore.”

“Yeah..?” I push my hands further into my pockets, trying to keep my voice level even though my head has started racing ahead of me. “Sorry. Just when you said we were going away, you meant all of us.”

Dad gives me a look like I’ve deliberately misunderstood him to be difficult. “Why would we take you?”

“I don’t know.” I clear my throat, trying to stop all the emotion from exploding out. “Because it’s Christmas?”

“And I’ve just explained to you why Christmas is difficult for us.”

“Yeah, Dad. I heard you.”

“Then stop making me repeat myself.”

I glance down at the marble floor, trying to swallow everything I want to say. “When are you going?”

“Christmas morning.”

“And when are you back?”

He shrugs in an offhand way. “The New Year.”

I nod slowly, the weight of my grief bearing down on my shoulders. “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”

Dad picks his glass back up. “Sandra is dropping a Christmas dinner round for you.”

My brow furrows. “Who’s Sandra?”

“Your mother’s friend.”

“Do I know Sandra?”

“No. But you will be polite her when she pops over. You should be happy, frankly. You’ll have this entire place to yourself for days. Most boys your age would think they’d won the lottery.”

“Mm, yeah.” I’d rather have stayed in the flat at uni then be stuck in this shrine to my dead brother. There are pictures of him everywhere.

“Your mother feels guilty enough about it, so when you see her don’t start piling on.”

“I haven’t even spoken to Mum.”

“And when you do, I expect you to act like an adult about it. She needs this, Josh. She needs a few days where she isn’t surrounded by this house and everything that happened here.”

What about me? I want to scream. What about what I might like? What I might want? What I might need?

Dad points a finger at me. “Don’t you dare sulk about it either. We don’t need the shit, Joshua. We do not need you making everything more miserable than it is. If you have an episode,” he spits the word, “you stay in your room and don’t bother us. Your mother has spent years dealing with your moods on top of her own grief. Christmas is hard enough having to watch you selfishly pull us into your never-ending emotions.”

My tongue feels like lead in my mouth and I push off the counter, needing to get away from him before I say something I can’t take back. “I’m going upstairs.”