Her Undoing Read online

  But I can’t. As long as Jake is with them, they’ll be fine. They’ll all be much better off when I’m not there to ruin things, to make things more complicated.

  So, I turn the other way and start walking back to my parents’ place. I know that they want me to come back, I wish I could go back, but I just can’t. I only make things harder, I make things more complicated and they don’t need that, they don’t deserve me ruining their lives over and over again.

  We just have to get through the next weeks, the next months, and after that, everything will start to go back to normal.

  It will happen.

  Even though, I never stopped loving them, and even more than eight years on, I still wanted them, I still loved them. But this time, this time I will really let them go.

  I have to.

  7

  Dylan

  When Jake opens the front door, it stings to not see Mia with him. Even though I rationally knew she wouldn’t be coming back, I still had some hope that she would. I don’t know why, because I already knew that she wouldn’t, Jake even said it, that we can’t force her to come back to us. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to get up and just get her, bring her back to us right now, just because I want her to.

  “How was it?” I get up from the couch in the living room. “How was she?”

  “She was exhausted, in pain.” He lets out a slow breath as he takes his shoes off. “I asked her if she’d come back with me, but she said that she couldn’t.” He stands up straight, looking around. “Where are Mal and Tom?”

  Mal’s gig this evening fell through, since they broke the whole band up a couple of days ago, so the guy is sulking in the back room and he’s not been out of there all day. “Mal is still in the room and Tom and Elly are visiting the grandparents, they should be back soon.” I look Jake over. “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired.” He sighs again, going over to the kitchen and sitting down. “Just sitting right across from her, knowing that I would be coming back here and she’d be going to her parents’ place, when I wanted nothing more than to hold her all evening... I don’t think I’ve ever felt this strongly about her.” He glances up at me and I sit down too. “I’ve always loved her, I’ve always wanted to have her at my side, but somehow, after the last week, that feeling has grown, gotten worse. And it’s so much harder to let her go.”

  “I know that feeling.” I’ve been having to confront that same feeling about Mal lately. I stare at Jake, trying to make sense of the guy.

  He seemed perfectly fine being at her side for so long without being in a relationship with her, just being there for her, but in these last days, I’ve seen him give Mal the same look that I’ve seen him give Mia, and Tom too. Maybe not exactly the same, but still, very close. And no matter how much I want to hate him for making a move on the people I’ve always been too scared to admit my feelings to, I can’t hate him. The guy is too good, almost too pure, too honest, too real, to hate. I get why people are attracted to him, to his person, I totally get it, even when I wished that I didn’t.

  “Now what?”

  He shrugs. “Hope that she’ll come back. Try to make her see things from our perspective. But I’m not sure how well that works...”

  There are footsteps in the hallway, and then Mal’s broken voice from the door. “I want her to come back. I don’t believe she’s ruining anyone’s life. Life is messy, it’s always messy, but if we’re not with the people we love, how are we going to survive it?”

  I turn around, wanting to take him in my arms, but he resolutely shakes his head.

  “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to leave anymore. I don’t want...” He glances back at the front door. “I want to go out and get her, right now. I want to bring her back. Can we go get her? Please?” His voice breaks, the last word little more than a squeak.

  I stand up, taking him in my arms slowly and blink against my tears. “I wish we could.”

  “Why won’t she believe that we love her? That she’s not ruining anything? That we just love her?”

  I tighten my arms around him. I wish I had an answer for him, because that would mean we could do something about this whole situation, but as it stands right now... I have no idea how to solve it.

  “Because she’s scared. She’s scared to be hurt, so she tries to get out of situations before that can happen to her.” Jake gets up and comes over. “I wish I knew what to do about all this. I really wish I had an answer, because that would mean we won’t have to go through all this pain.” He stands close to us for a moment. “Going over to her and dragging her home with us won’t solve anything. She needs to choose to come back, she needs to come to us instead of running away from things. She needs to willingly come back.”

  That doesn’t sound very optimistic... “That could take a long time.”

  “Yeah.” Jake’s voice drops. “It might never happen. We could be waiting all our lives for her to come back and realise that we just want to be with her, no matter the flaws she sees in herself.” And he walks off, going up the stairs, to the bedroom we all still share.

  I feel for the guy, because he’s not talking about a theoretical ‘we’, he’s been waiting for her for years, he’s been waiting for her to come to him for a long time.

  I was scared that if I asked too much of Mal, I could lose him, but in Mia’s case... This isn’t about expectations and how much we could be asking of her, this is about how she feels that life is too hard, too rough, and how she doesn’t know how to deal with that.

  I’m the only one still up when Tom comes in, Elly is asleep in his arms and he puts her in bed in the back room before he joins me in the living room.

  “How are they? Any news about Mia?” He sits down in the chair that Mal usually sits in.

  “Nothing new about Mia. She told Jake that she couldn’t come back. Jake and Mal are asleep, or, at least, they were half an hour ago.” I stare out the window behind Tom. “What are we going to do now? What happens when Monday morning rolls around and she’s not back? Or what if she is? What happens?”

  Tom shakes his head. “I have no idea. We both have to get back to work, and Jake has his thing, but I have no idea if he needs to be in the city for that or if he can keep doing that from here. And Mal... I don’t know.”

  “I want her to come back.” I look down at my hands. “But I don’t want to see Mal in pain any longer. He’s hurting so badly from this, the timing is really bad, he’s already so raw, and this on top of everything else... Is it wrong that I don’t want her to come back if she can’t stay forever this time?” I feel horrid even saying the words, but I’ve seen the pain in Mal, but also in Jake and Tom, and I’ve felt it myself. I want her to come back, but I don’t want her to come back and then leave all over again, bringing even more pain... “I want this pain to stop.”

  Tom gets up, sitting on the couch next to me, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands as he seems to be thinking something over. I wait for his words. “What if we can be who we need?”

  “What?” I blink at him.

  “What if we build what we need right here, all of us together?” He doesn’t look at me, his eyes still on the window on the other side of the room.

  “Without Mia?” That feels wrong somehow.

  “No.” His voice softens. “We create a place where we can all be together, but where Mia can also be with us. What if we show her that life isn’t all about pain? What if we show her that we can all be together, that she doesn’t have to break everyone apart by only choosing one person, that she can be with us without having to choose?”

  “Like, what?” I let out an incredulous laugh, even though it’s not far from my own thoughts when I spoke to Mal. I just wasn’t as bold about the ‘sharing love’ part of it. “Like a harem or something? One girl, who can sleep with four guys, choose whoever she wants to sleep with that night?”

  “Maybe.” Tom lets out a slow breath, his shoulders easing, his body easing. �
��Maybe not really that way, since, you know...” He looks at me, almost a smile in his eyes. “It’s not like all of us are just about the one girl, I’m pretty sure some wouldn’t mind having an extra person join in on the fun, or the love. But I meant it more like a group effort, a way that we can all help each other when we need help. Where there is always someone around to be there for you and you don’t always have to pretend to be the strong one.” His words get softer and softer and I glance his way, something bad settling in my stomach. It was like he wasn’t even really talking to me anymore. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s not doing as well as he seems to be doing.

  We all need help. We all really need help. And Tom is right, maybe we all need to work together to make that happen, give Mia a place she can return to. A place for Mia, for all of us, a place where we all can be who we are, and not having to fight the world all on our own all the time...

  8

  Mal

  When I wake up, the bed is full of bodies and I have no idea who I’m squished up against, though, after a moment, I realise it’s Jake, since I can smell the cigarette smoke on him. Yeah... Neither of the other guys smells like that. Tom smells like woodwork and things like that, and Dylan smells like something like leather, it’s an odd but really comforting scent.

  I carefully get out of the bed, trying not to disturb any of the others as I quietly go down the stairs and I look into the living room, where Elly is already watching something on TV. “Morning.” I keep my voice low and she looks back at me, giving me a sleepy smile.

  “Morning.” She looks at the TV and then stands up, coming over to me and she holds out her hand. I take her hand and she pulls me to the kitchen, to the back door and points to it. “Veggie garden.”

  I blink, she’s much more awake than I am. I pick her up so she can look through the window in the door. “It’s too early to go out to the veggie garden, look, it’s still dark. We can do that later.” I put her on a chair. “What would you like for breakfast?”

  “Pancakes?” She gives me her best smile.

  “I don’t think so, sweetie.” I grab bread and some things to put on it and put them on the table before I start making coffee in the coffee machine.

  Behind me, I hear Elly open the bread bag and then moving things around to make herself a sandwich. I quickly turn around, but she’s being very careful, and it’s kind of cute to watch her try to make her own sandwich.

  I sit down next to her, holding the bread for her so she can spread jam on it. It’s a mess and most of the jam ends up on just a single spot on the bread. It’s fun to watch her be so proud of her own work. After making sure she can’t accidentally throw anything on the floor, I get up again and pour myself a cup of coffee.

  Last night was hell, all of yesterday was hell, but last night was the worst. I felt alone, even with other people in the house, I felt so lonely. I felt like I didn’t have anyone around, like I didn’t have anyone who was really there for just me. And knowing that Dylan was right there in the house, just like Tom and Jake, and that they would help me no matter what I’d ask of them, it made me feel so guilty over how lonely I felt. It made me feel like I was ignoring them or something, like I didn’t care about them, when that wasn’t the case... I just... I didn’t know how to explain what was going on in my head and I had no way of telling them that.

  How could I try to explain when they had enough on their mind anyway?

  I sit back down at the table, looking at Elly. She’s so content when she’s just doing her own thing and I wonder how her world would change if we all moved into this house instead of all having our own places to live. Would people treat her differently? Would people start treating her badly for coming from an unconventional family?

  I don’t want her to get caught up in any bad things that may come from having a non-conventional household. No matter our own feelings, we have other people to consider, Elly mostly. She won’t have a choice in what we’re doing, she’s just a little kid, but whatever we do will influence her life a lot too, and we can’t ignore that.

  “Elly?”

  She looks up, jam all around her mouth, and I smile.

  “Would you like to live here? In this house?” I have no idea why I even ask her, if I’m not just saying something stupid, something that could turn out all wrong later.

  She looks around and nods. “Yes. With the veggie garden.”

  “Yes, with the vegetable garden.” I guess it’s not that strange for her to consider living here, since she’s come here a lot from a very young age.

  Then Tom appears in the doorway, his eyes dark, exhausted. “What would you think of living with Mal and Dylan and Jake?” He doesn’t seem annoyed with me, but he’s also keeping a close eye on his girl.

  Elly now looks at me more, thinking. “Yes?”

  I flash her a smile and reach out, cleaning her face a little. “Thanks, little girl.” I’m not sure she really understood the question or if she just really likes living with her uncles.

  Then she gets out of her chair again, tugging on her jacket that’s hanging next to the door. “Outside?”

  I look back at Tom, who nods a little, and then get up. “Sure. Let’s go outside.” Even though it’s freezing cold and still quite dark. I have no idea what she could be wanting to do out there. “There’s coffee.” I motion to the machine as I try to get Elly into her jacket, and after putting her boots on, I open the door for her.

  She darts outside, immediately going over to the vegetable garden, chatting away about the plants and what she wants to do with them, how she wants to eat them and on which day. That girl definitely knows a lot about this garden and she loves it so much, it would be a shame if it would be ruined by someone who doesn’t understand it.

  “I’ll get you a mug.” Tom goes over to the machine and I quickly put on boots and a jacket and follow the little girl outside.

  Fuck. It’s even colder than I expected outside.

  I wrap my arms around myself as I sit down on the bench since Elly can’t really get herself into too much trouble, the vegetable garden is walled off. She’s having a lot of fun doing things all over the place, puttering about.

  Tom sits down next to me and hands me a mug of coffee. “How did you sleep?” His voice is low and he wraps his hands around the mug, probably trying not to freeze.

  “Soundly. I have no idea. I was out and then it was morning.” I was so exhausted that I don’t even think I dreamed. Which, after the last days, makes sense. “What about you?”

  “Not long enough, but I couldn’t sleep any more.” He looks after Elly, something cautious in his eyes. “What did you mean when you asked if she wanted to live in this house?”

  “I don’t know... I just thought... I don’t know. I guess I was being sentimental.” I don’t want to look at him, I don’t think I can meet his eyes right now. I know I shouldn’t be asking his daughter these things, they’re none of my business. Where Tom and Elly live is none of my business and I shouldn’t be giving Elly ideas.

  “Jake wants to buy the house.”

  “What?” I stare at him, not sure I’m hearing him right.

  “But he can’t make the finances work. I can, though.” He’s looking to the end of the garden, but I’m not sure he’s looking at anything. “I could buy this place.”

  “But what about your house? You’ve just finished redoing it.” What is he talking about?

  “I’ll sell it. And with the money from that, I can buy this house.”

  “Why would you? You’ve got... You bought that with Poppy. That’s Elly’s home.” Why am I suddenly getting emotional about it? I never go there because it reminds me of Poppy too much, but it’s still their place.

  “Because it’s a house. Since Poppy’s death, it hasn’t been a home. It hasn’t been our home in a long time.” His voice is careful. “You don’t have a place to live. Dylan is still in that garage that he was only supposed to stay in for a couple of months. We all... We all ne
ed a place to call home, which we don’t have. This is the closest any of us have had to a ‘home’ in a long time.”

  “Why?” I understand it somewhat, but still... that’s a big thing, a huge investment... And now he’s talking about it being a place for all of us?

  “Because we need this. All of us.” Tom finally looks at me. “We need each other. We need a place where we can just be, where we can live, and we don’t have that right now. We don’t have a place that’s home, and we really need it.”

  I’m almost too nervous to ask. “What about Mia?”

  “If she wants to, she can come live with us. There will always be a place for her here.”

  “And Jake?”

  Tom slowly smiles, easing the tension in me. “I don’t think he’s going to be leaving any time soon.”

  “Right.” Yeah, I don’t think he’s going anywhere either. And I don’t know how I feel about that. On the one hand, I feel like he’s just doing this because he feels forced into it or something, but on the other hand, he really does care about us, he cares and he wants to be here.

  It’s hard. I don’t really know how to make sense of it all. If they’re all here, will I stop feeling this lost, this lonely, or will I still feel the same, but we’ll all be forced to live in the same place? Will we start to hate each other when we realise that staying here won’t solve anything?

  We know how things work right now, but will this solve things, or will they just make things worse, a lot worse?

  It could make us all closer, or it could ruin our friendships, and while I’ve been dreaming of living together, all of us, for days, being faced with the reality that it could be possible is scary. Too scary. Because if this goes wrong, then where do we go next? Who will I still have left? Will I have to say goodbye to even more people?

  9

  Mia