A surprise ambush with unexpected consequences

“Why, hello Luke!” Mum exclaimed, wearing a big fat grin.

“…Hi,” I replied carefully. I slunk into the kitchen the next evening, suddenly very suspicious about her cheeriness, considering how grumpy with me she’d been since I’d been back.

“Come on, sit down. Everything’s already ready.”

I looked over to the table and wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Dad and Charley already sitting there. I didn’t dare look at Charley except out of the corner of my eye, but it wasn’t like she was doing anything worth watching anyway. Just sitting there quietly in her usual spot. She definitely didn’t seem very enthusiastic about being here, which made sense, so it was pretty obvious that she’d yet again been **** to come by Mum.

I did have a look at Dad as I sat down though, and he was not looking as carefree as his wife. Eyebrows furrowed, his eyes flicked back and forth between Charley and me, like he was deciding how to deal with us. That was kind of novel – Charley usually didn’t share in the disappointed looks he liked to give me.

But before he could launch into whatever his issue was, Mum clapped her hands together. “Alright, let’s eat!”

My stepmum had gone with Mapo tofu for today’s dinner, another one of her specialties. I actually preferred it to her kimchi stew, not that I’d say one was better than the other to her face. With all the tension in the air, I resolved to just enjoy the food as much as possible for it was inevitably spoiled by one my darling family airing a grievance.

Unfortunately, Dad didn’t wait long before piping up. “So. Your mother tells me that you two have been fighting. Don’t you think it’s time you put whatever it was behind you?”

Well, that explained why Mum was looking so smug. She must have told Dad about how Charley and I weren’t talking with the expectation that he would **** us to resolve it right here. I closed my eyes and groaned internally. Oh my god. These two are genuinely the worst.

Unfortunately for her, I had some tricks up my sleeve too. I’d known him longer than she had, after all. There was only one thing I knew that could get my dad’s attention off of his weirdly strong family values, and that was fake interest in my academics or my future career.

“Yeah, you’re right, Dad,” I said quickly, scoffing down a spoonful of rice. “We’ll sort it out. By the way … I’ve been thinking about what to do after I graduate. You know, I was never really that high on the solicitor path, even though it’s always been the obvious thing … but it’s become more appealing recently.”

Dad’s eyes lit up. “Is that so?”

From the other side of the table, Mum shot me a look of begrudging respect for my ability to divert Dad’s attention, conceding this round.

“I had always been a bit put off, because in London it is so ridiculously difficult to find grad jobs, or vacation schemes,” I continued. “But I was talking to someone from my dorm in Japan, and they were saying that over in Australia, it’s a bit less bleak than it is here. I’d have Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne to look at for clerkships, wages are higher, and my UK degree is transferrable because it’s all Common Law.”

Suddenly, even though she had been trying not to look my way before, I could distinctly sense Charley’s eyes on me as I talked. Staring. I tried my best to ignore it.

“You want to live in Australia, all of a sudden?” Mum questioned.

“Well, it’s not like it was a dream of mine. But I guess it could work out for the best, right?”

“Well,” Dad began. “I can’t say I would be thrilled if you moved to the other side of the world. But we had already prepared ourselves for something like that with Charley, I suppose. And I’m happy to hear that you’re seriously considering your future options.”

“Okay, then.” I said. “Again, all of this is about as far from set in stone as it can get. But … since you’re all good with it, I think I’ll start looking into properly.”

I heard a sniffle before I saw anything. And when I instinctively turned over to look at Charley for the first time, I saw rivers of tears flowing freely down her cheeks. She sat there with a grimace on her face for a few moments, staring into her food, clearly trying not to make scene. But then her expression crumpled, and she broke down into heart-wrenching sobs.

It had come so out of nowhere that Mum and Dad had no idea how to react. How could they? Charley wasn’t a big crier. In fact, in the thirteen years I’d known her, I had never seen her shed a tear even once. Of course, I didn’t doubt that she had at some point, probably when no one was looking. But that was just the kind of person she was – she never wanted people to worry about her. So, for Mum and Dad to see her like this, and for it to come so out of nowhere … it made sense that they had to take a moment to calibrate.

And I couldn’t say anything either. Because seeing her like this … I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. For all the anger, hurt, confusion and bitterness I’d felt about her, I never, ever wanted to see her upset, to see her cry like this. And along with that, I suddenly felt this childish, innate loathing towards the cause of her distress. Which was awkward, because it was pretty obvious that cause was me.

Mum spoke up first, reaching out to gently take her hand. “Charley? Hey? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she choked. “Sorry, I…” She quickly wiped away her tears, but they kept on coming. “Ah, fuck … just a…” Maybe she wanted to say ‘second’, or ‘moment’, or even ‘minute’. But before long, all of them had passed, and she couldn’t stop herself from crying. And so finally, before any of us could react, she got up from her chair in a flash and hurried out of the room.

And once again, the three of us sat there in shocked silence.

Mum frowned, concerned. “Well, I don’t … I should go and talk to her.”

I really did hate myself a bit then. Not just for upsetting Charley, or for being too much of a pussy to talk to her this past week, even though I knew I should have. But also, because after hearing Mum’s suggestion, a part of me wanted to just let her deal with it. I was scared. Scared shitless of what would happen if I was the one who followed Charley to talk to her. I didn’t want to hurt her even more. And I didn’t want to get hurt even more myself.

But I steeled myself anyway. I couldn’t let it end like this. Not like this.

It was so easy to sit in my room, rationalizing stupid shit to myself about what I thought would be good for me, like I had been doing recently. But for all my cowardice, I had enough to resolve to understand that there was absolutely no way I could live with myself if I left things this bad before I flew back tomorrow.

“No. I’ll go.”

“Are you sure?” Mum asked, looking at me in surprise.

“Yeah. I got it.”

“Thanks, Luke,” Dad said gruffly.

I nodded back at him and sighed. In that moment, he looked the happiest he’d been with me in years. I didn’t dare look at my stepmum again, because I just knew she had a stupid grin on her face, believing her kids were about to make up. I really wished that what I was about to do was as simple as they believed it was.

As I got to the door, Mum called out from behind me. “You don’t have to come back down after. We’ll clean all this up. Just make sure you’re up in time for your flight tomorrow!”

I turned back and shot her a **** smile in response, before walking out the kitchen and trudging upstairs. When I made it to Charley’s room, I didn’t bother knocking. I had a feeling she wasn’t in there, anyway. And when I poked my head inside, I saw that I was right. Now that she had moved out, I supposed it wasn’t really the same as it used to be for her.

It had been a long while since I’d been in there, and as I walked through it slowly, the memories came flooding in. From last Summer, of course, but also from when we were younger, before I grew up and realized my feelings for her were not only entirely inappropriate for family members but also had no chance of ever being returned. We’d play in here, with dolls and toys she had gotten too old to be interested in but still kept so she could spend time with me, and she would matter of factly explain everything as it happened while I would stare at her in admiration, trying not to drool too much.

These past two weeks were hardly the first time I had avoided her. As early as thirteen or fourteen, I’d tried to stay away from her a bit, although it was more out of pubescent shame about my unrequited love at that point as opposed to a pitiful attempt to avoid being hurt, like now. She had never protested then – in fact, she’d gone as far as helping me out by moving to San Francisco a couple years later.

So … why? Why does the thought of me moving away make her cry? She said she wanted us to be a normal brother and sister. And yet when we were exactly that, she had no issue leaving to the other side of the world herself. So, what else could it be, if it isn’t that she looks at me differently now?

And again … I thought I had decided to walk away from this stuff. So why am I here agonizing over it all for the millionth time just as I’m about to talk to her?

Eventually I made it to the window at the other end of her room and breathed out. Charley was where I had expected she would be – on the balcony connecting our rooms. The window was already ajar from when she had climbed out herself.

Time to stop speculating. She’s right there.