Twisted (7 page)

CHAPTER 12

“S
o when do I get to meet Marla?” I ask. “Like, for real.”

“Oh, uh …” Aidan doesn't look up from his newspaper. “Soon, I guess.”

I push down the handle on the toaster. “Maybe she could come over for dinner tonight,” I suggest casually. “Didn't you say you were off?”

“Yeah. But I think she works.”

I'm not giving up. “Well, could you ask her?”

He ignores me, pretending to be deep into his reading.

I think for a second. “Actually, never mind. I'm going out later to see about getting a phone. I'll drop by her store. It's off Spring Garden Road, right?”

His head whips up. “How would you know that?”

“She told me. She asked me to come visit her sometime.”

“You said you guys didn't get a chance to talk.”

“Um …” Thankfully my toast pops up. The bread's not done enough, and I slam the handle back down. “We didn't. It was literally two sentences. She just mentioned it on her way out the door.”

He gives me a long look then says, “I have to go to the bank. I'll drop in, see what her schedule is.”

“Great.” I smile. “What should we have? Or I guess the real question is, what brand of pasta sauce does she like?”

My little joke goes unnoticed. He's distracted. I can tell by the way his eyes are flitting over the page. Does he feel tricked? Well … he kind of was. But I want some answers
.
I'm hoping he'll spill the beans knowing I'm going to be around Marla. Can he risk not telling me himself?

“She's pretty,” I say, spreading peanut butter on my toast.

“Huh?”

“Marla. She's pretty.”

“Yeah.”

“Where'd you meet her?”

“At the bar,” he answers.

“Oh.” I play dumb
. So much for that plan
. “Was it love at first sight? Did your eyes meet across a crowded room?”

Again he ignores me. Probably too busy planning how he's going to get to Marla and coach her so they have their stories straight.

“Do you ever think about going home?” he asks suddenly.

It throws me off. Apparently he wasn't thinking about plotting with Marla at all. “To River John?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“You haven't thought about it once?” He says it like he doesn't believe me.

“No,” I repeat. “I haven't.”

“But the bakery. You loved that place. I always pictured you taking it over and running it someday.”

“What? You honestly thought that?” Offended, I throw my knife into the sink. “I would have hoped you'd have greater aspirations for me.”

“You make it sound like it would be the worst thing in the world.”

“It would.”

“So you don't
ever
want to go back?”

Is he serious?
My mind is blown. “No, not while Vince is still around.”

“Right.” He nods. “Of course … but if Vince wasn't there?”

“Where is this coming from? Why are you even asking?”

“I dunno,” he sighs. “I was just thinking.”

“About
what
?” I ask incredulously. “You're actually telling me
you'd
consider going back.”

He shrugs. “We moved a lot when I was a kid. I know I was only there for four years, but it was the only place that ever felt like home. I don't like the city.” He goes back to reading his paper.

I'm stunned. Aidan thinks of River John as his home? After all the shit that went down? And he thought I'd want to spend my life slaving away in that bakery? That I'd be happy doing it?

Chewing angrily on my toast, I give him the evil eye.

He sits there, all oblivious, turning pages.

Who
is
this person?

I find myself thinking back to the first time I met Aidan. It was the summer I turned twelve. Mom sat me down at the kitchen table. Told me how she'd run into an old friend at the Co-op, someone she'd known from high school. He'd moved away years ago, and now he was back. Widowed. With a fourteen-year-old son. They came that night for supper. Aidan sat across from me at the table. I spent the entire meal glaring at my plate. We mumbled a few words to each other, but that was about it.

Mom and Vince got married three months later, that Thanksgiving Day weekend. We became a family. Sort of.

“Here. Do you still like to do the Word Jumble?” Aidan holds out a section of the paper.

I'm lost in thought. “What?”

“The Word Jumble. Don't tell me you've forgotten how we used to fight over the puzzle page. My thumb's never been the same since that time you sprained it.”

“Right. That.” I grin and take the paper.

I fold it and fold it again so only the part with the Jumble shows, and slide it under the edge of my plate. Vince didn't like anyone touching his paper, let alone writing in it, especially if he hadn't read it yet. It only took us one time, one screaming match, one grounding, to figure
that
out. So Aidan and I would wait till we were sure he was done and then we'd race from wherever to see who could get to it first. That turned into more of a game than the actual Jumble.

I feel Aidan's eyes on me.

“I lied,” he says. “About how I met Marla.”

“Oh. So how did you meet her?” Under the table I cross my fingers, hoping he tells me the truth.

He takes his time answering. “I, um … I met her in the hospital.” He pauses again. “In the psychiatric ward.”

I decide not to react, in case it scares him off or something, and makes him stop talking.

“Vince,” he continues. “He told Dr. Fraser a bunch of lies. Got him to sign some paper. Then he drove me straight to Halifax, dumped me in the hospital, and left me there. For
observation
,” he adds.

Another puzzle piece slides into place. “That's why you were gone when I got back from camp. Why you never said goodbye.”

“Didn't really get a chance,” he says bitterly.

“They told me you just … left. That things got so bad between you and Vince, you thought it would be best for everyone to leave.”

“Well. Some of that's true.”

“And then there was the shed … all your stuff … burned. Gone.”

He shuts his eyes like the memory hurts.

“I kept waiting for you to email, or write, tell me what happened,” I say. “But I never heard a word.”

“I thought about it. But I knew Vince would intercept anything. I almost called Caroline, to go through her. Then I figured maybe I should just leave it alone. If I tried to make contact and he found out, you'd be the one he'd take his anger out on. Better to have you be pissed at me than have him pissed at you.”

I feel guilty. I've been so mad, confused, and hurt for so long, and here he was looking out for me. It's what we used to do for each other. “I should have known it was something …”

Pushing himself back from the table, he clears his throat. “It's all over with now.”

“The shed,” I say. “They told me
you
burned it down.”

“Do you think I burned it down?”

I tell him the truth. “I don't know. I wasn't there.”

Aidan opens his mouth as if to say something but then leaves the kitchen without a word.

CHAPTER 13

I
can't focus. I've screwed up two lattes already and that was in the first twenty minutes.

Why won't Aidan tell me what happened? Not just about the shed, but about all of it. We used to share everything. No secrets.

The mid-morning rush is over. I grab a cloth and start wiping down the counter. The answer has to be somewhere in those last couple of months before he took off. That whole summer was a mess — things went from bad to worse. It started on Aidan's high school graduation day. I'd just finished grade ten. He and Vince had some huge blow- out. No matter how much I begged, Aidan wouldn't tell me what it was about. But instead of leaving, he packed up his stuff and moved into the shed, to
live
. Vince made it perfectly clear, Mom and I were to have nothing to do with him. It made me crazy that she went along with it — now I blame it on her illness. I'd sneak out in the dead of night to visit him. Stay for a couple of hours. Sneak back.

That was until Vince caught me. “Where the hell were you?” he demanded, his breath stinking of booze.

“I — I heard something. I thought the cat wanted in.”

His eyes swept the hall. “So where is it?”

“The cat?”

“Yeah.”

“It wasn't him. I, uh … don't know what it was …”

I could tell he didn't believe a word I said.

The next day, I came back from the beach to find a lock on my door.

At the end of that summer, Caroline and I attended a weekend leadership camp in Truro. When I got home, the shed was nothing more than a pile of ashes and Aidan was gone.

“I think it's clean now,” a voice says.

Startled, I look up. “Oh. Liam. Hey.”

He leans both elbows on the counter. “You're scrubbing like you're trying to take the paint off.”

He's so close I can smell his shampoo — coconutty. “There's like ink, or maybe it's marker … someone must have signed a receipt …” I peer down at the non-existent stain. “Yeah, I think I got it.” I rub some more. “Yup, it's gone.” Why am I talking like I've just downed a dozen shots of espresso?

“Sorry I haven't been in for a while,” he says. “I should have given you a heads-up. Are you making out okay?”

“It's totally fine. Don't feel you have to —”

“I guess I still think of you as my trainee, that's all.”

“I pretty much know the ropes now.”

“No, I know. I didn't mean to make it sound like you
needed
to be checked up on or anything.”

“Oh no, I didn't think that.”

“It's just that I
do
normally come by every —”

“Yeah, but you
work
here, you shouldn't spend all your time —”

“I had a paper due, and then it was Lynnie's birthday dinner, and —”

“Really. It's all good. Everything's running smoothly …”

At this point, the conversation peters out.

I fold up my cloth and hang it over the edge of the sink. “So, the dinner. Where'd you go?”

He rolls his eyes. “Some hipster place down on the waterfront. She's been wanting to go forever.”

“And how was it?”

“Let me put it like this. I blew almost two hundred bucks and still had to stop for a donair on the way home because I was
starving
.”

“Yikes. Can I buy you a coffee? You're probably tapped out.”

He smiles and brushes his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah. That'd be great.” He looks back over his shoulder. “So any sign of your friend? Has he been back?”

“Kyle?” I reach for a mug. “He's
not
my friend, and no.” I don't feel like telling him about round two of his last visit.

The front door swings open.

I hold my breath. Part of me thinks it might actually be Kyle, because … that's how my luck is going lately. But it's not. Surprisingly, it's Aidan.

He spots me and crosses the room.

Liam slides his body down the counter a bit, out of Aidan's way.

“Sorry.” Aidan stops short. “Were you waiting to …?”

“No, no. Go ahead. I'm just hanging out.”

Aidan frowns.

“Aidan,” I jump in. “This is Liam. Liam, Aidan.” I don't tell him that Liam's the guy who drove me home or got me the job.

“Hey,” Liam says.

“Hey,” Aidan says back.

“Liam works here,” I add.

Aidan looks at him for a second, like he's sizing him up, then turns to me. “Listen, Marla can come for dinner after all. She's going to grab some Thai on her way home from work.”

“That's great,” I say.

“I'm off to the liquor store. You want anything?”

“Oh, uh …”

“Yeah, yeah.” He smirks. “I know, you're underage …”

I twist up my mouth. “Maybe a case of Bud Light Lime?”

Liam whistles. “Wow, a
case
.”

“Well, it's not like I plan on drinking it all at
once
,” I say.

Aidan slaps both hands on the counter. “Okay, then, I'll see ya at home.” He turns and heads for the door.

“I'll pay you tonight,” I call after him.

“Don't worry about it.”

Liam watches Aidan leave. “So that's the bro, huh.”

“Yup, that's the bro.” I don't insert the word “
step
” this time.

If Liam notices, he doesn't say so.

AIDAN SLAMS HIS BEER
bottle down on the kitchen table, knocking over the peanut sauce. “For shit's sake, Marla. Could you please stop talking about it?”

“What? So you're on medication,” she says, blotting the spilled sauce with a napkin. “We both are. You, me, and a bazillion other people in Halifax.”

Aidan has his lips pressed together. I can tell he's about to blow. The fact that he's on medication is something I didn't even consider. I'm dying to ask about it. But I can tell it will only end badly, so I keep my mouth shut.

“We should be able to talk about it,” Marla insists.

“Yeah, but does it have to be the topic of conversation for the whole fucking evening!?” He looks at me from across the table. “It's for my mood swings, that's all.”

If I blinked, I would have missed it — the look Marla gave Aidan.

“Can we all just drop it now?” he asks through clenched teeth.

Marla sighs. “Yes, of course. Sorry, Aidan.”

He shoves his chair out from the table. “I'm going to get another beer.”

All the beer is out on the back porch, nature's fridge, so Marla and I are left alone in the kitchen. There's a long, uncomfortable silence.

“I think he's still kind of embarrassed,” she whispers. “He's worried you're going to think differently about him or something.”

What she says makes sense. I probably do feel a bit differently about him. But not in a
bad
way. “So, Marla, Aidan's medication —”

“He's right. I shouldn't have brought it up.”

I know she's not going to tell me anything. “It'll be okay, I'm sure he'll get over it.” I gather my hair over one shoulder and start twisting it into a rope.

She watches me. “You have beautiful hair.”

“Thanks, but I need a trim.” I flip up the bottom of my hair rope so she can see. “Split ends.”

“Oh. You can go to my girl, Ivy. She used to work at Fred's, but now she does it out of her house. She's really cheap.”

“Sure.” I smile. “Thanks.”

She goes back to staring at my hair. “Sometimes I think about trying to grow mine long.”

“I really like your cut. It looks great on you.”

“I guess …” She reaches up and touches her bangs. “It was Aidan's idea. He came with me to Ivy's, basically told her how to style it.”

“Um.” For a minute I'm at a loss for words. “And … you were okay with that?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “I mean, it's only hair, right? He said he saw it on some actress. Thought it would really suit my face.”

“Well, it does,” I admit. “He obviously has an eye for that kind of thing.”

“You don't think it's weird? My roommate does, thinks he's being a total control freak.”

I start collecting the takeout lids and placing them on the containers. There's something about Marla, something that has me believe I should choose my words carefully. Like she's made of glass, and if I say the wrong thing she'll break. “Different things work for different people,” I tell her. “Every relationship has its own dynamic. She prob- ably doesn't consider it to be typical boyfriend behaviour, that's all.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She passes me the unused packets of soy sauce. “Do
you
consider it to be typical boyfriend behaviour?”

I don't make eye contact. “I'm the
last
person you should —”

“You do. You
do
think it's weird, don't you?”

“No, no,” I say quickly, trying to sound reassuring. “I don't think it's weird at all.”