The Sky Is Mine by Amy Beashel

Author:Amy Beashel [Beashel, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786075567
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

‘You all right?’

A week ago, an hour or so ago even, the kindness in Rower Boy’s voice would have been enough to put a lid on the inferno in my belly. His smile would have cut off the oxygen at source, replacing it instead with weak knees and butterflies. That literal swoon. But right now, that rap, those boys, my stepdad, Jacob’s photos, his ‘deal’, my entire bloody life, is all the heat, fuel and oxygen my anger needs to burn, burn, burn. And so despite Rower Boy’s gentle hand on my shoulder, maybe even a little because of it, I shout No, my temper coming at him fast and furious, the sparks of my outrage searing his concern and turning him a flustered kind of red.

‘Sorry,’ he says, backing off a little. ‘I was only trying to help.’

And I’m sure he is and I’m sure he was, but he’s one of them, isn’t he? One of the fifty percent. And a stranger. I couldn’t even trust the man who married my mum. How could I trust this boy? His smile may be bright, and his words may be right, but Daniel was a true Prince Charming who scorched that fairy-tale rescue of his princesses to dust.

Across the river, the lads are still at it.

‘I’d steer clear if I were you, mate,’ one of them bawls.

But when I turn around to go at them again, the girls are thrusting the boys’ T-shirts at their bared pecs, pulling at their arms, like they’ve finally had enough. It’s the girls’ heads that are hanging though, as if they’re the ones who should feel ashamed. ‘Good riddance,’ I want to shout at all of them as they climb the hill and merge into the trees, but it seems old Izzy, quiet Izzy, wouldn’t-say-boo-to-a-goose Izzy is back, so instead I just watch as the flames die down to a smoulder.

Because it turns out, the one thing sure to dampen the fire is my own tears. I hadn’t even realised they were falling, but by the time I’ve dropped to the ground, head in my hands, my top is already wet from the stream of them.

Rower Boy doesn’t say anything, but I know he’s still there. Years of not seeing Daniel, of purposefully looking the other way, have given me that heightened sense of someone’s breathing, of someone’s stare.

We stay like this for a while, until a woman’s voice cuts into his silence and my heaving mess of a cry. ‘Everything OK?’ she asks. ‘I can wait with you while this young man leaves if you want.’

And I see what this must look like, as if Rower Boy’s the one who’s done this to me, cos maybe the kind female stranger is aware of the cutting up and connecting things too. But I can’t let Rower Boy take the blame for the Rapper Boys’ assault, and so I lift my head and tell her, honestly, everything will be OK.

‘If you’re sure then,’ she says, walking away but swinging her head round to check on me three times before she disappears from view.

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