Who Could Love You, Astor Price? by Amy Jane Lehan

Author:Amy Jane Lehan [Amy Jane Lehan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2022-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

‘ASTOR!’

I was sharply smacked back into the living room, Mum standing across from me. The stern set of her lips and her crossed arms told me I had been even less present than I’d thought.

‘Sorry…’ I said, forcing myself to pay attention.

Mum didn’t smile, she merely stood taking in my pjs and tv binge. ‘Want to let me know why I have a voicemail from school claiming you didn’t show up today? Did you over-sleep or just go to Megan’s?’

I sort of knew in the back of my mind that school might call her when I didn’t attend, but it hadn’t occurred to me that my not-coming-home last night would go unnoticed. I pulled my phone out from the crack of the couch and opened the call log. No missed calls from her or Dad. She was talking at me, a carefully measured tone, words barely restrained in their anger trying to pierce the hum in my head. Anything could have happened to me last night. Anything did happen to me. And when would they have noticed? Dinner time? Tomorrow morning?

‘Well? What trivial shit was more important than school then?’

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ I snapped out.

‘I beg your pardon. Don’t you dare take that tone with me!’

‘You could at least pretend to care about me!’

Anger blistered beneath my skin. Mum scoffed, rolling her eyes.

‘I always care about your education, Astor. And when the school calls to tell me you didn’t bother to even show up, you can bet your ass I’m going to have questions, young lady!’

Fitting. She cared about my education. Her status amongst the happy drinkers she called friends. What my success said about her to a group of middle-aged friends.

But how did you not notice your teenage daughter had failed to come home?

‘I’m not doing this,’ I said to myself more than her.

What was the point. Without so much as a backward glance, I headed to my room, vaguely aware she was calling my name and following me. I needed to snap out of this, whatever the hell this was. Each step away from Mum was making it all worse, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted to crawl into bed and bury myself in a book. Leap off the unstable cliff of my life mindlessly into the pages of another.

‘Astor! Don’t you dare walk away from me. Hey! I’m talking to you. Stop!’

‘No.’

Mum was properly shouting now, demanding I stop and look at her. Her voice harboured no negotiation. I let my head fall forward against the closed door of my room, sucking in a breath. Forcing myself turn, I was unable to give her more than a glance. I felt the burn of tears lighting their path down my face. Whatever Mum had planned to say died on her exhale as she took in my sorry image before her.

‘Oh Astor, what is going on?’

I couldn’t stop the way my body flinched at her outstretched hand any more than I could stop the sigh she let slip.

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