A Quiet Kind of Thunder(84)

I sink into the chair and look from Mum to Dad to Lucy, who is sitting beside Dad, searching for clues. ‘You’re not . . .’ I hesitate, then say it anyway. ‘Mad?’

They all laugh. ‘No,’ Mum says. ‘We’re not mad.’

‘We tried to be,’ Dad says.

‘We tried really hard,’ Mum agrees. They look at each other and start to laugh again.

I’m so confused.

‘Do you want us to be angry?’ Mum continues. She looks amused. ‘Was that what you were hoping for?’

I frown. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘A big, bold gesture?’ Mum offers, raising her eyebrows. She’s still smiling. ‘Weren’t you trying to prove something to us?’

Well, yes. ‘Of course not!’ I can’t quite think of how to follow this, so I take a glug of tea instead. No one says anything, so finally I add, ‘You’re not upset that I lied?’

‘Yes, I am upset that you lied,’ Mum allows with a slow nod. ‘But, love . . . you could have lied about hitchhiking to a drug-crazed rave in a field in Scotland. You could have lied about eloping to Amsterdam.’

‘Or cooking meth,’ Lucy adds.

‘Or covering up a murder,’ Dad says.

‘Or planning one!’ Mum says.

They’re enjoying this, aren’t they?

‘What we’re saying,’ Dad says, seeing my face and smiling gently. ‘Is that we know that teenagers lie to their parents all the time.’

‘And the fact that you did it in order to go to spend a weekend in Edinburgh with your lovely and trustworthy boyfriend . . .’ Mum’s mouth twitches. ‘Well, that’s quite sweet, really. If this is you being bad . . . I think that’s quite good.’

I’m not sure how to take all of this. On one hand – yay! I’m not in trouble! On the other – this is quite patronizing and offensive, isn’t it? Aren’t they basically calling me a sad excuse for a teenager?

‘I think I’d rather you were angry,’ I say, frowning.

‘You still should have told us,’ Lucy says and, despite the conversation, part of my mind registers how she includes herself so naturally in the ‘us’. ‘You’re not that off the hook.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t let me go,’ I say.

‘Why wouldn’t we?’ Dad asks, confused. ‘The two of you are seventeen and eighteen. Of course you can go away for the weekend if you want to. Why wouldn’t you?’

‘Mum said she didn’t think I could go away without support,’ I say.

‘Oh.’ Mum’s face clears. ‘That’s what this is about.’ She closes her eyes for a moment and rubs her forehead. ‘Steffi, that was just concern. It wasn’t an order. It wasn’t me trying to restrict you.’

‘Sounded like it,’ I mumble grumpily.

‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’ Lucy asks gently. ‘Is it just because you thought we’d stop you?’

I shrug. ‘We wanted it to be ours.’

‘It would have been,’ Mum says, ‘but you still could have left a note.’

‘I was going to call you from there,’ I say. ‘After we’d met up with his brother. We just wanted some time alone first.’

‘If you were going to call while you were there, why not tell us before you went?’ Mum asks.

‘This is going round in circles,’ Dad says. ‘Who wants some more tea?’

‘I wanted to surprise you,’ I say. ‘I wanted to show you that I could do it without support, OK?’

‘Well, you succeeded,’ Mum says.

‘No, I didn’t.’ Here we go: my voice cracks and tears spring to my eyes. ‘I completely failed, actually.’

There’s a pause. I keep my eyes on the tablecloth, but I know they’re all looking at each other.

‘What do you mean?’ It’s Lucy who asks. ‘Why do you think you failed?’

‘I messed everything up,’ I say. So much for being out of tears. ‘I couldn’t help Rhys. And Tem’s mad at me.’

Mum gets up from her seat and comes to sit beside me, putting her hand on my back and rubbing gently. ‘What makes you say that you couldn’t help Rhys?’ she asks. ‘It sounds like you did help him. You went to get help, and you got him down from that hill. That’s what help is, love.’

I shake my head. Tears start sliding down my cheeks. ‘I had a panic attack. I was all by myself and I freaked out. You were right. I can’t look after myself.’

‘It must have been frightening,’ Lucy says softly. ‘Rhys being hurt like that, and it just being the two of you.’

‘What happened after the panic attack?’ Dad asks.

I take a deep breath, trying to swallow back more tears. ‘Well, I had to go and find someone. And there was a woman with her dog nearby, so I got her.’

‘You got her?’ Mum repeats. ‘You went to speak to her?’

I nod. ‘She came to help us.’

‘You spoke to her?’ Mum says again.

‘Yeah. Sort of. I kind of gabbled a bit. But she was so nice. And she went and got another man to help us because we couldn’t get Rhys down by ourselves. And Connie – that’s the woman – took us to the hospital and then left. And all the nurses and doctors and stuff were just, like, ignoring Rhys and just talking to me. And he was really grumpy and all cross because he couldn’t communicate. And then I had to call his brother because I knew I had to, because I couldn’t look after us.’