Reckless Girls(37)
She and Jake are in his bed, his door locked, his music playing loudly, not that it really matters. Eliza’s never seen anyone able to get away with as much as Jake manages to get away with.
Now she places a hand on his chest, pushing herself up to look in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Nodding, Jake skims a hand over her bare back. “In case you haven’t noticed, she’s always here, and this house is never all that clean, petal.”
That makes sense, even as it curdles something in Eliza’s stomach. There’s something so … pathetic about it. Being the side piece to a rich guy, always at his beck and call.
But Eliza won’t realize just how pathetic it is until that night in April when her mother doesn’t come home.
At first, it doesn’t really worry her—she likes having the house to herself, figures her mum is off with Mr. Kelly again. When the phone rings, she has no premonition of how much her life is about to change.
The first thing she hears is Mum sniffling. “Oh, baby,” her mum says. “Oh baby, I am so sorry.”
The story comes rushing out then. How she was just “popping down to London for the afternoon,” and got stopped at Kings Cross, how the little carryall bag she brought with her just happened to be full of three kilos of cocaine, and now she’s sitting in a jail in London, and she’s calling Mr. Kelly to see if he can post bail, but he’s not picking up, so she’s not sure when she’ll be home.
“Mum,” Eliza says, her voice a croak, her whole body going hot and cold at the same time. “You have to tell them the drugs are his. Because they are, right? He made you take them to London?”
“Jack had nothing to do with this,” her mum says, and Eliza scoffs even though she’s crying.
“Right, because you just got three kilos of coke on your own, and then just decided to carry them with you to London. Mum, please!”
Her mum’s voice is so soft when she answers, so tired. “It won’t matter anyway.”
It doesn’t. Her mum never comes back from London, sentenced to ten years for trafficking with the intent to sell. She never once mentions Jack Kelly’s name, pleads guilty, and is swallowed up by the system.
Her last night in the village, the night before her mum’s sister will take her off to Essex, Eliza sees Jake one final time. After her mum’s arrest, she’s stayed away from him, him and his whole bloody family, but she knows they’re going back to Australia soon, and she thinks about it all the time, him and his father—his fucking father—in some other big house, able to start over clean and fresh whenever they want or need.
She sits there in his car, her eyes stinging with how much she’s cried, her tissues crumpled in her hand, and he lights a joint, offering her a hit.
She doesn’t take it, the idea of drugs abhorrent to her now. She’s vowed to never touch any of it again.
Jake only shrugs, sucking the blue smoke into his lungs, exhaling it into the car, and Eliza feels slightly dizzy.
“It’s all just so unfair,” she says now.
“Fucking way of it, isn’t it?” Jake replies easily, and Eliza looks at him.
He’s so handsome, caught in the orange glow of the streetlight, and she suddenly understands that men like Jake’s father—men like Jake himself—will get away with this forever.
Eliza thought she had worked out the secret, but it’s nothing compared to this secret brotherhood of men.
“I guess,” she says, and what she thinks is, But it doesn’t have to be.
It won’t be for me.
A_Wandering_Heart: Anyone ever heard of #MeroeIsland? Apparently it’s just a few days sail from Hawaii, and me and some friends were thinking of hitting it up after #HawaiianPro. Thoughts??
Shaka2379: @A_Wandering_Heart WOULD NOT. That place has bad vibes. Me and some buddies stopped by two years ago 2/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND.
A_Wandering_Heart: @Shaka2379 Lol, okay?? What do you mean “bad vibes?”
Shaka2379: @A_Wandering_Heart Idk just alot of people died there I guess, place feels off. We were gonna stay for like a week bailed after 2 days. IF U GO U KNO.
UrBoyRobbRoy: @Shaka2379 @A_Wandering_Heart PUUUUSSSSSSIES. More for the rest of us!!! #GonnaEatThatLongPigSon #FuckinInfluencers
Twitter, March 2022
NOW
FIFTEEN
The other boat anchors behind the Susannah and the Azure Sky, and I take it as a good sign. Whoever is aboard, they’re respectful and keeping their distance.
“Should we take the dinghy out to greet them?” Nico asks. His arm is slung around my shoulders, and I step a little closer to him.
“Welcoming party?” Jake asks. “Not a terrible idea.”
“I’m not feeling all that welcoming, darling,” Eliza replies. “Why don’t you and Nico go? Put the fear of god in them just in case.”
Jake snorts. “Ah yes, nothing more intimidating than one guy in salmon shorts, and another sporting a dinosaur bandana.”
But a man has already jumped off the boat, and is swimming for shore.
“Well, at least he’s observing the local customs,” Amma jokes, but we’re all too tense to laugh.
I can’t help it—watching someone else approach the island that has now started to seem like “ours,” I feel possessive.