The Fragile Ordinary(68)

Their insults crashed over me, battering me with humiliation. People passed, throwing me concerned looks, but it was only as the sea came into view ahead of me that a familiar voice jerked me back into my immediate surroundings. “Oy, leave her alone!”

I looked up to see Mrs. Cruickshank storming across the street toward me with her shopping bag in hand, yelling at my bullies.

“Get lost!” Alana yelled back.

“You filthy little buggers, leave her alone or I’ll call the police.” Mrs. Cruickshank waved her mobile phone at them.

“Aw screw this,” Stevie huffed.

And I glanced over my shoulder to see him giving them all a jerk of his head. They muttered insults at my neighbor but turned on their heels and began to stroll casually away. Not once did Stevie look back at me.

My face crumpled as sobs just exploded out of me.

“Oh dear, Comet, come here.” Mrs. Cruickshank reached my side and put her free arm around my shoulders.

I swiped at my tears, embarrassed that I’d had to be rescued by my elderly neighbor. “Thank you,” I managed to say.

She nodded, face etched with concern. “What was that all about?”

I sucked back more tears.

“Okay.” She led me onto the esplanade. “Well, you should tell someone. And by someone I mean someones. And by someones I mean your parents.”

The thought of my parents made me cry harder, because they were the last people I could turn to with this. Instead I took Mrs. Cruickshank’s shopping bag from her. “I can’t tell them.”

“Then in exchange for you carrying my shopping, I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Still shaking with adrenaline, I found the idea of taking comfort in my neighbor—a grown-up I trusted more than most—appealing, and I walked with her down the esplanade toward home. The shopping bag jerked in my hand as we were hit by a rush of cold wind.

“Ooh, a cup of tea sounds grand right now.” Mrs. Cruickshank raised her voice to be heard over the wind.

Anything sounded grand to me as long as it meant being away from Stevie and his crew.

My neighbor hurried to let us into her house, and we passed through the familiar narrow hallway with its Persian-style carpet and walls cluttered with photos and artwork. Mrs. Cruickshank’s house smelled like beeswax, lavender oil and turpentine. When I was younger and lacking in diplomacy, I’d asked why it smelled the way it did and what it was. She told me it was her homemade furniture polish.

The smell waned in the kitchen, a lovely light room that overlooked a small courtyard, much like ours. Except whereas our courtyard was overgrown and dirty from lack of use, Mrs. Cruickshank’s courtyard was bordered with flowers in the summer and had a little table and chairs where I knew she enjoyed drinking her peppermint tea and reading the newspaper.

The courtyard looked a little bare and lonesome in the winter, but the kitchen—a far more modern kitchen than our own—was warm and inviting because of the wood-burning stove at one end near a small couch and coffee table. I put Mrs. Cruickshank’s shopping on her kitchen countertop, offered to help and was promptly told to sit down on the couch. I watched, feeling my shakes fade as my neighbor bustled around putting away her shopping. When she was done, she moved on to lighting the fire, and the kitchen became all the cozier for it.

Finally, she settled down beside me on the couch and handed me a mug of peppermint tea, then shoved a plate of biscuits at me.

I took a biscuit while she sat patiently, staring at me.

Finally, I said, “One of them used to be a friend. He’s my boyfriend’s cousin.”

Mrs. Cruickshank gave me a slow, small smile. “Boyfriend?”

“Tobias.”

“Is that that the handsome tall Yank you’ve been walking with?”

I chuckled at her old-fashioned words. “Yes.”

She nodded, seeming pleased for me. And then she sobered. “So why is this other boy now following you home with his friends, shouting rude comments at you?”

Sadness overwhelmed me. “He’s a good person, really. He’s just...” And I found myself telling her the gist of the story, without mentioning anything to do with Stevie’s involvement with drugs.

“So he’s angry that Tobias has moved out just when he needs him, angry that his mum is sick and also angry that Tobias wasn’t there to help him out of a fight? And he has decided to blame you for this because it’s easier than feeling powerless?”

I nodded at her grown-up perspective, thinking that was probably true. I’d become Stevie’s emotional punching bag. “Yes. But I suppose some of it is my fault. Tobias didn’t want to hang around with the people Stevie was hanging around. They’re not a good crowd. And when he thought I might get dragged into it, he made the choice to be with me and cut out Stevie. But we asked Stevie to come with us. To stop hanging out with those bad people, too.”

“Bad people?”

I shook my head, unwilling to divulge more.

Mrs. Cruickshank sighed. “Well, all I can say is that I think you did the right thing. You and Tobias. As much as Stevie might be hurting over losing his cousin’s friendship, he had other choices in front of him. Bullying you is not going to solve his problems.”

“So what do I do?”

My neighbor settled her empty mug on her coffee table and turned to face me fully. “I know most adults would tell you to report it, and I do think you should. But I also know that reporting it doesn’t always make it stop. My advice is to do what you think is right for everyone, Comet. Trust yourself. And keep in mind that this moment in time is just a blip on the radar of your life. Don’t twist yourself up in knots over it, when in a few years’ time it will be a distant memory.” She clasped my hand in hers. “Don’t waste your emotions on this, my dear. Give them all to the things that make you happy, here and now.”