At the End of the Garden

Chapter Thirty-Six

Only when I was alone with my thoughts did I remember I'd left all my stuff at Michaels. That was my dirty blazer, clothes and most importantly my phone. And I only noticed because as I was sat there, I thought, this would be less awkward if I could distract myself with a screen. If Sidney were clever (which he apparently was) he'd come back in and the turn the TV on so I could watch that and pretend I wasn't in this weird situation. This wasn't my home, I didn't want to do it myself.
However, Sidney didn't reappear until Perry got back. She seemed annoyed that everyone had left after she went shopping to accommodate them, but eventually shrugged it off. It meant more frozen pizza for her to eat. She was the clever one who turned on the TV for me, before going into the other room to scold Sidney about something like a responsible big sister would. When she came back she left the door slightly open. Sidney didn't follow her out.
"You hungry?" Perry asked from the kitchen.
I pretended I had been paying attention to the TV and not trying to listen to what those two were saying in the other room as I turned around. I nodded. I wasn't hungry, not really. It was more that I knew I needed to eat.
"Cool, I'll do us something."
She started making noise in the kitchen, so I turned back to the screen like I had been invested in it before. It was Pointless, the game show I associated Dad watching when he was cooking. Was he watching it now? Was he making dinner like Perry was behind me? I wanted to turn the TV over so I could take my mind of him, but as I turned around to ask, I remembered something else.
"Perry."
She hummed.
"Um... a few months ago, just before Christmas. Did you came to the school?"
She hummed again and nodded.
All of a sudden, Sidney poked his head out the bedroom door. It was almost funny how quickly he reacted. He looked critically at Perry, not that she noticed.
"I was up those ends anyway. I was gonna tell you Sid was okay - but..." She started.
"You what?" The calmness Sidney had when we were interrogating Angie was gone again. Geez.
It didn't seem to bother Perry much and she only slightly turned her head to look at him. "You weren't going to!" She replied before turning her head to read the back of a pizza box. "Relax, I didn't speak to her."
"That wasn't up to you." Sidney sounded like he was trying to be angry, but it came out more upset. Maybe betrayed.
Personally, I would have liked it if someone had told me Sidney wasn't dead. But hey. As far as Sidney's concerned, there's no reason to feel sorry for me.
"I know." Perry muttered. "That's why I didn't." She said, squinting at the pizza box she was obviously too distracted to be actually reading.
Sidney muttered something under his breath and went back into the bedroom.
"Got so bratty since he became a posh kid." Perry muttered, then looked at me. "No offence."
I shook my head, dismissing it. I used to be bratty (I hope).
"It was actually kind of ominous seeing you at the school and not saying anything." I said, light-heartedly to try clear the bad air Sidney left.
"Was it? Sorry."
"I thought it meant something bad had happened."
She tilted her head and looked sympathetic before muttering quietly (perhaps so the subject didn't hear), "he'll come around."
"I hope so."
Perry eventually managed to get her pizza into the oven without further interruption. The worse thing was, as soon as I could smell it cooking, weeks of hunger finally caught up with me. I couldn't even eat it!
Perry forced Sidney out of the bedroom to eat. He sat unwillingly with her at the table will I was banished to sofa with my dull doctor approved meal. Although, I did managed to get a smirk out of Sidney when apparently I looked like a desperate puppy staring at the food on their table.
From that point it felt like he was making too much effort to act annoyed, as if he himself was getting tired of it. Later, when he was washing up for Perry, they talked to each other normally about taking the bins out or something. Sidney responded a bit more in character at Perry's attempts to tease him. That was until she pointed out that he was acting more normal now.
Whatever. I tired to make myself mad at him again (Sidney was doing a better job) and acted like I didn't care. He was being selfish, whether I hated him for it or not, I could at least decide on that. I'd been trapped in a shed for a week by a murderer and he thinks now is the right time to be grumpy for god knows what. I could have used him as a friend really, like the one who used to make me laugh when I was bothered by problems that felt so trivial now. Or like the one who bought me chocolate. Or maybe he was just the last person on Earth I wanted to hate me. At least when I was in the box, I could cling onto the image of him that I knew better.

Sidney usually sleeps on the sofa. Not only did the duvet and pillow smell like him, but his scent was engraved into the whole piece of furniture.
I had started falling asleep around ten, which caused Perry to declare that it was bedtime for everyone. Although I'm pretty sure she'd only said that so she could get her own room back, since Sidney had been camping in it all afternoon and evening.
Ineffectively, I'd tried to persuade Sidney to let me sleep on the floor and let him take the sofa. He wouldn't even let me argue with him. I didn't know what was wrong with the floor in Perry's room either, maybe it wasn't big enough, but Sidney was laying on the ground not too far away from me.
As we lay there, it was easy to tell he wasn't sleeping easy. He kept turning over, and his breath was shaky (probably because of the temperature). He only had an empty duvet cover and a sofa cushion to give him comfort on the cold lino. He had fully wrapped himself in the blanket so he didn't have to touch the floor, and every time I opened my eyes he'd shuffled slightly closer to the radiator that wasn't even on.
I hadn't meant to, but I sighed out loud at how stupid this all was. He snickered.
"Do you want to hear something fucked up?" I asked.
He turned over to look at me, as if he was unsure whether to take the bait or not. Moonlight was coming in through the already thin curtain over the door to the balcony. It left a thin streak of light across the floor between us.
"Fucked up?" He finally replied. "When did you start swearing?"
"When my headteacher locked me in a shed."
"Fair."
...
"What's more fucked up than that?" He asked.
"Eden's my brother."
Sidney sat up.
"My half-brother - my mum and Victor Quinn had or having, maybe, an affair."
"That is - fucked up." He said, in surprise.
"My mum got pregnant, not that long after I was born too."
"And they didn't tell you 'til now?"
"No. I actually found a baby scan at my grandparent's house. Ruined Christmas."
Sidney laughed, and it was refreshing until it faded awkwardly. As if he caught himself doing something he shouldn't have.
"All that effort to make your brother jealous..."
I sat up quickly and tried to ignore the dizziness that followed. He knew. He knew. Of course he did. He wasn't stupid. He probably figured it the second he left. But he knew before I could apologise.
"Sidney I - "
"You should be sleeping."
"But - " The words died in my mouth. What was I going to tell him, that I hadn't meant to?
Sidney had already laid back down and turned the other way, putting the blanket over his head like a toddler and buried our conversation. How was I suppose to sleep now?

Rash came back early the next morning. So early that none of us were awake when the doorbell went and it felt like I'd only just managed to fall asleep. Sidney had to reluctantly roll out of the blanket burrito he'd made for himself to let him in.
He was fully dressed in his uniform, at only six in the morning, having just finished his shift. After this, he was apparently going straight to bed.
He checked that I'd only been eating what he'd told Perry the day before and nodded approvingly when I told him that I had. Still, his lack of optimism about my body temperature hadn't changed.
"I'm really uneasy about you not being in hospital." He muttered.
"Not happening." Sidney said. He'd gone back to his blanket on the floor and wrapped up his legs while leaning back against the radiator. Maybe I should ask for him to be checked too.
"Yeah, you've said." Rash responded. "Have you felt any worse? Nauseous? Any more faint?"
I shook my head. Exhaustion was starting to set in, but that was about it.
"And how's your head?"
"Still getting dizzy sometimes." I said.
He nodded, that didn't seem to concern him too much. Yesterday when he examined the bruise on my temple, I'd told him I'd been sick when I'd hit it, and hardly conscious for a while. He seemed most confident that I had concussion and I was recovering from that.
He turned nervously around at Sidney, who looked like he wasn't paying attention, before leaning a little closer and whispering. "Do you need me to..."
Sidney shuffled behind him, and Doctor Rash stopped.
"Never mind." He shook his head and stood up. "Don't let it get worse."
Sidney eyed him suspiciously as he moved away and continued to walk over to Perry to discuss something with her like she was in charge (she kind of was).
"Um...." I muttered.
Sidney was playing with the hem of his duvet sheet, and looked up blankly when I spoke.
"Uh, shower." I said awkwardly. "Could I shower here?"
Instinctively, I thought he was going to make fun of me for being so awkward, of course he didn't. He just nodded and pointed to the door next to Perry's bedroom (like I hadn't already worked out where the bathroom was). In the end, it was was Perry who clocked on and got me a towel. Meanwhile her friend sat unhelpfully on the floor as I walked over to the bathroom, having to stop after the first step, dizzy.