It Started with a Kiss

Chapter 13

I sat on the couch in the living room and flicked through the channels as I tried to find a decent movie for the three of us to watch for the evening before the doorbell rang. Toby stood up to get it as I finally settled on some action movie that I reckoned we all would enjoy, before shouts and shrieks sounded from the hall. The voice that wasn't Toby's was all too familiar and my heart sank as Dad jumped out of his seat and headed for the hall.

Taking a calm steadying breath I followed and saw Angela standing in the hall, both Toby and Dad enveloping her in a hug. She had tears in her eyes as she looked at me and motioned for me to come over to her and I reluctantly obliged, not wanting to annoy Dad. We hugged briefly before she made her way into the living room, while I headed to the Kitchen, knowing that she'd ask me for her coffee soon enough anyway. I flicked on the coffee maker and just leaned against the counter as I mentally prepared myself for the rest of the evening. She said she wasn't going to show up, and then she rocks up when all the Christmas dinner had been made and all the stress and work was over.

When I walked back into the living room, Her and Dad sat together on the couch, he looking calm and serious and she looking remorseful as she talked to him, but I wasn't buying her facade. Toby was nowhere to be seen. I assumed Angela said she wanted 'to talk'. You'd think she'd leave it until a little later?

"And I just realised today how much of an idiot I am and I that I've made a huge mistake and I'm so sorry David, I really am. I don't deserve your forgiveness but I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry. So, so sorry." She said, as she stifled a sniffle. I tried not to give Angela the death look, I really did. But I just couldn't help it. She wasn't serious, I knew she wasn't serious. She didn't give a fig about us until now and we were just fine with that. What did she really want?

"Tara, could you make me a cup of coffee love, my head is killing me." She asked me in that sickly sweet voice of hers, before turning her attention back to Dad. She's not even here five minutes and already she acting like everything is as it used to be. Who the hell did she think she was? She didn't just get to waltz back in here whenever she felts like it, no way.

"It's already on, I'll have it in a minute." I replied, my voice clipped as I tried not to show how much i wanted her not to be here.

"Tara." My dad warned, making me realize that I was probably showing a lot more emotion on my face than I thought I was.

On my way out, I heard them launch back into conversation but I tried to ignore it, choosing instead to focus on the task at hand. Take two mugs out of the top shelf. Put hot coffee in, followed by three sugars for Angela and just milk for David.

Marching back into the sitting room I handed Dad and her their coffees before marching back out, not sparing her a glance. She wasn't worth my time anymore. I couldn't let myself get worked up so much, I had to learn to control my emotions better, I really did.

Making my way down to the basement, I found Toby plucking away on the strings of his guitar, his black hair slightly ruffled from sleeping on the sofa earlier. He was focused intently on the task at hand, his hand skillfully gliding up and down the fretboard with an ease I could only ever dream of having. I never was good enough to be able to play any instrument, but I knew some of the chords and scales and such. I was able to tell if someone was off-tune or played a wrong note, a skill I'd picked up from listening to my brother so much I supposed.

"Hey baby brother, how're you doing?" I asked, as I sat on the upturned crate beside him, before giving the rest of the room a cursory glance. I really did like what he'd done with the basement. Up to a year ago, it was just a dull grey space where we stored all our junk. Then, when Toby decided to start up the band, it seemed like the perfect place to practice. He'd stuck up posters all over the place, and had even done a mural on the wall opposite the stairs. It looked similar to Van Gogh's The Starry Night, but my brother had made several changes to make it his own. He put in little details in the town below that I wouldn't have even noticed had they not been pointed out to me, he focused on getting the image of the tree to perfection, things like that. But the biggest difference my brother made was that he put in two people, a boy and a girl, standing side by side admiring the night sky. I'd asked him why he'd done that before on several occasions but he'd refused to tell me to this day the reason why, so I could only wonder. It was still a beautiful piece, and only proof that my brother had a future in art in some form or another.