𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫, 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫 | 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

23. lost chances.

T W E N T Y - T H R E E
lost chances.

Mr Duck, pre my father being an awful person, was delicate, with intricate patterns extending across his little porcelain body. Flowers, leaves and decorative lines sprawled across the white base in a bright blue. He looked like something your Grandma owned and cherished.

Well, he no longer looks like that, or even like a duck. Or a bird, or any living animal, or perhaps any past animal, maybe some future, hybrid, cyborg animal. The flowers, leaves and delicate lines are disjointed and mismatched, the wing seems to be coming out the top of his back and its beak is upside down. He now looks like an edgy art student's creation, probably something about climate change ruining the environment – not something your Grandma cherishes.

But I don't hate it.

Whatever he is now, he sits on my bedside table proudly, a note tucked underneath him. Rolling toward the awfully recreated duck I slide out the paper. I have to wipe at my eyes, sending my tired brain into overdrive as I try to decipher the handwriting that more resembles Egyptian hieroglyphs than English letters.

It's also in sparkly purple glitter pen, which adds another layer of difficulty.

There were multiple options for a plain black pen. Or even blue or green biros. But no, JJ had to jazz it up.

'You were starfished on the entire bed and I tried to get you to move but you threatened me.

Turns out 3D jigsaws are not easy. Sorry. Please don't slit my throat with the extra piece of Mr Duck I couldn't figure out where to put.

I'll be back after your Mum leaves for work, call Kie if you don't want me to come.

From the best person ever.'

I sit up and look at the sizable piece of china on my desk, I pick up Mr Duck and see no obvious missing piece. He really messed the poor bastard up.

There's a knock on my door and I stuff the piece of paper under the blanket with me as I mumble a tired "come in". There's really only one person it can be, and I don't want them to see a note and question it.

My mother walks in, completely put together, but in a different way than she was with my father. It's more effortless, her hair is down, her makeup is lighter and she's wearing trousers. She looks happier, she looks more like my Mum and less like my father's wife.

"How'd you sleep?" She asks, carrying folded washing in and resting it on my desk.

I nod, pushing some of my hair off my face. "Good, thank you. I thought you'd be gone by now?" I stifle a yawn. I could really go back to sleep.

She looks at me then takes a shirt from the top of the pile, "I decided to wash this – you can give it back to whoever it's from." I notice it's the shirt JJ wore when he stayed over, he changed into one of his I stole a while ago. "Also, you can tell whoever it is that they should stop climbing trees in the dark. They're really bad at it. Are they aware of the door?" She jokes.

I can imagine how red my face is. "It's not Rafe, if you were worried about that." The words come out and are completely irrelevant. She's not worried about that – because there's no chance it would be Rafe. He'd rather kill himself than sneak into and out of my room via a tree. He's too much of a snob for that.

"I gathered that much. Is it JJ?" She asks, leaning against the bathroom door frame. "Because if so, he's welcome to use the front door. I don't fancy calling an ambulance at four in the morning."

"It's JJ. He's nice, I promise," I cannot for the life of me think of anything to say that isn't bullshit she already knows. We've been over JJ being nice, we've been over I'll never be with Rafe again.