Unexpected Rendezvous

Chapter 2

Jade's POV

Here's the thing about powerhouse people: you have no idea how much they take on until they can't do it all anymore. 

I used to think I did plenty to help around the house. More than my friends anyway. But now that my mother is at maybe half her usual capacity, facts have to be faced: Former Jade did jack shit. I'm trying to step up, but most of the time I don't even think about what needs to be done until it's too late. Like now, when I'm staring into an empty refrigerator. Thinking about how I've worked five hours at the grocery store last night and never considered, even once, that maybe I should bring home some food. 

"Oh baby, I'm sorry, we're out of almost everything," Ma calls. She's in the living room doing her physical therapy exercises, but the whole first floor of our house is open concept, and anyway, I'm pretty sure she has eyes in the back of her head. "I haven't made it to the store this week. Can you grab breakfast at school?"

Charlton High cafeteria food is crap, but pointing that out would be a Former Jade move. "Yeah, no problem," I say, shutting the fridge door as my stomach growls.

"Here." I turn as my cousin Zoe, sitting at the kitchen table with a half zipped backpack in front of her, tosses me a protein bar. I catch it in one hand, peel back the wrapper, and bite off half.

"Thank you," I mumble around the mouthful. 

"Anything for you, cousin."

Zoe has lived with us for seven years, since her parents died in a car crash when she was 11. Ma was a single parent by then, she and my Dad had just divorced, which horrified her Yemeni side of the family, but totally unfazed his British one. Zoe was her niece by marriage, not blood. That should have put my Mum low on the list of people responsible for a traumatised preteen orphan, especially with all the married couples on Dad's side. But Ma's always been the adult who Gets Shit Done.

And unlike the rest of them, she wanted Zoe. "That girl needs us, and we need her," she told me over my outraged protests as she painted what used to be my game room a cheerful lavender. "We have to take care of our own, right?"

At first, I didn't like it. Zoe acted out a lot back then, which was obviously normal but still hugely uncomfortable for 10 year old me. You never knew what would set her off, or what inanimate object she'd decide to punch. 

My cousin tosses me another protein bar after I've polished off the first in three bites. "You working at the grocery store tonight?" she asks. 

I take a huge bite before answering. "No, Garrett's." It's my favourite job; a bar where I clear tables. "Where are you headed? Waitressing?"

"Murder van," Zoe says. One of her jobs is working for Sorrento's, a knife sharpening company, which means she drives to restaurants all over greater London in a battered white van with a giant knife on the side. The nickname was a no brainer. 

"How are you getting there?" I ask. We only have one car, so transportation is a constant juggling act in our house. 

"Claud's picking me up. He could probably drop you off at school if you want."

"Hard pass." I don't bother hiding my grimace. Zoe knows I can't stand her boyfriend. They started going out right before they graduated last summer, and I thought it wouldn't last a week. Or maybe that's just what I hoped. I've never cared for Claud, but I took what Zoe calls an "irrational dislike" to him the first time I heard him answer his phone by saying "Yo bro." Which he still does, all the time. 

"Why do you care?" she asks whenever I complain. "It's just a greeting. Stop looking for a reason to hate people."

It's a poser move, is my point.