Leaving London

Chapter Thirty

It seems like my school and home life flows in the same awful way: by the time Mum bustles through the front door, she's plastered with rain and an irritated scowl.
"Jake! Get down here right now!" She yells, pushing back her tufts of wet hair from her forehead and slamming a bag of groceries on the table. A selection of vegetables, biscuit packets and tins spill onto the kitchen table, a string-secured sprig of coriander toppling onto the floor. Mum doesn't seem to either notice or care, likely both due to the obvious anger clouding her eyes. I know all this because I'm currently perched next to the island, one hand scrolling down my laptop and the other rummaging through a bag of salted popcorn I found tossed to the back of the cupboard. So, yes, I'm trying to cheer myself up, and if that means attempting to laugh at online textposts and comfort eating, then so be it. I hadn't even noticed that Jake was home, to be frank. The house has been eerily silent since I returned, except from the regular crinkling of my food wrappers and the sudden outburst from Mum.
"What's wrong?" I ask, adrenaline spasming through my veins. I feel my legs starting to quiver and shake under the cover of the granite tabletop.
"Get down here, Jake! This instant!" She yells, blaring over my question. I hear a door being flung open and an exaggerated huff, before a plonking of footsteps down the stairs.
"What?" Jake ambles through to the kitchen in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt, fiddling on his phone and not paying much attention.
"Give your phone to me, right now."
"Um, why? But I'm-"
"You know exactly why, care to explain why I got a distressed phone call from school today?"
"For God's sake," Jake curses, and hands over his phone reluctantly, a scowl conforming his lips, "I can't be bothered with this. It was his fault."
"You started a fight, young man!"
"Don't call me that. I'm seventeen. Fearne's the one who needs to grow up." He flicks his thumb in my direction.
"Don't you dare pick on your sister. If she hadn't been there to stop you, who knows, that poor boy could have ended up with some serious injuries! Oh gosh, I'll have to send over some flowers and..." She begins fretting, and clenching her jaw.
"You don't need to bother. He'll get over it," Jake replies sourly, "Can I go out now?"
"No, you can't. You're leaving your phone here and going to your room, you're grounded for a week. As for you, Fearne, at least I can rely on one of my children to do the right thing."
I look away, humiliated. If only she knew...
"You're absolutely unbelievable! I'm not even excluded, so two detentions can't get me grounded surely!"
"Stop arguing, Jake. I'm fed up of your attitude. Go upstairs."
"Thanks, Fearne." I'm tempted to ignore his stinging comment, but I don't.
"You're totally welcome." I quip sarcastically, turning back to my laptop screen. I understand I'm half-responsible for this mess, but I did not ask Jake to take this out on Olli. Or me. I suppose more bad luck just seems to be heading my way, almost a continual stream of verbal and emotional abuse and disappointment.

"Thank goodness you were there to stop him, Fearne." Mum blurts suddenly, carving through the thick silence rising since Jake made his dramatic exit.
"It's nothing." I mumble and twist a chunk of my lip under my tooth.
"It's only been a few months and he's already getting into trouble. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea...Fearne, do you know if he's settled in okay?" Only the last section of her muttering is directed towards me along with a deflated sigh.
"Yeah...yeah, he has a load of friends." I conclude, thinking of the group of guys I see him hanging around with at lunch as they kick around a tatty football. Mum sighs again, dragging a hand through her light brown hair, revealing slight tinges of grey discolouring the hair nearest to her scalp. She quickly pulls herself back together, taking out some of the food supplies and loading them into the fridge, taking a knife and dicing some meat and vegetables. I unplug my laptop and take it upstairs, retreating from the simultaneous pounding of the rain and the miserable aura it seems to have dragged with it.

∞

A few days pass, and things don't seem to be brightening anytime soon. In terms of Jake, he's still in a bit of a sulk and spends almost every second of the day either avoiding me at school or camping out in his room.