Forgot To Count

2: The Broken Promise

Jace
As soon as I step through the door, I see Mara's small figure curled up in a ball at the bottom of the huge, curving staircase. Her muffled sobs quieten when she hears me close the door and her blotchy, red face looks up towards me. The pink bobble tying up her long, blonde hair has slid half way out, making hair fall into her face and stick to her tears. Her face displays the same pain Fia's had, earlier tonight.

"Jace." She cries, closing the gap between us and hugging me, tightly. "Please, take me out."

"OK. Go and wait in the car." I say, sympathetically. She lets go and runs out of the door, as fast as her little legs can take her.

Entering the living room, I see my father passed out on the sofa, with an unopened beer in his hand. I approach him, slowly, resisting the urge to punch the living daylights out of him. Instead, to release my anger towards him, I snap open his can and pour the liquid all over him, drenching the crystal, white leather sofas that I have detested for years. I cringe, when he stirs, but luckily, he doesn't wake.

Before I go out to Mara, I fill a bottle of water for her. A piece of paper folded up on the side, catches my eye, as I screw the lid on. My name is written on the front. Anger boils through my blood at the words scribbled on the back of a flyfood menu.

Jace, it reads, I'm going to be staying at your Aunt Phoebe's house for a couple of weeks - tell your father, he was probably too drunk to remember. I'm sure you can understand why I'm going. If you or Mara needs me, you have my number. Remember to give Mara her pills - 2 before school and 1 before she goes to bed - like always.

Stay strong, Mum xxx

Pounding my fist on the worktop, I growl in frustration, thinking of how upset Mara will be. Whenever our mother goes away, Mara either wakes up screaming or crawls into my bed in the middle of the night. Last time she went away, Mara asked me to call her, after a month of not being in contact, but when she didn't answer, Mara cried for hours. Some nights, she would even lie in my bed awake, to make sure I didn't leave her, too. I hate to think of the dark circles those long nights awake left under her eyes. When mother finally came back, I couldn't look her in the eye for months, until she promised to never leave again. I guess promises mean nothing to her.

Snatching the letter from the side, I tear it up and throw into the bin. I pull open the cupboard with Mara's medication, a bit too hastily for mother's liking because 'careful, it's mahogany'. After finding the right boxes, I stuff them in my coat pocket, pick up Mara's drink and escape through the front door.

The bitter cold hits me, like an icy wave in the Arctic ocean, so before I close the door, I pull Mara's pink unicorn coat from the peg. I slam the door behind me as loud as I can, hopefully waking father up.

At the car, I touch my finger to the window, letting it read my finger print and then it flashes green, unlocking the door for me. Before I have even climbed into my sleek, white car, Mara is taking the coat from me and wrapping it around herself, then taking the bottle and gulping half of it down. I start the engine and put the heating on full blast, reversing out of the driveway and bolting away from the house.

First, I drive out of G-Fifteen - our hometown. Neither of us say anything, just use the peacefulness of the silent fields to clear our minds. My headlights are the only light glowing through the pitch black of the night. We have done this so many times we couldn't count if we tried. Even Mara's four-year-old mind has memorised the turns. Even if the headlights weren't on, I could find my way in the pitch black of the night. Even if we forgot the reasons we came, we would remember the way.

I pull over at the usual spot, a couple of miles out of town, in a lay-by, where Mara always starts the conversation.

"Mother has gone again, hasn't she?" She says, groggy. I simply nod my head. "But she promised! She said she wouldn't leave us again! She lied! She- she-." She breaks down into tears, so I hold my arms out to her and she climbs over the gear stick, onto my lap.

"Ssh, ssh." I rock her back and forth in my arms, but it can't be very reassuring, considering, my eyes are leaking too. We sit here, crying together for what must be nearly half an hour, until our sobs, eventually, turn into small hiccups.

She sniffs. "What if she doesn't come back this time?"

"She will. She always does." I reply, even though, I don't completely believe it myself.

"Maybe not this time. How do you know what she's going to do?"

I sigh, not really knowing how to answer. "Mara, you're thinking too deeply. She will come back. Let's just go home, now."

"I don't want to go home yet, Jace."

"We have to, soon. It's nearly 2 a.m. You should be asleep." I whisper into her hair.

"No. No. No." She whines, moving back onto her seat. "We don't have to go to sleep. Please, we can just stay here and talk. Sleeping is boring."

I rub my face, thinking of how much I want to do that, but also, how tired I am. "Let's just go and buy some sweets, then we can go home to sleep."

She looks at me with raised eyebrows, "Jace, you told me that sweets don't fix anything. You said they were just a br-."

"Bribe." I finish for her. Sometimes, she surprised me at how clever she was. "But," I object, "they still taste good."

The sadness fades from her eyes and a smile spreads across her face. I kick the car back into gear and start the drive back into G-Fifteen. Again, we don't talk on the way back, until I pull up in the car park of Jace's -my parents' shop that is named after me, with a 'food' theme chosen by the seven-year-old me. Mara also has a shop named after her but when asked the theme of her shop, she chose 'anything pink.'

"Neptune, please." Mara calls after me as I jump out of the car. I give her a forced smile, already knowing she would say that.

When I stroll up to the doors of Jace's, they glide open, sensing my presence and when I walk through the door, the scanner checks my belongings and reads my eyes. The first shelf has a Neptunes on it, so I grab a bar for Mara and a bar for me. The scanner checks what extra belongings I have on my way out and automatically, takes the money from my bank, which it has registered from my eyes. Apparently, someone used to have to scan each of your items and you gave the money to them to put in something called a till. I think that was a totally bizarre idea.

"Here." I say, passing the bar to Mara, only to find her fast asleep. Placing the Neptunes on the dashboard, I pull out of the car park onto the road.

Two minutes later, I kill the engine, now back in my drive. Leaning over to Mara, I unfasten her seat belt and pick her up, slipping a Neptune in her pocket. With her head leaning on my shoulder, I close the car door as quietly as I can, making sure not to wake her.

Once I have carried Mara up the stairs and tucked her in, with her pills and a glass of water for when she wakes up, I trudge, sleepily backdown the stairs. I am about to close the kitchen curtains when a sudden scream sounds. My first thought is that it is Mara, having another one of her dreams, but then, through the window, I see the Shed light flash on at the bottom of our huge garden.

Quickly, I shrug my coat back on and rush out of the back door, sprinting down the path to the Shed.