Scars and Souvenirs

Eight

Unedited, once again.
******
Three years ago

  Mykaelah sat in the garden of the MacBride home, her back to the back wall of the shed, facing out into the countryside. She'd never wondered why her parents had chosen to stay so close to their hometowns, her mother a native to Aberdeen and her father hailing from Old Meldrum about forty minutes away. She couldn't wait to leave school, to move as far away as Scotland would allow, even with Hunter gone she would still go there, to Stony Isle, she would do everything they planned because then Hunter would be able to find here, and they'd go back to how it was before he moved back home. Before he left her.

  It was getting dark but she wasn't cold, even in her too short shorts and crop top. If Hunter saw her dressed like that he wouldn't hesitate to explore every ounce of exposed skin. Even thinking about Hunter made her heart clench in ways it never had before, not when she lost her Aunt Genevieve and not when Bradley's lizard, Indigo, died. Hunter left her and didn't even put up a fight. Three years together over and the matching tattoos rendered scars. But even then Mykaelah always knew she'd keep her's, a reminder of what life would have been, although there was no way she could possibly imagine what would happen that night. That her mother would come home early to find the girl Mykaelah had met all those months ago sneaking from the house in obviously hastily applied clothing. That her mother would drink so much she'd take the knife from the block and slice up her family like they were nothing more than vegetables.

Taking a final drag from the joint between her lips she rose to her feet, using the sole of her too bright flip flop to extinguish the roll. Her father would have a heart attack if he saw her smoking something other than a standard cigarette, he had grounded get for a month when he found her smoking regular fags. Her mother merely scoffed and blamed the 'gypsy scum' she called her boyfriend. Hunter's family weren't gypsies but Carla MacBride was nothing if not ignorant.

  Mykaelah remembered wondering if her mother knew about the affair, but Mrs MacBride's alcohol intake had remained constant since Robert MacBride had inherited his father's life savings, a hefty some in the small millions. A bottle of wine and a two litre bottle of strongbow a day. Mykaelah didn't know how her mother did it.

  She'd always thought Strongbow tasted like piss and wine left her mouth so dry she wondered why anyone took pleasure in drinking it.

******

  It was just past five in the evening when Bradley stormed through the kitchen door, his face as red as the tomatoes in the pan on the hob in front of Mykaelah's exposed stomach. She'd never been handy in the kitchen but Bradley never cared, always eating whatever cremated remains of food Mykaelah gave him. He was kinder and more patient than any fourteen year old she'd ever met. He would have gone far with his life, a solid job, a kind and loving wife that knew how to cook, probably even an army of children that would worship the very ground he'd walk on. He was good, and pure, and innocent. Everything Mykaelah wasn't; even before her life turned to shit Mykaelah was a girl with more problems than she had solutions. She guessed that was what happened when the love of your life left without so much as a proper goodbye.

  Bradley's distress didn't go unnoticed by Mykaelah, it never did, much to the younger boy's annoyance. But Mykaelah knew he appreciated it, she knew he valued someone taking an interest and showing him they cared. Because even though Bradley was good and kind and everything Mykaelah wished she was, he was just as fucked up as her. And an alcoholic for a mother and a snobbish adulterer for a father would do that to a kid, regardless.

  "Dad's home," Bradley had answered when Mykaelah asked as she stirred some coconut milk into a curry that was bound to feel like curried cardboard the minute it passed their lips.