Dance With Me In the Pouring Rain

"I don't want you to go," Tory whined, looking at me with her puppy dog eyes. "I like having you stay here."

Propping myself up on my elbows, I looked down at her seriously. "This was never going to be permanent. I was always going to have to move back in with Dad."

"It's not that I'm not happy for you," she assured me, "I'll just miss having you around."

I smiled. "And I'll miss being around. But I have to go back. He's my dad."

"And if he does it again?" she said quietly. "If he gets back on the booze, what will you do then?"

"He won't." I sounded more confident than I was. I still had my doubts. "Anyway, I'll be sixteen in a few weeks. I can get my own place if I really have to."

She sat up, resting her head on my shoulder. "Can't you stay a little longer?" she pleaded.

My arms slid around her on impulse and we sat there for a few seconds, holding each other.

"He's expecting me back any minute," I said eventually, kissing the top of her head. "I only came here to get my stuff and say goodbye."

She lifted her head and smiled. "I'm sorry. I'm being selfish, aren't I? Tell you what, I'll help you pack to make up for it."

I gave her a hand up, smiling. "Let's do this."

Within ten minutes, we'd packed all my stuff into the carrier bags Tory had brought them in. She took a couple and so did I, and we struggled down the stairs with the baggage.

Tory's dad was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. "So you're leaving, then?" he said, not sounding particularly unhappy about it.

"Yup," I nodded, smiling.

"Do you want a lift back?" he offered.

I opened my mouth to say no but Tory got there first.

"Yeah, thanks Dad," she said quickly, grinning at me. “He’d love one.”

"Is that alright with you, Fletcher?" Alan asked, amused.

"I suppose," I muttered, glaring at Tory mock-angrily.

"Oh, come here you," she said, pulling me into a hug. "Take care of yourself," she mumbled into my chest. "And make sure that father of yours behaves himself, y'hear?"

I smiled. "Will do. But aren't you going to come?"

"Nah," she said hastily. "Got stuff I should be doing."

"Oh, okay," I replied, hiding my disappointment under a weak smile.

"Call me tomorrow, promise?" she said hesitantly.

"Promise."

She stretched up to kiss me quickly, mindful of her dad watching us like a hawk.

I pulled away eventually, reluctant to let her go. "See ya."

"Bye Fletch," she whispered back.

With one last smile in her direction, I headed out of the door after her dad.

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I wasn't ready to forgive my dad just like that. In the week that followed, I watched him like a hawk, treated him like a child, and made sure that when he went out he was sober when he came back. It actually shocked me how different he was. To me, it felt like he’d changed overnight, though I knew he’d been working at this in the fortnight or so I’d been gone. It was still… strange, to say the least.

But the strangest thing was yet to come. I’d been back home only eight and a half days when my life was turned on its head once more.

It was late, and Dad had gone out a little while ago. He was meeting a friend, or something. To be honest, I had a sneaking suspicion it was a date. He’d spent ages agonising over what to wear, practically drowned himself in aftershave and even slicked back his hair with some of my hair gel.

And when I asked him, albeit a little cheekily, if he had a date, he’d thrown a cushion at me and told me to mind my own business.

So I was taking that for a yes.

The doorbell rang at about nine-ish, a couple of hours after Dad left. Unlatching the door, I pulled it open. Tory was standing there, her back to me.

"Tory?" I queried. "What are you doing here?"

She turned around and it was then that I saw her red-rimmed eyes and her tear-stained cheeks. She fell into my arms and hugged me so tight I thought I might suffocate. I could hear her crying softly into my shoulder, gulping back her sobs to try and stop herself.

"Tory?" I said gently, prising her off me. "What is it? What happened?"

Her eyes were flooded with crystalline tears as she opened her mouth to reply, but by then she was sobbing too hard to speak.

"I- I- We-" she hiccupped, before burying her head in my chest once more.

"Shh," I whispered, wrapping an arm around her to steer her upstairs to my room. "It's okay."

Opening the door with my elbow, I let us into my room and sat Tory down on my bed, propped up against the wall. She'd calmed down a little, but she still gave the odd sniff, the odd hiccup to hold back a sob.

"Tory, tell me what happened," I said softly.

My words turned the tap back on, and this time the tears flowed freely down her ice-white face. She dropped her head to my shoulder and I hugged her to me, feeling more than inadequate. She clung to me, her tears soaking into my shirt, but I didn’t care. It killed me, this feeling of utter helplessness, of knowing that she was hurt and upset about something and there was nothing I could do.

Finally, her sobs seemed to subside a little. I cradled her gently for a few seconds, stroking her hair with my fingertips.

“Tory?” I said eventually. “Are you okay now?”

She murmured something into my shoulder, and buried her head farther. Rocking gently in my arms, she mumbled something, but it was too quiet for me to make out what she was saying.

She lifted her head to look at me, her face moist from her fresh tears. “We’re-” she began, hiccupping back her tears. “We’re- we’re huh-huh.”

I frowned. “Sorry, what was that?”

She threw up her hands to cover her face. “We’re moving!” she yelled, her voice piercing straight through my flesh. “Okay? WE’RE MOVING!”

I fell back, as if physically stung by her words. My mouth opened but nothing came out, just empty air. Surely she couldn’t have said what I thought she said. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

But she had.

It felt like the ground had been pulled from beneath my feet and I was left hovering in the air with nothing to catch me when I fell. There was a hollow feeling growing in the pit of my stomach where the bottom had fallen out of it. This was wrong, all wrong, but it was happening. It couldn’t be happening.

“You’re moving.” My voice was hoarse, raspy. It hurt to speak, but I forced myself to. “You’re moving.”

“You don’t have to say it again,” she said quietly, tucking her knees under her chin. “It’s not like that will make it any less true. Believe me.”

“But… but… why?” I managed.

“Dad got fired,” Tory said tonelessly. “Okay, that’s not entirely true. He was let go. They can’t afford to keep him on any more. So they fired him – no, let him go.” The vehement bitterness in her words shocked me; I’d never heard her so angry. “He needs a new job. We have to move.”

“But that’s not fair,” I whispered, staring at a patch of wallpaper like it held the answers to my desperate questions.

She laughed, but it was devoid of any humour. “Life’s not fair, Fletch. You of all people should know that.”

“But you don’t get it,” I insisted, despair clouding my judgement. “Everything was great. No, everything was perfect. But now you’re moving and now nothing can be perfect ever again.”

“Do you think I want this?” she whispered. “Do you think I want to move away from everyone I care about?”

I ignored her. “Where you moving to?” I demanded.

“Plymouth,” she replied quietly. “Dad worked there a few years back. He thinks he can get another job there.”

My mouth fell open, distorting my face into shock and horror. “Plymouth?! But that’s miles away!”

“About three and a half hours by car,” she informed me matter-of-factly.

“But why Plymouth?” My voice cracked in the middle but I kept going. “Why do you have to move so far away?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know. We just do.”

My eyes narrowed to slits. The blood was boiling in my veins and the words were tripping off my tongue before I could stop them. “Don’t you even care?” I exclaimed, shaking with righteous rage. “Don’t you even care that you’re moving hundreds of miles away from me and I’m probably never going to see you again?”

“How can you say that?” she screamed, jumping off my bed. “How can you say that I don’t care? Did you miss me bawling my eyes out earlier? I don’t want to move, okay? But I have to! It’s not like I have a choice here!”

My balloon of anger burst and I slowly deflated, my gaze dropping to the ground with shame. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to- I just- I can’t believe-”

“I know,” she said softly, perching on the bed next to me. “I know.”

I dropped my head to her shoulder and she hugged me tight, resting her own head against mine. We sat there for what seemed like an age, the seconds stretching into hours, neither of us speaking because we had no words.

Eventually, I pulled away, my limbs stiff from being immobile for so long. I offered Tory a weak smile, which she returned almost painfully.

“We’ll figure this out,” I promised. “We’ll find some way to make this work.”

She didn’t reply. She just hugged me again, and this time, I never wanted to let her go.