X-Kid

My eyes peered over to my cousin once more as he drove, my mouth opening and closing with much to say but no words to say it all with.

“It’s fine, Alice, really.” His reassuring smile was enough to have me smile, just a little, before I looked back out the window and clutched my backpack a little closer to my body. My cheeks were still streaked with fresh tears I couldn’t stop from flowing and probably red in colour – I was embarrassed, I was stressed… I was angry. At him. At myself.

“You can stay in the spare room until you’re back on your feet. I bet your mum said you’d end up running to me for help eventually,” he joked.

“She said something about running and you,” I added quietly, smiling, because he’d got the joke and punched me lightly in the arm for it. “But really… thanks.”

We arrived at his place and I made my way into the spare room, smiling at his kids as they ran past me without much care. I hadn’t seen them before and realised I probably came across as just another of Frank’s friends here to stay for a little while. Maybe I’d introduce myself later. Maybe Frank would do it for me. I didn’t even know what relation I would be to them, just that we were related. I doubted Frank would know but he could be quite surprising.

It had surprised me when the first number I’d thought to call had been his, and not the travel agency to book an earlier flight home. I started to unpack a few things, realising now just how little I’d brought in with me; the rest of my things were still sitting in the back of Frank’s car where we’d both forgotten them. I thought about getting them, but I’d stuffed clean clothes in my backpack as if I knew I’d be wanting a shower as soon as I arrived. Frank had told me to take some time to settle in, and so that’s exactly what I planned to do.

I wasn’t usually so hopeless. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d asked for help, though I knew when I was in trouble. When Annie had come back home, smashing everything in the lounge room as she went through, I knew it was time to move on. Sharing a house had been great for me whilst getting through my semester at university on my exchange program to America, but those few months had been long enough for me. I was moving on, though I would miss her dearly. I made sure to keep her number and as she screamed at me for leaving, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time we spoke. It hurt at the time, though. I’d never had a friend like her before. Sometimes, I wasn’t quite sure if she felt the same way, which is when she would pound on my bedroom door at 3AM to announce she was making nachos and ask if I wanted a share. I loved her, sometimes.

I gathered before I left that she’d had a fight with her boyfriend, and that it had something to do with me. I didn’t even know his name, as she simply refused to speak about him, so how could I be involved? I’d met him once at a house party she’d dragged me to where I’d spend most of the night standing over the chip bowl in the kitchen looking at the backs of peoples’ heads, praying they’d have the sudden urge to turn around and talk to me. It hadn’t happened.

I made my way back to the spare bedroom after a long shower and promptly fell asleep on top of the bed, hearing just as I dozed off the sound of somebody opening the door before shutting it again very quietly. I wanted to introduce myself to his family, I really did, but I wanted to be in the right mindset for it. I would only be here until my flight back to Australia in two months’ time, but that was a long time to be spent with people if you didn’t get along. I just wanted things to go smoothly for the first time for me in America. I wanted things to somehow fit into place.