The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary (grave mercy .txt) 📕

‘I’m actually going to stay out here a while longer,’ I say, when there’s a break in my father’s monologue.

I sit through the silence. It’s a relief, like the moment when you scratch at a scab. From the second I saw Dad’s name on my phone screen, I knew this silence was coming; everything leading up to this has just been a horrible means of building suspense. Once it’s done – once I’ve let him down – it’s perversely easy.

‘I don’t know why I bother,’ Dad says, voice already rising into a shout. ‘This is useless. You’re useless.’

And so begins the usual diatribe: waste of space features heavily, as does the question of what he ever did to deserve such disappointing sons, which I have heard enough times not to attempt to answer, tempting as it might be. I stay quiet, that miserable dreadful weight sitting heavy on my chest. Marcus taps his watch and nods at the departures board – the flight to Sihanouk International Airport is boarding.

Dad hangs up when he’s run out of unpleasantness to shout at me. The sharp beep makes my eyes prick. As I follow Marcus to the gate, I think suddenly of holding Addie, my hands splayed against the tight muscle of her back, and I physically falter, half stumbling for a step, as if my feet are trying to tell me I’m walking the wrong way.

Marcus turns and looks at me, eyes measured.

‘Come on, man,’ he says. ‘Fuck your dad, fuck all of them. Let’s forget the real world for a few more days.’

Addie

‘Where is he, then, this Dylan?’ my mum asks, settling down on the sofa beside Deb.

We’re in the living room at my parents’ house. At last. I hadn’t realised how much I missed home until Deb and I walked through that door and I breathed it in. I’m still in the clothes I travelled in – it’s weird to think that the dust stuck to the sun cream on my shins has come back with me all the way from Provence.

‘He’s not home from travelling yet,’ I say, sipping my tea. Proper, English tea, with chalky water from a kettle that needs descaling.

‘You’ll like him, Mum,’ Deb says as she tugs her socks off. Deb only really feels at home when she is no longer wearing her socks. ‘He’s sweet. And obsessed with Addie. Which is good because she is completely obsessed with him.’

I flush. ‘No, I’m not,’ I say automatically.

Deb rolls her eyes. ‘Please. You pined after him all summer.’

‘I did not pine! I just missed him, that’s all.’

‘Yeah, well, I miss being able to eat what I like without getting fat, but you don’t see me crying about it,’ Deb says. She grins at me as I pull a face.

‘Deb helped loads with the heartbreak,’ I tell Mum. ‘Really understanding.’

‘I was excellent,’ Deb says placidly, crossing her ankles on the coffee table. ‘I kept her fed and watered and didn’t use the WiFi when she was Skyping Dylan. I was saintly.’

My mum smiles at us both over her mug, eyes crinkling at the corners. I’ve missed her so much – it hits me right in the gut.

‘And when will I be meeting this boy?’ she asks.

‘Soon,’ I promise. ‘I’m not sure when he’s home, but he says it’ll be soon.’

‘Hey, I can hear you!’

‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

‘Yep! Yep! Hi? Hello?’ I wave at the laptop screen. My grin is becoming more and more fixed.

‘Hey!’ Dylan’s face breaks into a smile. He’s in a dark corner somewhere. All I can see is brown panelled walls and the fan in the ceiling. I think he might be in Cambodia, but it could be Vietnam. I’m a bit embarrassed to have lost track.

‘How are you doing?’ Dylan and I say at the same time.

We laugh.

‘You go.’ Both of us, again.

‘OK, I’ll start,’ I say, because this is going to stop being cute soon. ‘I’m nervous.’

‘Yes, you are!’ Dylan says. ‘You are going to be brilliant.’

That doesn’t make . . . total sense, but I reckon he got the gist.

‘These training days have just been a lot,’ I say. My face stares back at me on Skype: I look so young. Way too young to be teaching teenagers anything.

‘Teaching Direct is famously tough, but so are you,’ Dylan says.

I smile reluctantly. ‘I wish you were here.’

He beams. ‘You do?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Well, you never say it,’ he says.

‘Yes, I do! I totally do.’ Don’t I? I feel like I must, right?

‘Nope. Never.’

‘Well, I thought you’d be home by now. When are you coming home?’

His face goes sort of dark, like he’s had a bad thought. ‘I don’t know. I need to figure out what I want to do before I come home, you know? That’s the deal we made, right?’

‘Right,’ I say, and in the back of my head I’m thinking, What, you can just travel for ever if you want to? Are you not going to run out of money?

‘My dad has these plans for me, and I’m not sure how I’m going to . . .’ He chews his lip, staring off at something in the distance. ‘I need to be able to present a different plan to him if I’m going to get out of living at home and working for the family business.’

‘Oh, OK.’ I know enough to know Dylan doesn’t want to work for his dad, but I’m not really sure what he does want to do, other than write poetry, which he obviously can’t make a living from right now. ‘So what are you thinking? In terms of your different plan?’

His face is falling and falling. He looks morose, almost sulking. I frown slightly.

‘Dylan?’ I prompt.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, brushing his hair out of his eyes irritably. ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m still here.’

‘You think you have to be, like, in Thailand to figure that out? Wouldn’t it help