The Passenger by Daniel Hurst (great book club books TXT) 📕

Why would I? She knows what I want to do. I want to go travelling. I’m seventeen. These should be the best years of my life. Yet my mum wants me to waste them making minimum wage in some poxy job. That might be what she did with her youth, but I’m determined not to go down the same path.

‘Sorry for not wanting to be miserable like you,’ I reply, and I don’t even feel bad for saying that. My mum hates her life, and she’s always in a bad mood. It annoys me that she thinks the right thing for me to do is become just like her.

‘I’m not miserable. I just want the best for you.’

‘No, you want the best for yourself. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be following your dream and stomping all over mine.’

There, I’ve said it, and now here we are again. Less than a minute into our conversation and we’re back having the same old argument. But I don’t care. I want to make my mum feel bad about what she is doing because I feel bad about it. As long as I am unhappy, then I will keep reminding her why.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not stomping on your dream.’

‘Yes, you are. You have the money to give me so I can go travelling, but you’re quitting your job and spending that money on your stupid writing instead.’

I’m trying to stay calm, but I get frustrated when I think about how selfish Mum is being. She’s giving up her job in London and putting our future at risk all because she thinks she can be a full-time author.

And she has the cheek to call me lazy.

‘I’m not having this argument again,’ Mum says as I hear a loud voice come over the tannoy at her end of the line. ‘I just called to ask if you wanted a takeaway for dinner tonight.’

‘Shouldn’t you be saving your money for yourself?’ I reply, my voice dripping with disdain.

‘Louise, come on. I’m trying to do something nice here.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re just trying to make up for being a crap mum. But it’ll take more than a takeaway to do that.’

‘Don’t be like this. What do you fancy? We don’t have to have a takeaway. We could do something else. Go out somewhere maybe?’

‘Why are you bothering to ask me? Do whatever you want. You always do anyway.’

I hang up the phone, and it’s a relief not to have to hear my mum’s voice and that noisy train station anymore. For now, things are quiet and calm again. At least they will be until she gets home in an hour’s time.

‘Everything okay?’

I turn to look at the man lying beside me in my bed, and I smile. Thank God for my boyfriend, James. He’s the only good thing in my life right now.

‘Mum’s just being a bitch again,’ I tell him as I drop my phone on the bedside table and snuggle back down under the duvet with him.

‘What did she say?’

‘She asked if I wanted a takeaway.’

‘Wow, what a bitch.’

I laugh and slap James playfully on the arm. ‘That’s not what I mean. She’s just always on at me to get a job. I’m sick of it.’

James gives me a kiss on the head because he knows that will soothe me before speaking again. ‘Try not to let her stress you out. And never mind that, what takeaway are we having? I’m starving.’

I smile at my boyfriend because he always makes light of things. He’s just what I need to combat my mum, who only ever seems to bring me down.

‘No takeaway for you. Not with your allergies.’

‘That’s not kind!’

I laugh because it’s my nature to sometimes joke about things that scare me, and having a boyfriend who is severely allergic to peanuts is definitely one of those things.

‘I’m only teasing. But you know you can’t stay for dinner. You need to get out of here before she gets back.’

‘Are you sure? I was thinking tonight would be a good time for me to finally meet her.’

‘There is no good time for you to meet her. Trust me.’

I pull back the duvet to show James that I am serious about him getting up and leaving the flat before my mum comes back, but he reaches out and pulls it back over us.

‘But I’m so warm under here. You wouldn’t kick me out onto those cold streets, would you?’

‘Cold? It’s the middle of summer!’

‘But it’s still not as warm as in here.’

‘That might be so, but I’d rather kick you out myself than have my mum do it for me. Seriously, she would kill me if she knew you’d been coming around here while she was at work.’

‘I’m just your dirty little secret, aren’t I?’ James says, feigning disappointment. ‘I feel so used.’

I laugh at my boyfriend’s sense of humour again and really wish he didn’t have to leave, but I’m not joking when I say that my mum would kill me if she found him here. It’s not just the fact that she has no idea I have a boyfriend that would get me in trouble. It’s also because of the age difference between us.

James is twenty-two, and while I don’t care about the five-year gap, Mum most certainly will. She’ll say he’s too old for me, and she’ll also say I’m too young to be having sex with anybody, let alone a guy I’m falling in love with. But she’s wrong. James and I have been seeing each other for a month, and we are careful. This is nothing like when Mum was nineteen and got pregnant with me after a one-night stand. Unlike her, I’m actually taking precautions because I don’t want to mess up my life by having a baby before it’s even got going.

‘You’ll get over it. Now come on, get up,’ I order James as I climb out of bed and pick up an old T-shirt from my bedroom floor and pull it