The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

hands out imploringly. “This is so unlike you. And I don’t know what to do. You’re scaring me.”

I looked up at the purple-tinged sky. It was a warm evening and the light was just starting to fade. I gazed at the narrowboats up ahead, their glorious colours blurring slightly after the drinks I’d had with Michael earlier.

I hadn’t hung out with my friends much since that night at the fairground. In fact, seeing as we were now all on study leave for our GCSEs, I hadn’t even been at school to see Michael. But on those few occasions we had got together, we’d got drunk in miserable, awkward silence until an argument had erupted, angry words, accusations and recriminations flying back and forth between us until we all sulked off in our own directions. Everything had changed for each of us, the bond we once shared now strained out of recognition.

“My mum knows this person—” said Libby, tentatively.

“I don’t need to talk to some psycho shrink person. I need to talk to you!”

“But then talk to me!”

“I do! I am!”

“You don’t! You don’t tell me anything! You flip at the tiniest thing, you shut me out, you drink, you got yourself suspended! Your GCSEs are happening and you’re barely doing any revision! This isn’t you, Jamie!”

“I know that!”

In anger and frustration, I grabbed a stone from the path and flung it up at the light. Glass smashed, flying in jagged, sparkling pieces towards the ground. In that split second, I felt a kind of satisfaction with my aim, a sense of release at the sound of my own petty act of destruction. But then I heard Libby cry out.

She was clutching at her face.

The realisation of what had happened hit me and I rushed towards her.

It took us less than five minutes to get back to where her boat was moored, but in that time, against my advice, Libby had tugged the shard of glass free from where it had embedded. I’d taken my T-shirt off and she was holding it against her cheek, blood seeping through the fabric. She was pale and silent in the face of my endless apologies.

After a hasty and fumbled explanation of events, Harmonie quickly bundled Libby inside the boat, but when I tried to follow, my entrance was barred.

“I think she needs the hospital,” I blurted out, anxious that Harmonie might be planning on using some new-age approach to try and heal the wound.

“Of course she needs the bloody hospital!” she snapped. “You could have blinded her!”

“I know,” I said, wringing my hands, “I’m sorry, I—”

She jabbed her finger at me aggressively, rows of bangles jangling on her arm. “I don’t want to hear it! You’ve caused her nothing but stress and unhappiness lately. I know you’ve had a hard time, but don’t push that onto her. You’re all the bloody same. Nothing but trouble in the end. Now get off my boat and let me deal with this.”

“But can’t I—?”

“No, Jamie! You’ve done enough.”

And with that she ducked inside, shutting the door on me, while I stood silent and shocked, wondering what I’d turned into.

I remember asking Laura if she was okay and knowing perfectly well the response I’d get.

“What the fuck do you care?”

I almost walked away right then, but as mean as she could be, she was still my sister.

“You just look kind of… washed out lately.”

“Wow, thanks. No wonder you’ve managed to bag yourself a girlfriend with that kind of charm.”

I sighed and stood up from the kitchen table, ready to take my sandwich elsewhere.

“Seriously though,” muttered Laura, popping two pieces of bread in the toaster, “why do you give a crap?”

It was one o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and I’d just come back from athletics practice at school. I was still in my jogging bottoms and T-shirt adorned with the school emblem. Laura, on the other hand, had just crawled out of bed and was wearing her pyjamas. I watched her spoon coffee and a huge amount of sugar into a mug.

“I know you like to think we all hate you, Laura, but it’s not totally true.”

She mumbled a comment that sounded like yeah, right.

Lately, Laura hadn’t been home much. She’d been spending a lot of time with Rocket, going to the clubs in London. When she was home, she was even more moody and distant than usual, and any modicum of motivation she’d had seemed to have evaporated. She’d lost her job for oversleeping too many times, but she didn’t seem to care.

It was clear from the start my parents had never liked Rocket, but I’d assumed that was because they were old and boring and wouldn’t know cool if it smacked them in the face. Now I was starting to wonder if they had a point. Even though I was slightly in awe of his bad-boy image, he didn’t seem to be a great influence on my sister. I knew he’d got her dabbling in drugs, and although I assumed it was nothing serious, I was starting to think Laura was easier and nicer before she met him, which was really saying something.

“Your family actually cares about you, Laura,” I added, really pushing the boat out now with my display of emotion, “not that that seems to bother you.”

I turned to walk out the door, taking a bite of my sandwich as I left.

“All you care about, Jamie, is being number-one son,” she retorted, bitterly. “Being Mum’s little superstar.”

I stopped and turned around. “What the hell are you talking about?” I mumbled through my mouthful.

“It’s always the same. It always has been. You’re such a little wonder boy, aren’t you? The hard-working student with his fancy new school and his sports trophies and now a cutesy little girlfriend to top it all off. So sickeningly perfect!”

“I was just asking if you were okay, for God’s sake. This has got nothing to do with me—”

“It’s got everything to do with you!” she snapped, throwing her teaspoon