Play Again? flashes on the screen. Trent looks over at me. ‘Want in this time?’
‘Yeah.’ I take the spare controller. ‘How’s the nose?’
‘If my honker’s crooked under here, you’re buying me a new one, bro.’ He says it with a grin. ‘Anyway, I can smell your arse from here so I guess it’s on the mend.’
The two of us have been bunkered down in my room playing video games, surfing the net and talking crap since we got home from the hospital. Any tension has evaporated.
If only I could say the same about Dad. He can barely get through a sentence without looking like fire’s about to spark from every orifice. It’s going to take a diligent regimen of hard work, profuse apologies and sorcery to get him back on side. Although after the past few months, I’m not convinced I’ll ever win him over. I’m no match for Jermaine Wright’s son.
‘You know I’m sorry,’ I tell Trent. ‘Damn, I still can’t believe it even happened.’
‘You can’t?’ He hoots. ‘Bro, the boys reckon I’m lying — they’re convinced I got a nose job, for real.’
I snort with laughter.
‘What’s going on in here?’
We turn to see Mum in the doorway. Again. She’s been hovering since we left the emergency department, probably worried she’s going to find Trent and me brawling on the ground.
‘Not much,’ I say.
‘Not much what?’
I shrug. ‘Just hanging.’
‘Well, dinner’s ready. I’ve made Nan’s famous potato bake.’
‘Hell, yeah,’ Trent says.
I walk to the door. ‘I’ll set the table.’
‘You rest,’ Mum says. ‘I mean it. You too, Trent.’ ‘I’m not in pain,’ I say. ‘I can do it.’
‘I mean it. And if you need me to type up your uni applications later, just ask.’
She hangs close behind as Trent and I head down the hallway towards the dining room.
‘Where are you going?’ she asks when I veer off to the bathroom.
‘The toilet?’
‘Oh, of course, that’s fine,’ she says. ‘I’ll be out here if you need anything.’
Jesus. I trudge off before she offers to wipe my bum.
* * *
‘Chops are getting cold,’ Dad says, pointing at my plate.
‘More beans, darling?’ Mum asks in a forced breezy voice.
‘Nah, I’m fine … thanks.’
I feel a nudge against my shin and look up to see Trent shaking his head and mouthing, ‘Nightmare’, before shovelling potato bake into his mouth.
I look at Mum and Dad. ‘Um, can we talk normally for like one second?’
Mum raises an eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Okay,’ I begin, ‘we all know what happened was stupid, but —’
Dad grunts. ‘It was stupid alright. Willie Diaz was at the hospital for his daughter’s bunged-up appendix. How do you think I felt trying to explain why we were there?’
I sigh. ‘I get that, Dad. That’s why I’m trying to say —’
‘No. You said you wanted us to talk, so I’m bloody talking. Do you have any idea what the town will be saying about the two of you? About me and your mother? I’ll tell you: They’ve raised idiots. Those Dark boys are idiots. That’s what they’ll be saying.’ Trent and I swap looks. ‘That’s why you’re both pulling your heads in, or the door’s that way. You hear me, Milo?’
I nod, jaw tightening.
‘I asked you if you heard me, Trent?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I know things are serious ’cos Trent hasn’t pissed himself laughing.
‘There are more chops if anyone wants them,’ Mum says in an anxious sing-song tone, a fruitless attempt to lighten the mood. ‘You know what, I’ll bring them out now just in case you want them. That way they’re here. You know. In case you want them.’
Dad shakes his head. ‘See, your mother, she gives and she gives and … Jesus Christ, boys, it’s like you don’t care about anyone but yourselves.’ He powers on. ‘Coward punches, they’re called. Coward punches. These sorts of fights can leave people with brain damage. Or dead.’
Trent clears his throat. ‘Nah, Dad, a coward’s punch is different. It’s when —’
‘I don’t want to bloody hear it.’ Dad slams his cutlery down. ‘I know what happened. And it’s a disgrace on this family.’
I sink back in my seat. I wasn’t expecting sympathy or even forgiveness, but I was hoping Mum and Dad would at least give us a chance to explain and set things right.
This is how I’m going to go.
Not caught in a current in the Durnan River.
Not hitting a kangaroo on the highway and narrowly missing a tree.
Like this. Whittled down bit by bit, little by little.
Vale Milo Dark: suffocated in a cocoon of his own creation.