| |
––––––––
The noise of Ethan’s younger siblings filled the small open-plan living room, but he barely noticed. With three brothers and a sister, quiet was when you paid attention. A teacher only day, and he knew how he wanted to spend it. Ethan rocked up onto the balls of his feet and jigged lightly, as if getting ready to loft a basketball. He tried sitting down and got up again. He couldn’t stay still. The girl’s face swam through his mind.
The idea of her was like a thread pulled tight through his limbs, vibrating with tension. Which was weird, because when he was with her, her voice, the way she looked at him, her beautiful eyes making him feel like she was the one, flooded his body with treacle, thick and drug-like. Yeah, drug-like.
“Did you know,” his littlest brother, the fact-fiend, was telling his mother while she tried to comb his hair, “that a Tsunami goes five hundred miles an hour in the ocean? It’s like a jet plane. But it's more like a car when it gets closer to land.”
“Not something we have to worry about, I’m sure,” his mother said distractedly, more interested in the rebellious hair.
Ethan felt like he was tripping. He’d guessed there were creatures out in the bay. But nothing like...her. The ordinary noises around him suddenly felt foreign. Like this wasn’t real life. Not when she was out there. Beautiful or not, she should repulse him. She was one of them. What were ‘they’? Fear tightened his chest and now he wanted to leave this ride, forget he’d ever seen her. Pretend to himself that nothing weird had happened in Bannimor.
But she had been so vulnerable. Literally bruised and helpless. He’d had to protect her. Or at least agree not to take her beyond her boundary. And agree to come back to hear the truth she’d promised him. Had he been wrong about the other promise her eyes offered? He ran a hand over his short hair and blew out a slow breath, trying to rein his thoughts in. She was...addictive.
“What’s up with you, Ethan?” his mother asked. “You’re so jittery. It’s driving me crazy. And you hold still, too,” she said to his youngest brother, keeping a hold of his arm as she wet the comb at the kitchen sink. “Your father will be here any minute, and I don’t want you looking like someone dragged you through a hedge backwards.” She tried to run it through Toby’s rebellious hair, sighing when he shrieked dramatically as a few drops of water fell down his crisply pressed collar.
Ethan walked to the window and stared at nothing, his mind conjuring her again. It took little effort. She swam through his mind on a loop. Trying to distract himself, he turned back to his family. He leaned against the windowsill and watched his mum trying to smooth Toby’s hair down. The hair was winning, despite the wet comb. Ethan had already helped tidy his two other younger brothers and occupied them with a video game. His little sister had dressed herself the night before, ready for Dad’s visit, and looked crumpled from insisting on sleeping in her clothes, but she was so cute.
The git didn’t deserve Pip’s devotion, but he wouldn’t tell her that. At five years old, she was allowed to see their father with rose-tinted glasses. His dad had broken Ethan’s own rose-tinted glasses the first time he put a fist through the wall beside his head.
Right now, Pip was happy, focused on trying to take the controls whenever one of her brothers died. Died. Ethan pushed that thought away for now. He didn’t want to set his mum off again.
He wandered over to the kids in front of the TV and blankly watched the game until he realised the baddie targets were monsters coming out of the sea. The jolt of fear in his gut made him angry. He dropped a kiss on Pip’s head and left the room. In his bedroom, which was just off the lounge, he threw himself on his bed and stared at the ceiling. His brain felt like it was frying. Monsters in the sea. One who was insanely beautiful, and maybe not a monster at all. His father coming today for the third visit this year.
Dad had left a long time ago, and he’d never showed his aggression to the little ones. They probably wouldn’t remember how miserable their mum had been. She thought it was good for them to see him on his newly approved days, but she knew not to push Ethan. They’d seen too much during the bad times together. Today Ethan would make sure the kids left safely, and that was as close as he needed to get.
“He’s coming with Tania, his new lady,” his mother said quietly from his bedroom doorway. He checked her expression. She didn’t look distressed.
“So?”
“So, you don’t need to stand guard. I’m fine. They’re fine,” she nodded towards the lounge where the action on the screen had the four kids glued. “He’ll be on his best behaviour in front of his girlfriend. And I believe him when he says the counselling’s helping. He’s...different.” Ethan raised his eyebrows, and she quickly added, “No, I’m not saying I want him back, and no, I’m not upset he’s bringing Tania. I’m saying you don't need to put yourself through this, for me or the kids. Waiting around to not see him like this. You’re the only one hurting here now. So, if you need to scoot, scoot.” She smiled.
Ethan could have put her right about the actual source of his agitation: the girl with the liquid brown eyes drifting through his bloodstream. But his mum was right, too. He hated seeing his dad. “You sure?”
“Scoot, hon’. Go see Amber or someone. Act like a teenager, okay? That’s an order.”
Ethan collected a sweatshirt off the end of his bed and gave his mother a quick hug as he passed her in the doorway. The kids were blind to everything except the game. They didn’t register his farewell until he’d closed the door. He could hear their chorused shouts of ‘Bye, Ethan’ as he walked down the path. It made him smile and lifted his spirits. He pulled the sweatshirt on and climbed into his Kombi van.
He knew where he wanted to go. More than wanted. He gripped the steering wheel hard as the idea of seeing her surged powerfully through him. Wouldn't it be better to know what he was dealing with first? There was so much crazy out there, he needed to make sure he wasn’t part of it. Not in the wrong way.
He wished he had someone to talk to about that day. Someone who might fill in the gaps. The only people he could think of were Skye and Morgan, but that creep Hunter was always around. Ethan was pretty sure Hunter was on the wrong side of all this, whatever ‘this’ was. Thea had sure been interested in Hunter and what he was doing and where he was. That had made him mad. That only left one other person he could think of, and she wasn’t talking to him at the moment. Well, if he couldn’t get her by phone... He gunned the engine and backed out of the drive.
