Flynn

I threw a blanket over Ruby and then I stood and watched her breathe while I waited for the police to arrive. I didn’t want to touch her, partly because I didn’t know if that’d be, like, contaminating a crime scene or whatever, but mostly just because it didn’t seem right to put my hands on her—not even to turn her head to make sure her airway stayed clear.

The police arrived, and an ambulance, and it was only after I’d spent ten minutes going through the motions of letting people in and showing them up to the room that I realised I maybe should’ve tried to at least pretend that I hadn’t been the one to call this in. But who would I be fooling, right?

I let myself be calm instead, settling into that place where things just happened around me. I ended up in the back of a police car because they wanted to ask me some questions. Okay.

From there, they took me to an interview room at the police station. Or an interrogation room, more like. The chair was too hard, the room was too empty. I didn’t mind answering the first few questions—giving the officer names, telling him what I’d seen. I was only repeating what I’d already said. Then he started asking other questions, about drugs and about other people in the house. All sorts of things. 

I didn’t want to get into any of that. Fucking around with a fourteen year old was wrong, pure and simple, but my housemates were a cluster of horribly broken people who the legal system would only do more damage to. Tony, yeah, fuck him, and if Kelsey had known what was going on, I wouldn’t protect her either, but what good would dragging anyone else into things do? You’re a kid and things are shit and no one protects you, and then you’re an adult and you’re not functional and now that’s your fault?

So I stopped talking, and the officer started getting more threatening about how I’d be in trouble if I didn’t cooperate, so I stopped really thinking or feeling anything either. It was a great strat, really, just dipping out, no longer being present in your own head. He could yap yap yap, use whatever pressure strategy he wanted, and none of it meant anything to me.

Eventually he left, and I immediately got up to pace around the room like a caged animal. Why’d I even come here with them, anyway? Did I have to? Was I allowed to leave? I didn’t know how the legal system worked. I didn’t know how most fucking things in life worked.

When I heard the door open again I turned, determined to ask if I could go, but it was a female officer who entered, not the man from before.

“Hi, Flynn,” she said in a gentle, placating tone that gave me flashbacks to social workers, offering me a smile as she approached the table. Her mousey blonde hair was tied back in a perfect ponytail and she watched me with a sharp, assessing gaze.

I pressed my back against the wall and gave her a wary nod.

She slapped a manilla folder down in front of her as she sat. “Did you know you’re a missing person?”

“I’m not,” I objected. “I went to Centrelink and got all my stuff sorted, so I can’t be.”

“Sure, but there’s a difference between a computer system identifying you and a real person putting these pieces together, right?”

“I dunno, maybe? Probably doesn’t really matter.”

“Your foster carers might like to know where you ended up.”

I made a sound of disinterest. If anyone had really cared, they’d have found me. It wouldn’t have been that hard to figure out where I’d ended up. Other people at the camp knew I spent time alone with Dean even though that was against the rules. “Doubt they really cared. I was an annoying kid.”

“Most people would be upset if a fifteen-year-old they were looking after just disappeared one day.”

I shrugged.

“I could give them a call.”

“If you want.”

“What should I tell them?”

“That I’m fine? I dunno. Whatever you want.”

The officer leaned back in her chair. “Is there a reason you don’t want to tell me what happened?”

“I don’t really want to talk about anything but the thing I came to report, y’know? Honestly, kinda thinking right now that I’d like to never talk to the police again after that other guy was in here threatening me with all kinds of shit. I do the right thing and then you guys shut me in a room and bully me. How’s that fair?”

“Some of my fellow officers are,” she waved a hand, as though searching for the right word, “jackasses. How about I give you a ride home, Flynn?”

I didn’t trust her at all, but a ride home was exactly what I wanted. I nodded.

She let me ride in the front, which seemed like the sort of thing that shouldn’t be allowed in case I stabbed her or something. But then, anybody could stab anyone at pretty much any time, so maybe it didn’t matter.

I expected her to use the car ride to try to interrogate me some more, but she didn’t. It wasn’t until I was undoing my seatbelt and reaching to open the door that I felt a tap against my shoulder. She was holding out a business card.

I took it and read the text on the front: Det. Snr. Constable Lynn Reed Child Protection & Investigation Unit (CPIU). I wondered what else she’d found in whatever file she’d dug up. 

“If you ever decide you want to come in and have a chat about something else, give me a call,” Detective Senior Constable Lynn Reed told me.

“Yeah, alright,” I said as I tucked the card in my pocket. The door opened when I tried the handle, and I got out.

Telling her everything was probably the right thing to do, but I didn’t like my odds of it being the smart thing. It’d been less than a year ago that I’d finally clawed my way out of the shit situation I’d stumbled my idiot way into at fifteen, and I still hadn’t really stopped looking over my shoulder. I didn’t know much about many things, but I knew victims didn’t usually get justice no matter what they did.

Plus the thing about the police was that they were the one group of people you weren’t allowed to say no to. Not unless they let you. I’d just been a hero, reported a crime and saved a girl, and they’d locked me in a room and threatened me. If I came forward about something else, they could do whatever they wanted and I wouldn’t get to decide terms or set boundaries. At least I didn’t think so. What kind of chance did a guy like me really stand against someone with an education and a badge?

But maybe things would go bad again, and if they did, the senior constable didn’t seem like the worst person to have on my side. Or whatever—I didn’t think it was really as simple as having sides with cops. It didn’t seem likely that she just cared so much about some shit that’d happened years ago that she was desperate for me to open up. She probably wanted something else, and I’d be taking a gamble on whether that something else was in my best interests.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to worry about any of that right this minute, because Clau was waiting at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the house, his tattooed arms folded over his chest and a look on his face that said he didn’t plan on letting me past. There was an open-topped cardboard box sitting by his feet and I recognised a couple of my shirts bundled up on top of a bunch of other stuff.

“Aw, come on, mate. I had to call the cops,” I said, my shoulders slumping like my body was doing its best to make my oversized form look small and harmless. “I know we don’t do that here, but that girl’s fourteen!”

“Fifteen,” Clau corrected. “And next year she’ll be sixteen, and that’s legal. You pulled all this over something nobody’d care about less than a year from now?”

And for like, half a second, I actually started thinking that maybe he had a point. Then I remembered the other critical details of the incident: “He’s like, twice her age. And she wasn’t even conscious.”

“Well, alright, whatever. That’s not really the point,” Clau said. “Point is, if there’s a problem, you come to me. You know that. We can’t have the cops coming round here.”

Clau was my landlord, I guess, sort of? Honestly, I didn’t know what he was or even really what a landlord was. I just knew that I gave this man money when he told me rent was due and I got to live in this house. Or I did, until now.

“There’s a lot of shit I haven’t called the cops over,” I pointed out. “Just get rid of Tony. He’s the problem.”

“Might do that as well, but you’re done here, mate. What’d you think would happen? Even if I did let you back, do you really want Tony knowing where you sleep right now?”

I hadn’t really thought about the choice I’d made at all, though I wasn’t sure I would have made a different one if I had. Sometimes your options in life were just shit and shitter.

Clau obviously wasn’t going to change his mind, so I poked through the box at his feet to make sure everything important was in there and then hefted it into my arms. Technically the blanket I’d used as a curtain was mine, and the mattress, and the bedding, but I didn’t really want to cart that shit around anyway.

When I turned, I found the police car hadn’t left, which really wouldn’t have helped my chances of being allowed back into the house if they hadn’t already been at a flat zero. Constable Reed leant out of her window as I passed. “Need help finding a place to stay?”

For just a second I thought she was gonna try to take me into foster care, which would’ve been pretty weird considering I was twenty-one. Though I wasn’t sure what she was offering was much better. Shelters sucked.

“Nah, I’m fine,” I told her as I continued past the car. “Gonna stay with a friend.”

I considered that option only as the words came out of my mouth. Ethan, Connor, Rue… they’d take me in if I asked for help. Problem was, I didn’t think my friendship with Ethan would survive the two of us living under the same roof. I’d be like a kid with a new kitten, constantly prodding and bothering it. And once Ethan hated me, the others would follow, and then I’d have no friends.

But all I really needed was a roof over my head, and they could provide that without me getting in anyone’s way. Without them even knowing. I had a key in my wallet, the code to the alarm system memorised. I was meant to be opening at the nursery tomorrow anyway. So what if I was a little early?

I caught the same driver on the way back as I had coming home from work. He eyed the cardboard box I was carrying. “Usual stop?”

“Yup,” I said, and went to find a seat further back. I didn’t want him to ask what I was up to and I wasn’t about to fall asleep. Maybe not at all tonight. I was wired.

I needed to find a new place to live. That’d probably be easier now that I had a steady job and some savings, but they’d still probably want, like… references or whatever. If I said my last living situation had ended bad and there was nobody who could vouch for me, who’d take the risk?

Well, someone, probably, eventually, and they wouldn’t be the best, but they probably wouldn’t be any worse than where I’d just got kicked out from. I got my phone out and spent the bus ride signing up for every flatmate site I could find and spam applying to every room in the area. 

It was super fucking dark by the time the bus reached my stop, but I knew the way down the unpathed side of the road well enough not to break my ankles even if I couldn’t see them. I’d have to take it slow, anyway, because I couldn’t run when I had the box to carry.

Slipping into the nursery late at night sent a strange spike of optimism through me. It had a magical feel to it, like camping out in the backyard as a kid. This whole thing was a problem, and staying here was no real solution, but damn did it feel good to end this fucking awful day somewhere I felt safe.

I sat down at the little kitchen table to sort through my box. The meal replacement shake mix and my shaker bottle could go in the kitchen. Nobody’d really question me bringing them into work so that I could have shakes for lunch. Most of my clothes went into the backpack that was also in the box, except for a jacket that didn’t fit which I put over the back of the kitchen chair. Nobody’d think twice about me bringing that in and “forgetting” it, either.

Fortunately Clau had packed the one thing that really mattered—my personal documents. It’s fucking hard to vanish as a teenager and then reappear years later and start from scratch getting all that stuff. I put those in my backpack as well.

That was about all that was in there. Bastard stole my sunflowers, I guess. And I’d need new toiletries. That shit was all in the bathroom.

The best I could do for sleeping on was take a couple pads off the kitchen chairs for a pillow and curl up on the floor. Not the most comfortable, but the nursery was real quiet at night, which was nice. Sleep didn’t feel like it came, my thoughts rattling and chaotic, a mix of memories fresh and old churned up with circling worries, but I must’ve because I found that hours had passed in what felt like twenty minutes when I checked my phone. 

When I next opened my eyes, it was to early morning sunlight. 

It was barely dawn, but I gave up on sleep and got up, made myself coffee, and mixed some cornflakes in with my morning shake. That last part turned out to be a mistake, but I’d had worse. 

Outside, the air smelled fresh and clean, filled with the sounds of birdsong and buzzing bees. My favourite bees were the big chunky ones, even though Ethan said they were invasive bumblebees. They couldn’t help where they’d come from or where they’d ended up. They just wanted to pollinate some flowers like all the other bees.

It was nice to wake up and have a peaceful morning instead of being drowned in human misery. I hadn’t had a start to a day this good since… I scrunched up my face as I thought. It’d been a while, huh? Probably some of the days with my mum had been pretty okay. Sometimes she’d smile at me, and mean it, and that was even better than a quiet morning on my own.

But I’d also never really felt safe with her. Not because she’d been any threat to me, but because she’d been the last family member I had left who might take me. I knew it’d be back to foster care if she didn’t keep fooling everyone else into thinking she halfway had her shit together, and I couldn’t do that again. Didn’t matter that it’d be a different house and a different family. I knew somehow it’d all end up the same.

And I did go back into foster care and it had all ended the same way, sort of, but in a really tangled way that was ultimately self-inflicted. 

I shook my head to banish the thoughts and took another gulp of my extra lumpy meal replacement shake. Normally I didn’t dwell on this shit, but last night had floated some things to the top of my memory and they kept bobbing up again even after I’d shoved them back down. That was what peace and quiet and time to think did for you. I downed the rest of my shake and got an early start on work.