Chapter 1
“He’s like a fucking greedy lodger! All he does is take and give nothing back - acting all kind and demure until he has a full stomach and then he’s back to avoiding us like the goddamn plague! I’m so sick and tired of this!” My godmother yells from the bottom of the stairs. She and her husband are once again having more shouting matches, all because of me.
Lovely.
“Joyce keep your voice down! He’ll hear you!” My godfather tries to calm Joyce down, but to no avail. “He’s fucking deaf anyway, I can shout as loud as I’d like and he’ll just pretend he can’t hear me!”
Well that’s a bit rude. Just because I have hearing aids doesn’t mean I’m deaf - I’m simply ‘hard of hearing’ as I like to call it.
“Joyce! We promised them that we would be there for Avi and this is all part of the healing process! He’s been through a lot, we just need to be patient.”
Right. ‘Been through a lot’ is pretty much all anyone knows that happened to the former star student and golden child that was me. And by ‘been through a lot’, my guardians actually mean that little old me became an orphan overnight and then failed to have a stable and safe home life at my foster home until my godparents decided to pluck me up, force me on a plane and then smother me with fake affection once I arrived at their home in a completely different country to my own.
Maybe I’m ungrateful, or maybe I’m just waiting for them to have the perfect excuse to kick me out. So why not give them that excuse already? I turned 18 a few weeks ago, so they don’t have to keep looking after me.
But no, they feel guilty.
After all, it was during the plane journey to visit them in America that my parents passed away.
I’ve always wondered if maybe I should’ve gone with them instead of staying with my grandparents. I would’ve died during the crash too, like everyone else, but then I’d at least be with my parents.
Not like there’s any point dwelling on it now; three years is plenty of time to move on.
Taking out my hearing aids to go to sleep, I roll over onto my side and wait for sleep to take its hold on me. My godfather, Sam, will probably try and check up on me shortly otherwise, if he sees my light is still on.
Instead, I’m hoping to just avoid all contact with him and Joyce.
Frustratingly, I eventually have to get up the next morning when my stomach is grumbling so loudly with hunger that I realise it must be time to suck up to Joyce and Sam again. I never can be too careful about what could make them snap. Just because they haven’t yet doesn’t mean that they won’t.
“Ah, Avi! Good to see you, kid. Fancy some breakfast?” Sam says brightly once I make it downstairs and finish getting ambushed by the dog, Truffle. She is a huge Italian spinone, and is pretty massive.
And she slobbers all over the place and sheds hair like nobody’s business, but she is sweet, and sometimes I wonder if she really is the only living thing in this house that actually wants me here.
Smiling at Sam politely, I sit down opposite him at the kitchen table and silently take the plate of toast from him when he offers it. “Thank you, Sam,” I say brightly, and his smile widens for a moment before he clears his throat, sitting a little more upright in his seat.
“So…I was just wondering…if you heard Joyce and I…talking, last night,” Sam says very slowly, and I try not to snort and make a comment about the whole neighbourhood hearing their shouting match.
Instead, I just smile demurely again. “I’m a little hard of hearing, so I didn’t catch anything,” I lie. About the catching what they said part, not the being hard of hearing bit. That’s obviously not a lie at this point.
Sam looks at me with an expression that I’m pretty sure translates to I don’t believe you, but he doesn’t say anything more.
“Right, well…we’re all still just getting used to being a family now,” Sam says, looking a little nervous as he says the word ‘family’. But I don’t even flinch, and my demure smile stays exactly in its rightful place on my lips.
“And Joyce is a little…upset, that you don’t seem comfortable enough to…trust us, just yet,” Sam says pointedly. I continue eating my toast like this is a totally normal morning conversation. Because it practically is, at this point.
“And I know we hadn’t seen each other since you were a kid, but we were best friends with your parents, and you do mean a lot to us, Avi. So…I know it’s going to take time, but if you think of anything that could help you…settle in, here, then…just say the word,” Sam continues. I grip the table so tightly that my knuckles go white.
“Both Joyce and I understand that you haven’t had the uh, easiest time in the past few years, but a fresh start here would do you some good. So, on that note - since you didn’t really get to finish sixth form college in England, we thought it would be good idea for you to sort of - start again. A week on Monday, you’ll be starting your junior year of highschool. You’ll be a little older than the other kids but Joyce and I have discussed it a lot with the principal and starting from your junior year should be fine for you to catch up on what you missed.”
Oh yay. So I went from having just finished my upper sixth year at college to going back to lower sixth, essentially. Joys. Now I get to repeat all the shit and stress of full-time education, just because I went from a straight A student to failing all my classes?
Wonderful.
Can’t wait.
“Oh…thank you, Sam. That’s so…considerate, of you and Joyce. I look forward to starting school again,” I try and say as unsaltily as possible, but I’m pretty sure Sam still picks up on a little bit of it.
“Right, well if you have any problems at all, just let Joyce or me know. We explained to the principal that you have hearing issues but we didn’t tell him any of the rest of your situation, so it really will be a fresh start.”
Well, that’s mildly better at least. People will treat me like I’m an idiot for some reason just because I wear hearing aids, but at least I won’t have to deal with the rest of the ‘oh no what a poor boy’ shit that my college put me through.
I’m not here for any of that fakeness. Yes, my entire existence in this house is an act, but that’s different. That’s self-preservation, not anything else. So at least, at school, I can act exactly how I want.
I can just try and be normal.
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