The Jump That Left Me Stranded

Chapter 17

My fingers bury themselves in Felix's fur as I lie on my bed, sinking deep into the duvet like a dead body in a mound of snow. His quiet sighs and snores are the only sounds in my room, his sleep-drunk twitches the only movements.

I missed him, and I didn't realise how reassuring it could be to pull a living, warm thing into your arms - or to run your hand through its bristly coat and feel a weird sort of unconditional and uncomplicated love trickle through your open palm. My dog is back and I feel almost childish, almost like the nine year old kid I was when we adopted him, still small and shaky, from the shelter.

It's dark out, and dark beneath my eyelids, so when I crack them open a slither I feel assaulted by even the suggestion of light creeping through the half-shut door.

"Natalie?" My mother whispers. To her voice my body conjures a conditioned response, muscles twitching tense and brain reeling. I hate that I've somehow, unconsciously, positioned even my reflexes against her -- the twinge of guilt stirs in my stomach when I think of how unjust it must be to lose not just one, but two daughters in all this.

"Yeah, is everything alright?"

My mum's hand curls hesitantly around my door frame - her thin and wiry body casts a trembling shadow over my carpet that my eyes are drawn to in preference to her face. Felix lets out a small whine and I remember how oddly empathetic animals can be, press my forehead into his neck and try to breathe in this sudden stir of anxiety.

"Dad told me about the Orchestra, I wanted to say well done." She says, and I withdraw my face from the mass of dog fur to smile. "And that I don't plan to pressure you into any decisions: I understand you should reserve the right to accept or decline, or whatever you want." She ploughs on with the tone of voice that tells me she had rehearsed, or is perhaps reciting, a script - that maybe this is something Dad had warned her to mention, because I highly doubt my mother is emotionally astute enough to worry about pressuring me. It's never bothered her before.

"Thanks, mum."

Her hand falls from the doorway as she ventures further into my room, makes her way to the piano where she can't help but press deeply into a C chord. Felix sighs out a sleepy whine from where's he's curled up into a croissant shape. I feel strangely like smiling again.

"How's Jennifer?"

"Oh, I think she's fine." I say, feeling my stomach constrict - think about what she might have been up to in her lonely mansion over Christmas time, think whether one night of friendship and cohesiveness is enough to plug a gaping void in someone's soul the way Jenny needs.

"Good, and Oscar?"

My brain leans away from her question the way magnets repel: a forced space that is powerfully charged stops me from being honest. Does she judge me because of him? Is this question evidence of some ungodly betrayal on my behalf? I swallow thickly.

"He's alright, too."

My mum hums in acknowledgement and I feel my nerves hiss into the charged space between us. I try and conjure Oscar's smile instead, his freckled grin stretching over the silhouette of my mother as she pries into my room the same way she invades the privacy of my thoughts, demanding entry. No wonder, as a kid, I thought she could read my mind - she asks these questions, these what are you thinking kind of questions that make you feel just that bit emptier.

"How did he know Grace, again?" Mum asks. I open my mouth to dismiss her, to prove with a certain glimmer of pride that Oscar is actually mine, my person, but there's an invisible latch that seals the words inside me - the weight of them stirs something.

They probably did know each other - same age, same school. Oh.

There's an odd feeling that Oscar will almost certainly have been familiar with Grace. A gut-wrenching feeling like slipping on ice or missing a step - the way a landscape shifts to accommodate a new landmark. There's a wealth of untouched information in Oscar's brain that might colour my memory and the potential for this excites me, but there's also a weird fear regarding why he ever expressed such an interest in me. I think back to his first words - Grace Ballard's sister?...