A fresh start is exactly what London McLaren needs in order to forget the demons of her past. A new last name, a new town and a new school.
She's about to start her final year of high school, ready to obey her parent's orders to keep her head down a...
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Friday evening, February 7th, 2020
The sound of forks clinking is the only thing that stops the room from filling with an overbearing, chest-crushing silence.
I was used to these dinners. We had one nearly every Friday night when my mother finished work early and my father had the day off. The only difference now was that we would set the table for three instead of four.
"How was your first week, London?" dad wonders, talking between bites of his steak.
His blonde hair had been combed back with gel and it makes my stomach drop. I'd never seen him look so similar, yet so different. Everyone in this family was trying to change some part of them, just to distinguish between past and present. Despite his young age, he looked older, not like the happy 37-year-old self he once was.
"It was fine, dad."
"Just fine?" mum jabs, picking up on my use of words.
Excellent. Superb. Splendid.
What the fuck did she want me to say?
I shrug, cutting up my steak harshly, accidentally scarping it along the plate and making everyone cringe.
"It's already dead, Lonnie. You don't have to mutilate it," my dad says, almost sounding like his joky self, if not for the harsh tone of his voice.
This was what my life is like now. Zero truths and all lies. I couldn't tell my parents that I was liking school because I had met some people I wanted to call my friends.
I understood that they felt the need to be protective. I probably would be too if I was in their position, but I needed breathing room. The school was my only escape. I wasn't allowed to go out anywhere now unless they knew exactly where I was going to be.
I play twenty questions every night with them and I can't take it anymore. My entire life was a question now, I didn't even know who I was myself.
"Did you or did you not see your brother, Phoenix, on the morning of November 11th?"
"Are you going to take the car on to school on Monday?" my mother asks.
The car. Because god forbid we said the P-word and bring up the owner.
"What? Nix's car?"
"London," my father warns. My mother keeps her face placate despite the slight twitch of her eye.
"The one he killed himself in?"
I regret the words as soon as I speak them. I knew better than this. I knew that life wasn't hard if I just left my parents alone, if I just let them stay in their state of denial. If I didn't push too hard.
My mother's fork clatters out of her hand, hitting the plate and bouncing off the table, landing onto the floor. I close my eyes when she gets up, storming off.
