It should have been just once

3: the past

Harriet~

“Hi mum, I just arrived.” I lie getting ready to head home.

My foster parents have no idea that I’ve been back for a day now, came in yesterday, attended a party with Shirley and f****d a stranger named Von out of my own sheer stupidity and I can’t even find a place in me to regret it.

I’m no longer a virgin but I can’t even tell Shirley the story because she probably won’t understand.

“Hi darling, did you get my text last night?”

I check my phone to see it had come in around the same time Von was giving me aftercare.

Wait.

“Mum what do you mean by I’d be spending the Christmas with Dev? I haven’t seen him in years and suddenly You're leaving me alone with him?”

Dev was the boy who loved me like a sister just before we got adopted. After our adoption we grew so wide apart that he only spoke to my foster parents not me, for reasons I never knew.

“Listen baby…” I cringe as the endearment, the lady person who called me that was a stranger and he was touching me sexually.

“We forgot that we had this meeting and started renovating the house. We need him to supervise that and we didn’t want you to spend Christmas alone in college again.”

I sigh and pace around Shirley’s room. “I’m literally fine spending Christmas in school ma.”

“It’s fine, since you’re here just go home. There was never an issue between both of you right?”

“Yeah, there wasn’t.”

“Great. I’ll send him your number and send you his… try not to kill yourselves okay?”

I groan. “Okay. But tell him to not expect me till evening, Shirley and I are going to have a little fun around the city today.”

*

“Didn’t want to disturb you early this morning but I saw you come down from a car, who was he?”

I pause, my spoon of chocolate ice-cream suspended in the air.

Despite Von taking my card against my will, he was otherwise amazing. He gave me aftercare, took me to get food from a spot only a night crawler would know and then drove me home. I was surprised he even had a car.

“None of your business babe. I’d tell you once the time is right. Anyways what did you and Jacob do last night?” I ask to shift the attention. Shirley knew how to extract information from me when my guard was down and while I knew she’d be somewhat proud I gave the card over she would have my head for going bareback with a stranger, no matter how handsome.

“His mum called while he was drunk, had to handle the situation.”

“Are you being serious right now?”

She sighs wistfully. “She gave him an earful and asked him to bring me home for Christmas, no excuses.”

I squeal in excitement. “How exciting, you get to met the family.”

“No exactly,” she says wryly.

“Im a bit nervous to actually get to know them, because that means we are being really serious with this s**t we’re doing. Imagine us having an issues and his relatives butt in, I’d be mad pissed even though they’re doing it from a place of love.”

I push my ice-cream plate to the side and reach out to hold her hand. “Look on the bright side of things, if he takes you home it means he is serious, besides you guys barely ever quarrel or is there something else? Like bad s*x?”

She giggles and shakes her head. “No, s*x is amazing. We also had s*x last night, got to be a cowgirl for the first time in my life.”

I facepalm myself. “I thought we were discussing adult s**t?”

“Like s*x is for kids.”

“Anyways, I’m going home to see someone whom I never thought I’d see in years.”

“Who is that?”

“Someone from the orphanage. We used to be super close and all of a sudden we stopped communicating with one another.” I drink my now melted ice-cream and sigh. “My parents aren’t around for Christmas but he is, imagine a forced proximity with someone who is now like a stranger despite being the closest thing you’ve had to a brother.”

This time, she’s the one who reaches for my hand.

“Now I few even worse about going to see his family. You’d be here with no one familiar.”

“Argh,” I groan. “When do you even leave for their home?”

“In like three days. He proposed a week long bedcation in a hotel there before we go home.”

I sigh dreamily because she is living and experiencing an amazing romantic life.

“From the moment you arrive, I want every details including how many times you were a cowgirl. I’d need some distraction for the next one month,” I tell her and she laughs.

“If you’re down we can FaceTime while we are at it.”

I cringe and she laughs so loud the people on the next table turn towards us.

“Girl please.”

Later that evening, I get a text from Dev telling me the key is under the doormat and that he would be home very late as he is helping a friend settle in.

A friend? How long has he been home to have friends and to help them settle in?

I text back an okay, wanting to be civil and go about my day.

The house has been repainted a sharp grey color and while it doesn’t look so shiny, it looks really good as f**k.

The key is under the doormat like he said, so I take it out and open the door. Inside the house feels and looks the same, though it seems to look a bit smaller.

I go to the only available room where Dev and I would be spending our nights and see it half empty like it hasn’t been lived in.

I guess no one had been here in years, and mum and dads rooms are getting renovated as well as my old room. They don’t even have beds in them which begs the question, what the f**k was going through their heads when they made this decision?

I don’t bother trying to analyze them and instead get settled in, arranging my clothes in the closet all on one end so Dev can take the other and then checking the fridge to know if I need to go grocery shopping.

I do.

Which begs the second question, what were my parents eating?

I quickly write out a list and book a ride to the grocery store to get things.