:: chapter four ::

“You’re kidding me.”

I looked down to where Cassie was decorating the cast around my ankle. “Bryony is your sister?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “She’s my half sister. We have the same mother, but different fathers. It took looking in a mirror to figure it out. A freaking mirror.”

“But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Matthew asked. “You’ve found part of your family. If I were you, I’d be ecstatic.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not you am I?” I said. I sighed. “I’m happy, yeah, but in a way I hate it. I’m here, while my family is over in the States.”

“They’re not really your family,” Cassie reminded me.

“I’m related to them in that we have the same mother,” I said. “Therefore they are still my family, despite the obvious fact that I’ve never met them. Besides, details are details. Bryony’s my sister, and that’s all I really care about.”

“Do your mum and dad know about that yet?” Matthew asked me, cocking an eyebrow.

I snorted. “Hardly.” I sighed. “No, they don’t know yet. I’m not ready to tell them, and Bryony feels the same way. We’re thinking…September, maybe October, we’ll announce our ‘suspicions’. I mean, we’re pretty damn sure that we’re related. I…I just hope we’re right. I honestly think that, if it turns out that Bryony isn’t my sister after all, it would kill me. I have no idea who I really am, save for what’s noted down in my records. Sometimes…sometimes I wish my parents had never told me the truth; I wouldn’t be torturing myself with searching for my past. I mean, yeah I was only four months old when I was adopted, so I’ve never known any other family other than the Kennedys, but still…I wish I knew who I really was.”

Cassie recapped the coloured marker she was drawing with and tossed it onto the coffee table. “You guys want something to drink?” she asked.

Matthew and I exchanged glances. “Yeah, sure,” Matthew said warily; I shrugged.

“All right then.” She grinned at us. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a while now, but I haven’t really had the chance to. I think we have some Milo around here somewhere…”

“Oh Jesus Christ, what’s she going to test out on us now…” Matthew grumbled; I groaned melodramatically. Cassie was always testing out new creations of her own design on the two of us; it normally ended in one or both of us getting sick. She wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest cook.

“Don’t sound so cynical Matthew Shelton; you guys are going to love this.” She came back into the living room, a tray in her hands; on the tray were three glasses of chocolate milk. “It’s Milo with whipped cream.”

“Oh joy,” Matthew muttered. All the same, he took a glass and a teaspoon from the tray and poked at the froth at the top of the glass. He scooped up a tiny bit with his spoon and shoved it into his mouth; he raised an eyebrow. “Cassie, I think you may just be onto something here; this is actually pretty good.”

“You really think so?” Cassie asked, her cheeks turning pink.

“Cassie, you’re blushing,” I said absentmindedly. “And yeah, this is really good.”

“Thanks,” Cassie whispered.

I grinned; Cassie rarely got praise for her cooking, being that she was so, well, bad at it. But what praise she did get, it was usually well earned.

“Cassie, I thought you were on a diet or something?” I questioned as Cassie picked up the remaining glass from the tray.

“You’re not the diet police Taylor Francis Kennedy, so I suggest you shut your mouth right now before I throw you in the swimming pool.”

“You’ll be paying to have my ankle and wrist reset if you do that, Cassandra Sapphira Dale.” I snickered at the look on Cassie’s face and concentrated on finishing my drink.

Cassie’s aunt Kendra stuck her head into the living room about ten or so minutes later. “Taylor, your mum’s here,” she said.

“Okay, thanks,” I called back.

With some difficulty, I managed to lever myself upright, balancing on my right foot. “I guess I’m outta here,” I said, bending over to grab my jacket; I pulled it on clumsily, nearly overbalancing once or twice, and started to make my way very slowly to the front door.

A hand grabbed onto my right shoulder; I looked back to see Cassie standing there, steadying me. “Want some help?” she asked.

“Thanks,” I agreed gratefully.

When I was settled in the front passenger seat of my mother’s car, Cassie stuck her head through the open window. “When you get those casts off I’m throwing you in the pool for sure,” she whispered in my ear.

“Yeah, sure Cassandra. I love you too.”

Cassie leaned a bit closer; thinking she was going to smack me, I pulled away a little, but all she did was kiss me squarely on my cheek. “I’ll see you later cutie,” was all she said before Mum pulled the car away from the kerb.

“We didn’t start the fire…it was always burning since the world’s been turning…we didn’t start the fire…no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it…”

I cracked one eye open halfway; Emma was singing along to a Billy Joel song, one which she only knew the chorus of.

“Emma, what the heck are you doing?” I asked, levering myself upright.

“Singing.”

“Well, could you please go and sing somewhere else? I’m trying to sleep.”

Emma looked back over her shoulder at me. “Sorry,” she said.

I reached over and tousled her hair. “Don’t worry about it Ems; you might want to be more considerate of other people’s feelings though, not many people are so understanding.”

Emma nodded and got up from where she sat on the living room floor.

I settled back on the lounge and watched my surroundings through half closed eyes. My ankle and wrist were aching a little, but I wasn’t willing to haul myself off the lounge and go in search of some Panadol. Emma was talking to Mum in the kitchen, Oliver and Lila were watching Lilo And Stitch on DVD in the next room (I could hear it through the wall), and Dad was around the house somewhere.

I scratched the side of my nose and yawned. Thinking could wait…and at that, I drifted off to sleep again.

What woke me an indeterminate amount of time later was someone singing a Lisa Loeb song, Do You Sleep; I liked it a lot, and from the sound of it my mother did too.

“Do you eat, sleep, do you breathe me anymore…do you sleep, do you count sheep anymore…do you sleep anymore…do you take plight on my tongue like lead…do you fall gracefully into bed anymore…

“I saw you as you walked across my room…you looked out the window, you looked at the moon…and you sat on the corner of my bed…and you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head…

“Now I don’t know and I don’t care if I ever will see you again…I don’t know and I don’t care if I ever will be there…

“Do you eat, sleep, do you breathe me anymore…do you sleep, do you keep me anymore…

“You kick my foot under the table, I kick you back…I can’t say I’m able…to stand for you or fall for you ever again…wish for a perfect setting…wishing that I am letting you take me where you want me all over again…you can’t give yourself absolutely to someone else…

“Now I don’t know, and I don’t care if I ever will see you again…I don’t know, and I don’t care if I ever will be there…

“I saw you as you walked across my room…you looked out the window, you looked at the moon…and you sat on the corner of my bed…and you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head…

“Do you eat, sleep, do you breathe me anymore…do you sleep, do you count sheep anymore…do you sleep anymore…

“I don’t know, and I don’t care if I ever will be there…will be there…”

The next song to come on the radio was Heart’s These Dreams; I smiled as I listened to my mother sing – to me, home was wherever I could hear Mum singing along with the radio.

“Spare a little candle…save some light for me…figures up ahead…moving in the trees…white skin in linen…perfume on my wrist…and the full moon that hangs over these dreams in the mist…

“Darkness on the edge…shadows where I stand…I search for the time on a watch with no hands…I want to see you clearly…come closer than this…but all I remember…are the dreams in the mist…

“These dreams go on when I close my eyes…every second of the night I live another life…these dreams that sleep when it’s cold outside…every moment I’m awake the further I’m away…

“Is it cloak ‘n’ dagger…could it be spring or fall…I walk without a cut…through a stained glass wall…weaker in my eyesight…the candle in my grip…and words that have no form…are falling from my lips…

“These dreams go on when I close my eyes…every second of the night I live another life…these dreams that sleep when it’s cold outside…every moment I’m awake the further I’m away…

“There’s something out there I can’t resist…I need to hide away from the pain…there’s something out there I can’t resist…

“The sweetest song is silence…that I’ve ever heard…funny how your feet in dreams never touch the earth…in a wood full of princes…freedom is a kiss…but the prince hides his face…from dreams in the mist…

“These dreams go on when I close my eyes…every second of the night I live another life…these dreams that sleep when it’s cold outside…every moment I’m awake the further I’m away…these dreams go on when I close my eyes…every second of the night I live another life…these dreams that sleep when it’s cold outside…every moment I’m awake the further I’m away…”

“Hey, Mum?” I called.

“Yes?”

“Can I put one of my CDs on?”

“That depends on what it is.”

“Well…it’s a Goo Goo Dolls CD.”

“I think that would be fine; tell me where it is and I’ll go get it.”

“It’s on my desk.”

Mum disappeared upstairs, returning with my prized copy of Dizzy Up The Girl; she slotted it into the CD component of the living room stereo and skipped through the tracks. The song called Iris came tumbling from the speakers; having picked up the rhythm, I started singing along immediately.

“And I’d give up forever to touch you…‘cause I know that you feel me somehow…you’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be…and I don’t want to go home right now…and all I can taste is this moment…and all I can breathe is your life…‘cause sooner or later it’s over…I just don’t want to miss you tonight…

“And I don’t want the world to see me…‘cause I don’t think that they’d understand…when everything’s made to be broken…I just want you to know who I am…

“And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming…or the moment of truth in your lies…when everything feels like the movies…yeah you bleed just to know you’re alive…

“And I don’t want the world to see me…‘cause I don’t think that they’d understand…when everything’s made to be broken…I just want you to know who I am…and I don’t want the world to see me…‘cause I don’t think that they’d understand…when everything’s made to be broken…I just want you to know who I am…and I don’t want the world to see me…‘cause I don’t think that they’d understand…when everything’s made to be broken…I just want you to know who I am…I just want you to know who I am…I just want you to know who I am…I just want you to know who I am…”

Not long after the song finished, the phone rang; Mum disappeared into the kitchen to answer it, and soon the sound of rapid Italian speech came drifting out into the living room. She’d be on the phone for a while; she always was when it came to the Silvestris – Italian through and through, all of them. And I couldn’t stand them. They were the ones who tormented me in the first place; I had every right to hate them.

I stared up at the living room ceiling, trailing the fingers of my left hand down the cast that immobilised my right; both casts would be coming off by the end of July, something I was more than glad of. Bryony and I had decided, by way of email, that we would reveal our suspicions to our families a few days after I had them taken off. It was torture keeping this secret; I had to mentally berate myself every time I came close to revealing it. If Mum thought she was going to lose me, then I’d never hear the end of it. Her damned Silvestri pride would make sure of that. Suddenly, rejoining my true family didn’t sound like a bad thing.

Lyric credits:

We Didn’t Start The Fire – Billy Joel
Do You Sleep – Lisa Loeb
These Dreams – Heart
Iris – the Goo Goo Dolls