“I’m…not sure,” he admitted.
“I’m glad you’re here.” More words tumbled out with the whiskey. “I’m very far away from home and it’s nice that you’re here.”
I coughed, my throat hurting. I must stink…
“You going to come with us to LA tomorrow?” Kyle asked. “A bunch of us have rented a van.”
“I…I don’t know.”
I didn’t want to go, not now. But if I stayed, then what? Just wander about the camp watching the weekend staff do my job? Trying not to cry about Mum? Or follow her to San Francisco and wait about in the city, seeing the sights I’d already seen, until she was ready to spend time with me? “I don’t want to. But I don’t know where else to go. I wish I could drive.”
“Where would you go?”
I closed my eyes and pictured where I was on a map of the world. “Somewhere beautiful,” I finally said. “Somewhere that isn’t full of maniac children. Somewhere that would make me want to sketch. Somewhere that would put everything in perspective.”
Kyle laughed. “Well, you’re in the right place. America is full of big views.”
“But I can’t get to them… Maybe LA will be fun.”
“Won’t you be too hungover?” he asked, reminding me of what I’d just done. What he’d just seen. I was glad the darkness hid my blushing.
“I’ll be fine. If I’m sick, I’m always totally fine the next day.”
Was it bad that I knew that about myself? Was it bad I’d been sick enough times from drinking to figure this out?
Kyle was, evidently, thinking the same thing.
“Why do you drink so much? Hasn’t it all…put you off it?”
I let out a big sigh, and let the remaining alcohol in my blood answer the question honestly.
“Out of spite, I think,” I admitted. “Because I know she wants to do it, and she can’t. Even if I’m five thousand miles away and she has no idea, I can do it, and she can’t.”
“You do know how fucked up that sounds, right?”
“Have you got an alcoholic parent?”
He didn’t answer for a while. Then, “Nope. I don’t think anything that’s a big deal has ever happened to me.”
I turned to him, keeping my mouth at a respectable distance so he couldn’t smell the vomit on my breath. “Oh poor Golden Boy, you almost sound wistful.”
He did one short laugh. “Maybe I am.”
“Everyone who’s never had drama always wants drama. I think they think it makes them more important, or deep, or something. That they’d write better diary entries or some bullshit like that. You know what? All I want to do is hand back my drama and say ‘A boring life, please. Anything for a boring life’.”
“That’s me told.”
“Good.”
“And now can I tell you that it’s not wise to drink a lot if your parent is an alcoholic?”
I prickled, my skin actually standing on end. “I know the stats,” I replied. “I know alcoholism can be in your genes.” I stopped. “But I’ll never be like her…I’d rather die than be like her.”
“You won’t be like her if you stop drinking,” he offered.
A small patch of moonlight had found its way through the dense overhang of trees and landed right on Kyle’s face, highlighting all the good bits. I wondered once more why he was here, why he was so confusing, what he wanted, why he kept making me think there was…something…and yet, Mum had warned me so clearly that that was just his way.
“Why does my mum hate you so much?” I asked, and he turned to me with a grim smile on his face.
“She’s not my biggest fan this summer. I didn’t think she would hire me again – but Kevin loves me.”
“What happened?”
He shuffled his weight, reshifting himself against the rough bark of the tree. Already I dreaded what he was going to say. My heart went all fluttery, and my mouth got even dryer.
“I don’t want to upset you.”
“I think it’s fair to say that I’m already pretty upset.”
Another small grin. “Well, we got on really well last summer. I do, did, like your mum. I think she took a liking to me, she called me ‘Golden Boy’, like you do, and did little things like bring our group ice cream sometimes, just our group. Then, one night, a kid in my cabin got really sick – like projectile vomiting sick. I woke up Russ so he could look after him and then I ran to get your mum from her cabin as she’s the main first-aider. I thought she’d be asleep. But when I got there, I saw the light on. Your mum was in the kitchen…” He stopped.
“Go on,” I said. I was already crying again, silent tears dropping down my face.
“She was holding a tumbler glass of what looked like whiskey…and she was sobbing…like uncontrollably sobbing. Her hands were shaking, she was hysterical. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood and watched. And then, she screamed and threw the glass against the wall. It smashed everywhere, glass flew all over the kitchen. Even though I was outside, I ducked. Kevin came running in, and she was making this weird noise, like ‘nooooo, nooooo’. He hugged her while she cried on him…and then, she looked out the window and saw me. Just standing there, staring…”
I was holding my breath. Had she drunk any of the whiskey? Had she fallen off the wagon again? Or did she stop herself?
And Kyle, I was scared for him. Even though it was in the past, and he was right there, next to me in the woods, safe and sound, I was scared for him.
“What happened?” I almost didn’t want to know.
“When she saw me, she must’ve stiffened or something because then Kevin turned and saw me. I was like a rabbit caught in headlights. I even waved! Kevin whispered something to her and then he was outside. I was so scared. I mean, I really need this job! I started babbling, saying, ‘One of the kids is sick, I need a first-aider. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I just need someone to come and help.’ The whole time your mum was just looking at me out the window. I could see her so clearly with the kitchen lights on. I’ll never forget the look on her face.” He paused. “The whole thing was dark, Amber, really dark.”
I stilled. I could picture it now, as if it was playing like a film in the front of my brain. I could see her expression; I’d seen it so many times before. The who-can-I-blame-that-isn’t-me? face. I thought that face had died when she went to the rehab place. When she started her journey of getting better but leaving me behind. But the face had been here all summer. She was sober, yeah, but she still blamed everyone but herself.
“Anyway,” Kyle continued, “Kevin helped me. He didn’t say anything as we walked back to my cabin. It was the most awkward walk of my life. Just before we arrived he said, ‘You know already it’s not a good idea to tell anyone about this’, and that was it. Your mum…well I wasn’t Golden Boy after that, that’s for sure. Everything I did the rest of the summer was wrong. I kept getting shouted at for the tiniest things. I really didn’t think I’d get the job again. I didn’t tell anyone, I kept my promise. I’ve not told anyone until now… I guess it doesn’t count if it’s you.”
I hurt. My throat was still raw. The tears did nothing to dull the pain – they only made it worse. My heart was in pieces, bits of it scattered over the campfire, lumps of my flesh left all over the forest floor.
The one thing that had got me through up till now, the one thing that helped, was knowing that – despite everything – she was sober. She was dry. And if that meant sacrificing me, if that meant her coming here, and having her healthy life in the mountains with Kevin and her never seeing me, if that was what she needed to stay dry, to not be that monster I lived with – well…that meant it was just about bearable. But if she relapsed…then why? If it was still hard here – why couldn’t she just come home to me?