Daeva: Black Diamond Chrysalis - Danielle Bolger (essential reading txt) 📗

enquired. "Is that what happened?"

Pulling myself up to my feet I nodded. "Yeah, I was just shocked when he intercepted so I fell over. There was no foul."

"Oh, I see. Well then, Kieran you can start on the edge with a side-pass."

Then the game resumed and fifteen minutes later my side suffered a narrow yet miserable defeat. As the students poured out however, I did not miss the accusing stares of my team mates.

Kieran approached me. "Why'd you do that?"

"What? Let you win?" I smirked at his dark look. "No, I didn't let you win, but I did let you off with the foul."

"Okay, why?" He leered.

"Because I was hoping it would even things up a little between us."

"I don't need your charity." He spat but as he turned away I grasped his hand, halting him.

"It wasn't charity and neither was it a foul, I deserved to be knocked on my arse."

Kieran inspected our locked hold with a frown but did not fight it.

I took a deep breath. "I was a bitch yesterday, I'm sorry. I... I don't actually mean what I said. Well, I did then but I don't now."

"Really?" He asked sceptically. "And what's changed in twenty-four hours?"

"A lot actually!" I almost laughed but managed to restrain it. "I... I just realised how selfish I was being. I have a lot of pain that I'm dealing with but have been acting like a bitch and pretending that no one else has their own crap and worse, I've been using my pain as an excuse for letting others get hurt and... for deliberately hurting them."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Kieran! Can't you see, I'm reaching out here." I reminded.

"You need to do better than that." He directed before pulling his hand roughly free.

"Wait!" I called as I grabbed his hand again, this time with both of mine. "Really, I mean it, I'm sorry! Hey, I want to hear about your mum, maybe we can help her. Please, I'm telling you I want to be your friend again!"

He stared at it long and hard, frown deeply etched on his face before he finally rose his eyes into mine. "Wanna come over tonight, take a look for yourself?"

"Ah... tonight?" I hesitated. "I... kinda have plans tonight..."

"I thought so." He murmured as I felt his hand tug free.

"No!" I shouted, retightening my grasp. "Tonight's fine. I... I just need to cancel my plans with Abigail, that's all. We usually walk home and hang out and stuff."

"Okay, I'll come with you to tell her..."

"No! Ah..."

"What's with you, Bethanie, you're acting strange-er than usual."

I sighed. "Yeah okay, let's go. She'll be by the front gate."

When Abigail saw us approach she first smiled then cocked a curious eyebrow.

"I'm going to hang out with Kieran this afternoon, Abigail, so I'm really sorry but I'm going to have to cancel our plans." I explained.

"Oh." Her mouth rounded. "But I thought you wanted to talk to our friends. I know that I really want to."

Inwardly I groaned, the detailed response could only lead to follow-up cryptic responses. The girl needed to learn how to lie. "Yeah, I know." I said with a shrug. "But we can always catch up tomorrow. You'll send them my regards, right?"

Abigail looked uncertain but finally murmured, "Okay."

"New friends, hey?" Kieran asked after we left the school grounds and walked down the path. "Is one of them your boyfriend?"

"W-What!?" I stammered. "No! No of course not, they're all girls! And besides that I'm not really so sure they are my friends. Abigail seems to like them but I still don't trust them."

Kieran frowned. "Why don't you trust them?"

"Because... I know they're keeping secrets from us."

"Sounds a little like you."

I gasped, alarmed at the accusation but said nothing in my defence since we both knew it was true.

"So Abigail's going to meet with people that you don't trust now." Kieran continued to analyse.

"Yeah, that's why I was reluctant to cancel our plans but it's okay, I know they won't hurt her or anything. Actually they're probably better at protecting her than I am."

"Abigail's very important to you, isn't she?"

"She is." I agreed. "She's always been there for me, whenever I needed her and especially when I didn't want her. And after my mother died it was her who brought me back to life. But back then I didn't want it, I just didn't care about anything but distracting myself from the pain, so I threw myself into sport, pushing myself beyond my limits and relished the new burn there, and other things too like skipping school, graffiti and..."

"And like hanging out with delinquents like me."

"Kieran, no..."

"It's fine, Beth, I got the message loud and clear long before yesterday. I don't blame you really, you have a chance to move on, actually start a new life free from all that and Abigail helped pull you from your slum. I get it, I mean Eric tries to the same with me, tries to get me to hang out with the group."

"So why not let him help you? I know it can seem annoying at first but really there's a lot of love behind their actions."

"Because I can't move on, not when she's like this." He stared at the ground, scuffing shoes along the footpath tiles, shoes that I realised were so worn that holes were forming holes at the big toes.

Of course, his pain will never lessen because the source can never fade from his memory, I realised.

"But you're different to Eric." Kieran elaborated. "You know what it's like to have your family broken. I'm... I'm not looking for help, or some stupid shoulder to cry on, I just want someone else to just get it."

Here we approached Kieran's house. It was outlined by a stained wooden fence and behind was grass and weeds growing so long that they would brush against your calves to walk through. But we didn't need to wade through that imbroglio however for the concrete tiled path provided direct access from the gate to the front door. When he opened it the scent of pizza engulfed me.

Upon entering Kieran walked down a dark hall, not bothering to take off his runners and just the same I followed his lead. The entrance soon led to the kitchen lit up by the scant light filtering through closed window blinds and there on the counter was an empty pizza carton laid next to a dozen empty cans labelled bourbon and cola. From around the corner I heard a violin playing smoothly and American voices speaking over the top. There was a male's with a deep clear baritone and female's that was lilted, as if her words were just vocals to the song.

Kieran sighed as he picked up the cans and placed them in a box by the bin that was already heavily filled other cans and bottles all depicting one form of liquor or another. Snuck up between the box and the bin were a two pizza boxes to which Kieran added a third.

"She... likes pizza." He explained with a wan smile.

"Oh, Kieran, darling, is that you?" This voice was not too different to the female one I had just heard, however the Australian accent did not fit the rest of the accompanying sounds.

"Yeah, Mum, I'm home." Kieran shot me a cautionary look before rounding a wall to enter towards the source of the voice.

Following him I found the lounge room with its curtains shut tightly where the sole source of light was being emitted from the television set. On it was displayed a black and white scene where it appeared a man and woman flirted on a tennis court, champagne held in their hands.

In front of the television sat a woman with messy hair and dark eyes where the mascara had flaked down onto the tops of her cheeks. In one hand she motioned for Kieran to come sit by her as the other held a can that appeared very similar to the ones Kieran had just placed in the recycling box.

"My son." She smiled. "Come sit with me and watch, this is one of my favourite parts."

Kieran's eyes flicked to the television just as the beautiful slender woman laughed coyly. "It's alright, I've seen enough parts to know the whole movie."

"Suit yourself, darl... Oh! You have a little friend there, a little girl-friend. Well now..." His mother smiled at me right before taking a sip of her drink.

"This is Bethanie, she's just my friend. She's over to study." Kieran invented.

"Oh..." His mother licked her smiling lips where it seemed a drop of her beverage had lingered. "Well now, I trust you to be safe. And you," She turned to me. "Be kind to my son, alright?"

I couldn't miss the body odour the woman was giving off, like she hadn't showered for days. "Of course." I replied. "Kieran is a good guy."

"He is." She agreed. "And very strong, he does very well to take care of himself."

"C'mon." Kieran ushered me away. "Let's go do some study in my room."

Once we reached there Kieran gave me his computer desk chair to sit on where he sat on the bed opposite. "So, Beth, what do you make of it?"

"It's only four pm." I murmured. "Doesn't she have a job?"

Kieran gave a half-hearted laugh. "Not for a very long time."

"Then how do you live? How can you afford the rent, food, school fees?"

"Well, she did used to work, as well as my dad, and with what they made they managed to pay off the house. And then, as to all the other expenses, we live off benefits now."

"Oh..." I responded as my eyes gazed around his room, surprisingly it was rather neat, or at least, in comparison to the rest of the house. There were a couple shirts thrown on the floor by his unmade bed and a glass and plate placed on his computer desk, but besides that it was pretty good really. There wasn't so much dust as the rest of the house and here the window was open, finally giving way to fresh air.

"Kieran, your dad, he left your mum, right?"

He shook his head. "No, he died actually. Five years ago, long enough so that I'm past it but..."

"But your mum isn't." I finished.

His brown eyes locked into mine. "That's right."

"How often does she drink?" I asked.

"The better question is, when doesn't she?" He turned his gaze out the window where the sun was still bright on the long grassy slope outside. "She sometimes tries to stop but whenever she does she becomes really depressed and just turns straight back to the grog. I can't tell her to go off it because when she's drinking and watching those stupid old movies that's the only time I see her happy. But I also know that she's killing herself and the terrible part about it is that I want her to. That way if she's dead then she won't keep doing this, that way I can finally move on!"

He was standing up, hands clenched where I grabbed one of them and began to rub it softly. "Her pain hurts you."

Under my grasp he relaxed a little. "You know, Beth, in the past five years I've never brought anyone here, not even Eric or Bart. I didn't want to show them how pathetically I live."

"So why show me, and why now too? We hung out for over a year but you never said a word about any of this, so why now?"

"I always wanted to show you because I knew that we were the same, effed up families both looking to self-destruct, but you never said anything about your home life so I never said anything about mine. It's weird, even though we never talked about the crap going on at home just hanging out with you seemed to make it all better. But in the last year you pulled away, then the last six months you hardly said a word to me. The only way I