Page 79 of I'll Look for You, Everywhere
I breathe out, annoyed by her and the turn of this night. ‘Yes, obviously.’
‘Well, the girl on the beach didn’t know that.’ She points to where we left Magdalen and then looks at her watch.
‘Maybe I don’t know if she likes me,’ I retort. Eight tear-shaped scars, still raised and red against her olive skin, come back into my mind.
‘Oh, come on. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t know that she’s practically in love with you.’ My mind slows. Love? I want to laugh and cry, to go back into the ocean and breathe in. There’ll never be fucking love.
Standing up, I brush the dirt off my shorts. ‘Are we getting this drink or not, Chiara?’
My knee bounces so fiercely that the plastic table we’re sat at lifts for a moment and the drinks almost spill. ‘Jesus, Theo. Can you relax for one second?’
‘We’ve been here for two hours – four drinks down and you’ve been utterly no help.’ I finish off my last drink and abruptly stand up and shove my hands in my pocket to find some cash.
‘Are you kidding me? I’ve given you, like, thirty ways to apologize!’ Chiara bops her head to the disco music playing loudly in the restaurant and takes a sip of her drink, ignoring my pacing entirely.
‘You’ve given me literal shit.’ I throw the cash on the table and wipe the beer from my mouth, needing to leave immediately. ‘I’m going now.’
‘Toodle-oo!’ she calls out, and immediately gets up from the table to go sit down with a group of people at a table nearby.
‘Remember, tell her you had amnesia and forgot who I was!’
As I go to walk out onto a quieter street, I hear another voice call my name.
‘Theo!’
I groan silently and slow my pace down, deciding right now that I hate this fucking city.
When I turn around, I see Dante and Anika with linked arms strutting towards me.
‘Where’s Mag?’ Anika immediately asks when she sees me alone.
‘She was feeling tired,’ I say, unable to look her in the eye. Thinking only of Magdalen now, and the mess I’ve made.
‘She was feeling tired?’ Dante repeats and steps forward, releasing Anika and putting his hand on my shoulder firmly. What did you do, his tightening grip seems to say. I scoff and shrug his hand off me, thinking of his indifference to Magdalen when she was at the club.
‘Yeah, Dante, she was feeling tired. Maybe if you weren’t so far up Anika’s ass you’d know that.’
‘Theo.’ Anika’s voice spikes, even with the loud music playing, and maybe it’s the drinks, or the anger, or Chiara’s horrible advice, but I roll my eyes at them both and start to walk off.
‘What? You’ve never given two shits about her before. And now suddenly because I like her, you start acting like the scary big brother?’
Dante grabs the collar of my shirt and yanks me back towards him and I stumble backwards.
‘You really want to talk about who is a better fucking brother? Where were you for the past seven years, huh? Riddle me that.’ His grip on my shirt tightens, pulling me closer to him until our faces are only inches apart, his words spitting across my face.
‘We all gave you a fucking pass because Dexter’s an asshole, sure. But seven years? Seven years without a fucking word?’ He’s screaming now, the vein in his forehead bulging angrily with every word, and his eyes begin to water slightly. My eyes blur, mirroring his unshed tears, and I don’t fight him as he shoves me hard into a wooden hostess stand behind me.
‘You don’t know who I am any more. You don’t know Anika. And you sure as fuck don’t know Magdalen. So don’t lecture me on who the fuck is a better brother.’
A sharp sting rushes down my spine from where my back hit the stand and I bend forward, laughing. Enjoying the distraction from his words.
‘Being a good brother means fucking talking to her every once in a while, yeah?’
The moment I raise my head a white flash of pain shoots through my nose and I stagger slightly. ‘You piece of shit,’ Dante says with little conviction. They have no fucking idea.
When I touch my face, I discover it’s covered in something warm and wet, and realize I’m bleeding. The blood trickles evenly out of my nose and down my neck until my shirt sticks uncomfortably to me. He’s fucking ruined my shirt.
‘Dante, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Anika rushes towards me but I shake my head, putting my hand out to stop her coming any closer. He’s right. She shouldn’t have to fight the battles I’ve been running from all these years.
