‘We’re ready for you now, Tomek,’ she says, before changing my life forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The atmosphere inside the car was awkward and frosty. Neither of them had said a word to each other that morning except for the essentials: “Good morning”, “Ready to leave by eight?” and “Your lunch is in your bag”.
Tomek had loads he wanted to say, namely a massive apology, but he didn’t know how to say it. It wasn’t something he’d ever had to do before. He wasn’t used to apologising. In the past, whenever he’d broken up with a girl or told them that the morning after the night before was where their relationship ended, he’d always brushed it off with a shrug and a roll of the eyes, heedless of the other person’s feelings. They were in his life for one night, maybe two, and one night only. Except with Kasia, she was in his life for the rest of his, and she wasn’t a one-night stand. She was his daughter. And that was a completely separate ball game.
So far, on the drive to school, Kasia had been plugged into her headphones and had ignored him entirely. He’d attempted to steal a few glances her way now and then, but she was so engrossed in her phone and music that she didn’t notice him – or, if she did, she didn’t let on in the slightest. He didn’t know where she’d got her poker face from, but he didn’t appreciate it.
After twenty minutes, he eventually pulled up outside her school. Well, not quite outside the school; she liked him to park farther down the road so none of her friends saw her getting dropped off, presumably because she might have been seen as some sort of social pariah. For a brief moment, Kasia didn’t move. A part of him thought she might be preparing herself to say something, but when it didn’t come, when she reached into the footwell for her bag, hugged it tightly against her chest and opened the car door, Tomek pulled her back in by the arm.
‘Can we talk about last night?’
Slowly, Kasia unplugged the headphones from her ears. She kept her gaze fixed on him. It was clear to see from her expression that she was eagerly awaiting his apology, that she was hurting.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, blunt, to the point. ‘I’m sorry for lashing out at you and ignoring you. I… It’s not an excuse, but I had a busy day yesterday, and I shouldn’t have brought it home with me. I should have left it at the door, and I’m sorry for that. I…’ He inhaled deeply and turned to look at the dashboard. ‘I got another letter last night, yes, and thank you for not opening it. I just needed to read it in my room, alone, as they’re… they’re a lot for me to process.’ He sniffed hard as he thought of what to say next. ‘I don’t have a problem with you seeing your mate at the weekend. I should have said that right then, but I had a lot going on in my head. Again, not an excuse, I know. I’m owning up to it, and I’m sorry. If you need a lift or need me to come pick you up from Lakeside, then just let me know and I’ll be there, okay?’
Kasia’s expression remained unchanged. She unplugged the headphones from her phone and began wrapping the cable around her hand. ‘I’m sorry, too,’ she said, her voice weak.
‘What for? You have nothing to apologise for.’
‘For snooping outside your room.’
‘Oh, right. That…’
‘I shouldn’t have done it either. I was being nosy. That’s… that’s no excuse, as well. I know.’
Then she did something that completely took him aback. She clenched her fist, placed it in the centre of her chest, and rubbed the fist in a circle a few times.
‘What was that?’
‘“Sorry” in sign. A girl in my class is deaf, and she uses it whenever she doesn’t understand the question.’
Tomek placed his fist on his chest and made the same movement.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ Kasia repeated. Then she hovered in her seat, something still on her mind. ‘Have you apologised to Abigail yet?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I heard what happened last night. It sounded bad…’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you going to talk to her about it?’
At some point, he’d have to. That was the adult thing to do. There would be no hiding from it now, not when they were so far gone in the relationship that he couldn’t get cold feet and back out. No, he’d be required to stick at it for some time before any of that could happen.
‘I’m sure you’ll work it out,’ Kasia said, though he could tell from her voice that she didn’t mean it.
‘Her birthday’s in a couple of weeks,’ he said.
‘What… what’s that got to do with anything?’
He shrugged, staring out of the window. ‘I don’t know.’ Then his eyes fell on the dashboard. It was 8:35. ‘You’d better go. Don’t want another late note from Miss Holloway.’
Her eyes flashed with fear.
‘You saw that?’
‘It’s fine,’ he told her. ‘I saw it on your report card the other day – snooping through your bag, sorry – but didn’t say anything. So on this one you get a free pass. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.’
Kasia responded by rubbing a circle onto her chest. Tomek replied in the same way.
A second later, she was out of the car, walking up the street, wearing a backpack that was two sizes too big for her, and texting on her phone. Tomek turned to look at the rest of the kids doing the same. Clones, carbon copies of one another: heads down, earphones in, their entire world encapsulated in a black mirror rather than the world around them. Even those in groups were listening to music with one earphone in while pretending to communicate in the real world.
Tomek was so focused on the kids from Kasia’s school that he almost missed his phone vibrating. He fished inside his pocket and pulled out the device. It was his dad, Perry.
‘Everything all right, Dad?’ he asked as he placed the call on loudspeaker and pulled away from the side of the road.
‘Everything’s fine.’
‘You sure? Unlike you to be calling this early. Aren’t you usually still struggling to get out of bed at this time?’
