VERY MILD SPOILER ALERT FOR A FOX OF STORMS AND STARLIGHT. It’s a minor explanatory thing that comes out in chapter 9 of Fox Book, which provides motivation for a major plot point that happens in chapter 12 (there are 49 chapters).
CONTENT NOTIFICATION: Kevin’s point-of-view scenes have a lot of swearing. Sorry-not-sorry. But maybe don’t read if the f-word offends you.
Also, this is an unedited draft. Feel free to let me know in the comments if you spot typos etc, but yo: unedited draft, so read accordingly.
Catch up on Chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10.
11: Kevin
The dead and dying crunch under my feet, the eucalypt smell of their decay clouding the air around me as I stomp through the bush.
My Dad left.
He fucken left.
And although he left a phone number behind and told me to call, it’s not like I’m really going to, is it? Not like I’m just gonna ring him up one day and be like, Hey Dad, why’d you leave? Was there really something wrong, or were you just a dickhead? Were you and Mum not right for each other, or could you just not be bothered to make it work?
Personally, I’m voting dickhead.
Mum tried to make it work.
I kick a branch that’s in my way, all smooth grey bark and dried, hollow-rattling leaves.
It doesn’t move far enough.
I kick it again, and it tangles on my sneaker’s laces.
Shit. Fuck. Just fucken move, will you?
The branch cartwheels to one side, leaves hissing at me.
I spit at it, wishing for just a second I really was a god of the underworld so I could revisit a second death upon the stupid plant.
Shit, I know I’m furious at Dad and not the dead fucken tree, but what am I supposed to do about it?
So I pound the ground until I sweat, walking fast and far with the cicadas chirping and a mob of kangaroos I disturb leaping soft-footed away.
I taste the salt on my lips as I drag a hand over my dripping face. The air’s thick, heavy, close.
Ahead, the gum trees end, fenced away from an old railroad that’s rusting away to orange, pitted nothing in the dry, thin grass, and beyond that, one of the government pine plantations, radiata for furniture and turpentine and whatever other shit they use cheap-arse soft wood for these days.
I prefer the gums, the native forest, though the pines’ shade is cooler, for sure, and right now that’s what I want.
But as I’m about to leave the gums and strike out across the abandoned train line, something moves in the shadow of the pines.
It’s a deer. A stag, big and grey, like a shadow itself, and it’s staring at me.
Nah, not staring. Glaring. Its eyes are narrowed and everything, angry black eyebrows slanting down like that one meme with the tawny deer and the white one.
And suddenly I can’t stand it anymore, none of it, not a single bit, not Dad being gone or Mum being sad, not this new me who’s always quiet at school or the memories of the old, dickhead me who sponged up attention like the biggest ham in the world.
And definitely not—
I purse my lips. I won’t even think about that, won’t think about her. If she doesn’t want me—
I slam the door on that line of thinking.
The stag’s still glaring at me, eyes like blackholes in the shade of the pines.
I pick up a rock off the ground, a chunk of grey-and-white granite the size of my palm, all rough, unfinished edges and snaggy bits. Like me.
I pelt it at the stag.
The stag runs, just like everybody else.
Stupid, fucken, full-o-shit judgemental furbag.
Why do the right people never stay, and the wrong ones never leave?
Suddenly, I’m crying.
Don’t even care that there’s no one here to see me perform my emotions for them.
Nothing but salty sobs making a mess on my face.
I fall to the ground, wrap my arms around my knees, and for the first time in twelve months, I let myself go.
I just want to hit rewind.
Hit it so hard the player breaks.
Slam the button down until there’s no other option but to go back to how things were and make them right.
If I’d been better at school, maybe. If I hadn’t stolen his smokes, hadn’t kept getting into trouble, hadn’t been such a fucken bright shiny show-off.
A magpie warbles in the red-barked gum nearby.
Shut up. Fuck off. Shut your fucken beak while I’m crying.
Show some respect.
Show some respect.
Mum said that. To me, to Dad, to everyone, anyone, any time she felt we weren’t living up to her standards of human dignity.
Hasn’t said it in a while.
Maybe she feels like she ain’t got any dignity left.
Fuck knows I don’t, sitting in the dirt with snot and salt on my face, feeling like shit and throwing rocks and insults at the wildlife.
I snort, and it’s a stand-in for self-deprecating laughter, because I’m a fucken moron, but at least I know it.
But the question’s still playing in my mind.
I let myself fall backward, grass crunching and rattling underneath me, leaf litter dry and eucalypt-scented. I throw one arm up to block the glare of the summer-blue sky, and everything around me is hot, and humid, and tense.
There’s a storm building in the air again, you can feel the pressure, like something waiting to pop. Electric.
Insects whirr past.
The magpie warbles again.
And the question repeats. Were Mum and Dad not right for each other? Or were they supposed to try harder to make things work?
And that’s not the real question, not really, and I know that.
The real question is this.
How do you know when you’re supposed to walk away?
Because, fuck damn it, I’m still dreaming about the smell of roses in the air, and the soft touch of fingers held in mine, and a smile bright enough to outshine the sun.
And I have no fucking clue what to do about it.
Keep reading: Chapter 12