Existing (22 page)

She chews quickly
, ignoring my frown at the mess on her face and makes ‘nomnomnom’ noises.

I pick up my own slice of pizza and take a small bite. I love spending time with
Ava like this, out the house and away from Hallie. I see a different side to her, which makes me think she picks up on the atmosphere that’s always hanging around the house like a bad smell.

I’ve just pushed the empty pizza plate away from us and offered the rest of the fries to
Ava when Cabe slides into the booth next to her.

“Hello
, Rose,” he says, looking at me.

“U
m, hello,” I say, glancing quickly at Ava. She munches on one of her fries with a smile on her face.

“And who is this?” he asks,
turning towards Ava.

“I’m
Ava,” she mumbles.

Cabe holds his hand out and
Ava gives it a shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Ava. I’m Cabe.”

“You talk weird,” she tells him.

“Ava!” I say. “That’s rude.”

Cabe laughs. “That’s alright. I’m from England and have a different accent, so I guess I do talk pretty weird.”

Ava looks from Cabe to me and then shrugs. “Are you Rose’s boyfriend?”

“No,” I say quickly, “I don’t have a boyfriend
, Ava. You ask me every day and I always tell you the same thing.”

She giggles, which I notice makes Cabe smile.

“Rose always tells me that boys smell,” she informs him.

Cabe raises his eyebrows
at me and I feel my cheeks flush hot. “Does she really?”

“Yup,” confirms
Ava.

“Well,” smiles Cabe, “maybe she hasn’t been sniffing the right sort of boys.”

Ava breaks out into a fit of high-pitched giggles, which makes me smile and glance quickly around the restaurant to see who’s looking at us.

“I don’t sniff boys at all
,” I say.

Cabe and
Ava look at each other and wrinkle their noses up with even more laughter.

“What did you have to eat anyway?” he asks
Ava when their laughter has subsided.

“Meat pizza and fries,”
Ava says, sounding excited.

“And you ate it all up between the two of you?”

Ava nods proudly.

I clear my throat. “I don’t mean to be rude
, Cabe, but what do you want?”

He leans back and stretches his arms over the back of the booth
, making his t-shirt stretch over the muscles and ribs in his stomach. “Well, you are.”

I blink. “I am what?”

“Being rude.”
I blanch. “I’m just curious.”

“As am I,” he says quickly. “I already told you that.”

I roll my eyes and deflect, asking, “How come you’re not at the beach anyway?”

“We’re going in a minute. We don’t trust Mickey’s food.”

I glance toward his group of friends, who all seem to turn their heads quickly when my eyes fall on them and look out of the window.

“That was discreet,” he whispers.

I can feel the corners of my mouth pulling up and look away. “Why don’t you trust Mickey’s food?”

He huffs. “We had a barbeque on the beach last year and a bunch of us got food poisoning. We were sick for a whole week.”

“Ew, gross,” says Ava through her straw.

The waitress suddenly appears and clears our empty plates away
, replacing them with a bowl of ice cream that Ava eagerly pulls toward her. She shovels her spoon in and rams the ice cream straight in her mouth. I laugh as I watch her face wrinkle at the coldness.

“Ice headache?” laughs Cabe.

Ava nods and holds her temples.

I shake my head. “You always do that. You should have learned by now.”

She looks up at Cabe and sighs.

“You’ll be okay to eat more now,” he says gently.

I watch her nod at him before she picks the spoon back up and gently places the smallest bit of ice cream onto her tongue. “Much better,” she says with a nod.

“Good,” he replies
, suddenly leaning toward me with his elbows on the table.

“How often do you have to do this?” He nods toward
Ava and I know he means look after her.

I shrug.
“Most of the time.”

“Even at home?” he asks.

My eyes dart toward Ava. “Yeah, sometimes.”

“Where are your parents?”
he asks.

I take a deep breath
, fully aware that Ava is listening to us. I’m pretty sure that she’ll out me if I lie. I’m trapped into telling the truth. 

“Her Mommy is dead,” says
Ava, deadpan.

“I know,” Cabe replies gently.

“How did you know that?” I ask.

“You said your Mother
was
Irish when we were in Anatomy on your first day.”

I nod.

“I’m sorry,” he says,
“it must be hard on you.”

I nod again
, not trusting my voice.

Ava
leans forward with her head against her arms. “My Mommy said that Rose’s Mommy is dead and it’s Rose’s fault.”

I freeze and feel a cold tear instantly slip down my cheek. Cabe shifts in his seat
, looking uncomfortable but he doesn’t look at me.

“What do you mean
, Ava?” he pushes.

Ava
shrugs. “My Mommy said that Rose’s Mommy saw Rose’s ugly face when she was a baby, and that she was so ugly that her Mommy cried every day until she killed herself. She jumped off some cliffs.”

Cabe glances at me but I can’t speak. I can feel the tears streaming down my face
, but I don’t know what to do or say. My heart feels like it has stopped beating. How could Hallie tell Ava something like that? She shouldn’t even know that people are capable of killing themselves. I don’t want her to worry about death at such a young age. I sniff and wipe my face.

“I don’t think Rose is ugly,” continues
Ava, as she pushes the ice cream around the bowl with her spoon. “She’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever met. I think she’s even prettier than Cinderella.”

Cabe sort of smiles but it doesn’t stretch across his face properly. “She’s certainly the prettiest girl I’ve ever
met.” He leans across the table and squeezes my hand. I don’t squeeze back.

Ava
looks up and smiles. “My Mommy isn’t dead though. My Mommy married Rose’s Daddy and we all live in the same house. Rose looks after me though because Dad is always working and my Mommy gets drunk all the time.”

I stare at
Ava and the easy way those words flowed from her mouth and feel my jaw hanging open. I had no idea she was so aware of what was going on. How does she even know what being drunk means?

Cabe shuffles, looking
even more uncomfortable in the leather seat. “I have four younger brothers,” he says quickly. “I’m the oldest by five years, and then there’s Rueben who’s twelve, Jack who’s nine, Sebastian who is seven, and Harry who is four.”

I smile
, trying to ease the atmosphere that seems to have nose-dived around us. I clear my throat and take in a deep, slow breath. “I bet your Mom is run ragged around that house.”

He laughs.
“Sometimes, yeah. We have a maid though so at least she doesn’t have to worry about the house while she’s running around after all of them.”

“Cabe!”

We all turn to look where the voice has come from, and find ourselves staring at four boys who all seem to have muscles after muscles running down their necks and arms.

“We’re going to go to the party. You
coming?”

He nods. “I’ll catch you up.”

They nod and all file out of the restaurant.

“Are they your friends?” asks
Ava.

“Yeah,
” he smiles. “We all play football together.”

I pick up a spoon and shovel a mouthful of
Ava’s ice cream into my mouth so I stop myself from saying something I shouldn’t.

“Rose doesn’t have any friends,” she blurts
. “She sees a ghost and people think she’s weird, so she doesn’t make friends so no one has to find out.”

My eyes bulge in my head at her comment
, and I can feel the ice cream in my mouth getting warmer and warmer. Cabe glances quickly at me, then turns his whole body toward Ava. I quickly swallow the bite and lick my lips.

“I think your
friends are waiting for you, Cabe,” I say, feeling mortified. “I think you’d better go.”

He blinks at me and shakes his head. “Is it true?”

“No,” I lie.

“Yes it is,” says
Ava, sounding upset. “My Mommy told me that we had to move all the way out here and it was all Rose’s fault, and that I should blame her for being sad because I had to move houses. She said I had to say goodbye to my friends and it was all because of Rose and the ghost.”

I cough. “
Ava, please stop-“

“She said,”
Ava continues with wide eyes, “you kept seeing it and had since you were a little girl, even more little than I am now, and that Daddy thought that if we moved, then you wouldn’t see it anymore and you wouldn’t be mental anymore either.”

“I’m not mental,” I say quickly.

Cabe looks confused as he processes what Ava has just said.

I shake my head and close my eyes. “Please leave,” I whisper to Cabe.

“Rose, I don’t have to go.”

I feel tears start to sting at my eyes and nod my head. “You really do.”

He slowly turns to Ava and smiles. “It was lovely to meet you, Ava.”

“You too,” she
says and smiles as if she hasn’t just said anything.

Cabe slides out of the booth and leans his head down next to mine. “
We’re not done with this conversation,” he says, “and your Stepmother sounds like a complete bitch.” He pulls back and locks eyes with me.

“Just ignore
Ava,” I whisper. “She’s young. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

He studies my face and I notice his eyes skimming over the place on my cheek where my bruise was. “Children
that are Ava’s age don’t know the difference between saying something inappropriate and retelling something that someone has told them. She was telling the truth. I know she was and so do you.”

I shake my head. “Enjoy the party
, Cabe.”

He stands back and stares at me as if
I’m
a ghost and says, “See you at school tomorrow.”

I nod.

“See you, Ava.”

She waves her hand. “Bye
, Cabe.”

I let my head
drop to the table and groan after he disappears through the door.

“He was nice.”

I look up at Ava, not quite knowing if I should say something about what she’s just said and find myself nodding anyway. “Yeah, he is.”

When I open my eyes on Friday, the first thing I do is smile. Then I wonder if it was really a dream so I pick my phone up to check my recent calls list. I flop back onto the pillow in relief when I see Gina’s name on the screen at eleven last night. She’d been waiting for Charlotte to fall asleep before she called me. She said she could help me. She said that she had seen my ghost when I was at her house and that she knew how to get rid of it. I’m so happy that I might be rid of the ghost that’s haunted me all of my life that I bound out of my bedroom and crash into the bathroom without even thinking to knock.

My feet skid to a stop across the shiny tiles at the sight of Hallie naked. I feel my face wrinkle as I try to figure out what she’s doing with her leg up on the bath
tub. My hand flies up to my mouth when I realize she’s plucking her pubic hairs with a pair of tweezers. Her eyes burn into me when she snaps her head up and realizes she’s been caught. 

“Sorry,” I begin, “I didn’t know you were in here, I-”

“You stupid little bitch. How dare you!” She marches toward me, and I can feel myself tense in anticipation. She leans behind me and slams the door shut behind me.

“I’ll just go so you can carry on-
”

Before I can finish
, she grips my wrist so tight that it feels like she’s crushed the bones. I have no idea how she’s gotten this strong. “Take a good look at my pretty little cunt, did you? Well you shouldn’t have. Not because I’m embarrassed; I have nothing to be embarrassed about. But because you’ll grow up now and realize that you’ll never be a real woman. Not like me. You have your gawky sparrow legs and curvy fat hips, and not to mention your ugly face with your goofy teeth.”