AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, so new chapter Thanks as always to FrankElza for the continued support. Your comments keep me going! Don't suppose there's much point in appealing to anyone else to comment, haha. The silence is deafening… but, oh well… enjoy anyway!
Chapter 21
"One… one more of those" slurred Kat, as she pointed at her whiskey glass and propped her head up on her hand at the bar. She knew that she'd already had too many but what was the point in staying sober on a day like today?
"That's the last one" said Matt, giving her a disapproving look as he poured her a single measure.
He was working as a part-time bartender in Angelo's now, while doing a TAFE course to be an mechanic. Kat had already been drinking when she'd come in, and she'd been noticeably tipsy, making him a little uneasy and unsure of whether to serve her or not. Normally he would have checked with Ash or Kyle but neither of them had been there to ask. He'd decided to let her have one or two drinks rather than have her kick off at him for refusing. Now he was regretting that decision.
She'd been knocking them back at an alarming rate, one after the other. No ice, just neat. Now, she was clearly well past the point at which he should have cut her off, and he really wasn't sure how things were going to go now when he had to ask her to leave. He cleared away her empty glasses, and wiped the counter down, giving her one last look of concern before he turned to serve another customer.
She choked down her drink, and scowled at him, as he served a blond-haired woman at the other end of the bar. The other woman was clearly flirting with him and she couldn't help feeling a little envious as he smiled and laughed and flirted with her, thinking how young and carefree they both seemed. Her life was a complicated mess.
Suddenly her gaze shifted to the bottle of whiskey that Matt had left sitting there and she had an idea.
"I de-decide when I've ha-had enough!" she muttered to herself, as she pulled a wad of cash from her pocket and set it on the counter.
She checked to see that Matt wasn't looking and then reached behind the bar for the two-thirds full bottle. With another glance to check that he wasn't watching, she swiped the bottle back over to her side of the bar and stuffed it inside her hoodie. With that, she got up, and started to wobble her way towards the door.
"Hey!" shouted Matt, realising that the bottle was gone, and clearly able to see that Kat was hiding something under her clothes. "Hey! You can't just take that!" he shouted again but she picked up the pace and started to rush out the door.
"Oi!" shouted Ash as she smashed right into him. He'd been halfway up the stairs and she'd made him lose his footing and stagger back two or three steps. "What are you doing?!" he asked, a little startled.
"I jus' wanna go home!" she said, beginning to cry and clinging onto the handrail on the stairs, as she swayed and tried to focus her eyes to look at him. "They won't lemme have another drink, Ash… It's not fair!" she whinged.
"You're drunk" he said, stating the obvious.
"Shhhh! Don't tell anyone!" she whispered loudly, putting her finger to her lips in an exaggerated way. She opened her hoodie and showed him the bottle that she'd just stolen. "Lez go home and have a drrrink?!" she grinned, nodding to him as she started to walk down the stairs.
"Easy there!" he gasped, as she missed a couple of steps before righting herself again with the help of the bannister.
He was shocked to see how drunk she was, especially at this time of the day, and he knew that he needed to get her home before the entire town started talking about her. A cop couldn't afford to be seen behaving like this in the middle of the afternoon!
"I'm fffine" she giggled, as she began to wobble down another couple of steps.
"Ohhh-kay, c'mon?" he coaxed, as he took hold of her arm and began to guide her carefully down each step, "Let's get you home? …And get you a nice cup of coffee, eh?"
He was worried that she might lose her footing again and end up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.
"No coffee!" she huffed, with a childish pout on her face, "I lost my job today… sssoooo I think I'm en-entitled to a drink if I want one!"
She hugged the bottle under her arm and started to walk away from him as quickly as her wobbly legs would let her.
He stood there for a moment with his mouth hanging open as he registered what she'd just said. He figured that he must have misunderstood. Surely, they wouldn't fire her for simply losing a laptop?!
"Wait, Kat!" he called, as he jogged a little to catch up with her. He caught hold of her elbow and turned her to look at him. He was shocked to see the tears streaming down her face and realised that what he'd heard her say the first time must have been true. "Wait, you lost your job?!" he asked.
"Azzz good as!" she said, slurring her words a little. "Suzzzpended, p-pending further re-review, with a recomm-endation to dis-dismiss."
"Oh, my God, Kat!" he exclaimed, unsure of what else to say, "I'm so sorry!"
He wondered how such a poorly-executed, and largely embarrassing, tumble between the sheets could have caused this whirlwind of chaos. How could Phoebe justify ruining both their lives over something so meaningless and stupid?!
He put his arms around her and pulled her in for a hug.
"I'm so sorry!" he said again, as she collapsed sobbing in his arms.
She pulled away from him a moment later and looked at him with eyes full of tears. "It was Phoebe wasn't it? She's the one that took my la-laptop?"
He was startled, and surprised that she had figured it out when he hadn't, but he looked into her big sad eyes, so full of hurt, and nodded. He couldn't lie to her about this.
"Yeah… It was Pheebs" he said sadly.
He felt his stomach give a terrible lurch at the thought of what he'd just done. Admitting that to her, when he was supposed to be taking the blame himself. If Brax went to prison because of this he'd never forgive himself, but he was going to have to take his chances with Phoebe and hope like hell that she didn't go through with her threats. Surely, she couldn't really be that cruel?!
She nodded her head sadly and said, "I saw the w-way she was looking at me… and ad you… I just didn't wannit to be true!"
"She saw us in bed together" admitted Ash, "This is her twisted way of getting revenge."
She just nodded at him in a defeated sort of way that didn't seem like the feisty Kat that he knew.
"But if you know…" he said, "Why haven't you told your boss? Why hasn't she been arrested?!"
"Whaztha point?!" she said, pulling the bottle out from inside her hoodie and taking a slug from it.
"Hey, Kat, gimme that!" he scolded, as he tried to take the bottle from her. "You've had enough for one day"
"Get off me!" she shouted at him as she wrestled the bottle back out of his hands. "Just leave me alone, Ash!" she yelled, as she began to stagger her way towards the beach.
He followed her as she wobbled her way very unsteadily down onto the beach and collapsed onto her knees. He crouched down beside her and she looked up at him with an angry scowl on her face.
"Why can't you jus' leave me alone?!" she roared at him, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. "I jus' wanna be on my own!"
"Kat, you need to tell your bosses that it was Phoebe…" he reasoned, "That it was your housemate that took it!"
Even as he said it, he was fully aware of the fact that he was putting Brax at even greater risk, but it just seemed wrong that Kat would lose her job over something that someone else did.
"Wouldn't change anything" she sighed, shaking her head and taking another gulp of whiskey. Ash watched on in concern. "I was still on a caution over the whole… th-thing with the ha-handcuffs and gun. All they see is a cop who leaves ev-ev-everything lying around so other people can take them!" She looked up at Ash again and started to laugh in a sad sort of way, "They'd be right!"
"Kat, that's not fair" he said, shaking his head at her. "Neither of those things were your fault!"
"Not how they see it" she said, shaking her head at him, and staring out at the waves. "Can you jus' go?" she said again. She held the bottle out to him and said, "Here, take it… I won't drink any more… I jus' wanna be alone for a while."
He took the bottle from her and wondered whether it was a good idea to leave someone so drunk on the beach like this. To be fair, taking her home didn't seem like that great an option either. Phoebe would be there and he didn't know what he was going to say to her. Maybe some time on the beach wouldn't be such a bad thing. He decided he'd leave her there for now and come back and check on her in a while.
There was something he needed to do first…
ii.
"Hey guys!" shouted Bianca, as she heard Kyle and Tamara's bedroom door open.
They'd come home while Kyle and Tamara had been 'otherwise engaged' and she didn't want to startle them with her presence. She was busy getting things ready for dinner, Harley was having a nap, and Heath was out in the garden with Darcy getting the barbecue sorted. They'd thought it would be nice to have a sit-down dinner together, and the weather was so nice, it made sense to have a barbecue.
Kyle and Tamara walked out into the living-room looking a little shame-faced at the realisation that they'd had an audience for the last while. They might have tried to be a little quieter had they known. Tamara smirked at him a little, and then walked out to the kitchen, while Kyle threw himself on the couch.
"Hey" she said to Bianca, giving her a sheepish little smile. "When did you guys get back?" she asked, trying to sound as casual as possible, but the redness in her cheeks and her slightly dishevelled appearance gave her away.
Bianca couldn't help smirking.
"About half an hour ago…" she said. She continued expertly chopping up the salad for later and glanced at her for a moment with a knowing smile. "We didn't want to… disturb you" she said, biting her bottom lip in an effort to stop herself from laughing. It wasn't really working.
Tamara began to laugh too, smiling across the room at Kyle, and enjoying the joke as much as Bianca. She really didn't care if the whole world had heard them. Today had been important for her and Kyle. He might not have a name to call himself by, but he was still the man that she loved, and she'd wanted to show him that. It was also the first time they'd had sex since before Noah was born and she was relieved that at least that aspect of their relationship hadn't changed.
Heath walked through the door, still laughing at something that Darcy had said, and looked back and forth between Tamara and Kyle with a big cheesy grin on his face.
"Nice of you two to join us!" he said, "…but then… I suppose you've been busy, haven't you?!"
"Dad?!" whined Darcy, "You're so embarrassing!"
He threw an arm around her neck, and pulled her in to give her a sort of noogie, in a joking way.
"Isn't that what all teenagers say?!" he giggled, taking great pleasure in messing up her hair, as she squealed in mock annoyance, and laughed at him.
"Stop it dad!" she whinged, pulling away from him and running her fingers through her hair to smooth it. "You're particularly embarrassing! A whole other level! None of my friends' dads embarrass them this much!"
"Slackers!" said Heath, giving her a wink and a toothy grin. "That's what dads are for!"
"Uncle K…" said Darcy, wanting to bring him in on the joke but catching herself before she said 'Kyle'.
Suddenly, she looked a little perplexed, so she walked over and perched on the arm of the chair beside Kyle.
"Darce?" he said, gazing up at her. She seemed a little lost in thought.
"I was just wondering what I should call you now?" she asked in an innocent and child-like way.
Everyone flinched a little at the bluntness of the question, particularly Kyle.
He looked up at her soft blue eyes, and realised that he didn't have the slightest clue how to answer her.
"Uh… I'm…" he stammered, looking at Tamara for help. "I…?"
"He's just figuring that out Darce" said Heath, as he threw her an admonishing look. They'd already talked about this.
"But you have to have a name!" she insisted, "Why not 'John', like John Doe? …They always do that in movies when they don't know who someone is…"
"Darce!" scolded Bianca, with her hands on her hips, "Leave your uncle alone! We talked about this!"
Darcy could be very wilful and quite insensitive at times and it was something that they always seemed to be apologising for. For a sixteen-year-old girl she was still very immature.
"It's okay" said Kyle, as he stared down at the floor a little vacantly, "I guess John is as good as anything."
Heath frowned at Darcy.
"John?" said Kyle, as though he was testing the sound and shape of the word in his mouth, "Yeah… I guess John'll do… for now."
He couldn't help wondering if he'd ever find a name that really fit as much as 'Kyle' had. It was weird how much of his sense of identity was tied up in that name. Without it, he was just the 'boy' again. That child waiting in the dark to be used and abused. 'John Doe' seemed to fit well enough for a child that nobody wanted or cared about.
Tamara walked over and sat down beside him, reaching for his hand. She gave him a little smile. "I don't think you're a 'John'" she said, shaking her head. "I think we can do a lot better than that."
"For now, John'll do" he said, shaking his head in a tired way, "Maybe if we find my family, I won't have to choose a name at all."
She nodded at him and kissed him on the cheek. "Okay, John…" she said, giving him a little smirk. "Does that mean I have to change my surname from 'Someone' to 'Doe'?"
He rolled his eyes at her, but he couldn't help but smile. Mr and Mrs Someone had certainly enjoyed themselves in the bedroom earlier! It seemed a shame to give them up so soon.
"John Someone has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" he said, squeezing her hand and raising one eyebrow at her.
"I think Tamara Someone is enjoying having her husband back!" she said, smiling from ear to ear, as she leaned in for a kiss.
Heath and Bianca glanced at each other, not sure what all this 'someone' talk was about, but pleased to see Kyle and Tamara in such a good place in their relationship despite everything that was going on. Heath threw Bianca a wink and guided Darcy away from the couch towards the kitchen.
"C'mon Darce?!" he teased, "Let's give Auntie Tam, and Uncle 'John' some space then!"
iii.
Ash sat outside the house in his car, trying to pluck up the courage to go in there. This was going to be so hard. With everything that Kyle was going through right now, it seemed particularly cruel to tell him that one of his best friends, probably his oldest friend, was responsible for those news stories. He would be terribly hurt when he found out that it had been Phoebe, but Ash thought that he deserved to know.
Not only that, but he needed to know about the threats she'd made towards Brax and Ricky. He couldn't let him stay friends with a person so willing to rip his family apart, and hurt him like this, just for her own selfish reasons. If anyone had a chance of talking Phoebe out of it, it was Kyle.
He took a deep breath and got out of the car. Clenching his fists as he walked up the drive, he didn't remember the last time he'd been this nervous!
He knocked on the front door and waited, suddenly aware of how fast his heart was beating, but there was no answer, so he knocked again. As he stood there, he became aware of voices and laughter in the air, but the sounds didn't seem to be coming from inside the house. The more he listened, it became clear that they were coming from the garden, and now that he thought about it, he could smell barbecue smoke on the breeze.
He opened the garden gate and walked in, shouting "Hello? Tamara? Heath? You guys out here?"
He'd refrained from shouting 'Kyle' because Heath had been doing a lot of shifts in the restaurant over the last week and he'd made it clear to the staff that no-one was to use the name 'Kyle' with him anymore. That had been a tough one to explain without going into the gory details, but everyone knew everything anyway now, thanks to those news articles!
"Yeah?" shouted Tamara. "Oh, hey Ash!" she said, giving him a friendly smile as he walked towards them. "Want a burger… or a beer… or something?"
"No, thanks Tam" he said, looking very nervous and clearly sweating a little. He gave Kyle a very serious look and said, "I really need to speak to you… and Heath."
"Oh-kay?" said Kyle, looking a little worried. Ash looked like he'd seen a ghost and it wasn't like him to be so serious either. "Will I come into the house?" he asked, getting to his feet.
He glanced at Heath and raised his eyebrows at him, wondering what all this was about. He gestured with his head for Heath to come too, guessing that it must have something to do with Brax if he wanted to speak to both of them. He gave Tamara a nervous little smile, and began to follow Ash towards the house, feeling his heartrate pick up and feeling a little shaky already. He was so tightly wound up these days, that he was never far from a panic attack, and he really wasn't sure that his nerves could take more bad news.
The three boys walked into the living-room, and Kyle stood there with his arms folded across his chest, trying his best to hide the growing sense of panic he was feeling.
"What's going on?" he asked, dreading what the answer was going to be.
Ash took a deep breath, and crossed his arms too, in an attempt to hide his nervousness. He really wasn't sure that he was doing the right thing, but he was here now… He couldn't back out.
"I'm just… going to… to come out and say it" he stammered.
The two boys nodded in encouragement, as though to say 'Okay, we're listening'.
He took another big breath and then just blurted it out. "Phoebe took Kat's laptop" he said, "And then she gave it to some journalist guy… and now she's blackmailing me to take the fall for it…"
"She what?!" gasped Kyle, suddenly looking white as sheet, "It was her?!"
"What's she got on you?" asked Heath, with narrowed eyes.
Ash gave a heavy sigh, "She's threatening to tell the cops about Brax if I don't!"
iii.
Phoebe sat in her kitchen absently tearing at the label on a bottle of beer. There was a graveyard of bottles arranged on the table in front of her at this stage, and she was certainly well past the point of being tipsy. She kept glancing at the clock on the wall, wondering what had happened, and whether Ash had gone through with it or not. It was well past the two hours' time limit that she'd given him but she hadn't really thought the whole thing through properly. She didn't know how she was meant to find out if he'd handed himself in. It wasn't like Kat was going to come straight home and tell her.
Suddenly the door swung open, sounding like it would come off its hinges, and Kyle appeared through the door of the kitchen looking wild-eyed and red in the face. She jumped to her feet, startled at the violence of his entrance, and more than a little surprised to see him out in public so soon.
"Wuh? …What are you doing here?!" she stammered.
"I can't believe you?!" he shouted at her, with a look of hurt and disgust on his face. "I can't believe you'd do something like this to me… I thought we were friends?! …I loved you… I can't believe you'd want to hurt me like this!... What did I ever do to you?! Why… Why would you…?! "
"I… I… What?!" she stuttered again, "I don't…"
She wasn't sure how much he knew and wondered if there was any way of salvaging things if she was economical with the truth in some way. She really didn't know what to say.
"I know what you did!" he said, his voice breaking as his eyes filled with tears. "I forgave you for telling Ash, I forgave you for that… But now you go and do something so terrible… so cruel… I don't even know who you are anymore…"
He wrapped his arms around himself as his anger was slowly turning into despair.
"You're the person I've known longest in my life!" he said, "I let you in… I let you get closer than anyone …I can't believe I actually thought I could trust you!"
Looking at Kyle's pained face, she didn't know what to say. She was shocked to see him there quietly crying in front of her. He just seemed so broken.
"I… I'm sorry" she said, flushing bright red with the shame of it all. "I didn't mean any of it!"
"You never do" he said, shaking his head at her in disappointment. "It's always about what you want… what you think you deserve… You're the most self-centred, thoughtless person, Phoebe! You never give any thought to the people that you're hurting"
He was sobbing and shaking now. As he stood there in front of her, he couldn't help feeling the most overwhelming sense of defeat. Was there was no-one in this world that he could really trust?! This was a woman that he'd loved, and who he'd wanted to share his life with. If he couldn't trust her, then how could he trust anyone?! Should he be keeping Tamara at arm's length too?! The loneliness of that thought just crashed down on top of him.
He reached out a shaking hand, pulling out one of the chairs, and collapsed into it with an exasperated sigh. Feeling his whole body heavy with exhaustion, he would have liked nothing more than to crawl away and hide.
"Why would you do this to me?" he asked quietly, "…You sold my story!" He looked up at her with hurt-filled eyes. "Do you have any idea what that's like?" he asked, "For everyone to know… To know that you were raped and tortured as a child? To know that you were used like that? …People look at you differently… they talk differently…" He hung his head and stared at his shoes. "I'm not me anymore" he sighed, "I'm just a victim… a pathetic rape statistic… damaged goods."
She bit her lip, feeling a deep sense of guilt, but she was fairly sure that there was nothing she could say. Nothing that would make things better anyway.
"I'm so sorry" she muttered miserably. Tears of self-pity were streaming down her cheeks. "I didn't know what was on that laptop."
"So you say, Pheebs" he said with a bitter little laugh, "But everything you've done since makes me think that you knew exactly what you were doing."
She looked up at him in shock. She was actually surprised that he would think her capable of such a thing. That she'd done it deliberately?! "I didn't, Kyle! I promise you!"
He winced at the sound of his name on her lips. "Don't call me that!" he said, grimacing a little.
"What?" she asked, with a look of confusion.
"That name" he growled, "That's not me!"
She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.
"I don't have a name anymore…" he said sadly, "But you're the real mystery! I really don't know who you are! …I really really don't."
He got to his feet again and leaned against the kitchen counter, looking at her with disgust.
"You were actually going to use my brother…" he said, "…To make Ash take the fall for you?!"
"No, Kyle" she started, but he shot her such a dirty look at the use of his name, and the blatant lie, that she shut up immediately.
"Yes, you were!" he bit back at her, "I mean…How low can you actually get?! …Isn't Kat losing her job enough for you?! Isn't that enough?! …How many people do you want to hurt along the way?!"
She looked at him with a mixture of shock and horror on her face. She hadn't expected Kat to really lose her job over something like a laptop theft. She'd just wanted to get her in trouble.
"I didn't mean for that…" she blurted, but Kyle interrupted her.
"What if I'd done something like this when you and Ash got together?! Huh?! …What if I'd decided to try to ruin your lives?! I mean, I could have. You don't think I was angry?!"
She looked down at the ground in a shamefaced sort of way. She knew he was right.
"Normal people don't do this kind of shit" he said, "Normal, decent people don't! …They just don't! …I get that you were angry, but you shout, you yell, you hit him if you have to… You don't do this! Not this!"
"I know" she said, slumping into the chair that he'd been sitting in and hugging her arms around herself. She began to sob. "I know, alright!?" she shouted at him.
"I don't think you do" he said a little coldly. "You can't do something this cruel and… and… devious… and then just say 'my bad, I'm sorry!' …It doesn't work like that!"
She nodded but she didn't really know what else to say. She looked up at him with big teary eyes.
"I wasn't really going to tell anyone about Brax" she offered.
"That's not the point, Pheebs!" he snapped, although in truth, he was relieved if that really was the case. "You still wanted Ash to take the blame for something you did… something so terrible… I really don't know how you sleep at night."
"I'm sorry… I don't know what else I can say…" she said, looking up at him with a plaintive expression. "I don't want to lose our friendship!"
He looked at her in shock. "You think we're still friends?!" he gasped, "…After this?!"
He couldn't hide the disgust on his face and he wondered how she could be so completely clueless that she'd think he could ever trust her again.
"If you'd come to me and told me about the laptop…" he said, reasoning with himself more than her, "Then maybe… But to threaten my family like that?! To put them at risk?! I can't have someone like you around me… or around the people I care about. I've had enough bad people in my life!"
"But Brax isn't even your brother!" she blurted out before she'd even thought about what she was saying. "Oh god!... I didn't mean that!" she said, covering her mouth in shock at her own stupidity.
Kyle closed his eyes for a moment, pinching the skin at the bridge of his nose, and let out a heavy sigh.
"Those boys are the only real family I've ever had" he said, in a quiet sad voice. "And okay, we might not be blood, but they've stood by me through everything… even this."
He pushed away from the kitchen counter and stood to look at her one last time.
"I think we're done…" he said, with the saddest sigh possible, "You're just not the person that I thought you were and I can't tell you how sad I am that that person's gone…"
"But I…" she began to say.
He held his hand up to tell her to be quiet.
"That person, that girl I used to know? She was pretty great… and I loved her with all my heart… I don't know what happened to her. But you?! …You're not her!" He ran his fingers through his hair and gave a sad little snort. "I loved you once…" he continued, "I just hope you'll remember that… and maybe you'll think a bit harder about the way you treat the people around you."
She got up and tried to put her arms around him to give him a hug but he pulled her arms away.
"I hope you can find some happiness some day" he said to her, giving her a little kiss on the top of the head before stepping away. "This bitter and twisted thing? This ugliness?" he said, as he backed away towards the door, "It's not good! It'll just eat you up from the inside."
She watched him leave and sat back down at the table with her lukewarm, half-drunk, bottle of beer and began to sob. She'd never felt more lost and alone, and what was worse, was that she knew he was right. She'd brought this all on herself!
She picked up her phone and texted Ash, hardly able to see the screen through her tears.
'I'm sorry. I won't do it. Don't say anything to Kat. I'll come clean and hand myself in in the morning'
She set the phone down on the table and buried her face in her hands. She wondered how she could have made such a mess of things!