I hate it when it’s only me and them. Because Daddy works a lot and I don’t get to spend much time with him. And Mummy…well, I don’t exist in front of her, not like when I existed with Nana.
She was my world. Now, I have nothing.
As I stand there watching Aunt Samantha’s car rolling away and Xan running after her with his short legs, my chest becomes painful, the same as it did when Nana left.
My heart beats loud and hard in my ears. I’m not hearing Xan’s cries and screams. I’m hearing mine when Nana dropped to the ground, closed her eyes, and never woke up.
I knew then, I just knew I’d lost something that couldn’t ever be retrieved.
My life changed forever.
Just like Xan’s is.
He hits the car’s boot, but instead of braking, the red car makes a loud sound as it revs down the street.
“Mum, don’t go!” Xan runs behind her, his flip-flops slapping against the street. “Don’t leave me, please. I’ll be a good boy. I p-promise.”
His words bleed into each other, mixed with his tears.
My feet move of their own volition, slow at first, then I’m running as fast as Xander behind the red car.
That car resembles a monster with flaring nostrils and red horns, but neither of us stop.
He’s still screaming and crying, the sound loud in the silence of the street. His shoe slips from his right foot. He kicks the other away and keeps running barefoot, uncaring about the small pebbles on the asphalt. I stop for a second to gather his flip-flops in one hand as the gelato melts in my other. It’s starting to get sticky and make a mess, but I don’t let go as I follow Xan.
He’s in pain and I don’t like it when he’s in pain. I don’t like it when anyone is in pain, but I hate it more when it’s him.
I taste salt, and I realise my cheeks are soaked with tears, too.
“Stop, M-Mum!” Xan trips, but he catches himself and continues sprinting. The sounds he makes are winded and so guttural, it’s like an animal breathing.
The car disappears around the corner. Xan doesn’t stop. He keeps running and running, even when Aunt Samantha and her monster car vanish from sight.
Even when it’s only the two of us on the long road adjacent to our neighbourhood.
His foot catches and he tumbles forward, falling to his knees, crying so loudly, I feel every sound in my bones.
“Muuuum!”
I rush to him but stop a small distance away, hugging his flip-flops to my chest. Then slowly, too slowly, I crouch and put them on each of his feet. The skin has turned dirty and one of them has a cut from which blood coats his small toe.
“G-Green?” He stares at me through the tears that glisten as they flood his eyes.
Xan calls me Green because it’s my favourite colour. Where other girls have pink bedrooms, I have a green one.
“M-Mum is g-gone.” He sniffles.
I force a smile. “She’ll come back.”
It’s a lie. I also said Nana would come back after I slept, but when I woke up, she still wasn’t there.
Adults don’t come back when they leave.
“S-she won’t! She said she doesn’t want me and Dad anymore.” His lower lip trembles, even as he tries to stop crying by turning away from me.
“Xan…” I reach a hand for him and wipe his tears with my sleeve.
For a moment, he lets me as they become fatter and never-ending.