13. Best Friend
Tom locked the door of his bedroom after saying goodnight to his parents and all his sisters, pressing his ear to the door to make sure that the telly had actually been turned off, signifying that everyone was asleep—or, at least in their rooms and faking slumber.
Tonight had been a rough night, he could tell.
He padded over to his bed and pulled the covers out, dropping to his knees and pulling out from underneath the extra pillow he’d stolen from the guest room (and blamed on Sorcha, from when she came to visit). Tom dropped it on the end of the bed and came around, swiping up his football equipment that he’d torn off and stuffed it into his closet. His back was pressed to the door as it wouldn’t bloody close---and---click. The door finally locked into place and Tom reckoned he needed to go through his closet and get rid of some things.
All the lights were off; it had definitely been a rough night.
Here was the hard part of his night. He needed an excuse, a reason, but it seemed like he’d already used up his best ones for the summer. Tom stood in the middle of his room looking thoughtful. Football? Rugby? Cars. Maybe Cars. School! He’d been looking at some universities; maybe he could talk about that.
There was a crash of a trash bin outside his window and he let out a breath, quickly crossing over and throwing open his window. Tom leaned out as far as he could to see over the fence of his neighbor’s, and caught sight of a flash of red hair.
“Fiona!” he hissed, arms locked as his feet left the ground. “Fiona!”
The rumbling with the garbage bins paused and then there was scraping on the fence. Fiona’s head peered over the top, and she sent a skeptical look toward Tom.
“What?”
Tom smirked and pushed his window up higher, slinging his legs over the edge to dangle outside. He was on the first floor, not as if it was a big deal, but his mother would have a conniption if she saw him. Fiona’s arms draped over the top of the fence, and even in the dark he could tell that her face was once again bruised. You wouldn’t be able to tell by her good natured expression; she was always very good at acting as if it was nothing, and Tom gestured for her to come over.
“Why?”
He always needed a reason. Tom knew she wanted to come, but she needed a reason other than just wanting to give her comfort. Sometimes he wanted to yell at her, that she never needed a reason to be with him, but Tom also knew that Fiona wasn’t right, that she wouldn’t be right until she got out of that house, and he was willing to keep her sanity until she was able to.
His legs swung a bit more, heels lightly bouncing off the siding of the house as he tried to come up with an excuse for the night. Fiona pulled a face and he pulled one back, and gestured once more.
“Why?”
“Because I want you to?”
This could get him smacked, and Tom held a breath and almost dropped out of his window and into his mother’s flower garden when Fiona began to push herself up and over the fence. She dropped down with relative ease, and wiped her hands on her jeans before treading through the slightly high grass (shite, he had to mow the lawn tomorrow). Fiona carefully stepped through the garden and stopped a few centimeters from Tom’s legs, looking up at him with an amused grin. Oh, how he wished she wouldn’t grin at him like that, especially at night when she was coming into his---
“Don’t fall!” she whispered in jest, grabbing his feet and pushing him back into his room. Tom’s hands grabbed onto the frame of his window and he smiled wickedly, slipping back into his room (on his own accord) and helped Fiona up and through the window.
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