It Sounded Better in My Head - Nina Kenwood Page 0,48
friendless, most acne-prone years, cleaning the house with Mum was actually something I looked forward to every week.
I wish I was cleaning with Mum right now. I wish I was basically anywhere but in this bed.
‘What’s Zach doing?’ Mariella says.
I hold my breath.
‘What do you mean?’ Alex says, sounding disinterested and croaky and like it was any other morning. He’s a better actor than I realised. Lying to his mother might be a regular occurrence for him, though. I don’t know if this is something I should be worried about or not. Either way, now is not the time to think about it.
‘Why isn’t he on the trundle?’ she says.
‘His back got sore,’ Alex said.
‘That bloody spring. I don’t know why you boys didn’t just share from the beginning.’
‘Well, we are sharing now, so…’
There’s a beat of silence, and it seems like we did it, we got away with it, and everything will be fine.
‘Zach, get up, please.’
‘Let him sleep, Mum. I’ll do breakfast.’
Another beat, another moment where I think we’ve got away with it, but Mariella knows her sons too well. She knows Alex would never be so considerate to his brother.
‘Zach, up.’
I keep lying there, my face scrunched, praying to every god or goddess I’ve ever heard of to be teleported out of here.
‘He can’t get up,’ Alex says. He still sounds calm. He hasn’t resorted to praying. He thinks we can wriggle out of this.
‘Why not?’ Her voice is closer. She’s right beside me. I try to breathe in the way I imagine a sleeping teenage boy would.
‘He’s sick,’ Alex says.
‘Sick? In what way?’
‘Feeling sick. Ill. Under the weather.’
I contemplate faking a cough, maybe a slight groan. No. Too much.
‘Alex, what is going on? Is Zach drunk?’ Mariella’s voice goes up an octave.
‘No, he’s not drunk. It’s a rash, I think. And a sore throat. Looks contagious—’
Mariella pulls back the doona and I open my eyes to her face peering into mine.
‘Natalie!’ she says, and nothing else. I think it’s the first time she’s ever been speechless.
18
Confessions
‘Mum, it’s not what you think.’ Even now, in the most embarrassing moment of my life, Alex is calm and relaxed. Though, he is talking a little faster than normal. The hole he needs to get us out of is getting deeper.
Thank god I’m still sunburnt, because I am blushing harder than I have ever blushed in my life.
‘What do you think I think it is?’ Mariella says, hands on her hips.
‘You think there’s something going on between us.’
‘There’s not,’ I say, sitting up, finding my voice. It doesn’t occur to me to tell even a hint of the truth. Lying seems the only option.
‘Did Zach ask you to swap beds, Natalie?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ Alex says, betraying his brother in less than half a second.
‘No,’ I say, at the same time. We glance at each other.
‘It was my idea,’ I say.
Alex raises his eyebrows.
‘I thought Zach and Lucy would prefer to share a bed, and I don’t care where I sleep, so I suggested we swap,’ I say.
Mariella is squinting, watching me. Then she turns on her heel.
‘Let’s see what Zach has to say,’ she says, and she leaves the room in a flurry of outrage. I know Mariella well enough to know she quite enjoys a flurry of outrage, but usually I get to listen to her story about the person or persons who have inspired the outrage, rather than be one of them myself.
‘I messaged him,’ Alex says, pulling his hands out from under the doona.
‘Saying what?’
‘Mum run.’
‘That’s helpful.’
‘Actually, it says “num rum” because I typed it without looking.’
‘Oh god.’ I hope Lucy is dressed when Mariella walks in. I pull the doona back over my head.
‘Is she really mad?’ I ask, making a little hole between doona and pillow to speak out of.
‘She’ll be mad at me and Zach. For breaking her “no sleepovers in the same bed” rule. She’s paranoid about her home being turned into a den of underage sex.’ Alex yawns. He sounds like he’s been down this path before.
‘We’re not underage.’
‘Underage in her mind is anyone under thirty. Also, she hates lying.’
‘Well, we are telling the truth.’
‘No, we’re not. You said there’s nothing going on between us.’
‘I panicked,’ I say and, I want to add, We haven’t clarified what is happening between us, is it something, and if it is something, is it the kind of something you mention to mothers?
‘You’re eighteen. I’m nineteen. It’s none of Mum’s business what happens in this bedroom.’