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Lucky’s long-suffering family watch him from their place on the sofa. He stands in the doorway, eyes pulled to Billie, whilst his brother raises his voice and tries to pretend his anger isn’t born from fear.
“We thought you’d – I thought you’d gone and hurt yourself or something, Lucky. We thought you’d hurt yourself, and–”
“What?” Lucky feels the breath leave his lungs. “I would never. I would never do that, I…”
He watches Billie’s eyes flutter to the space behind him, feels his heart drop as the air shifts. Lucky turns quickly but Meg has already gone. His eyes flick to his brother, who meets his gaze with only confusion now, and then to Billie.
Lucky’s eyes ask for permission.
Billie’s tell him he never had to ask.
“Meg!”
He’s after her before anyone can say anything else, out through the front door and scanning desperately for any sign to where she’d gone. A flash of plaid catches his eye and he’s on his feet and moving again, feet pounding against concrete, the pain in his chest flaring with each step.
We thought you’d hurt yourself.
“Meg,” he pants, turning the corner and catching sight of her further along the road. She stops to lean on a bench by the corner of a small park. Vomits over the side, swipes clumsily at her eyes with her sleeve. “Meg, hey. Hey.”
Lucky catches up, finally, slowing down as he reaches the bench.
“Hey,” he says, again, arm reaching out on impulse to steady her. He guides her to the bench, pushes gently. “Will you sit down? For fuck’s sake.” He collapses onto the bench beside her, hand never leaving her arm. “You alright?”
We thought you’d hurt yourself.
Meg’s expression is empty. It hurts Lucky more than he’d care to admit. He can take her for all of her snark and sarcasm, her defensive anger or fierce denial – but he can’t deal with this. This hollowed-out gaze she’s holding, the shake in her hands.
“Meg,” Lucky murmurs. He shifts his weight on the bench, turns his whole body towards her. “Hey, darl. Take a breath.”
“They thought you were going to hurt – they thought that you–”
“Alright, fuck, listen.” He edges closer still, bringing his face to the level of hers. “Listen, Meg, he didn’t mean it like that.”
“You can’t kill yourself, Lucky,” Meg gasps. She leans her forearms on her knees and for a moment Lucky thinks she’s going to vomit again, but it’s only tears that splatter the concrete. “Please, I can’t do–”
“Jesus fucking christ, Meg,” he says, but there’s no venom to his voice. His words come out a desperate whisper and, lost for anything else to do, he wraps his arms around her and hugs her tightly. “He didn’t mean it like that, he meant because I’m a stupid drunk, and…” His words fell on deaf ears. He decided just to hold her. “I would never.”
Her shaking sobs subside.
“I would never,” he whispers again; a mantra, a promise. “I would never.”
Eventually, she pulls away, swipes at her face with the back of her sleeve.
“Your family really care about you,” she whispers, with a half-smile that scares him. “That’s a plus, eh? You thought everyone thought you were a fuck-up. Here it turns out they actually just fucking care.”
“Meg.” He doesn’t know what use he is now, saying her name like it’s the only word he knows, but he doesn’t know what else to say. “Listen–”
“I could have been like that.”
He feels himself frowning. “What do you mean?”
Meg’s small hands curl themselves into fists. He watches her white knuckled grip on her own skin, fights the urge to take her hands in his and pry them apart like she’s a kid.
She is a kid.
She’s just a kid.
“I could have been like that,” she says now, stifling another sob that comes up like a wave. “If I’d known – if he’d needed–”
Oh.
It dawns on him, slowly and then all at once. The realisation is not like a light being turned on, but more like someone pulling the plug in a bathtub. Everything feels like it’s sinking. Lucky feels he’s spinning, ready to slip down the drain.
“Meg.” His hands are shaking. “It wouldn’t have made a difference, darl. I’m so sorry, but I don’t think it would have made a difference.”
“It might have,” her voice is half-sob, half-shriek and suddenly it’s four years ago and he’s holding her in the desert, kissing her hair in the dying light, cradling her head and burying a camel and fighting to break through Meg’s narrative that it’s all her fault. “If I’d known that’s what he needed, I would have worried more. Like your family – they called the–” She hiccups. “They called the fucking cops, Lucky, that’s how much they cared.”
“Alright, sweetheart.”
He pulls her to his chest, holds her while she shakes. Something inside of him feels like it’s breaking.
“Maybe I was a shit sister,” she sobs, her voice muffled into his shirt. “Maybe I should have shown him more, how much I cared, maybe I should have…”
“Maybe you were twelve years old,” Lucky whispers into her hair. “Maybe twelve year old’s aren’t supposed to carry that kind of a weight.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Don’t blame yourself, Meg. Please don’t blame yourself.”
“There’s no one else left,” she weeps.
That’s the last thing she says for a while.
* * *
Meg falls asleep on the bench when the crying has shaken every ounce of grief from her. Lucky's arm still wrapped around her shoulders, her head leaning against his chest. He thinks about what she said earlier in the week; lines of ink, crossing paths and blurring into one.
Their line was well and truly one, now.
There was no way Lucky was letting their colours separate again.
If they were further from the house, he wouldn’t have made it; but they were close, and she didn’t stir when he scooped her up, and her arms looped gently around his neck and the wound on his chest only twinged instead of burning. He carried her back to the house, where everyone was still hovering in the living room; his brother and Suze talking quietly to Billie, Avery pottering around making tea so she doesn’t feel so useless.
All of them hear the front door open, see him standing there with her in his arms. For a moment, nobody says anything.
“I’ll call her dad,” says Suze, then: “Should I? Call her dad?”
“He’s a useless piece of shit,” says Lucky, keeping his voice low. He shifts Meg in his arms, trying to keep the weight away from his left side, where the wound has begun to throb. “I’ll, uh, call him tomorrow.”
“You can put her in the spare room,” Avery says, gently. “It’s all made up for Billie, but–”
“It’s okay,” says Billie. She’s on her feet, meeting Lucky’s eyes with a soft smile. “Mum and Dad are getting a hotel for the night. I can stay with them.”
“Are you sure, Bee? I just, I wanted this to be…”
“I can share you,” Billie says, simply. “I always wanted a big sister, you know.”
It takes him a moment to realise she’s talking about Meg.
Toby ushers his wife and daughter from the room, and Avery follows behind. Lucky pretends he doesn’t feel a flare of warmth when his brother squeezes his shoulder on the way out.
True to her word, Avery has made up the guest room for Billie: brand new stuffed animal and all. Lucky tries to push back the guilt as he lays Meg down on the bed, tries not to think about Avery taking the time to make space for Billie when he’d gone swanning off to Queensland.
Not swanning off, he reminds himself. You were with Meg.
Without him, Meg would have gone off on her own, and she would have…
He doesn’t want to think about it.
Somehow, Meg and Billie were as important as each other. He doesn’t know how he ended up with two daughters, but it’s happened either way.
Meg opens her eyes as he’s tugging off her boots.
“Just your shoes,” he tells her, before she can jump in with something snarky. “I’m not undressing you or anything.”
“Yeah,” she says, weakly, “No shit, weirdo.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m just… Ah, forget it. Are you–” He chucks a blanket over her, sits down on the edge of the bed as she pushes herself into a sitting position. “How are you feeling, kiddo?”
Her eyes are red, her nose tinged-pink.
“Like, I…” She clears her throat. When she speaks, her voice is weak. “Like I might just feel like this forever.”
His heart breaks all over again. “What do you mean, Meg?”
She buries her face in her hands, squeezing her eyes shut. “Scared.”
“Scared of what?”
She clears a throat, and he sees a flash of the old Meg in her eyes; a little sparkle of the usual snark, the sarcasm. “Well, I don’t want to be dramatic, Lucky…” She sniffs. “But I think you might be the only fucking person I care about. You’re definitely the only fucking person who cares about me , so…”
He shuffles closer to her on the bed.
“So, I guess, I had that before.” She swallows, meets his eyes. “With Matty.”
“Oh.” Lucky reaches out and takes her hand in his. “Meg.”
She’s just a kid, he thinks, not for the first time. Just a fucking kid.
Tears are spilling from Meg’s eyes again but she barely seems to notice this time. “Matty was the only fucking person who cared about me, and then he killed himself.” She chokes. “So maybe he didn’t care that much after all.”
“Oh, baby, he did.” Lucky tucks himself into the bed beside her, wraps his arms around her and feels Meg’s body curl into his. “He cared about you, but he was unwell, darl. Nobody who’s well thinks about…” Oh God, I can’t do this. “What I’m saying is it isn’t his fault. And more than anything, it isn’t yours. Him taking his life doesn’t mean he didn’t love you. God, it doesn’t mean that at all.”
“It doesn’t?”
Her voice is so small. Tears burn at his own eyes as she shakes in his arms.
“Fuck, no. Has no one ever told you–?” He stops himself, cursing internally. Of course, they fucking haven’t. Who would? “Meg, darl. Look at me.”
It takes her a minute to emerge from his arms. When she does, her face is red and wet strands of blonde hair stick to her cheeks where they’ve been tangled in tears. Lucky reaches out to sweep the hair back from her face. He keeps his hand there, on her cheek, a moment longer than he needs to.
“You’ve got me, now,” he promises. “I’m going nowhere.”
Meg meets his eyes for a long time. Searching for something, he thinks. Confirmation, maybe. Checking that he’s telling the truth, as if she can tell that only from one look. She can, though. She’s always been able to see right through him.
So, she just nods. Nestles in to his embrace.
“Cheers, dickhead,” she mumbles, drifting back off to sleep. “Love ya.”
“You too, kid.”