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He winces as the living room erupts in laughter. He’s never liked parties, or any large gatherings for that matter. The kitchen is a mess, absurdly so. Plates and dishes are piled so high John can only hope they don’t fall. He doesn’t bother actually fixing the problem by washing the dishes or anything. Instead he works in a way that pretty much does the opposite. He opens the cupboard door with his foot, perches
the teabags between his neck and shoulder, grabs the sugar from the highest shelf and holds it in the same hand as the milk jug and snakes his arm past the piled of dishes to turn the kettle on.
Hero finds him in this precarious position, a plate of CookieTime cookies
in hand. “Hey John.” She speaks softly, but he still near jumps in surprise. The sugar bowl drops, but she catches it deftly.
“Oh. Hello, Hero. And thanks. I was just making some tea, would you like some?” He sets down the jug of milk safely on the kitchen bench.
She smiles as warm as the fireplace. “No thank you. I hope I’m not bothering you.
I just came for some water, I think I drank too much eggnog. Also I think I’m a bit tipsy.”
“Can you get drunk off eggnog?”
She shrugs. “I may have had some champagne as well.” Her voice is warm. He’d never thought a voice could be warm, but her's is. It is a smouldering fire during a camping trip, and hot
chocolate on a winter night, and sweaters that hug at your body. A part of him is drawn to it, but the
other part of him pulls him away. He keeps his eyes trained on the kettle as it boils, and he tries to keep his eyes off Hero.
He likes
Hero. He like likes her.
He doesn’t love her though, not like how Peter and Balthazar love each other
or how Benedick and Beatrice love each other. He likes the way she smiles, he likes the way her hair shines in the sun, he likes the way her eyes sparkle, he likes the way her cheeks redden when Beatrice teases her, he likes the way she genuinely seems to like people.
But he doesn’t love her. Love is a heavy word. Love implies an eternal, infinite kind of tenderness. Love is what he sees in
Peter
when Balthazar plays his guitar for him. Love is what he sees in Balthazar when Peter
tells him a stupid joke. Love is what he sees in Beatrice when Benedick rants about Doctor Who or whatever else he’s nerding out about at the moment. Love is what he sees in Benedick when Beatrice does quite literally anything.
Love comes from both sides, and he knows that Hero doesn’t like him. He understands that, and so he
likes her from afar, behind the pages of a book, behind his phone, behind the mess of Messina High's student population, behind a poker face.
She finishes her cup of water, but she doesn’t leave. Instead she sits at one of the chairs by the bench,
warching him watch the kettle. He’s so engrossed with trying to ignore her stares that he jumps
when the kettle dings. She giggles, it’s the only word for it, and he feels a smile form on his face. He fills the mug halfway and watches the water engulf the teabag,
before dropping heaped teaspoons of sugar into the mug. Hero watches on in mild amusement.
“You know, I didn’t pin you as the type to drink your tea so sweet.” She pauses for a moment. “Or the tea type in general.”
“No?” He says, as he adds another teaspoon.
“I pinned you as the milk-and-sugar-in-tea-is-blasphemy, coffee-as-black-as-my-soul kinda guy.”
He smiles again. “Without milk and sugar, tea is just bitter leaf water. And
black
coffee is the worst. Well, coffee
in general is the worst.”
“Don’t let Beatrice hear that. She can’t function without a cup
of coffee in the morning.”
“I was raised English, and it’s my patriotic duty to drink tea and denounce coffee.” She laughs again, and he hides his smile.
He adds the
milk, and watches it swirl into the water. He realises the silence, and turns back to her. “What about you? Tea or coffee?”
“Tea, but I prefer herbal. Like...green tea, and those crazy fruity flavours. I like normal tea, but I don’t think I could ever drink it as sweet or milky as you do. At what point does it stop being tea and start being warm sugar milk?”
“Leave me and my warm sugar milk
alone.” He cries in mock-offence. She gestures to the seat beside her, and he hesitates for half a second. She sees it though, and his heart falls and her face does. He takes the seat though, careful to keep a gap between them. You know, for Jesus.
He can sense
every centimetre of her beside him. He likes to, no, wants
to think he’s a pragmatist, but he’s too illogical for that. He tells himself over and over again, in a stream of consciousness to the point it’s white noise humming in his ear; she doesn’t like you. She doesn’t like you. She doesn’t like you. She doesn’t like you. She doesn’t like you. He knows it, he hammers it into his brain, but he cannot stop glancing over at her as she nibbles at a cookie. Can she hear his exhilarated heartbeat, or see the way his hair stands on end?
“Want a cookie? I tried to make some snickerdoodles last night to prepare but Beatrice stole, like, half of them and Leo, Mum and Mama stole the rest so I had to make do with store-bought.” He declines the offer, preferring to wallow in awkwardness with his
tea. He can tell that she can tell he’s in a mood. He can’t tell whether she knows why he’s in a mood. She opens her mouth to say something, but is interrupted by John’s phone ringing. He knows who it is. He chose that ringtone for a reason. Pink Floyd’s Mother. It was supposed to be a joke, but it bleeds with a sense of foreboding now.
“Do you mind...?” she smiles and shakes her head. He almost wishes she had said she did. He stalks off to the corner of the room, far away from any of Hero’s judgement. Not that he thinks she would judge, but he doesn’t want to
take any chances. He accepts the call with shaking hands.
“Jack! Merry Christmas, sweetheart.” The nickname stings. She never calls him John. It’s always Jack. He hates it with a burning passion, but he
knows it comforts her.
“Hullo mum.” What else can he say?
There’s a few beats of silence, and he refuses to fill it. “I tried to time my phone call. It is seven
in Auckland, right?”
”nine-thirty.”
“Oh. Well, I was never very good at math.” She lets out an awkward chuckle. “Are you good, Jack? Your father
told me you’re doing really well
in school. And that you’ve got friends.”
“Yes, I’m doing well. I have friends.”
She knows he doesn’t want this call, and she knows he knows she knows this. “Well, that’s good. And
the rest of them? They are good too?” He notes how she refuses to say their names.
“Dad's fine. Hermione too. Peter's great. He’s doing better.”
“That’s good. Anything else, sweetheart? About you? Any new...I don’t know, developments? Girlfriends?”
He blushes. “No, mum. No Girlfriends.” He thinks he hears her sigh. Exasperation? Relief? He’ll never know.
There’s another awkward pause. “You know I love you, don’t you Jack? I always will. I’m sorry I’m like this. I’m sorry about everything I did.” She's not. She never has been, she never will be.
“Yes, mum, I know.”
“Because I do, Jack, I really do love you.” Another awkward pause. His relationship with his mother is always that. Apologies and awkward pauses. She’s waiting for him to return her sentiment. He won’t. “Well then. Merry Christmas, sweetheart.” And the call is done. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes. The last call he got from her was five months ago. Two minutes, in five months. He falls back against the wall and slides down to the ground. Why did the Gods have to bless him with such a mother?
He's so engrossed in his self-pity
he doesn’t notice Hero
sit down beside him. “You okay?”
“Yes.” He says, too quickly.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” He opens his mouth to say no, but the word is caught in his throat because yes, he does. Hero continues before he can reply. “I know from...personal experience that everyone says this and it really, really sucks but you can talk to me. I'll listen. You were always there to listen to me when Leo was in hospital. You let me cry into all your clothes.” He lets a small smile form on his face.
“I don’t want to burden you with my stupid problems.”
“Hey. You’re problems aren’t stupid.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Good thing I like stories then.” She’s stubborn, he'll give her that.
“It’s just...my mum.”
She smiles, but in an almost reassuring way. “Oh. Beatrice told me a little bit, or at least what Peter told her. I know you hear this a lot too, because, again, experience - but I’m sorry.”
She smiles again. She’s always smiling. “Tell me about her. I mean, if you want.” He does want to.
So he does. The whole thing. About him and Peter’s
dad and how one stupid night on a business trip brought forth John, about how his mother
couldnt raise him because of her BPD and NPD. How Peter’s mum had put up with him for the first few years until she couldn’t take it anymore and left. How Anne had come into the picture, had been a real mother to Peter and John. How their father finally picked up his act, how everything started working again until his mother decided to pick him back up and take him back to Bristol at seven. How he’d adapted and grown used to it, only for her to relapse and for the doctors to finally realise she wasn’t a stable guardian. How he had to be shipped off to a home he barely recognised. He told her how he had to try and adjust back into life with his flawless
brother and Anne who could no longer understand him and his father whose one night of stupidity was the entire reason John was alive. Of being the scandalous bastard brother no one wanted to acknowledge, the dark spot on Pedro Donaldson’s perfect visage.
She listened carefully, never interrupting him or making him feel pitiful. “So that’s it.” He said finally, when he was done. “The whole story of Why I Am Like I Am. Sorry to be a downer on Christmas.”
“No, John, you’re not being a downer. Thank you for telling me. Really, thank you.” She pushed her knees to her chin. “You know, when Leo was still in the hospital,
I never wanted to sleep. I couldn’t do it, because what if I woke up and he was dead, and I hadn’t been there? And then I would lie awake at night, just sitting there. I didn’t want to worry Mum and Mama, they were already wrecked. And I didn’t want to bother Beatrice, because she was happy with Ben out travelling and I knew she’d hop on a plane and race back if she knew I was sad. And I couldn’t call Meg because I didn’t want her always looking at me like I was some sad little puppy or something. So I called you, because I knew you wouldn’t judge me, and I knew you’d be awake at three AM to listen to me cry. I don’t know where I'm going with this. I guess my point is that you’ve always got me to talk to. I know we’ve got a bit of a history, but I really do consider you a friend and I hope you do too, for me.” He swallows her words cautiously, gripping to every word. Does he consider himself her friend, or her his? He’s always viewed her as some kind of unattainable, untouchable girl. Out of his league, at the top of the food chain, all that jazz.
“Thank you, Hero. I appreciate that.” He doesn’t know what else to say. She smiles warmly and he melts into a puddle of infatuation and adoration.
She stands up, and extends her hand.
“Your warm sugar milk is about to become cold sugar milk.” He smiles,
accepts her hand and grabs his tea cup from the bench. It's cool now, but he couldn’t care less. They walk towards the living room,
and he stops at the door.
He turns to her, knowing this is going to be his only chance. “You know, I was wondering, if you maybe wanted to go out sometime? Like...I don’t know. Doesn’t have to be in any kind of...way. Just like...whatever. I mean it’s the holidays so I
don’t know if
anything's open anyways...” Her face is the epitome of surprise, and he tries to keep a poker face. “I mean, you don’t have to. I get it-”
“No! No, that sounds cool.” Her face breaks into such a genuine smile that John has to look away to hide his blush.
Something touches his hair, and his immediate thoughts are extremely spider-y.
“Mistletoe.” She smiles, pointing above his head.
He keeps his eyes trained on the stupid little plastic plant, eager to keep
them off Hero. “I think Peter put them up there. Probably as an excuse to snog Balthazar.”
Hero giggles. “I don’t doubt Bea had a hand in it. Whenever she’s not around me she’s with Ben.”
As he watches her face illuminate
in the glow of the Christmas lights, he realises something. Maybe she
doesn’t like him back, maybe she
never will, but he loves her. He loves the way she smiles, he loves
the way her hair shines in the sun, he loves the way her eyes sparkle, he loves the way her cheeks redden when Beatrice teases her, he loves the way she genuinely likes people. “Well anyway, I should get back to Mama.” She kisses him hastily on the cheek, close to his mouth. Her lips are warm,
and they
set his cold heart ablaze.
He loves Hero Duke, and he loves everything about her.