Tegan Pennells. Daughter of the man who donated his heart to my old man. You probably couldn’t get much more complicated than that. She wouldn’t leave my head, though. I couldn’t stop seeing that look on her face. Her dad died and she was devastated.
I wanted to help her but I had no idea how. Mum and Alison kept in touch and I knew my twin sister, Grace and Tegan’s sister, Ava talked but Tegan never reached out and I wasn’t sure if she wanted to. Couldn’t blame her, I don’t think I’d want to talk to the people that were still a complete family because mine wasn’t.
“I’m not stressing over her and I don’t know.” I rubbed my forehead. “I wanna do something. We owe her whole family so much.”
“Her dad made a choice, it’s not one you have to pay for, Lucas, that’s not how it works.”
“Yeah, I get that. He did it to help someone else, it’s selfless and an incredible legacy, but to me he saved my dad’s life and I want to do something to help his daughter.”
“Alright, I get it. Just be prepared for her to not want your help. Anyway, we better get this car sprayed fucking pink.” He turned his nose up. “I swear if I didn’t need to eat I’d refuse to fuck cars up this way.”
I grabbed my spray gun and mask and headed out back. Leon’s words stuck around. She might not want or need my help but from what Grace had said, Alison and Ava were doing as well as you could under the circumstances but Tegan was all over the place.
No matter what anyone said I owed it to Simon to try.
Chapter Four
Tegan
I was probably becoming immune to alcohol because when I woke up I didn’t want to saw my own head off. That suited me just fine. I wanted the freedom from thinking that being drunk gave me but I was totally fine not having a hangover in the morning.
I drained the bottle of water I’d left on my bedside table. It tasted foul being warm but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything anymore.
Heading downstairs for dry toast, tea and painkillers, I could hear the hushed voices of my mum and sister.
They were doing okay. The funeral was a turning point for them. They cried a lot and missed him like crazy but they also spoke about him and smiled. I had absolutely no idea how they could do that without grief consuming them. I couldn’t stand it. Them saying things like ‘remember when…’ or ‘he loved this…’
All past tense stuff. In a short space of time I’d learned how to successfully shut myself down to everything going on and there was no way I was coming out of that.
Mum and Ava sat at the kitchen table drinking tea. I could tell Mum had been crying by the light red tint around her eyes, slightly hidden by concealer.
“Morning,” I muttered as I opened the medicine cupboard.
“Good morning, honey,” Mum whispered. My heart squeezed at how sad she sounded. I clenched my jaw and concentrated on popping the little while pills out of the packet. Don’t care. I wanted to be empty. It was simpler.
The funeral was three weeks ago, to the day. Up until then – for the six days before that – literally all Mum and Ava did was cry and hold each other.
The funeral was the second worst day of my life. I felt like I was on the edge of drowning the whole time and I didn’t know how to get out of the water. I was lost. My family all came together to say goodbye. They all threw dirt onto his coffin and whispered their goodbyes. I stood still, staring into space and trying not to fall apart. I was encouraged to say goodbye, too, by almost everyone. But I couldn’t. I wanted him back, not to throw mud at him and walk away.
The house was painfully silent now. Before it was filled with music and laughter. The piano was always being played by one of us. Now I couldn’t even go into the music room.
“I spoke to Emily yesterday,” Mum said. My hand tightened around the glass of water. Why she wanted to keep in touch with the family of the man that got his heart I didn’t know. “Carl’s doing well and they’ve asked us to visit one weekend.”
“What?” My heart fell into my stomach. Is she fucking serious? I knew they all spoke but I didn’t know they wanted to see them. That was a doubly horrible day. Mum stayed at the hospital talking to Emily and her family for a little while, taking comfort in the knowledge that she knew where her husband’s heart was going.
Mum smiled. “Tegan, I know it’s a difficult and an…unusual situation, but I think it will be good for us all.”
“I’m not going,” I said.
“We’re all going, Tegan. We need this.” She got up and left the room. We didn’t need a visit to the Daniels’ house. We needed Dad.
I narrowed my eyes and shoved the pills in my mouth.
“You’re being really selfish, Tegan,” Ava said. “Can’t you just do this for her?”
“Shut up, Ava. Why do you want to go there? What good could it possibly do?” Tears prickled in my eyes. I will not cry. Push it away. Breathing deeply, I managed to distance myself, returning to the safety of what felt like my dungeon.
“They’re good people and we have a connection to Dad.”
That was my limit. I couldn’t hear any more without screaming at her. I fled the room and went back upstairs.