He's After Me - By Chris Higgins Page 0,1

My little sister’s about to kick off because she can’t get her own way. I’ve seen it so many times before and it still does my head in.

‘I HATE YOU!’ screams Livi. ‘YOU’VE RUINED MY LIFE!’ She dashes into the bedroom and slams the door as hard as she can. From inside comes the sound of angry sobbing.

‘Happy days!’ says Dad with a grimace and tops up his glass again before slumping down beside me on the sofa. He pats my knee, like I’m his mate, his ally in all this.

Irritated, I get to my feet and walk over to the huge window with its view over the docks, and lean my head against its cool surface.

It’s like a furnace in here. I don’t just mean the heating. Livi with her tantrums. Dad with his menopausal affair. Me, overdosing on hormones myself, getting the hots for someone I’ll never ever see again.

Outside the rain, sleeting off the sea, drums horizontally against the glass. Dad’s right, it is a filthy night; who would want to be out in this? Down below, small boats clash together in the harbour and the wind whips litter up into the air to disappear over the wall into the gaping black void of the sea.

A movement in the bus shelter across the road catches my eye and I peer down through the driving rain, trying to focus on the one lone person in the world mad enough to be waiting for a bus in this weather.

I breathe in sharply as a current courses through my veins. He is looking up at me.

Feet planted squarely, hands in pockets, chest thrust out, from this angle only his chin is visible beneath his hood. But I know he can see me looking down at him. And I know he is watching me.

Suddenly I am aware how totally exposed I am up here at the very top of the building with all the lights blazing behind me. Anyone could see me out there in the darkness – any nutter or drifter or sad, lonely loser.

I step back so he can’t see me any more. My heart is thudding.

When I look back, he’s gone.

She’d seen him, he could tell by the way she’d suddenly stepped back from the window. They were up there in the top flat.

Take your time now, he told himself, don’t rush things. You’ve got all the time in the world. You’re good at waiting.

CHAPTER TWO

Next morning I wake up on the edge.

Literally.

On the edge of the bed, with Livi’s gaping, unconscious mouth exhaling stale morning breath in my face.

From the bedroom next door come Dad’s red wine snores. He polished off the first bottle when the pizzas arrived and was well into the second by the time I took myself to bed.

I couldn’t sleep. Livi was yakking away on her phone half the night trying to trace the whereabouts of some kid called Ferret who wasn’t answering his phone. Ferret! My sister was sending out a missing persons alert for a guy named after a polecat! Now she was dead to the world, exhausted by her failure to track him down.

I can’t imagine what it must it be like to care about someone that much.

I shower, dig jeans and various layers out of my bag, and go in search of breakfast. There’s not much here hiding in the cupboards, but I help myself to Jude’s seriously healthy muesli and splash skimmed milk over it. It’s like rabbit food. I can’t see my dad eating it.

And then, just to show how little you actually know someone, even if you’ve lived with them all your life, Dad comes out of his bedroom dressed in running gear. I nearly choke on my dried banana and coconut flakes. He opens the fridge, takes out the orange juice and tosses it straight back from the carton.

‘Coming for a jog?’ he asks.

I stare at him, rendered speechless by the sight of my father in very short shorts with a discernable paunch, drinking juice from a box.

‘Right then,’ he says, sounding a bit miffed, ‘see you in a bit.’ And he’s gone.

I watch transfixed through the window as he re-emerges into the square below and does a few stretches. Then he’s off, running across the road towards the harbour.

‘What you doing?’ My sister, bed-haired and pandaeyed, appears at my elbow.

‘Look.’ We stare down at him together, me still spooning dried fruit and oats into my mouth, Livi in pyjamas, yawning and scratching her armpit,