Chapter 41

Chapter Forty-One

Maddy

" S he's not going to tell us anything, you know," Emma grumbled as we walked towards Ana's house. "She's just going to tell us to fuck off."

"Maybe, but Dad said we need to talk to her."

"And he said she was doing the food shopping?"

"Yes, Emma," I replied, exasperated that she'd asked me the same question about a million and ten times. Shaking my head in frustration, I glanced over my shoulder at her. "Can you go any slower?"

"Yes, sure if you want me to."

She would as well, if I let her. "Come on, hurry up, we need to talk to her before her mum and dad get home."

Ana's parents ran a martial arts school but always took Saturday afternoon's off. It was the only time they were off together and so we had a window of about an hour to talk to Ana. All because Emma took ages to decide what to wear to talk to our friend about her recent hammered state at school.

A few minutes later, we approached Ana's house, and we both pulled up and stared.

"What the hell!"

Emma looked at me and then back to the bags of rubbish and overflowing bins in front of the garage, along with a black bin liner overflowing with wet clothes.

"That's not like her dad to let it get like this," I replied, frowning. "He's really particular about the appearance of the house."

"Do you think they've given Ana and Theo jobs to do and they're not doing them?" Her gaze whipped to mine. "Maybe that was why she was doing the shopping. Perhaps the garden is Theo's job."

I shrugged. "I have no clue." I took her hand in mine. "Come on let's go."

She pulled me to a stop. "Do you think Theo is home?" Whipping her lip gloss out of her jeans' pocket, she slicked it on.

Ana's older brother, Theo, was twenty and still lived at home after dropping out of uni after just a year. He was also extremely pretty. A much softer version of Ana, but taller and with muscles.

"He's probably at his girlfriend's house," I said. "Whichever one he's seeing at the moment."

"I don't believe everything that Ana says about his sex life."

She didn't want to believe her. We'd all had a crush on Theo, right from the age of eleven when he grew five inches just after his fourteenth birthday. Emma, however, had always taken it a step further believing she was in with a chance. She wasn't.

Once she felt she was ‘Theo ready' we continued on up the drive to the front door. Before we could talk ourselves out of it, I rang the doorbell. It took a few minutes, but eventually the door was pulled open by Ana.

I held back my gasp, but Emma didn't. Ana looked terrible. Her bobbed hair was scraped back in a short stubby ponytail, her clothes were grubby, and there were dark grey circles under her eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped, stepping out of the house and pulling the door closed behind her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

If I didn't think before something was wrong, I did then, seeing my friend who was part angry, part scared that we, her best friends, had shown up at her house. That hurt my heart because Ana and I had always been the best of friends. I loved Liv and Emma, but Ana was my person.

"What's going on?" Emma was right in there. "Why do you look like that? Why were you pissed at school?"

Ana's eyes widened. "Bloody hell, Emma," she said, glancing behind her, "shout it why don't you? My mum will hear you."

"Your mum is home?" I questioned. "Why isn't she at work?"

"She just isn't, okay. Now just go." Ana's eyes were suddenly wild, darting between Emma and me, then down towards the end of the drive. "You should have called me."

There was something serious going on, and it was obvious that Ana wasn't coping with it. Her appearance, the state of the garden and the drive, her being drunk and her mum not being at work—it all added up to something that we, as her friends we, shouldn't ignore.

I thought about what Dad had said, that we should help her with whatever it was troubling her. I knew that she probably would never speak to me again, but I wasn't prepared to let her fall deeper into the pit of hell that she was clearly in.

Without giving her any warning, I pushed past her, shoved the door open and strode inside.

"Maddy, no!" Ana yelled—screamed, in fact—making a grab for my arm.

"Ana, we just want to help you," Emma said behind me, her voice strained like she was struggling with something.

The door to the lounge was immediately off the small hallway, so I opened it, going in search of Susan, Ana's mum. Straight away, it was obvious what part of the issue was, because she was lying on the sofa, passed out with a bottle of vodka clutched to her chest. The room was a mess, it stunk of bleach, though—I assumed from cleaning up puke, since it was the same odour as Emma's house after we'd taken care of Ana. The curtains at the patio doors to the garden were closed, so the dining room end of the room was in a half-light. There was piles of clothes on the dining table, and the vacuum was standing next to it, the cord plugged in.

I swung around to Ana who was standing with her face in her hands, Emma's arm around her shoulder.

"Ana, what the hell has happened?" I moved quickly and pulled them both into a group hug, wanting to cry as I heard my friend's muffled sobs. "It's okay, we're here to help you."

"You shouldn't have come. You weren't supposed to find out."

Pulling away from her, I cupped her head and forced her to look at me. "What's going on?"

Behind us, Susan stirred, and Ana held her breath, only letting it go once her mum settled again.

"How long has she been like this?" Emma asked.

Ana drew in a shaky breath, swiping at tears on her cheeks. "Since Dad left."

Emma and I both gasped, exchanging a shocked glance.

"Mike's gone?" I looked at Susan who was still passed out. "When?"

"About three weeks. He left us for some fucking slag who he met at a competition." The hate in her tone for her dad felt like it scored my chest; it was so sharp. "And she started drinking and hasn't stopped since."

"Where's Theo?" Emma asked, worry thickly lacing her voice. "Why isn't he taking care of you both?"

"He's got a job in Milton Keynes. He doesn't know how bad it is." Ana's eyes swam with tears as she looked at the family picture on the mantlepiece. "He knows Dad has gone and that Mum isn't coping, but he?—"

"He doesn't know you're not coping either," I said over her, feeling a mixture of pure anger and sadness for my best friend. "You have to tell him, Ana."

"I can't. He's just started his job; it's taken him ages to find one he likes." Her shoulders shuddered, and it struck me how thin she'd become.

"How did we miss all of this?" I asked Emma.

She shook her head and looked as guilty as I felt. "I don't know."

"I just thought getting drunk like her might help," Ana offered. "That day at school. I thought if she was getting pissed all the time, then maybe it made things easier."

"Did it?" I asked, knowing the answer.

She shook her head and let out another quiet sob. I hugged her again, wondering again how we hadn't seen that she was suffering, why we'd thought she was just being moody.

"You should have told us," I whispered against her hair. "We're your friends. We would have helped you."

"I couldn't. I felt ashamed."

"Why?" Emma exclaimed. "You've got nothing to feel ashamed about. There's only one person who needs to feel like that."

I thought that both her parents should feel like that. Her dad might have left, but Susan should have been there for her daughter, not expecting Ana to be the one to keep everything together.

"How has the place got like this in three weeks?" Emma moved away from us and picked up an empty wine bottle.

"It hasn't. She's been working so much she hasn't done any cleaning for ages, and it was gradually getting worse. At first I didn't do anything," Ana informed us. "I didn't think it was up to me, so I just kept my room tidy and did my own washing. Since Dad left, though, she's given up totally, and I've been trying to take care of her and the house."

"Which is why Dad saw you in the supermarket?"

Ana nodded solemnly. "Yeah, we've had no proper food for weeks, even before it all kicked off. That was what they started arguing about. Dad was a typical twatty man expecting Mum to work full time and keep the house tidy and the fridge full."

It made me realise how good my Dad was. He expected me to do chores and help around the house, but he had everything under control as well as running the bar. I knew there were only the two of us, but even so, I couldn't imagine him expecting his wife to work and look after the house.

"But he's met someone else?" Emma asked.

Ana's expression turned angry. "Yeah. Slag. And he's a bastard."

Emma and I exchanged a worried glance as our friend's hands fisted at her side.

"Okay," I said with a resigned sigh. "What about food? Did you manage to get everything you needed from the supermarket?"

She nodded. "Dad at least remembered to transfer my allowance into my bank account, so I used it to buy food." She gave her mum an accusatory glare. "She's too fucking out of it to know where she's put her bank card for me to use that."

"Ana, you need to tell your dad," I replied. "He needs to know exactly what state she's in—what you're having to deal with."

She shook her head. "No. I don't want him to know. She wouldn't want him to know."

"But you need help," I stressed.

"I just need a couple of weeks off school, so I can get on top of everything. Then, when I have, I'll call him and ask him to come back. If the house is clean, the fridge full, and she's sober, then maybe he will."

My heart sank, because by the look of her mum I wondered if she was too far gone to get better without professional help. Then I remembered something.

"She messaged me the other day," I told her. "Asking if you'd been to school. It didn't seem like she was drunk."

"Some days she's worse than others." Ana shrugged. "She thought I was sneaking off to see Dad instead of going to school. We had a huge row about it, and she downed a bottle of wine."

Emma thrust her hands to her hips. "Okay let's get to work."

"Doing what?" Ana asked petulantly, like she'd tried everything that she could beforehand.

"Cleaning up for starters." Emma raised an eyebrow, daring her to argue. "Maybe you could get your mum in the shower, and then we'll make her some food and coffee."

I admired Emma's determination, but I couldn't help thinking that all of it was too much for us—too big a situation for three teenagers to resolve.

"Ana," I said tentatively, "if you won't call your dad or Theo, can I please get my dad to help?"

She shook her head vigorously, giving me her back as she walked away. "No. Not happening."

"Please, Ana," I begged.

When Susan stirred again on the sofa, all three of our gazes whipped in her direction. She opened one eye and licked her lips, clearly unsure of her surroundings despite being in her own home.

"Mike?"

Ana groaned and stepped back in her mum's eyeline. "He's not here. He left, remember."

Letting out a pained groan, Susan rolled onto her side to go back to sleep.

"Ana, let me call my dad." I grabbed her hand. "He knows how to deal with this sort of thing."

"Drunks, you mean." Ana, reached for the empty drink bottle and snatched it from her mum's arms.

The atmosphere became super awkward as Ana refused to give me eye contact. I wasn't letting it go easily, though. A responsible adult needed to know what was happening and if she didn't want her own dad to know then mine would.

"I mean it, Ana. You can't be dealing with all of this. Your mum is clearly not coping, you won't tell your dad or Theo and you have A-levels to think about." Her fingers curled around mine, and I felt like maybe I was getting through. "So, please let me call him."

When she opened her mouth, I had a feeling she was going to say no again. Instead, she slammed her lips shut and gave me a sharp nod.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I pulled my phone out and called his number. It only took a couple of rings and instantly he asked, "Hey, sweetheart, what do you need?"

He asked because I rarely called him when he was working, unless it was an emergency. And each and every time I asked, he said yes.

"Dad, I'm with Ana."

"Okay..."

"We need your help."

"Right, give me half an hour to sort some cover out to help Marcus, and I'll be with you."

And that was my incredible Dad. Always there when I needed him.