Rosie Loves Jack by Mel Darbon Excerpt

JACK
December 2
“I’m not going, Mum, I’m not going to leave Rosie.”
the step.
I drop my bag with a thunk and dig my boots into the snow piled up against
“You don’t have any choice, Jack.”
“It’s not my fucking fault.”
“Don’t you dare swear! Not your fault? Whose is it then?” Spit flies out of her
mouth lit up by the security light outside our front door.
“My shitty, damaged brain. That’s whose fault it is.”
Mum keeps on walking up the path, dismissing me with a backward wave of
her arm. I cross my arms around my chest.
She turns to look at me. Her face is crisscrossed with worry lines. “Jack,
you’ve got to start being responsible for your actions.”
“You always say that, but I don’t get what it means.”
“I’m sorry but you can’t pull the brain damage card every time you do
something bad. No! Don’t interrupt – harsh I know, but you need some home truths.
Rosie doesn’t blame her Down syndrome for everything that goes wrong, does she?”
Mum’s eyes are shiny with tears. I wish I could paintbrush them out.
“You keep saying you’ll try, but it never happens. All the promises, Jack…”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “I know, but it’s not that easy.”
Mum sighs and looks at me with her weary, “I give up” look. “I know, but
1

you’ve got to at least try.”
She pushes a rust-red curl back under her forest green beret. I feel bad inside
me. I don’t want to upset my mum, but I can’t leave Rosie.
“Why am I being sent away to a place near Brighton to get better? It’s crazy.
It’s miles away from Rosie. All I need is Rosie, to get better.”
“Poor Rosie.”
“Why poor?”
Mum walks briskly up to the gate, trying not to fall over on the ice-blackened
stones. “Get a move on, Jack. It’s freezing out here and night driving isn’t my
favorite, as you know.”
“Then don’t friggin’ do it, stay here.”
Mum keeps going.
“I can’t leave her. MUM!”
She slips on the ice, puffing out angry air with a hiss. “You’ve hurt a teacher at your
school. You could have blinded her. You’re bloody lucky you’re not going to a prison, so get
your butt in the car. Oh god, it’s started to snow again that’s going to make it a nightmare
drive.”
She struggles to open the gate, but the wood has swollen in the wet weather. I don’t
move. Mum heaves it open, enough to squeeze through the gap.
2

“You’re just delaying the inevitable, Jack. I’ve made my mind up this time, not that
you’ve any choice in the matter.”
Giant snowflakes tumble down from the streetlight-amber sky. I sit down on the
ground not caring if my arse gets wet. “Plenty of guys get angry.”
“But they don’t put people in the hospital.” Mum’s voice is icy cold. If I
painted it, it would be colourless.
“It’s. Not. My. Fault. Mum.”
“Just get in the car, Jack.”
I don’t know what to do. My head is going to explode. I hit and hit my head
with my fist but it doesn’t knock my anger out.
Mum shouts from the car. “Get a move on! We’ve got a long way to go.”
I can hear the engine coughing and spluttering into life. Clouds of white smoke
huff out of the exhaust pipe and puff up to the sky. I kick at our dustbin, as hard as I
can. It sends the lid skimming across the snow. A black cat yowls and shoots across
the path into the road. I aim my foot at it as it flashes past me and my phone falls out
of my jeans pocket. As I pick it up, I see I’ve missed a call from Rosie. “Shit, shit,
shit!” I hurl it against the wall. There’s a thwack, as it lands in the flower bed. Bits of
glass wink at me as they scatter across the snow-frozen earth.
“That serves you right.” Mum’s grim face hovers in front of me. “Get in the
car before I change my mind and drive you to the police station.”
“You…you wouldn’t.” My voice shakes.
“Try me.”
I pick up my phone and shake it. It’s dead.
“What am I going to do about my phone?”
3

“Suffer the consequences of your actions.”
“What about Rosie? I need to talk to her.” My chest has gone tight. It is full up
with fear.
I follow Mum out onto the street. She holds the passenger seat door open for
me. I throw my bag on the seat next to her and get into the back of the car and slam
the door.
“Why have you got in the back?”
“I don’t want to sit next to you.” I kick the back of the passenger seat.
Mum looks over her shoulder at me. “That’s just why you are going to Manor
House Farm.”
Underneath the angry, I just want to cry. I hate me.
She opens the window. A blast of cold air blows right in my face.
“Shut the window.”
“Please, and, no, I need to stay awake.”
I stick my earphones in hard and turn the volume up, so it buzzes like a wasp,
which annoys the hell out of Mum. I can’t stop my nasty.
I see her frowning at me in the rearview mirror. Her mouth is moving up and
down. Then she looks heartbroken. I can’t stand doing that. I pull my hat down over
my eyes and push myself lower down in the seat. I want to block everything out.
I picture Rosie in my head, and I can see her face, penciled with grief, as the
policeman leads me by the arm down the corridor of our college. She calls my name,
“Jack! JAAACK!” but there’s nothing I can do. I shouldn’t have let Matt Davidson
get to me. I’m not a moron. He’s the prick. Rosie says I should just ignore him and
she’s right, but it’s too late. I’ve blown it.
4

The motorway lights go on and off my eyelids as we drive past.
Dark…light…dark…light. London Grammar fills my head with song. It feels like this
road will never end.
I sit up with a jolt. My music has stopped, and my face is frozen from the wind
that rushes through the car from the front. A big truck whistles past spraying snow
against the windscreen. Some spatters on my face, but it’s too numb to feel it.
The windscreen wipers judder across the glass. I pull my earphones out and
everything gets louder. I rub my eyes.
“Are we nearly there yet?”
“A bit of a way to go.” Mum’s voice is heavy with tiredness. “We sat in a
queue of snow-bound traffic for ages back there on the A331 past Farnborough. I
thought we might have to turn off and find a hotel to stay in for the night.” Mum
yawns, not bothering to put her hand over her mouth. “I can barely keep my eyes
open.”
“We should have waited for the snow to melt.”
“It was now or never, Jack. This isn’t easy for me either, you know.”
The car headlights catch Mum’s eyes in the mirror. They make stars out of her
tears.
“I’m scared.”
“I know you are, but I’m scared of what you might do since all that anger has
5

resurfaced since your grandma died. Not even Rosie has been able keep you calm and
neither should she have to. I don’t want to live constantly on edge, worrying when the
phone rings and not wanting to answer it.” She swallows and swallows. “I can’t do it,
Jack, not anymore, I can’t sit back and watch while you throw your life away; and I
won’t let you. And it’s certainly not fair to do that to Rosie either.”
“Rosie loves me. We’d do anything for each other. I’m not Jack without her
and she’s not Rosie without me. We fit together. She keeps all the paint colors in my
head and not just the red screaming between my ears.”
My voice breaks and I have to swallow a few times to stop myself from
crying. I know if I start, I won’t be able to stop. And that will break Mum’s heart.
Mum glances at me in the mirror. “You were doing so well…” Her tears fall
down her face. She sniffs, looks over her shoulder and makes a smile for me. I know
it’s not real.
A black mood seeps into me, ebony black, the color of my pain.
We travel in silence for a bit, each of us deep in our own thoughts. Mine get
darker and darker. I rest my hand on the door handle and think how easy it would be
to unclip my seat belt, pull the handle out, open the door and roll out of the car. It
would all be over. The anger that comes out of nowhere. The hate I feel for me. The
frustration at my brain. All gone…but then Rosie would be gone too, and I couldn’t
6

bear that. She’s my reason for waking up in the morning and my reason for putting
one foot in front of the other during the day.
“Shouldn’t be too long now. The sky has cleared a bit. That’s quite a moon up
there.”
“I want to go home, Mum.”
“I know, Jack.”
“I promise I’ll be good; I’ll try harder, I know I can do it.”
Mum sobs, her unhappy bursting out of her.
“One more chance, Mum.”
“J…Jack, there are no more chances.”
I take a photo of Rosie out my pocket. “I’ll be back to get you, Rosie. No one
can stop me.”
“Oh, Jack.” Mum says.
In the distance, the moon shines on the endless grey sea between the gap in the
Hills, liquid mercury.
Rosie loves the moon.
When I was little, I would get excited when I saw the sea because I knew it
meant we were nearly at the beach. Now it depresses me. I would paint a sea creature
shooting shadows through my body and pulling me down into the deep with its sucker
-tight tentacles.
“Jack, can you smell the salt on the air? Do you remember when you were
little, and you’d start looking for the sea when I’d only just got to the end of the
drive? Look – the water is so beautiful in the moonlight.”
I turn away from the window.
7

“Maybe you could see this as a fresh start?”
“For who Mum? Not for me and Rosie. I’m not splitting up with her. Rosie’s
different, she’s special.”
“Yes, she is.” Mum’s voice softens.
“Not being with her is the worst thing ever.”
“Everyone feels that when they first fall in love – it’s ten times more intense.”
“I don’t know in-tense.”
“Very powerful.”
I smile to myself. “I like that, powerful, that’s what being with Rosie feels
like, that we can do anything when we’re together and no one can stop us, no matter
what shitty things they might say.”
“One day you’ll find someone else who will make you feel the same. I
promise.”
“Don’t say ‘someone else’, Mum. Don’t think that! There’s only Rosie for me
and I know she feels the same way. Why can’t anyone get that?”
Mum doesn’t answer and I’m too exhausted to try and get her too. I shut my
eyes again and hope that when I open them, I’ll be back home on my Xbox, waiting
for Rosie to come round, so I can talk to her and none of this will be real.
When I eventually look out the window to see where we are, I can just make
out we are driving into a tunnel of shadow-gloomy trees. It gets darker and darker,
until we see squares of yellow light at the end, which get bigger as we get nearer.
I feel sick.
“Well, this is it.”
Mum pulls the car to a stop and a bright light floods the front of the house.
Mum sighs and rubs her eyes. The front door opens, and a lady with ash-tinted hair
8

runs out and leans through the car window.
“Mrs. Darby?”
Mum nods. “Yes, sorry, we’re later than I said.”
“I’m Sylvia Matthews – the one you spoke to on the phone. I was concerned
you wouldn’t be able to get here at all with all this snow. Welcome to Manor House
Farm. You must be exhausted and frozen. Let’s get you both in the warm.”
Mum opens her door, which makes the woman stand up and back. She puts
out her hand to help Mum out. Mum smiles and clasps it tight.
“Thank you for taking Jack at such short notice.”
Her voice falls apart.
The lady hugs her and rubs her hand up and down her back. She gets a tissue
from up her sleeve and gives it to Mum. Then she walks over to my door and pulls it
open. “And you must be Jack.”
I pull my hat down even lower.
I’m not getting out of the car.
9