The Things I Should Have Told You

I look for Luke. Nope, he’s not there. The only person I want to see, but it appears that’s not the case for him. One perfect evening with him, and then he disappears off the face of the earth. Have Martina and Deirdre been spreading rumours to him about me? I thought he was different. I thought he really liked me.

Yes, we should go on this trip. It’s what Pops wants and I’ve nothing to stay here for. Although, how the hell I’ll cope living so close with my crazy family, I don’t know. At least here I can disappear to my room. Sometimes I wonder how we’re even related. I’ve always felt a little different to them. I’m not saying that to be dramatic and I don’t mean it in a bad way. We all kind of look alike, but we don’t like the same things. Dad calls me the family’s resident geek.

Pops used to say, ‘The people who make fun of geeks, usually end up calling those same geeks “boss” one day.’ Pops always knew what to say to make me feel good. I picture being Martina or Deirdre’s boss one day. I’d make their lives hell. See how they like it having someone on their case morning, noon and night. Ha!

Pops was a geek too. That’s why we got on so well. But now he’s gone and I’m all on my own. Who’ll buy me the Guinness Book of Records Annual now? I can’t remember a year when he didn’t buy it for me and we’d spend hours poring over it, checking out the new entries. A pain stabs me with the realisation that we will never do that again.

‘Time to check out the family annual,’ Pops would joke every time. Pops had me convinced for the longest time that the whole thing was named after us. We swore we’d do a record attempt one day together.

Another pain of regret. My bad, Pops. I should have made us do something when you got sick. I should have thought about you instead of all of the stuff going on in school and online.

I should have … damn it …

I pick up the 2015 album and flick through it to try and stop the should-haves driving me demented. I love reading about the crazy things people do to break records. At a guess, I would say that for almost every day of my life since I was seven I’ve read about at least one new record. Some are much cooler than others. Some are downright weird.

‘There’s nowt so queer as folk,’ Pops always says. Said. It’s past tense now. I bite my lip till I taste metallic blood. It works and I hold my own record for being the non-crying Guinness family member.

I come to the bookmarked page, the last thing I ever read to Pops. The day he died, I told him all about this guy from the Czech Republic. A dude called Fakir something or other. Anyhow, he only decided to break the record for the most days being buried alive. Why anyone would want to do that baffled us, but I was fascinated by the actual doing of the feat. Yep, Pops, you’re right. Nowt so queer as folk.

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