It seemed like the only person I’d ever been safely able to talk about any of this with was Steven, and that had turned into a big mess.
I was going to do everything I could to avoid my life turning into an even bigger mess.
“I don’t think about him,” I said. “But sometimes it feels weird. Like, there’s this whole big part of us we know almost nothing about.”
Ryan braked a little harder at a stoplight than he usually did. “Not almost nothing. We know the guy is a scumbag, a woman-beater. We know he hurt you. That’s fucking enough, wouldn’t you think?”
The funny thing was, the anger in Ryan’s voice right now was scaring me a lot more than being in Brad’s presence had at lunchtime.
The idea of facing Mum again was scaring me a lot more.
When the lights changed and Ryan started the car rolling again, he seemed a bit calmer for the outburst. “Sometimes finding out more isn’t a good idea, Tamara. Sometimes it only makes things worse.”
I felt that, more than I could tell him. If only I could have kept being that Tamara I knew Mum loved: a quiet girl who hid away and didn’t make drama. The precious girl she thought she had saved.
But there was something else in me that was the complete opposite of that girl—maybe something that had come from Brad Chalmers. All I knew was it was just as much a part of me, and it meant I was not going to be able to let go of this now it had started. I wouldn’t let go of anything.
Chapter Eighteen: Steven
During Monday lunchtime, she came to me.
I’d gone to get something I left in my car and I slammed the boot closed and stood and there she was, staring at me. Her arms were folded tightly and her lips were quivering. I wanted those lips on my cock, like, five minutes ago.
Unfortunately she was gearing up to talk instead.
“So yeah, as you already know, I got in contact with my dad.” She moved around the car so both of us had it between us and the rest of the school. Somehow the sight of her fucking knees peeking out from her skirt had me desperate for her. I didn’t know why I was so obsessed with this girl, but the whole thing was going some seriously unhealthy places.
And right now none of that mattered, because she’d led right into what I needed to talk about right now. “Your dad is fucking Brad Chalmers.”
I could tell I’d scared her at first, spitting it out like that, but then a grin spread across her face. “You footy boys, do you just know all the old players?”
“He’s memorable because he never was a player. Just fucking disappeared… well, I guess we know why now.”
Tamara shook her head. “He says he never did it. Says he and my mum split up for… other reasons, and she lied.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yeah,” Tamara said. “I think I do. Anyway, you can guess why he never played in any of the teams.”
A familiar injustice. Had I sensed something about him, when I kept his story in my head all those years? It didn’t seem like it could be possible.
Tamara stepped closer to me, intruding into my space. I was surprised my shy little fighter had been able to do that when her blood wasn’t up. It definitely put my blood up. “I know I have no right to ask… but did something similar happen to you? With your…?”
I was glad she didn’t dare to name it. It would have made it so much harder. I wanted to give her the complete truth, especially after what she’d just given me, and…
Those big eyes stared into mine. They seemed to stare past mine.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t take that step that would make her see me as someone who could be beaten down so easily.
I shrugged. “We all make mistakes when we’re young, don’t we?” She wouldn’t understand, of course, but that was also true about my situation.
I sort of expected her to back away from me then, to go cold at least, but she nodded. “I’ve made a few.”
It was like she’d been expecting me to say something like that all along… which made me wonder. “Is that what you thought when you found out about it? That there must have been—that maybe it didn’t…”
Tamara was squirming. I realised I’d moved closer to her too, boxing her in against my car again. Something about her body language was very different this time, though. She was slumping a little, almost inviting me in. “I thought there were a lot of potential explanations. It didn’t seem right to just believe the worst.”
I fucking got it now. She’d been hoping I would turn out to be not such a bad guy after all.