Well, I didn’t need to stalk her around just to get laid or whatever. If she just needed someone at the moment, I could be that.
I knew from prior experience there were some gaps in Tamara’s ability to function in the world, so I took her around to the bank I used and helped her to open a new account. Apparently her old one was a joint account she shared with her mother, good fucking grief. By the time I was sixteen I didn’t let my mother wash my underwear, let alone get involved with my finances.
We were both a bit drained after the bank employees tried to sell us ten thousand different things we didn’t even slightly have the money for, so we grabbed iced coffees at a food court around the corner from the bank to warm us up for lunch. It was only eleven o’clock, and high school gets you too used to eating at one. Tamara sat on the edge of her little chair like a princess, her eyes shifting around as she sipped.
At first I was just enjoying watching her, then my brain made an unwelcome connection to Julia, and then it all started to come together for me.
“Jesus, Tamara.” I raked my fingers—half of them much clumsier than the other half—through my hair. “You’ve put a few more targets on you today. Julia is going to—”
Tamara was surprisingly cool. “Julia’s going to what? Keep forcing you to violate the conditions of your restraining order when you have a sympathetic witness to her antics? I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know what she’s capable of.” But Tamara’s confidence was messing with me.
“She can claim what she likes, if she wants to get bitchy. But I’m willing to contradict her as many times as necessary.” The way she was pouting was really cute. I wished I could thank her with a kiss, but of course that was not right at the moment.
I hated that I had to give her a jolt of reality instead. “You know it’s not going to mean much for my life in general, right? I can’t do anything to erase the parts of this that are public record. I can’t try to play footy professionally unless I want to be seeing Julia’s trumped-up trauma splashed across the front pages of the local newspapers. I’m always going to be a little hamstrung by this…” She was frowning at me, twisting a bit of hair between the fingers of her swollen punching hand. “…and any woman who has anything to do with me is going to face a lot of judgement.”
Tamara shrugged. “I’m starting to think being a woman is all about judgement. Every minute of it. But that’s not such a bad thing. It helps you to work out where you stand in life, what you’re willing to fight for.”
She gave me a smile I thought was damn pretty because there was nothing behind it. No agenda, just a smile. “Jess adores you, Steven, and I… I don’t know where we’re going from here, I think it’s going to be very difficult. But I think I want to choose to keep you in my life.”
I didn’t even know what to call the way I felt about her right now. All I knew was that I loved the way it felt.
Love. Maybe that…
I’d never reall
y been able to love any of the women around me in the way I’d wanted, there was always so much fear in the mix. I’d always thought that was somehow my fault.
Whatever this was, it made me want to try to do better. To fight for her in a way that wouldn’t leave so much damage.
I didn’t want to say any of it to her. Words shared privately between two people could be used so easily to trap someone who was on the edge.
I just looked at her, right in her eyes, and let her see whatever she would.
After lunch, I invited Steven back to the room I was sharing with Jess. I wanted to check on her anyway, and I thought Steven might be an even more welcome surprise than me. That was the story, at least.
I didn’t start feeling nervous until the door clicked shut behind us and it became apparent from the room looking almost as neat as it had when we’d arrived, excepting our slightly chaotic belongings, that Jess wasn’t there. She’d left a note explaining she had decided to go for a walk while the sun was out. To refresh her brain for studying, of course. She’d taken the credit card Steven left for us, and I was pretty sure the housekeeping staff hadn’t decided to pick up her textbooks and put them back in her suitcase.
I sank onto the couch. “I don’t think I’m ready to be a substitute parent to a teenager. An even younger teenager than me, I mean.”
Steven joined me carefully. “You know what I think? It’s going to sink in she’s yours, your sister, and then you’re going to be absolutely menacing. Nobody and nothing will get past you.”
“It’s funny, that’s really the energy I get from you,” I admitted.
His eyes on me felt almost feline, definitely predatory. “Do you like that?”
My words were mostly breath. “Yeah.”
Steven frowned like he was trying to make sense of something he was being told, then he muttered, “Oh, fuck it,” and leaned towards me.
I stiffened when his mouth pressed against mine, firm but gentle, exploratory, not like he’d ever been with me before.
Then all sorts of images started coming up in my head, one on top of the other: things that had happened recently, things Steven had done… things I was only imagining.
I put my hands on his chest to push him away from me, but once we’d broken apart I kept them there.
“Sorry,” Steven muttered. “That was a fuck-up. I knew I shouldn’t… I couldn’t…”