I brushed my lips with my fingers, and they felt strange. Different. I wished I could think of words to make it better, but none came. I just sat and churned and stewed until I was a nervous mess.
We arrived too quickly, and I wasn’t ready for it.
He pulled up at the back of my house and didn’t turn off the engine. I gathered my school things, and my hands were shaky, and suddenly there was a lump in my throat, as though this was it, over as soon as it had started.
I could feel him staring as I rooted around my bag, pretending to check I had everything. I knew I had everything.
“This was all my fault, Helen. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said, and my voice was a mousy squeak again. “Please don’t say that.”
“But I am.” He turned his head to check through the windows, but there was nobody around, just us and the occasional passing car on the main road, and the darkness of the alleyway. He sighed. “If you want to talk about this, not just with me, but with other people… if you want to tell people about this, I understand. You have every right.”
I smiled at the absurdity. “That’s the last thing I’d ever want.”
“Perhaps it shouldn’t be. I don’t deserve your protection, Helen.”
“Please don’t say that,” I said. “That’s not how I feel…”
“I should never have… this should never have…”
I shook my head to blank out his words, and the tears were coming. I could feel them springing up, but I didn’t want them to. I didn’t want to be such a little girl.
“Helen, this is all on me. My fault entirely.”
“And that’s it, is it? Just a mistake?” I closed my eyes, and scrambled for the door handle, but his hand was on my arm.
“Please don’t be upset…”
The contact broke me, and I unclipped my seat belt and moved to him. He recoiled for just a moment, but he had nowhere to go. The gearstick dug into my leg as I flung my arms around his shoulders and buried my face in his neck, and he had no choice but to let me.
“Please don’t hate me…” I said, and my voice was pathetic and timid. “I don’t want you to hate me… I couldn’t bear it…”
I felt him swallow, and then I felt his arms as they wrapped around me. He squeezed me, and it was warm, and safe, and I breathed him in, his lovely smell. “I could never hate you, Helen. I would never hate you.”
He pushed me away by my shoulders, and sighed as he saw my watery eyes. I tried to turn from him but he wouldn’t let me, his fingers gripped my chin, and then he brushed my tears away with his thumb.
“Please don’t cry.”
“But I wanted it, I really wanted it…”
He pressed his lips to my forehead and smoothed my hair, but it wasn’t like earlier. “You should go inside now, Helen.”
“We can still be friends? Please say we can still be friends…”
“We’re still friends, Helen, nothing’s changed.”
I wished I believed him. With a breath I opened the door and forced myself outside.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
I felt him watch me while I walked away. I hovered at the bottom of my garden, wishing he’d come after me, just to say something, anything. But he didn’t.
I heard the car rumble away, and I took long breaths, trying to steady my jelly legs before I made my way inside.
It took a long, long time.
***
Mark
Stupid, reckless, selfish, irresponsible bloody idiot.
I was disgusted with myself, and I wasn’t sure which was worse. Taking advantage of a young girl in my car, or watching her cry because of it.
I took out a cigarette as I cleared the road from hers, and there were only a couple left in the packet. I took a detour to the supermarket, keeping my head down as I grabbed another load from the kiosk. I had a feeling I’d need them.
I was almost back out through the door before I heard footsteps behind me. I flinched as a hand landed on my arm, nerves shot to hell.
“Mark! What a perfect coincidence! I’ve been meaning to catch up with you.” Jenny Monkton’s freckled face smiled up at me, and my guilty conscience made my heart thump. She blew a spiral of red hair from her eyes. “I rarely see you in the staffroom these days, I thought you’d disappeared from the face of the earth.”
Jenny’s drama room was at the opposite end of the complex, far enough away that we rarely crossed paths around school. That was partly it, anyway. The truth is that she’d asked me out for a drink in the year after Anna’s death, and I’d had neither the peace of mind nor the inclination to take her up on it. Things had never quite been the same between us since then.