Chapter 9 #3
I pulled him down on top of me, because that’s what I thought I should do.
Like most kids that age, I’d watched too many movies and films, and had no idea of how awkward the actual act of physical union could be.
Even kissing someone was a logistical nightmare – the clashing teeth, the swiping noses, the bumping foreheads.
So I did what I’d seen on screen, and dragged him into my arms. It must have been comical really – he was the same size as me then, and undoubtedly terrified at this unexpected contact.
‘Let’s do it,’ I’d whispered, tugging at his clothes. ‘We might not see each other again. We’re both old enough. Let’s get it out of the way…’ So romantic.
I recall grabbing his hand and shoving it underneath my pyjama top – the momentary thrill as his fingers touched my breasts, and the feel of his body pressed against me, responding exactly how most sixteen-year-old boys would at getting to second base without even trying.
Drunk as we were, that kiss with Liam was already a million times better than any of the kisses I’d endured before.
I actually started to feel excited, genuinely curious, tingling in places I didn’t know could tingle.
I rubbed up against him in a way I assumed was sexy, having no clue at all what I was doing but knowing I didn’t want it to stop. I was young, I was na?ve, and I was drunk. He was all of those things too, but obviously not as tipsy as me – because he suddenly rolled off me and pushed me away.
I tried to pull him back, determined to do this insane thing, but he shouted at me to stop. He climbed to his feet, and I stared up at him, feeling sick, rejected. Humiliated. ‘No,’ he said, ‘this isn’t right. It’s not… not what you really want. You’re just pissed and sad.’
I staggered upright, wobbling from side to side, and tried to kiss him again. ‘I do want it!’ He shoved me away more firmly then, and I fell flat on my backside.
‘No, Ellie, you don’t – and I don’t either! This is weird now… I’m going home, okay? You should too. Come on, let’s go.’
He tried to help me back up, but I screamed at him to feck off.
I was feeling so bad by that point, emotionally and physically.
Liam, the boy I trusted most in the whole world, didn’t want me.
Therefore I must be unwantable. Unlovable.
Unlikeable. Maybe that was why my dad didn’t even want me to stay here with him, because I was such a loser…
I made him go, lashing out and kicking at his ankles until he had no choice.
Then I threw up in a carrier bag, and spent the night alone on the beach.
Freezing cold, drunk, and broken hearted.
I didn’t really get any sleep, and when dawn finally came I felt like a different person.
As the booze started to clear my system, I was flooded with regret and with self-loathing.
A part of me wanted to just walk into the ocean and end all of this pain, all of this sadness.
I was no use to anyone, especially myself.
I cried so much my eyes glued together, and I realised I’d made a terrible mistake.
I’d thrown myself at Liam. I’d tried to persuade him to have sex with me, and he said no.
Why the hell had I done that? What was my problem?
Why was I such an idiot? And was I so repulsive that no boy would ever be interested in me?
It didn’t help that I had actually enjoyed the contact, while he seemed disgusted by it.
I’d staggered back up the steps and forced myself to go to his house. Bernadette was already up and making breakfast for the tribe and ushered me inside without asking a single question. It was considered normal for me to turn up looking like crap at six in the morning.
Liam was crashed out on the sofa in their small living room, curled up in a ball under one of her woollen creations. I wanted to apologise. I wanted to beg him to forgive me. I wanted everything to feel okay again.
I nudged him awake, and he scurried away in horror when he saw it was me. ‘Liam. Sorry. Please don’t be a dick. I was just drunk, okay?’
He’d rubbed his eyes, looked at me warily. ‘Yeah, I know that, Ellie. But what the feck? You totally freaked me out. I, uh… look, it’ll all be okay, but I need a bit of time, all right? Just leave me alone for a bit while I sort my head out will you? I just need a bit of time off.’
This was the first time ever in the history of our whole lives together that he had asked me to leave him alone. From seven years old until now, we had been joined at the hip, allies in life. Soul mates. And now, I could tell by the look on his face, that was all over.
I just mumbled a reply and left, my cheeks burning and my heart breaking and everything in my entire life crumbling around me.
Quite obviously, I could never, ever talk to him or see him ever again. I had now lost my best friend on top of everything else.
It sounds insane, but even now I still feel how hard those feelings hit me.
It’s still visceral and real, and immense – it was like being flattened by a ten-ton truck.
It was so bewildering and painful, and I never really let it go.
I was upset and mortified enough for that sense of embarrassment to take permanent hold.
It became so deep-rooted that I am still affected by it now.
I avoided Liam as much as I could after that, convinced that if we were alone in the same room ever again, I would simply explode with misery.
I refused to go to school, and when I did see him, I wouldn’t make eye contact or speak to him. It was an immature response, but I was only a child really. It must have hurt him too, this sudden ending, but I simply couldn’t bear being near him because it made me feel even worse.
He tried to explain himself, to make things right, but he didn’t ever quite understand – it was nothing that he could make right.
My shame came from the way I had behaved as much as the way he responded.
Nothing would ever make it right, I knew – and that is a feeling that has stuck with me for all these years.
It’s why when I moved, I shut out all memories of my time here, of our closeness.
Why I never wanted to hear the name Liam Byrne ever again.
It was easier to pretend he had never existed than to face my own humiliation.
He called me, on Christmas Day that year, and it was the last time we spoke.
I told him to stop bothering me, that he was ‘doing my head in’.
I said I was leaving for America anyway, and none of it mattered – he should just forget all about me.
That I planned on forgetting all about him as well.
I pushed and pushed, and eventually he’d yelled: ‘Fine! You can piss off then, you moody cow!’
I cringe now, seeing how transparent it all was – lashing out at him like that.
I hated myself and everything else, and I poured it into my response to Liam.
I did my very best to stick to my word though, and forget all about him.
I numbed myself to him, and everything he represented.
More than two decades have passed since then, and I have never once spoken to him since.
When he called me a moody cow, they were the last words we shared.
Until tonight. Or last night, I correct myself, realising that it is almost three am.
Last night, Liam Byrne walked back into my life – and it went so much better than I could ever have imagined.
If I’d known he was here, I’d have been so stressed out.
I would still have come to help my dad, but I would have been dreading it, and possibly walked around the village in disguise in an attempt to avoid a reunion.
Never would I have believed that it would actually have all gone so well. That despite a few moments of awkwardness, we would fall straight back into our old patterns. Against the odds, I spent most of that time together laughing and smiling.
I have, I realise, been an almighty dick.
There really is no other way of seeing it.
It’s not that I held on to a grudge – I never blamed him for what happened, and have many times since been extremely grateful that he made the choice he made that night.
It was the honourable choice, and not one that many boys his age would have made.
But while I have not held on to a grudge, I have held on to the pain and the shame. The sense of rejection. All of my feelings about Liam became dominated by that one awful night, rather than the joy of the previous years. For that, I could slap myself.
Still, I’m here now. He’s here now. Let’s wait and see what happens.