Chapter 16 #2
“I don’t think Vicky likes me.” I change the subject as I unintentionally focus on his lips.
“She likes literally no one, it’s not personal.”
“Literally? Like, literally no one?” I tease him. It gets right under his skin and he sighs, exasperated.
“Piss off! You and your stupid English lessons.” His eyes are red, his hair messier than usual. I wonder how much Ford’s been drinking tonight.
“Okay, okay, sorry. I’ll stop. Has she ever murdered someone? Vicky?” I hope she hasn’t but if she had, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“You know what, I ask myself that often.”
Fair enough.
And speaking of the devil, Vicky joins us then.
“Ashley and Ashford. Exactly the people I was looking for.” She steals a sip from Ford’s drink and grabs the cigarette from my fingers.
She takes a long drag and then kills it in a nearby ashtray without asking if I was done with it.
With the greenest most judgemental stare I have ever seen, she studies Ford and me.
“So, how did you two meet?” she asks and it’s my favourite story to tell.
I start from the beginning, with those blue skates that I did not get for Christmas in the winter of 2002.
Around 1:00 a.m. Ford decides it is time to take me home.
He’s unstable on his feet and messes up his address twice while trying to give it to the taxi driver.
Vicky walks out of the club and wishes us goodnight, before turning around and going back inside.
I’m dying to ask Ford more about her, but I bite my tongue.
When we finally make it back to Ford’s room, we brush our teeth, get into our pyjamas and lay on the floor.
For a moment I consider asking Ford to borrow a sweater, anything that will cover my scarred arms. But I don’t.
I smooth the wrinkles of my t-shirt and rest my arms on my chest, where my heart is thrumming a nervous, guilty rhythm.
Ford finds his guitar and begins strumming a tune I don’t know. For some reason, the notes almost make me cry.
“I sort of shagged your friend in the bathroom of the pub,” I blurt out, and the air between us smells like spirits and cigarettes.
“Ash! Who was it, Adam?”
I’m glad the darkness hides my blush when I confess I don’t even remember the name. I describe a tall man with broad shoulders and a shaved head, dark skin and full lips and at the last second, I recall a small scar on his chin.
Ford hums in recognition of his friend Adam from rugby. Soft notes fill the room, and I finally feel like I can breathe again. Ford is here, music is playing and I’m home.
“I saw you coming out of the loo together. How was it?” Ford asks.
“Hum. We kissed. He was very high. I was a bit tipsy. What do you want to know?”
“Everything, I guess.”
“I mean, it was just a blowjob. Sex with men is simple. It makes me less scared,” I admit.
Boys are basic, they are always open for a blowjob. Bad day? Blowjob. Happy, sad, celebrating, grieving? Blowjob any day of the week.
“Have you gone all the way with anyone?”
This is the first time Ford is asking me openly about my sex life, and naturally I’m ready to discuss anything with him.
He’s my best friend. So I push through the discomfort and tell Ford about that one creepy guy that wanted to fuck me in his car and I didn’t let him, then I tell Ford about that one other nicer guy who bought me dinner and showered with me and how that time, I did let him.
“Did you like it?” Ford checks with me and to this day, I’m not sure if I really liked it or if I was simply incredibly horny. So I simply give a shrug of my shoulders.
Ford changes the melody to something slower, honeyed. “I find it so hard,” he says and chooses this exact moment to remind me about his sexuality. “Women are so hard.”
“What is this song?” I ask him as his fingers keep pinching the strings, trying to erase from my brain the image of Ford with Vicky.
It’s weird and wrong and I’m a sick pervert.
Ford doesn’t answer immediately, and I worry I have crossed a line.
It’s been a weird day today. Starting from Ford’s reaction to my hair to his behaviour in the bar. And now, this conversation.
“Something I wrote a while ago,” Ford mumbles eventually. He pauses playing, then resumes a different melody.
“It’s supposed to be easy with the right person. The sex, I mean,” I tell him.
“You think Adam was the right person? In a public bathroom?”
“He could be.” I don’t mean to sound defensive, but alas. “Do you think Vicky is the one?”
“We’re twenty, Ash. Vicky is not the one. She’s just a one.”
I think of Vicky, and she’s the farthest thing from a one.
She’s one of a kind. A scary one of a kind.
I can actually picture her and Ford getting married in matching black outfits, moving into a creepy goth house and filling it with scary children.
Very Addams-Family-coded. Lost in my fantasy, I haven’t noticed that Ford has stopped playing the guitar and is now turned to me.
He looks more sober and he smells minty.
“Your hair is so long, man. I remember as a child you used to be so afraid of people thinking you were a girl. And now you grow your hair super long.”
You grow your hair long and fuck boys. Like a girl.
He doesn't say it, but I know that’s what Ford means.
“I used to be so afraid of everything. My parents, my sexuality… My name.” That reminds me, “What is with Vicky and names anyway?”
Ford chuckles. “She’s angry at her parents for naming her Vicky. People assume her name is Victoria all the time, so she makes it a point to use everyone’s full name. No exceptions.”
“I did in fact assume her name was Victoria.”
Satisfied I just proved his point, Ford sucks his cheek in and releases it with a pop. Then, he turns serious again.
“You were just this lost child, Ash, and then suddenly you had everything under control. You became like a unit. You went to secondary school and knew who you were, you were scared of nothing. You’re still scared of nothing.
Judgement, sex, you name it. You always stand up for what you believe in, and you fight every fight so fiercely. ”
Picking at an invisible cuticle, Ford stares at a point in the distance. I wish I could read his mind, know exactly what he’s thinking of. Know what his brain is conjuring about me.
And in this moment, I’m so glad I have finally learned how to disagree with Ford.
“I’m so scared of everything, though. Terrified.
I’ve never been in love, never had a real boyfriend.
All I have are Morgan and Preston, and that’s just ‘cause we’re roommates.
I haven’t spoken to Sydney and Darshi in almost a year.
Haven’t spoken with my brothers at all. I have no idea what I’m doing with my life or what will happen after uni.
I don’t even know if I want to ever go back to live at home.
I’m so sad, sometimes, so angry. I don’t know what to do with this pain, how to shut my brain down. ”
With a serious, definitive tone Ford tells me, “Do not go back home. Please, don’t. And please, Ash, don’t hurt yourself.”
Once again, Ford doesn’t need to add more.
It’s written all over his face, I see it in his teary eyes.
All the times I have run away from my house and have hidden in his room, a soul escaping one family to find a better one.
I feel the way Ford has ached for me over the years, how scared he has been for me.
How worried one day I might not show up at all.
I see the panic now. The need to know I’m okay, that I will take better care of myself.
His gaze stays focused on my face, but he doesn’t have to look at my body to know exactly what he’s seeing.
The scarred tissue on my wrists, the birthmark on my right shoulder, the bruises on my shins from kneeling on the floor.
I don’t hide from him, don’t hide my pain.
I’m not okay, but one day, one day I will be.
“You never asked about my parents before,” I finally tell him, admitting more than what I’m comfortable with, and at the same time, nothing at all. But this is Ford. This is the home I found, the one who has helped me become exactly who I’m.
“Ash. I never had to.”