Saturday, 17 March 2035 #2
‘No, you’re not. I did ask my mum, by the way, if you could stay with us, for a bit. She didn’t exactly say no.’ She grabbed my hand again and squeezed it. The ‘no’ wobbled in the air between us like a dizzy acrobat on a high wire.
I dropped her hand. ‘But she didn’t exactly say yes either. You told your parents about us having sex yet?’
She looked away. ‘It’s difficult, babe. You know what they’re like.’
‘No, not really. Cos I’ve only met your dad twice in the past year. I’ve not met any of the others cos you won’t let me. There’s always some excuse.’
‘They wouldn’t cope with this … us.’
‘Oh, there is an “us”, is there? Cos I’m never sure. You only call me on weekends. You only see me when you want to. You never invite me round. Never take the bus with me anymore. You’re always with Maddie Evans.’
‘Maddie’s just a mate.’
‘Sure about that?’
‘Yes.’ A blush had crept onto her cheeks and it seemed to bloom the more I stared at her. Her voice lowered, even though we were entirely on our own. ‘I haven’t fancied any girls before you and you might be, I dunno, a one-off. A phase. I’ve heard it could be.’
‘Where’ve you heard this?’ I said, unable to keep the shrillness from my voice.
‘Online. Some people experiment and grow out of it.’
I didn’t know what to say – no words would come, they just swirled round and round the back of my throat and got stuck there.
Chloe continued digging the deepest of holes for herself. ‘I mean, look, I want kids and a wedding and things like that.’
My eyes lingered on the block of art scissors along the windowsill.
I thought about pulling a set out and stabbing her in the throat.
I saw the blood spray up the windows and large white wall next to it.
Heard the gargle in her throat. Felt the warmth of her blood as it pooled around my ankles as she slumped to the floor. But then my stomach rolled.
I came to my senses and continued to stand there, looking at the scissors, as Chloe continued with her excuses.
‘I want a husband. A family. A normal family.’
My eyes clouded with tears and fury. ‘Are you saying what we do is abnormal?’
‘No, of course not – I’m just confused right now. My mum and dad, that’s what I want – what they’ve got. A partnership.’
‘There is such a thing as same-sex families. Thousands of them.’
‘I’m not gay.’
I laughed. ‘Well, tell your vagina, will you, because it thinks you are. And it can’t get enough of me.’
Suddenly being beside her was like sitting near a lit firework.
I had to get away. How dare she insinuate we were abnormal.
How dare she suggest gay relationships were ‘just a phase’.
The bitch! I turned back to the workstation and continued packing the bag until it was full then zipped it up.
I hitched it onto my shoulder and finalised the inventory of what I’d borrowed.
‘It might be a phase for you too,’ she said.
I walked out, and she followed me into the empty corridor, normally thronging with girls but empty on the weekend and echoing like a church.
‘I know myself better than that,’ I spat, finding the number for Axminster e-cabs in my contacts. ‘Now fuck off.’
‘Ivy, please. Don’t walk away. Please, let’s sort this out.’
Five minutes said the app. Chloe still wasn’t getting the hint and continued to follow me all the way through the corridors towards the music room. The casting for the school production of Cabaret had been decided at last. I scanned the list on the noticeboard outside for my name:
Ivy Silverton – Chorus
‘Chorus?!’ I spat. ‘Fucking chorus?! They couldn’t even give me a sympathy role? Ugh!’
Everything was burning down. My mum was still dead, my dad always had been, my real mum was in The Glamour Slammer for offing twenty-something people, my so-called girlfriend had shagged our PE teacher and was embarrassed of being seen with me, and pretty soon I’d be homeless.
And now, the one glimmer of hope I had of being Sally Bowles in my last ever school production had been dashed, in favour of Kerry Didsbury-Purves, who couldn’t hit a note with a fucking shovel.
‘FUCK YOU ALLLLLLLL!’ I shouted down the long, cold corridor.
Chloe got Emcee. Of course she did.
‘I could ask if we could swap?’ she offered. ‘You’d make a much better Emcee than I would anyway …’
‘Don’t kiss my arse unless you mean it,’ I spat, then turned on my heel and carried on walking towards the front of school. ‘I needed that part. I needed it!’ But then I realised – Mum wouldn’t be there to see me anyway this year. So it didn’t matter at all. Nothing did.
‘Ivy, I don’t know what to say. I really don’t. I’m struggling with this, all right? Can’t you understand that? You know I … have feelings for you …’
‘Say it louder,’ I said, as we approached the double doors to the dining room. There was nobody about; nobody to fill the room with the highest ceilings in the school, but even then she wouldn’t say it. ‘Say “I’m in love with a girl!” Say it at the top of your voice, Chloe.’
She blushed furiously, glancing towards the enormous empty room that had been suddenly filled with the echo of my voice. Then back at me, helplessly. ‘You know I can’t.’
‘Then leave me the fuck alone,’ I shouted.
And then I did the pettiest thing I could think of.
I pulled out my phone, found her number and hit ‘Block Contact’.
I showed it to her and her eyes filled with tears.
She reached out, like she was going to hug me, and it took all the strength I had to walk away.
I cared about her so bloody much I had gone to my PE teacher’s house to kill him, in her honour.
I cared about her so bloody much I’d skywrite it with my finger on a hot summer’s day and imagine us getting married in her dad’s church with their full blessing – me wearing a white two-piece silk pantsuit and her in the dress I’d seen in the bridal shop window in town; the one with the ballgown skirt and floral puff sleeves. She’d have looked like an angel.
But now all I could see was the devil. This had just been a hot minute for her, that’s all. A fling. A fuck. A fun new sexuality to try on like a summer dress then stuff away in the attic come winter. She was bored of me.
Everybody got bored of me eventually.
It had kept me sane all this year, this thing with Chloe – the promise of our clandestine meet-ups and the risk of her parents finding out. The risk, that’s what I liked. Maybe I didn’t love her after all – maybe I just loved the distraction. Anything to not think about Mum dying for five minutes.
When I got back to Heather’s, everyone was back from Bristol and the boys were full of chatter and sugar.
I had a headache so I could only take about five minutes of it.
I went upstairs to the room that wasn’t mine to escape the smells of the cooking that wasn’t Mum’s.
Maddox hopped in and I picked him up and cuddled him on the bed that creaked when I turned over.
‘All I’ve got is you now. That’s it.’ Even Madd didn’t seem that interested in staying with me.
He fussed and kicked his back legs until I set him down again on the carpet.
He hopped out onto the landing, back to a cabbage leaf he’d dragged upstairs.
I grabbed my e-reader off the nightstand to continue with Book Two before checking my phone to see if Chloe had somehow bypassed my block button to tell me how she didn’t mean it, how she told her parents she was in love with me, how we were going to run away together and get married in those outfits I’d already bookmarked on that bridal shop’s website.
But there was just junk email from various online stores, and one received two days ago from llm10@.
Hello Ivy from your little brother read the subject line.
I deleted the message mindlessly before my intrusive thoughts got to me and I did something stupid like open the attachment.
I got messages like this almost weekly – Your mum is my icon, or Your mum might be my mum, or I used to go to school, or work with Rhiannon so do you fancy being on my podcast? Ugh ugh ugh.
Delete.
The second book in the Sweetpea series was alienating me from Rhiannon even more.
She kept visiting this woman who’d been having an affair with her then boyfriend, Craig Wilkins (the guy who initially went to prison for her crimes), and trying to coax her into killing herself.
And it worked. She really was a monster and it was all a bit unsettling, and I didn’t like her all over again.
There was still no message from the prison either.
I got up to draw my curtains. As I pulled the second one along, I noticed the figure was back between the trees, watching me again.
He scrolled on his phone, one hand in his pocket, watching the house.
He was there for ages. At one point, he even waved at me.
I slept in the window. He only left when daylight broke.
That’s when I started on the vodka.