Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
I expect to see Frannie at the door, some late-night gossip she has to share, or Nisha checking if I need more water. But instead, I open the door halfway to find George standing on the landing. The half-light in the hallway falls against his face, carving out his cheekbones and jawline, picking out in silver the tips of his lashes, the curve of his upper lip.
‘George?’ I say, as though he might not know his own name. He takes a step towards me and pushes the door just wide enough to come through. I instinctively take a step back, and he moves to fill the space, stepping into the bedroom and closing the door quietly.
‘Tell me if you want me to leave,’ he says. I say nothing.
George reaches out and cups my face in his hands, thumbs tilting my chin up as he leans down and pushes his mouth against mine. For a moment I am too stunned to kiss him back, but then something inside me takes over. In silence, I lift onto my tip-toes and slide my hands up his chest until my arms cross around the back of his neck. George moves one hand down the side of my body, settling on my hip as the other gently lifts my hair behind my shoulder as he moves to kiss the side of my neck. I feel entranced as his mouth moves against the tender skin, feeling the pulse in my own body as it quickens in response to his touch. It is as if I am dreaming, as if I have conjured some kind of apparition of George to fill the gap in my heart where I would have him, but then his teeth graze sharp against my shoulder and I know he is completely real, pressing against me and pushing me gently towards the bed. I go with him, walking backwards like we’re ballroom dancing until my legs touch the bed, and then I am leaning back, my arms still around his neck, pulling him down with me. Then he is above me, looking down at me as though he too can’t quite believe we’re here.
His fingers drag slowly to the hem of the shirt I’m wearing, his shirt I realise, as he looks at me with a questioning expression. I respond by lifting my arms so he can gently pull the shirt up and over my head. Suddenly topless the gravity of the situation hits me, that I am undressing with George in his parents’ house, while his sisters—my friends—are asleep in rooms nearby. I wonder if I should stop George, if I should protest, but then he leans back and pulls off his own shirt, his deep skin taut across well-defined muscles, and as he crashes his mouth back into mine, I forget that there is anybody else in the universe.
Our movements turn frantic as our breathing gets quicker. George’s fingers move down to the waistband of my underwear and pull them roughly down my legs, throwing them off the side of the bed. I go to do the same to his sweatpants but he takes my wrists forcefully and pins them back up by my face.
‘Keep them there,’ he whispers in my ear, and I obey as he moves down my body to sit between my legs. He parts my thighs with his hands, and I watch him lick his lips as he lies with his head between my legs. As his tongue slides against me, I hiss between my teeth and have to cover my mouth to keep from moaning. He’s good, moving his whole mouth against me as though he’s eating sweet, ripe fruit, his tongue pressing rhythmically against my clit, and his hands holding my legs firmly apart. I twist my hands into the sheets from the pleasure of it, trying not to cry out, my breath coming in sharp gasps as I buck my hips against his jaw. The pleasure rolls like a tide, each wave getting stronger and stronger and I push him away before I can finish. He looks up at me, his eyes dark, his mouth shiny with wetness. He crawls up the bed, his eyes fixed on mine and then he is kissing me again, pushing his tongue deep into my mouth, filling me with my own taste. I press the length of my body against his, feeling how hard he is. My fingers go to work pulling the waistband of his sweatpants off and he writhes out of them.
Suddenly we are completely naked together on the bed. He toys with my hair where it sits against my collarbone, his other hand rubbing a thumb lightly down my breast. The moment is like a spell, and I hate to break it, but whisper in the dark.
‘Don’t we need-’ George smiles and extends an arm over me to his bedroom drawer.
‘This is my room remember,’ he says, ‘I’ve got some hidden in the back here.’
A few moments later he is ready. He puts a steadying hand flat against my lower belly.
‘Sure you want this?’ he says, giving me the smile I have always loved.
‘Yes,’ I hear myself, breathless with need.
‘Sure you’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
He leans forward and I feel him push hard inside me, my body stretching to accommodate him. I cry out at the slight pain, and he puts a hand over my mouth to keep me quiet as he begins to move. He starts controlled, like he is finding a rhythm, focused on being pressed close against me and I loll my head against his shoulder holding my breath to keep from crying out as he moves faster and faster inside me. I feel my own wetness sticky against my inner thighs as he pushes himself up and adjusts himself to sit back on his shins, leaning back with my legs around his waist, his hips slamming against me. I watch his eyes roving across my breasts, my waist and hips.
He presses his thumb in hard steady motions against my clit, watching my face for my reaction. I try to keep my face dignified but the intensity of the sensation, his cock hard inside me and his fingers against my clit coupled with the effort of keeping quiet are too much and I feel myself squirming beneath his touch, as though I am both trying to escape, and trying to get more contact than physics allows. He smirks, pleased with himself as he watches me, my hair now damp against my forehead, my whole body at his mercy beneath him. I feel him torn between feeling his own pleasure and causing mine, but he doesn’t have to wait long, the dual sensation builds like a storm and suddenly there is thunder and lightning as I shudder, my whole body tensing and releasing. With the last moment of effort I have left I lean up and catch his mouth, our lips and teeth clumsy against one another as his breath begins to hitch and he fucks me hard. He grabs the back of my neck and buries his head in my shoulder, muffling the shuddering moan as he finishes inside me.
We lie together in the dark, our skin damp where our bodies touch, both breathing hard. George turns his head and kisses me on the cheek, and I turn to do the same, my mouth touching the soft velvety skin of his temple.
‘So…’ he says quietly against my face, ‘Come here often?’
I snort with laughter and he shushes me, his own face creasing with suppressed laughter.
‘Hydie, people are sleeping, have some manners.’ He pulls me towards him and holds me, both of us shaking with the effort of not laughing out loud.
When I wake George has left. I had fallen asleep in the crook of his elbow. Part of me had wanted to stay awake, to talk to him, to find out everything I had missed in his life in the years of being away from him. But after we had cleaned up and pulled our clothes back on we had slid into bed and slept like a couple, tucked up together beneath the sheets. I have a vague memory of his lips gentle against my forehead as he pulls away from me in the dark, the door opening and closing softly, and then my eyes open and light is streaming in between the curtains and I hear the unmistakable sound of the coffee machine brewing downstairs. I pull on the clothes I wore the day before, feeling very conscious that I have not been able to shower and that I am wearing the same underwear that George pulled off me. After I have run my fingers through my hair to try and neaten it and dressed as best I can, I stand holding the handle of the door.
I could run into George on the landing. Or find him asleep on the couch still. Perhaps he will look embarrassed. Perhaps he will tell me it was a mistake and we should act like nothing happened. I stand stupidly on the carpet looking at the door, as though there is any way I can avoid finding out.
Eventually, a voice calls up the stairs. It’s Frannie, and I have to leave the room. The landing and stairs are free from anyone as I walk down into the hallway and to the kitchen where I find Frannie standing at the kitchen counter, the smell of hot coffee filling the room.
‘Morning,’ she says brightly, ‘did you sleep okay?’
I try to scan her tone for any extra meaning, but can’t sense any.
‘Pretty well thanks,’ I say, then, unable to resist, ‘it took me a while though. How did you sleep?’
‘Like a log,’ Frannie pulls a second mug from the cupboard above her and swaps it in the machine, pressing the buttons again. ‘It’s the same every time I stay here. Something about my childhood bedroom makes sleep so easy. It must be something psychological. Like I can shrug off all the stresses of adulthood. Is oat milk okay?’
‘Fine thanks. Where are the others?’
‘Mum and Dad are already out for breakfast if you can believe it. George has jumped in the shower and Nisha is still asleep.’ She pours milk into a mug and hands it to me. ‘And if you try and wake her she’ll maul you like a bear, so let’s not be too loud.’
We sit around the table quietly drinking coffee and looking at our phones for a while. When we’re done Frannie offers to drive me home. I try to insist on getting the bus, but she shushes me irritably as she walks back into the kitchen.
‘Of course, I’ll take you. We can leave whenever you like.’ Frannie says as she rinses our cups.
‘Now is good,’ I say, quicker than I mean to. Frannie looks round, surprised.
‘I just have errands to run today. You don’t need to rush, just whenever you’re ready.
She shrugs and picks up her jacket, and we leave the house while Nisha and George are still upstairs.
‘That was fun,’ Frannie says when we are in the car. ‘Reminds me of the old days, except there’s alcohol and gossip now, instead of Capri Suns and homework. And I forgot how well you and George get on.’
‘Oh?’ I say, keeping my tone neutral.
‘Yeah. I missed you two together. You were the only ones who could make fun of me and I didn’t mind.’
I force a polite smile and look down at my phone, pretending to be absorbed in a news article. I’m tired. I must have only slept for a few hours at a time, and my head is spinning from the night before. Even if I had wanted to speak to George I couldn’t have done it there, not in front of his family. But perhaps I should have tried to catch him on the stairs, to address the situation. But instead, I had scarpered before seeing him at all, and I wasn’t sure that had been the right thing to do.
Frannie makes another attempt at conversation, and I pull myself together and we talk about our jobs, and make plans for a holiday sometime in the next year.‘Obviously, the honeymoon is expensive but I would love to do a staycation sometime. Just a little rented flat or a Bed and Breakfast somewhere, you and me, or maybe us, Theo and siblings? What do you think? Hydie?’
It hadn’t occurred to me that after Frannie’s wedding, it would be expected that I would continue to have a relationship with her family. That in Frannie’s eyes our friendship had been restored to its original closeness. I felt the conflict of all the love and gratitude I felt to them all, for all their kindness towards me, and the uncomfortable feelings that had resurfaced around George, made all the more painful now that we were adults, made all the more confusing now we had slept together.
‘Hydie?’ Frannie says again, and I hear the hurt in her voice.
‘Sorry, I’m just a bit tired and distracted,’ I push away my thoughts, angry at myself for not being attentive to her. ‘I would love that so much.’
I pull up my phone and search for coastal getaways, and we spend the rest of the trip talking about locations around the borders of the country.
When I get back to Adam and Jay’s house I slump inside. They’ve already left for whatever social activities they have planned, and I go up to my bedroom and allow myself to fall into bed, my tiredness pulling me into sleep before all the negative feelings are able to catch me.
It occurs to me in the moments between sleeping and waking, the moment where insight so often happens: If George remembers so much about me from when I was young, if he had thought about me in that much detail, and retained it all in the last ten years, he must surely remember Frannie’s birthday. And if by some miracle he had forgotten, Frannie had mentioned it the night before. I will sleep to take me before the implications all fall into place, but they catch me just before, a kaleidoscope finally turning in a way that puts the pieces together and I realise - It is almost impossible that George does not remember the last moment we spoke. The moment I told him I loved him.