A Kiss in the Dark (19 page)

After a few minutes Mum shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it. It doesn’t make any sense! Why would someone do something like that?’

Good question. I didn’t know the answer so I just shrugged. I thought I’d feel better now that I’d shared the burden, but I just felt utterly exhausted. My gaze wandered towards the TV where some old eighties band was playing a song I recognized from a car advert.

Mum put her hand on my arm so I had to look away from the TV. I recognized the look on her face straightaway. It’s the one she puts on when she’s about to say something she knows I’m not going to like – usually when she wants me to do an extra hour of piano practice because she once read that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be
truly
accomplished at something.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Darling?’ She stretched the word a little, like she was testing an elastic band to see when it will snap. And that’s when I knew what she was about to say would upset or annoy me much more than the usual
nagging. ‘Are you …? Are you a …
lesbian
?’ She half-whispered the word and winced at the same time.

I felt a rush of heat to my face and my heart started beating really fast and I felt anger like I’ve never felt before. How could she even
think
such a thing, let alone say it? I should have known that telling her was a really bad move. I should have known that she wouldn’t understand – she’s never understood me my whole life so why should this be any different? I looked down and noticed my hand was gripping the arm of the sofa so hard that my knuckles were white. I was angry with Mum for being so unbelievably stupid and totally missing the point, as always, but more than that, and much more powerful, I was angry with Alex. She put me in this situation. She did this to me.

That was the moment that it all became clear. The boy I had fallen in love with did not exist. He was a character created by some seriously messed-up girl in order to trick me into liking her. And now my mother thought I was a lesbian because she couldn’t believe I was stupid enough to be fooled like that. It turned my stomach.

‘
What?
’ The disbelief in my voice couldn’t have been more obvious, but my mother didn’t seem to notice.

Her hand squeezed mine. ‘It’s nothing to be
ashamed of, you know … I even … I suppose you’d say “experimented” when I was in college.’ She laughed awkwardly and I wanted to punch her in the face. I’ve never wanted to punch a person before.

I shook off her hand. ‘Jesus Christ, Mum! What the hell are you talking about? I
told
you what happened. Why are you always so quick to think the worst of me?’

‘Oh stop being so over-dramatic. That’s not true and you know it. It’s just that this is very difficult to understand. Surely you can see things from my point of view?’

Rage. That’s what I was feeling, pure and simple. I jumped up from the sofa and turned on her. ‘See things from
your
point of view? How about you see things from
my
point of view for a change?! I
knew
I shouldn’t have told you. I must have been mad to think you’d actually support me instead of being your usual judgemental self. I can’t believe you’re being like this!’ I was practically spitting the words at her. I took a deep, steadying breath. ‘How many more times do you want me to say it before you get it into your stupid head? I. Thought. Alex. Was. A. Boy. I’m not gay and if you say it one more time I swear I’ll–’

‘I have no idea why you’re taking this out on me. I said you should be concentrating on piano and school
but you didn’t listen, did you? You always think you know better.’ She pursed her lips into a thin, mean line. ‘Well maybe this will be a lesson to you.’

I started crying again, more out of frustration than anything else. Mum took that as a sign of victory and gestured for me to sit back down. I sat and cried. Mum put her arm around me. ‘I’m sorry, love. This is all such a shock. But if you say you really didn’t know about Alex then I believe you.’ It didn’t
sound
like she believed me. ‘It’s just that it’s a lot to take in. I’m not quite sure what to think.’

I chewed on my bottom lip – an old habit that drove Mum crazy. I tasted blood in my mouth as I said my next words. ‘She made me–’

Mum interrupted me. ‘She made you
what
?!’ Her eyes were boring into me.

Fall in love with her
. That’s what I was going to say.

‘Oh my God, what are you saying, Kate? Did she …
assault
you?’ Her hand was over her mouth as if she wasn’t sure she wanted that awful word to be heard.
Assault
me? Where the hell did that come from? It was as if she was trying to misunderstand every single thing I said. She was so clueless about everything.

I clenched my fists again. ‘No! That’s not what I …’ I stopped. That wasn’t what I’d been going to say. It
wasn’t
. But Mum was looking at me differently
now – less confusion and suspicion, more concern. I wanted it to stay that way. She needed to see that
I
was the victim here. ‘She did stuff … to me. But I didn’t want to.’

I was expecting Mum to flip out completely. If she had I think I might have come clean there and then, but she just muttered a quiet ‘oh my God’ and sat very still.

Take it back. Say you didn’t mean it. Do it now
. ‘Mum, I didn’t …’ I was physically incapable of finishing that sentence. The truth didn’t want to come out of my mouth.

‘What exactly did she do to you?’ Her gaze stayed firmly on the TV.

I shook my head. ‘I can’t … I don’t want to talk about it.’ My gaze stayed firmly on the TV too.

I was sure she wouldn’t leave it at that, but she did. It wasn’t as if we’d ever talked about sex before. When I started asking questions a few years ago about where babies came from she changed the subject then left a book about puberty and sex on my pillow a few days
later. That was the beginning and end of our birds-and-the-bees discussion.

Mum put her hand on mine and squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry, love.’ Then she put her arm around me and I cried some more, because what else was there to do? At around two o’clock in the morning, she sent me to bed with a mug of hot chocolate and the assurance that everything was going to be OK. I didn’t believe her but I nodded anyway. There was a knock at my bedroom door a few minutes later and Mum came in and sat on the edge of my bed. She was wearing her ratty old dressing gown instead of the fancy new one she’d got from Mags for Christmas.

I hadn’t even touched the hot chocolate, but Mum didn’t launch into her usual spiel about ‘waste not, want not’. Instead she asked how I was feeling and I answered with a shrug. I felt all hollowed out – as if someone had set about my insides with a melon baller. Every last feeling had been wrung out of my body, leaving me dazed and numb.

Mum smiled tentatively. ‘I know this hasn’t exactly been the best start to the New Year, Kate. But you don’t have to worry anymore, OK? It’s all over now. And I’m … well, I’m here for you if you need to talk about anything. I can’t promise I’ll always say the right thing, but I’m
trying
. You have to let me be here
for you. I think we should … well, let’s talk about things in the morning.’ I managed to say thank you. I didn’t say I had no intention of talking about things in the morning; that would just have caused another argument and I was too exhausted to think let alone fight. Mum left me, saying she’d leave her bedroom door open and I should shout if I needed anything. It was the exact same thing she said whenever I was ill.

When I was sure she was gone for good I took my phone out from under the duvet. I’d hidden it just in case Mum came up with the bright idea of confiscating it. I thought she might be worried about Alex contacting me, that she might demand to know where she lived so she could storm round and talk to her parents. But no, Mum was treating me like I was ill, because
that
was something she knew how to deal with. If she treated me like an invalid she didn’t have to think about whether her daughter was a lesbian or not.

There were four more texts on my phone. One from Astrid, three from Alex. Astrid’s was obviously a message she’d sent to everyone in her contacts list:
Happy New Year, bitches! xxxxx

I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t bothered to send me a personalized message, even though as far as she knew I’d been dumped by my boyfriend the
night before. If she knew the truth she would probably have magically arranged to be on the next flight home just to make sure she’d be the first one to hear the juicy details. After all, gossip like this doesn’t come around every day. The thought of telling Astrid filled me dread. I knew she cared about me in her own way, but Astrid’s number one priority always has been, and always will be, Astrid. And her favourite thing in the world is drama. She wouldn’t leave me in peace until she knew every last detail. Then she’d proceed to call everyone she knew, no doubt adding that she’d always thought there was something strange about Alex but she hadn’t quite been able to put her finger on it. Astrid would never let me forget about it all; it would be unbearable.

Then it hit me. There was no reason for Astrid to know. Come to think about it, there was no reason for anyone else to know. It wouldn’t even be lying – not exactly. I’d had a boyfriend, and he had broken up with me. Twenty-four hours earlier those were the facts as I knew them. No one needed to know about what had happened since. Being dumped was bad enough. There was no reason for me to be humiliated even more.

Keeping the truth from Astrid wouldn’t necessarily be easy. She had an unnerving ability to sniff out things
that people wanted to keep private – like the fact that Stella had started seeing a speech therapist about her lisp or that Martin Todd’s dad was in prison. Still, I’d been doing enough sneaking around in the past couple of months to become quite good at it. Astrid would have no reason to suspect what had really happened – she wouldn’t guess in a million years. No one would guess because it was all too bizarre. I had that going in my favour, at least.

I’d have to tell Mum that I wanted to forget all about it and swear her to secrecy. She would be fine with that; she wouldn’t have to worry about people thinking her precious daughter was a lesbian.

I would do whatever it took to wipe every trace of Alex and how I felt about him (her) from my memory. Maybe one day it wouldn’t hurt so much.

*

Alex’s texts were exactly what I expected. More sorries and please can we talk about this and I can explain. More lies from this person I realized I didn’t even know. I deleted each message and wondered whether I should go ahead and delete Alex’s number. I was just about to do that when another text arrived:
Please. I love you
.

That was the last straw. I deleted every single message from her then deleted her number. Tomorrow
I would shut down my profile on the Saving Serenity forum and get rid of everything that Alex had given me. All those little things that had seemed so special were now meaningless. The shell necklace was no longer a unicorn horn – it was just a shell on a string. It had always been a shell on a string, of course, but things acquire a certain kind of magic when they’re from someone you love.

I love you
. When Alex had first said those three little words to me I thought my heart might burst with happiness. Of course, I’d said them first even though I really hadn’t meant to. Astrid always said you should
never
be the first one to say it. She said it made you look weak, that it gave him (whoever he might be) the upper hand and you might as well just give him a licence to trample all over your heart. Whenever she talked like that I would roll my eyes and smile but I’d never disagree – disagreeing with Astrid was never worth the hassle. She might have been right this time though. Alex had certainly trampled all over my heart. Steamrollered it, more like.

I love you
. I’d meant those words when I said them that day on Calton Hill. There had been no doubt in my mind. I’d been thinking about it for weeks, analysing every feeling from every possible angle. Asking myself if
this
was what love was. If it was thinking about
someone every minute of every day or putting their happiness ahead of yours or feeling like you were unstoppable as long as they were by your side. Because that was exactly how I felt.

I had loved the boy who thought bringing a skateboard on a date would make him seem so much cooler. The boy who always walked with his head down, shoulders slightly hunched because he didn’t realize (or didn’t care) how good-looking he was. The boy who’d nearly cried when he listened to me playing our song. He was the kind of boyfriend every girl wants – apart from Astrid, who claimed she’d never go out with a boy without a six-pack. Which was all very well if you lived in Los Angeles or Miami but not entirely realistic if you lived in Edinburgh.

If I’d sat down and written a checklist of everything I wanted in a boyfriend, Alex would have ticked nearly every box. I couldn’t have hoped for anyone better. But it had all been too good to be true; my boyfriend had never even existed.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep but I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment when I’d seen Alex, when I’d seen
her
, wearing a skirt. And it was so blindingly obvious that she was a girl. Of
course
she was a girl. Her features were too delicate, too fine. She had
breasts
. That was the one thing I really couldn’t
get my head around. I mean, they weren’t massive or anything, but they were most definitely there. And they hadn’t been there before. I may be stupid and clueless but I think I’d have realized if my boyfriend had breasts. Alex’s chest had been flat and hard, exactly like I’d expect a boy’s chest to be. But I’d never seen him without a shirt on; I’d never touched him without a shirt on. I’d seen it in a film once where a woman wrapped bandages around her chest to flatten her boobs. Alex must have done the same thing, going to all that effort to deceive me.

I suddenly realized something, kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner. That was why she’d been so reluctant to take things further – there was no way she could allow me to see her without clothes. But was that the only reason she’d broken up with me?