Kept (15 page)

‘I don’t want you, Arielle,’ Noah was screaming at me,
much to my utmost confusion. ‘You were something for me to play with when I
came home for the holidays. You’re
nothing
to me.’

I was crying hysterically by this point. I couldn’t
understand what was going on because we’d spent the night on his parents’ boat
and everything had been perfect before we’d gone to sleep.

My parents thought I was at Obélix’s, enjoying popcorn and
videos, maybe the odd alcopop. Noah’s parents, well Noah was twenty-one and
therefore old enough to do whatever he wanted. I suspect if they knew he was
“doing” me though they’d have had something to say on the matter but no one
knew about us. Not even Obélix, which killed me because my secrecy drove a
wedge between us. I stupidly sacrificed my best friend for my boyfriend who was
now telling me I meant nothing to him.

‘I’m not nothing to you,’ I finally managed to shriek back at
Noah between deep breaths as I tried to calm down. ‘I love you!’

It was the first and last time I ever uttered those words to
him.

He scoffed at that one. ‘You don’t know what love is. You’re
a
child
. This madness has gone on for
far too long. You’re just a child,’ he repeated.

‘You love me too,’ I shouted at him, desperately holding
back the tears. ‘Don’t you dare deny it!’

‘No, I don’t,’ he flatly said, but he wouldn’t look at me.

He
did
love me, I
know I’d heard him say it before we’d gone to sleep on the open deck. I had
nearly drifted off into a happy sleep when he moved the blanket more over me
and wrapped his arm over me. I lay there, blissfully pretending to be asleep,
when he brushed his hand over my face, sweeping the loose strands of my hair
away.

Then I heard him say, in a voice I’d never heard before, ‘I
love you, Miss Lockley, but never change. You’re perfect the way you are.’

I had wanted to turn around to him, to tell him how much
I
loved him, but I was close to drifting
off to sleep and figured there would always be the morning.

By the morning everything had changed though. I woke to find
him not wrapped around me, but banging about on the deck like he was
deliberately trying to wake me.

‘Come back here,’ I had muttered sleepily, but he wouldn’t.
Then he became mean, really mean.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’ he sarcastically
snarled at me.

I decided to ignore his bad mood. ‘Get down here.’ I pouted
at him, as sexily as I knew how to back then. I flashed him some doe eyes too.
That never usually failed to persuade him, not that I could ever recall having
to persuade him to have sex with me. Watching girly films when I snuck him into
my room? Yes. Sex? No.

‘Arielle, you just don’t get it, do you?’ He was ranting at
me now. ‘This is what I get for seeing a clueless child.’

He’d always praised my more grown-up talents previously so
that’s when I started to cry. He yelled that I was nothing more than a
plaything and when I insisted that he loved me, he denied it. That was it, the
end. He walked off the boat, leaving me there sobbing and he never looked back,
left me crying there until I was spent of a lifetime’s tears.

Somehow I made it home, but I spent the rest of the summer
confused and miserable, especially when I learnt Noah was with Celine and they
had gone off sailing in
our
yacht.
After that, he moved to London. I refused to talk to anyone. I believed there
was no point in letting anyone in because they would only leave you once they’d
had their fill. From that day I vowed to look after number one. My parents
dragged me to a therapist, but I refused to talk to him so they decided to let
me “snap” out of it. I eventually did, but only when I left home for
university. From my room in my hall of residence I couldn’t see the Penrose
tree house like I could from my room at home. For a time, I could almost forget
Noah ever existed.

Why am I sat in the back of a cab with this man? Noah
left me
. He treated me abysmally,
destroyed me. Yet here he is. I’m letting him smell my wrist and tell me lies.
He called me a
plaything.
He cruelly
broke my heart without a proper explanation, so now what? Does he think he can
use some hideous lines on me and I’ll forgive him? I’m in London for
Piers
. Why did I ever walk across to
this despicable man?
I love Piers,
so
why does my body want Noah to do all those deliciously dirty things he used to
do to me?

‘Arielle?’ Noah says, snapping me forward to the here and
now.

I just stare at him. I can’t comprehend how I’ve gone from
leaving the bar with Lydia, to this. The reason I’m in London is to see
Piers
. My head is swirling, my body
aching. The cab seems quieter, too. The driver has turned down his music
clearly keen to eavesdrop. What started out as potential raunchiness is now
EastEnders
.

He touches my face, cupping it up towards him. ‘Ariel?’ he
questions, a look of concern on his handsome features.

I pull my face back from his hand like he’s just slapped me.

‘Don’t call me that,’ I hiss, moving towards the door. I
think I would jump out, make a run for it, if we weren’t on the bridge. ‘My
name is Arielle,’ I defiantly state.

‘Well, the girl whose wrist I’ve just smelt, that’s the
smell of Ariel,’ he says plainly. ‘That’s the scent of my mermaid Ariel.’

‘I am not a mermaid,’ I mutter, trying desperately to fight
back my tears with little success. ‘My name is Arielle.’

But the thing is, I was a mermaid once upon a time, Noah’s
mermaid. Since
that
morning though I
have never answered to Ariel, nor set foot on a boat because of Noah. I’ve also
never cried apart from the Benfords incident, the Benfords incident that
brought me to
Piers
. Oh.
Piers
.

Now I’m sobbing. Ten years worth of tears are flooding out
of me. Noah scoots over to grab me and I cling on to him for dear life. I’m
afraid I will lose him again – that I’ll drown without him – that I will
suffocate from my tears.

The irony of my parents encouraging me to head back to
London to confront my past with Piers is not lost on me. They would never have
sent me to London to sort out my past with Noah because in the context of their
practically underage daughter and Noah Penrose, they’d have had him arrested.
That summer he left, Mum correctly guessed a boy was the cause of my anguish
but she believed Obélix to be the one who had destroyed my heart. Poor Ob. It
made sense given I was supposedly at his house the night before I fell apart.

She had sat with me, comforting me, stroking my hair like
Noah is doing now. I remember her whispering: “Oh my little mermaid, don’t
worry. There are plenty more fish in the sea.” It only made me cry even harder.
Bloody sea clichés. Each one stabbed my heart more painfully than the last.

‘Oh Noah,’ I wail with dangerous thoughts swirling. ‘Why
couldn’t you just admit you loved me?’

I don’t get to hear his answer though. We’re at Wandsworth
and
that
mood, the mood that started
us out on this cab ride, has well and truly washed out.

Neither of us is talking. Not one word has been said since
the cab dropped us off on the High Street and I trailed silently behind Noah to
his house. He let us in wordlessly, went to switch the kettle on, yet never
returned with that much needed hot cup of something. We’re now sat opposite one
another, avoiding eye contact.

I’m sure I must look awful from all the crying, red and
puffy, probably with mascara and eyeliner down my face but I don’t care. Noah
doesn’t look that great either. He’s pale and looks agitated – keeps shooting
apprehensive looks towards the door, probably worried his housemates are going
to barge in all drunk and happy with takeaway like you’re supposed to after a
Friday night out.

Not that he has mentioned any housemates, but I assume he
can’t afford to live on his own in a big house like this one. Or, maybe he can?
I keep forgetting the age difference between us, even though it’s the same gap
as between me and Piers.

I curse myself for letting Piers pop into my head once again
and for comparing the two. Noah is Noah, Piers is Piers. They are two
completely different people. One is completely right for me; one isn’t.

‘Nice place,’ I finally pluck up the courage to mutter after
the silence becomes too much for me.

Noah jumps up like he’s been shot. ‘What?’ he stammers.

It’s really strange, he looks scared of me. Actually,
terrified
. It’s like I’ve just commented
that a murderer has entered the room or even that I’m a murderer.

‘I said, nice place.’ I repeat it a little louder this time.

‘Oh. Thanks.’

Silence. So much for that being the conversation prompter.

‘Did you decorate it yourself or get someone in?’

This is terrible. Really terrible. It also reminds me of the
first time I went to Piers’ house… That’s more terrible.

‘My–’ He pauses. ‘My friend did it. She’s an interior
designer.’

‘Useful friend to know,’ I manage to say, but my brain has
started clicking because of his ominous pause.

Clearly he was going to say “my girlfriend” before he
realised what that admittance says. I give him a small smile but I can feel my
heart breaking all over again. What did I expect though? He’s
thirty-one
. It would be odd if he
didn’t
have a girlfriend. I’ve had
boyfriends since him. I might still have one.

‘Does she live locally?’ I manage to make myself ask, but
I’m unable to hide the quiver in my voice.

‘No, no, she’s–’ He pauses again, shooting another not-so-furtive
look towards the door. ‘She’s currently living with her parents and son in
Hampshire. Not too far from our parents actually.’

‘Oh! I thought she was your girlfriend!’ I laugh with
relief.

He laughs too, albeit nervously, before shooting another not-so-sneaky
look at the door. ‘No, no. Not my girlfriend.’

I start to feel a bit better, but I have to ask him
something before I can start to relax and deal with the nervous energy buzzing
around him. One problem at a time.

‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ I coyly ask. For some reason, he
is a grown man after all, he blushes.
Blushes
!

‘I’m recently separated from–’ His voice trails off as he
hears a bang outside and he shoots up out of his chair, practically running to
the window. ‘Oh, it’s just the neighbours,’ he mutters. ‘Bloody nuisances.’

I don’t care if he is acting oddly because he is single if
he has recently separated from his girlfriend. A small fire begins to burn in
my tummy as he plonks himself down next to me.

‘I’m recently separated from my boyfriend, too,’ I tell him
in a small voice, not daring to look at him. I’m not sure what my face will
betray.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Ariel,’ he softly says, scooping me
up in his arms and tilting my head towards his own. ‘No man should ever leave
you.’

‘You did,’ I can’t stop myself from saying. A valid point, I
think.

‘I was a stupid boy.’

‘You were twenty-one, Noah, you knew exactly what you were
doing.’ I study his face carefully. ‘In fact, you only left me because I was a
stupid
girl, didn’t you?’ He won’t look
at me now, but our bodies are still touching, our heat radiating off one
another. ‘That’s why, isn’t it?’ I press on. ‘I was a girl and because you were
a
man
, you ended it.’

I refrain from rolling my eyes at the silliness of it all.

‘You were too young for me, Ariel,’ he finally says after an
uncomfortable silence. ‘We were worlds apart and we would only have ended up
hurting each other a few months down the line. It was for the best.’

Lies.

‘Don’t,’ I snap, pushing him away from me which causes him
to finally turn and look at me. ‘Don’t you dare say we were worlds apart, Noah
Penrose. That I was too young for you, that our ages stopped us. We both know
that’s the biggest lie ever.’ I stand up, towering angrily above him. ‘I heard
you,’ I hiss. ‘I heard what you said when you thought I was asleep the night
before we finished. Before
you
finished me. Don’t you dare deny it.’

I feel livid that he thinks he can dismiss me all over again
and get away with it. He’s not going to treat me like this.

The remaining colour drains from his face, proving
everything. ‘I never said anything, Ariel.’

I laugh, quite hysterically. ‘Oh yes you did, Noah Penrose.
You told me you loved me.’ The tears have started flowing down my face once
again. It hurts too much reopening this wound that has been left from the past
and which, in some way, has made me feel like I’ve been living a lie. My life
stopped that morning Noah broke my heart and now it’s like someone has finally
pressed play.

Noah is sat frozen, but he suddenly stands up, taking me by
surprise as he grabs hold of me tightly. He’s gripping and clutching my hair,
causing my body to go wild with desire at his touch or maybe he’s igniting my
anger? I can’t think straight, I feel frenzied. I don’t know whether I want to
hit him or kiss him.

He knows I know though. He knows he can’t keep lying to
either of us anymore. Neither of us deserved that because we’ve wasted so much
time already. There’s no way I’m going to waste any more time, any more
undeserved attention. Not that my time with Piers… No, no. This is about me and
Noah now. I need to forget about Piers tonight and sort things out with Noah
because then I can deal with Piers. One man at a time.

Except we’re stood here in silence, clinging on to one
another, and I can feel his heart beating wildly.

Finally, he composes himself and manages to speak. ‘I told
you I loved you that night, Ariel, I did. I told you to–’ His voice breaks off
again, but he manages to recompose himself. ‘I told you to never change because
you were perfect the way you were. You still are,’ he adds. ‘And even now, I
still love you. I wish I could take back what I’ve done.’

Obviously he means take back that morning he broke up with
me without just cause, but before I can formulate an answer, he leans in and
kisses me.