‘Just admit it, you don’t want to tell anyone, do you? You just want me to stay your dirty little secret for ever.’
I imagine for a moment what it would be like if we step out of these shadows of secrecy into the bright, bright world of other people’s scrutiny. Their faces, their reactions . . . ‘Logan, just think of the fallout, how hurt everyone will be. I – we – really can’t do that to them.’
‘So you plan on us staying secret for ever?’
‘Not for ever, just until . . . I don’t know, I just need more time.’
‘It’s been a year!’
‘It hasn’t. Nowhere near. We’ve known each other a year but we haven’t been together a year.’
‘It’s never going to be more than this, is it?’ he says sadly. ‘It’s never going to be more than this undercover crap.’ He’s looking at me; I can feel his eyes on me, but I can’t face him.
‘That’s not true,’ I reply.
‘I want more, Verity. I love you, and I want an end to this secrecy.’
‘And if I don’t want that just yet?’
‘Well, that’s it, then, isn’t it?’ he says with quiet finality. ‘It’s over.’
I turn to him then, and he is still staring at me.
‘I don’t want it to be over,’ I declare. In my head it is a declaration, and the words sound brave and bold and decisive. But uttered into the air between us they sound scared and flimsy and pathetic.
This is how we end. I know it. Because I can’t give him what he so desperately wants, this is how we end.
I’m not sure who moves first, who does it first, but we’re suddenly kissing, crushing our lips together, attempting to make it not true. We’re undressing each other, we’re trying to hold on to each other tight enough to make it permanent, close enough to not let anything come in between. By the end we’re both crying, both clinging, both trying to keep ourselves together. And afterwards, immediately afterwards, he is off the bed, angrily snatching up his clothes, furiously pulling them on. This is how we end but he let himself forget and indulge, and he is raging because of it.
‘Are you going to tell?’ I ask as I watch him get dressed. ‘About us? Are you going to tell people?’
‘So you can hate me for ever? Yeah, right. Properly screwed myself over there, didn’t I?’
I sit up, desperate to stop him leaving like this. ‘Look, let’s just take a break. Give each other some space. Once my dad’s party is out of the way, let’s sit down and talk about it properly. In the meantime, let’s give ourselves the chance to see that our lives don’t work without the other one in it.’
He pauses in getting dressed and stands very still while he listens.
‘All we need is a bit of space. Spend time apart, meet up to talk things through. Just not crowd each other. And then we’ll try to sort it out.’
‘You really want to do that?’
I nod vigorously. ‘And in that time, too, we can think about how we tell everyone, if that’s what we decide to do.’
‘You’ll really think about telling people?’
‘Yes, I really will.’
I watch his shoulders fall; see him physically relax as the anger drains away. He returns to the bed, a happy, hopeful smile on his face. I tip my face up to receive his kiss. I close my eyes as he presses his lips on my nose, my forehead, my cheeks.
‘And can you think again about your dad’s party? It really would be the perfect time to tell them.’
‘Log—’
‘Just think about it. Please? Please?’
‘All right. I’ll think about it.’ Yes, I’ll think about it. I’ll also have to think about making sure the party doesn’t happen, either; just in case Logan decides to turn up anyway.
verity
Now
Mum pulls back the light-blue curtain and steps out of her dressing room. I click the button on the side of my phone to make the screen black and hide the message I’d been halfway through typing and, just to be sure, I turn the phone face down on my lap.
Mum notices and her eyes linger a fraction too long on my phone, curious, as she’s always been, about what I’m up to, but she doesn’t say anything. Mum has always kept her eye on me, tried to find out what I’m doing without actually spying or snooping. Everything my mother has ever done has technically been upfront – she’ll try to snatch a look at my phone rather than pick it up, she’ll ask me who I was emailing or talking to rather than read behind my back or lurk around eavesdropping. She wants to know, but doesn’t want to do what’s necessary to find out.
She’s odd like that. When I was younger it used to drive me crazy, not knowing when she’d finally cross the line – as far as I know, she never did – but knowing she wanted to. She was always watching me, noticing little things – I could almost see her mentally filing something away for later, asking in roundabout ways about snatched parts of my conversations that were almost always innocent. My brother, Con, didn’t get it anywhere near as bad, but to be fair to her she did it to him, too. Does it to him, too, probably. Cos he, poor kid, still lives at home. Urgh, that wasn’t very nice, was it, Verity? When did I start getting so snarky about my mother?
Face down in my lap, my phone has the answer: bleep, bleep. Since him, of course. Since he told me the truth about her.
‘What do you think?’ Mum asks. She runs the palms of her hands down the front of the royal-blue dress, trying to smooth out the soft, silky creases that are created by the way the garment flows down over her body to her ankles.
‘It’s nice . . .’ I say in what I hope is a diplomatic voice. She’s looked better. The dress is nice and it clings to her curves in all the right places, it shimmers in the light and it looks expensive and stylish, but . . .
‘But . . .?’ she says. ‘There is a “but”, isn’t there?’
How do I answer that without getting into trouble? ‘Thing is, Mum . . .’ I begin.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I know you hate it. I can tell by the look on your face. This was the best one.’ She flops her arms up and down. ‘I just want to look nice for once.’
‘You always look nice,’ I reply automatically.
‘Wow, my daughter, you almost sounded like you meant that. Not!’ she laughs as she returns to the dressing room, not giving me a chance to argue.
‘Is that it with the dresses now?’ I call hopefully.
The shop, cosseted right in the heart of The Lanes, is deserted on this Sunday lunchtime. The assistant stands at the other end of the shop, leaning against the counter, examining her rather impressive rainbow-painted nails. She should really be chewing gum and checking her mobile to complete her ‘disinterested, bored and was meant for better things’ look.
‘No, there’s one more,’ Mum replies.
I get up and edge nearer to the changing room. ‘Why are you doing this, Mum?’ I ask. ‘You know Dad’s going to hate it.’ That isn’t just me trying to kill the party, Dad will hate it.
‘He won’t,’ is her muffled reply. I’m guessing she’s taking some clothes off or putting clothes on.