“Well, that sounds horrible.”
“I know, mate, but it’s exercise, isn’t it? You do PE.”
“I really don’t, Dad. But sure.” I sniff again. “I’ll think about it.” The soft rejection. I can’t deal with this right now.
He squeezes my knee. “You do that. Might be just what you need to take your mind off things. Now, that big, gaping void you feel like you have inside of you?”
I let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I know. Say something about there being more fish in the sea. Dismiss my pain as teenage drama. Go ahead.”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that, but it’s also caused by not eating anything all day.”
“Ohhhh, funny, you are funny, Dad.”
“Deliveroo are bringing Japanese food in approximately T-minus twenty minutes.”
“Kat—”
“Katsu curry, yes, for you.” He smirks at me. “You smiled. Good.” He stands and walks to the door, then stops and turns back. “When did you last have a shower?”
“Oh, sorry, do I stink?”
Dad cocks his head and grins at me.
“I’ll sort it out.”
He nods and closes my bedroom door.
And then I spot the red rose that I was going to give Tariq after my announcement last night, and I start crying all over again.
When I finally feel ready to appear downstairs, I’m greeted by the sight of Mum hurriedly doing her make-up in the hall mirror.
I’m assuming this isn’t for the benefit of the Deliveroo guy. “What’s going on?” I ask her.
“How dare this Tariq boy treat you like this!” she says, aggressively applying lipstick.
So Dad has told her everything. I shrug. “Yeah, well.”
“Yeah, well, unacceptable!” Mum replies. “I’m going round to see his parents – see what they have to say for themselves and their badly behaved child!”
My eyes widen. “You don’t know where they live!”
“Fifteen, Willow Crescent. Linda at number fifty-five told me.”
I fling myself across the front door. “Mum! No!”
She throws the lipstick in her bag and turns to me. “I’m going to give that boy a piece of my mind!”
“No, no, no, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” Mum insists. “Who does he think he is? Cheating on you!”
“Mum, we’re sixteen, this is isn’t the sort of—”
“No one’s got any class nowadays. Know who I blame? The Kardashians.” She advances towards the front door and my flimsy teen boy barricade. “Shift.”
I brace myself against the edges of the door frame. “Mum, I beg you, just leave it, please.”
“I’m really angry, Nate!”
“I know, I know you are, so am I. We’re all angry, but this will only make things a thousand times worse for me. I can’t have my mum turning up at boys’ houses every time one upsets me. Besides, if you did, that would literally be your full-time job.”
She looks me in the eye and sighs. “You’re so much better than that little toad.”
“Thanks.”
She takes a deep breath, glances over her shoulder, then lowers her voice. “Nate? It’s totally fine, there’s no shame, and we can even go to one in another town, but do you think it might be an idea to visit the STI clinic? Just in case?”
I stare at her, eyes wide.
“We can’t be sure how many other boys he’s—”
I shake my head vigorously, trying to make some words come out. “We haven’t! I told you that last night! No. It’s fine. Really. There’s literally no chance.”
Mum nods. “So, there’s nothing—”
I say it quickly because it’s the best way to get it over with. “We never did anything that would risk me catching an STI. We literally only kissed and held hands, OK, god, I just want to die.”
“OK,” Mum says to her wholesome, pure, virgin son.
“So can we just leave it? Just stay here. I don’t want you talking to Tariq or his parents.”
Mum nods, smoothing a bit of my hair down. “Your phone’s been bleeping a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s on the kitchen table.”
“I know.”
“And Rose wants to see you in the garden.”
“Why? What’s she doing?”
“Burying Tariq in a shallow grave.”
“Huh,” I say, shaking my head as I walk through to the kitchen. I pick my phone up and scroll through the barrage of messages. There are various ones of increasing concern and hysteria from Alfie, Connie and Luke, so I fire back a few quick texts saying I’m OK (which is a lie) and that I’ll “message them properly later” (which is also, probably, a lie). There’s a message from Jack too.
Hey. I’m sorry about everything. Hope you’re OK. Here if you want to talk. J x
I nearly laugh at the very idea he thinks he’s someone I want to talk to right now. No surprises that Jack is at the epicentre of this massive scandal. I’ve also got ten missed calls from him. I bet he’s lapping up all the drama.
And then there’s Tariq:
I’m so sorry, Nate.
I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Really want to talk.
Nate?
I really messed up. I’m sorry. Understand if you don’t want to see or talk to me again. But hope you might give me a chance to explain.
I feel myself start to well up again, because however angry I am, however much I hate Tariq, the gentleness in his messages is why I loved him so much to start with. And what’s all this about wanting to “explain”? That sounds like it’s not straightforward, but why? Was Tariq somehow seduced by Dylan? Did something happen which he immediately regretted? Maybe Tariq made a mistake, and was trying to find a way to break it off with Dylan and then come clean to me, but the whole thing… Uh. Not now. I can’t do this now. I put my phone back on the table, face down, and head out of the back door to see what Rose wants.
Rose has dug a small hole in one of the flowerbeds that doesn’t have any flowers in it because this is the back garden, and most of the neighbours only ever see the front, which, literally, rivals Kew. There’s an Action Man figure on the lawn, which I assume is meant to be Tariq. Not accurate, he’s not that toned, but anyway. It’s kind of sweet of Rose, if you discount the weird voodoo doll element to this, and the fact her first thought was to kill Tariq – you know, she’s looking out for me, she’s loyal … but then she raises the huge spade she’s been using (which she’s only a little bit taller than) and brings it crashing down on Tariq’s – I mean, Action Man’s – torso, slicing him clean in half.
And now all I can see is me on one of those tacky documentaries in a few years’ time, called When Cute Kids Go Bad.
And as she kicks the two halves into the hole, haphazardly shovels on some soil and sings, “Goodbye, Tariq!” I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream.
And then I remember what day it is tomorrow and I’m very nearly sick right there and then.