‘Mum, I’m so sorry.’
‘What for?’ she asks.
‘For staying out late and not messaging you. I just lost track of time and—’
‘But not at dancing,’ she says. ‘You told me you had a dance class tonight. But I called Miss Emily and she told me she’s not seen you since Monday. So, where were you?’
‘I was—’
‘And I want the truth,’ she says, keeping herself as calm as possible. ‘No more lies, Robin, please. I can’t—’
She looks over at me and sees something. She crosses to me and slowly turns my face into the light.
‘I don’t even know what to say right now,’ she says. ‘Why do you have make-up on your face?’
I hurry over to the mirror, watching the specks of glitter twinkle back at me as I turn my head from side to side. Shit.
‘I was at . . . Entity,’ I say, trying to keep my voice even. ‘There’s a drag queen there who—’
‘Entity?’ she says. ‘In Southford?
‘Yes, Mum, but—’
‘After everything we talked about?’ she says. ‘You know how worried I was when you went there for your birthday.’
‘Which is why I didn’t tell you. I—’
‘Oh, you thought you were doing me a favour?’ She laughs. ‘Well, thank you, Robin, thank you very much.’
‘What?’
‘You lied to me!’ she says. ‘I know our situation is unusual. There are people at work who think it’s bizarre how much I trust you, but that trust comes from the truth universally acknowledged that we don’t lie to one another. It comes from the fact that when you say you’re at a dance class, I know you’re at a dance class, or when you say you’re going to be at home, you are home.’
‘I didn’t want you to worry, so—’
‘So when you don’t answer my texts and I call your dance teacher and she tells me you haven’t been there all week, how am I supposed to react?’ she says. ‘When you continue to not answer my calls, what am I supposed to be apart from worried? I didn’t know where you were! Greg didn’t know where you were! I didn’t want someone knocking on my door in the middle of the night telling me you’d been beaten up again. I didn’t want some stranger who drove you home tonight, whoever that was, having to explain to me what had happened to you because you were too broken to do it yourself.’
‘I . . .’ I don’t know what to say to that. The simple thing would be to tell her the truth, but she’s already worried. I think she already knows. To say it out loud . . . I don’t know if I can.
‘I feel like I’m losing you,’ she says. ‘We don’t lie to each other, Robin; we don’t do that. You’re supposed to be a good kid, a grown man. If all had gone well, in a few months’ time, you’d be out in the world doing your own thing, but here you are lying to me, behaving like a spoiled, thoughtless teenager.’
That hurts.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. It feels like it’s all I have.
A silence falls between us. It’s like a crack in the ground, so wide and getting wider still, each of us on either side of it.
‘You will come home every night after school,’ she says. ‘Whether I’m working or not, you will be here. You will message me to tell me you’re home. I’ll have Alice next door check in or something, I don’t know.’
‘What about dance classes?’
‘That shouldn’t matter, considering you’ve not even been going,’ she says, her tone measured, so calm it’s almost frightening. ‘No going to clubs on school nights. You will be home by four thirty, no exceptions.’ She looks up at me, her eyes red. She looks like she’s about to cry. ‘I thought I had lost you tonight, Robin. I was out of my mind with worry. I called everybody I could think of. I was moments away from calling the police because I thought something had happened to you, and I can’t have something happen to you, Robin, not again, OK? I can’t have you coming home black and blue and bleeding. I can’t take it. So it won’t happen.’
‘So you’re shutting me away?’
‘Robin—’
‘You’re going to turn me into some kind of recluse because you’re scared?’
‘Damn right I’m scared,’ she says. ‘I don’t expect you to understand what I’m feeling or be happy about what I’m doing, but I have to put my foot down.’
‘You can’t do that, Mum! I have to have a life!’ I shout. ‘I’ll lose my mind. I’ve already lost LAPA, if I lose this—’
‘There are other things you can do than working in a club, Robin. You can teach, you can—’
‘Mum, you’re not listening to me!’ She’s jumped to the wrong conclusion and I want to correct her, but what’s the use? She’s taking it away from me anyway.
‘No, you’re not listening to me, Robin,’ she says. ‘This is my decision and my decision is final. When you’re out of school, you can do what you want, but until then it’s my way and I don’t want you going there any more.’
‘Mum, please—’
‘Robin, end of conversation.’
So I go. I run upstairs, rage, upset, anger, panic, a million and one things coursing through my entire body. I slam the door, because it feels like the only thing I can do right now. It’s probably the first time I’ve ever slammed a door in my life and it feels kind of cathartic so I open it and slam it again. I slam my drawers, the door to my wardrobe, I punch my duvet, my pillows, I cry and I cry and I cry because I’ve probably ruined the only thing keeping me sane, the only glimmer of hope I had for next year.
I can’t go back to Entity and it feels like my world has fallen apart.
TWENTY-TWO
I don’t see Mum when I get up the following morning. I get ready, I shower, I eat breakfast, I make my lunch, and when she doesn’t surface before I have to go I just leave. I consider shouting ‘Goodbye’ up the stairs, but there is a hollowness in my chest that tells me not to. So I don’t.
I wait outside for Seth. My heart skips when his car rounds the corner and I wonder if Mum is watching me as I get into the passenger seat.
‘Good morning,’ I say, finding the energy to offer him a smile that he returns, though there is a sympathy behind his eyes like he knows that things haven’t gone well. Maybe he can sense it.
‘What happened?’
‘You don’t want to hear it.’
I turn the radio on. He turns it off.
‘I’ve seen you cry, Robin,’ he says. ‘I think we’re good to talk about bad days.’
I sigh. ‘You’re sure? It’s a doozy.’
‘Try me.’
I sigh again and proceed to tell him what Mum said. How I know she worries and how I lied anyway. It sounds awful coming out of my mouth. God, I really messed this up.
‘So, what are you going to do?’ he asks as we drive past my dance school that I can’t go to any more, past the rival school.
I shrug. ‘It will blow over eventually – by which point Kaye will probably have moved on to someone else because I’ve stopped showing up.’
‘The way he did you up last night was beautiful,’ Seth says.
‘I wish I’d got a picture or something,’ I say, a smile tugging at my mouth. ‘Thanks for the lips, by the way.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ he says. ‘Robin, you can’t just stop going. I know it’s bad, but you just can’t.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘Well, we need to go and get your bike anyway, right?’ he says. ‘So, why don’t I drive you there today?’
‘Did you not hear me when I said that my mum is keeping tabs on me?’ I say. ‘The neighbours are going to be checking up on me and everything. It’s like freaking house arrest or something. Besides, there’s no way I can get to Southford and back here before my mum would want me home.’
‘So, we don’t go after school,’ he says, a sly smile on his face. ‘When are your free periods today?’
And I realize exactly what he’s suggesting and suddenly want to collapse or something. I’ve never
cut school in my life.
‘Seth, are you out of your mind? We can’t—’
‘Who says we can’t?’ he interrupts. ‘You register in the morning, you go out on a free period, you come back – who will know?’
‘Seth, I can’t. I have exams—’
‘This is Mrs Finch in your head,’ he says. ‘I hate that. Look, you didn’t care when you were skipping classes for auditions, why is this any different? This is your life.’
‘Yeah, Seth, it’s my life. I can’t have you fucking up yours too.’
He scoffs and shrugs. ‘Don’t worry about me. My life is pretty messed up as it is. I want to help. I’ve never seen anyone light up like you did when that music hit you.’
‘Really?’ I say. And I know what he’s talking about. I could feel it in that moment – that tiny little spark that I always had before a show, during a performance, it was there again like it had never been away.
‘I have no reason to lie to you,’ he says as we pull into school. While he’s parking the car, I can’t help but think that maybe he’s right. This isn’t even a skipped class, it’s a free period, and who cares about a skipped free period? If Kaye is free, it couldn’t hurt.
‘I’m free after my psychology class,’ I say. ‘I don’t have a class until after lunch.’
Seth smiles. ‘Then we’ll go then.’
When I get out of the car, I see Connor. He’s not too far away, watching as Seth and I walk towards school. I take a few deep breaths, wishing him away, not wanting to have to deal with him this morning of all freaking mornings.
‘Would you look at that,’ Seth says, nodding in Connor’s direction. ‘You ready to tell me about him yet?’
‘Long story,’ I reply.
‘Boyfriend?’
I freeze. I don’t even know how to answer that.
‘I promise I’ll tell you all about it, but I can’t right now.’
‘Robin, if you need me to—’
‘I’m OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you later. Meet you out here?’
He looks disappointed, but nods before heading towards school.
Connor walks up to me. ‘Robin—’
‘Please just drop it, Connor,’ I snap, trying to speak quietly. I’m still trying to protect him, even when he is coming to talk to me somewhere way too open. ‘I can’t do this right now. I’ve got too much shit going on and I just can’t deal with it so—’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he says, and I look at him. That warm, welcoming smile. The kind of smile that makes me feel like I’m not alone and that maybe I am worthy of love even if it is from someone who calls me a . . . a . . .
‘Not with you. Can you go, please?’
‘Robin—’
‘You heard him, Connor. Just go.’ Natalie is behind him and her timing is so perfect I want to cry and kiss her wonderful, wonderful face.
Connor gives me a last, pleading look, then walks away, back towards the school, back to wherever his friends are, back to his other life, the one that doesn’t have me in it.
‘Impeccable timing,’ I say. ‘How do you do that?’
She shrugs. ‘It’s a gift. What are you doing in the car park?’
‘Got a lift with Seth.’
She widens her eyes.
‘It’s honestly not what you think,’ I say. ‘But thanks for rescuing me.’
She shrugs and we start to walk towards school.
‘What’s going on? Has something happened with Connor?’
‘I haven’t really slept,’ I say. ‘Had a big fight with Mum,’ I add.
‘Right. Did you tell her about Entity?’
I nod. ‘I had to.’
‘And she was pissed.’
‘I sort of deserve it,’ I say. ‘I mean, I’ve lied to her enough. But she went way overboard. She’s not letting me go to dance classes. Or Entity. Basically, my drag career is over before it’s even started. But I’m going with Seth today and—’
‘Hold on, hold on, you’re going anyway? How? Why?’
‘I have to pick up my bike and Seth said he would drive me over.’
‘But when?’
‘I have a free period after psychology,’ I say.
Natalie stops walking and eyes me carefully. ‘Robin Cooper.’
‘What?’
‘Skipping school.’
‘I’m not!’ I protest. ‘It’s a free period. If I’m not free to do what I want, then that’s false advertising.’
She laughs. ‘I have the most beautiful image in my head of you explaining that to Mrs Finch.’
‘She’d kill me.’
‘She’d decapitate you and put your head on a pike outside her office.’
‘Extreme.’
Natalie shrugs. ‘So you’re going?’
I nod. ‘I have to, Nat. Last night Kaye offered me a slot performing,’ I say. ‘Paid. In drag. And . . . I have to rehearse. I can’t not, it’s too big of a thing.’
Natalie nods, pouting her lips, thinking. ‘I’ll cover for you.’
‘What?’
‘If anyone asks where you are, I’ll cover for you. But just this once, OK? It’s a slippery slope to delinquency.’
‘I don’t deserve you.’
‘You really don’t,’ she says.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘OK, enough on me, how was your night?’
‘No, not so fast,’ she says. ‘I need to know what the hell is going on with you and lover boy. He’s making the puppy dog eyes at you and trying to talk to you and you’re giving him nothing.’
‘I am not giving him nothing.’
‘You are giving him absolute nootch,’ she says. ‘In the dictionary next to the word nootch is a picture of you and the faces you were just pulling at Connor. Giving him absolutely nothing. Have you two had a fight or something? Have you broken up?’
‘OK, first of all, if nootch makes it into the dictionary, I owe you some coin,’ I say. ‘And maybe I’m giving him nootch, but maybe it’s because he deserves it.’ I start walking again but she stops me.
‘Robin, seriously, tell me,’ she says.
I sigh. ‘Can we walk and talk? I honestly can’t look at your face while I tell you this.’
‘Sure.’
As we walk towards school, I fill her in on everything that happened outside Entity. Everything from the way Connor looked at me, to Ryan and the rest of his friends showing up, to what Connor said to me, to the hug with Seth. She’s dumbstruck.
‘Please say something,’ I say. ‘The silence is horrible.’
‘I just can’t believe he would say that to you. And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’
‘Yeah.’ I shrug. ‘Well. It’s embarrassing.’
She stops dead and grabs hold of my arm. ‘Robin, please tell me you’re not making excuses for him in your head.’
‘Nat—’
‘No, for fuck’s sake, Robin, you can’t just let him say that to you and then go back to making out with him. That’s not cool,’ she barks.
‘I’m not, I swear, but—’
‘Argh,’ she groans. ‘Look, Robin, I love you so much OK? You’re my best friend in the whole universe. Do you have any idea how much it kills me to see you with someone who doesn’t treat you right?’ She slides her hand down my arm and locks her fingers with mine. ‘You’re so great, and Connor has been such a prick. First not coming out for your birthday, then ghosting you and now this! He hangs out with pricks and he is treating you like an experiment and I won’t have it.’
I want to remind her how he is when we’re alone. How sweet he is, how he seems like he cares for me in those moments, how happy he has made me, but I know that won’t cut it. I’m not even sure that cuts it with me any more.
‘Have I totally lost you to the depths of your own head?’ she says.
‘I’m . . . I’m thinking that I don’t really know what to do about the whole situation,’ I say. She opens her mouth to speak, but I keep going. ‘I don’t want to ta
lk to him or confront him about it. And we haven’t really spoken since it happened so it doesn’t feel like there is much to say. He thinks I’m disgusting and he called me a . . .’ I don’t even want to say it myself. It just doesn’t seem right to put the word out into the world. If I were braver, I’d reclaim it, but I don’t feel brave enough.
‘Then let me talk to him. I’ll give that asshole a piece of my mind.’
‘Please don’t,’ I say. ‘I just want it to go away.’
‘Well, sweetheart, at the moment the only thing that isn’t going away is Connor because you’re not talking to him about it,’ she says. ‘Get rid of him. I promise you there is someone better out there.’
‘Are you talking about Seth?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I’m still not sold on him yet.’
‘He’s really great, Nat,’ I say. ‘Seriously.’
And I think back to what so very nearly almost happened last night as he painted my lips, and I’m about to tell Natalie about it when I realize I need to do some damage control.
‘Can we not tell Greg? About the Connor stuff?’
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Why?’
‘You know what he’s like,’ I say. ‘He’s so protective and I don’t want Connor to get the wrath of Greg. He hates Connor enough as it is.’
‘The Wrath of Greg sounds like a terrible movie that I definitely want to watch,’ she says. ‘But sure. We can keep it between us. Though I don’t know if Greg has a wrath, so you might not need to worry.’
I shrug. She has absolutely no idea. I’m sort of glad about that. ‘Well, still.’
The bad feeling sinks to the pit of my stomach, weighing me down as we continue our walk into school. I need to find the power to finish things with Connor before it’s too late, before either Greg or Nat find out things that I don’t want them to find out. That’s the last thing I need right now. I’ve already lost Mum. I can’t lose them too.
I spend the rest of the morning watching the clock, waiting for the moment when Seth and I can leave school and drive to Entity. I messaged Kaye and explained the situation, and he said he could meet us there during my free period. My heart was pounding so loudly in class that I’m surprised no one heard it.
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