by Nikki Ashton
Dylan Dickinson, Adam’s cover on the team, grinned. “You’ll have to fight to get your place back.”
“Whatever.” Adam gave him the middle finger and turned back to me.
“Hey, Hudson.”
I groaned, recognising the voice as Seth Davies, the boy Adam had fought with in the gym. He’d given Adam and I quite a bit of shit over the last couple of weeks; usually shitty comments, coupled with crude hand gestures about us being together. None of it was funny, but Davies hadn’t realised that.
“What?” Adam showed no interest.
“How’s it feel to have your dick in the same place that your dad did?”
Agony hit in an instant. I winced, like a knife had sliced through my stomach. First pain hit and then a cold sweat enveloped me. I froze with my hands gripping the sides of my chair. My head began to spin as his words jumbled with images of Mr Mills approaching us on the car park.
How did he know? He couldn’t know, no one did.
Immediately, Adam was up and out of his seat like a jaguar pouncing on its prey.
“Adam no,” I screamed.
“What the fuck?” Ellis cried.
“Shit.” Tyler pushed his chair back and waded into the melee that had started two tables down.
Adam was punching Davies, while Davies’ friend was kicking at Adam’s legs.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
You make me happy when skies are grey…
“For fuck’s sake.” Kirk jumped up, Ellis hot on his heels.
They rushed over to get Adam away from Davies, and to throw a few punches, but Adam was angry, hurt, and his strength was staggering; he wouldn’t be deterred from launching punches at Davies.
While the fight grew in front of me, adrenalin rushed around my body, lighting up every nerve ending, and I began to shake. I didn’t know what to do, except watch as my heart beat loud in my ears. Adam was still getting punches in, but now another of Davies’ friends had joined in and was landing his fist on the back of Adam’s head. Desperate for it to stop, I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I couldn’t make a sound while fear of what was happening gripped me.
Tears began to crawl down my cheeks as I silently begged for help. I scanned the room, but everyone was focused on the boys hitting and kicking each other. A girl I knew from history, Charlie Douglas, took her eye off the fight and turned towards me. When she shifted in her seat, I thought she was going to come and help me, but she leaned across to another girl and pointed. The other girl turned and laughed before whispering something into Charlie’s ear.
Vomit rose in my throat as Kirk screamed for his dad, and when Tony appeared from around the back of the café, with a cricket bat in his hand, I couldn’t help it, I retched and puked all over the table.
The people closest, momentarily stopped watching and muttered about it being gross, but no one helped me. I started to cry and hung my head, puke dripping from the corners of my mouth and my nose, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Oh my God, Sarah, are you okay.” It was Alannah. “Come on let me get you to the bathroom.”
My cries turned to loud sobs as she wrapped an arm around me and helped me up from my seat.
“Adam,” I managed to choke out.
“Tony is breaking it up, he’ll be fine.”
She started to lead me towards the back of the café, but as most of the sixth form were there, it was a struggle to get through the gaggle of people standing on tiptoe to watch the fight.
“Move out of the damn way.” Alannah pushed a boy to one side and then two girls. “Can’t you see we need to get through, you idiots.”
Eventually we reached the door to the bathroom and Alannah managed to push us in, just as I heard a loud crack, which sounded like wood hitting something.
“Shit, Sarah, what the hell happened?” Alannah pulled paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and handed some to me, before turning on the tap and soaking one under the water. “Lift your face to me,” she said softly, beginning to dab with the wet paper towel. “Just wipe that off your top.”
I looked down to see I had some vomit on my shirt. “Oh God.”
“It’s okay, we’ll get you cleaned up, don’t worry.” She smiled gently and continued to wipe my face as I dabbed at my chest. “So, are you going to tell me?”
I chewed on my lip and nodded.
I wanted to tell her, and I knew I needed the support of my friend, after this I didn’t know if I could rely on Adam. If people knew, and how the hell they knew I had no idea, but if they did, then this was going to hurt him too. His recent reaction told me he would be just as pained and tortured by it all.
My chest shuddered to a halt as I opened my mouth to catch my breath.
“Adam’s dad was my teacher, at my other school…” I could barely find the words “… And he raped me.”
Alannah’s mouth dropped open. The wet paper towel in her grasp fell from her fingers to the floor. “S-say that again.”
I let out a sob. “I-I-I was raped by Adam’s dad, his real dad. He was a teacher at my old school.” Repeating it didn’t make it any easier to say.
My palms were sweating, and I thought I might be sick again as my mouth filled with water. I ran into a cubicle and hung my head over the toilet, but nothing came out, so I waited for a few seconds until my stomach settled. I spat the spittle from my mouth into the bowl and then stood up to face Alannah.
She stared at me with her arms wrapped tightly around her waist, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. She opened and closed her mouth like a fish in a bowl.
“Neither Adam or I knew,” I said as I pushed down the toilet seat and sat on it. “He hasn’t seen him for thirteen years and his dad changed his name.”
My voice echoed slightly around the white tiled bathroom and I suddenly felt cold and started to shiver. Alannah came into the stall and crouched down in front of me.
“You’re sure Adam didn’t know?” she asked as she rubbed my arms.
I nodded. “He was as shocked as I was when he turned up.”
“The car park.” Realisation dawned and she blinked slowly. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“We didn’t think we should, and well, it’s Adam’s secret now too.”
She nodded in understanding and then dropped her gaze to the floor. “Did he go to prison.”
I drew in a breath and then exhaled it slowly through pursed lips.
“They didn’t believe me. He told them we’d been in a relationship and I really messed up in court. I got flustered and… well, they believed him.”
Alannah’s head shot up and her eyes flashed behind her glasses. “Fucker.”
I let out a tearful laugh and grabbed her hand. “Thank you, Alannah. For being my friend, for believing me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because my old friends didn’t. They believed him and called me a slut and a whore.”
“Well they’re fuckers too.”
We both grinned but there was no happiness behind either of our smiles, then as the bathroom door slammed open and smashed against the wall, we both startled.
“Sarah. Sarah, are you in here?”
It was Adam; his voice high and broken.
“She’s here.”
Alannah stood up and moved out of the stall and her body was soon replaced by Adam’s tall, broad frame.
“Shit, babe, are you okay?” He fell to his knees in front of me and reached up a hand to cup my cheek. “Katie Brown said you’d come in here.”
“Yeah, well,” Alannah snapped from behind him. “Maybe Katie Brown should have bloody helped her.”
Adam glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks, Alannah. You’re a good friend.”
“I am, which is why we all need to talk, but I’ll leave you for now. I’ll wait outside, that’s if there’s any café left to sit in.”
Adam sighed. “Yeah, there’s more damage to Davies and his dickhead mates than
there is to this place.”
He looked at me and smiled and I noticed the huge bruise on his cheek. “Oh my God, Adam. Your cheek.”
“I’m fine. I’ve told you before, that knob can only manage to get lucky punches in.”
He leaned his forehead against mine and I heard the bathroom door close. “How did he find out?” I asked tentatively.
“No idea, but I’ll find out.”
“No more fighting, please,” I begged. “I couldn’t stand it if you got badly hurt.”
“I won’t, but I will do what I have to do to find out.”
“Okay.”
Adam leaned in to kiss me, but I pulled back. “I stink of vomit. I puked all over the table.”
“Yeah I know. I’m so sorry.”
I was then in his arms, his nose in my hair and his mouth against my ear.
“So very sorry,” he repeated.
I didn’t reply but let him hold me tight.
5
Adam
“I understand,” Roger said. “But you can’t just respond with punches all the time. This is the second time you’ve had problems with the same boy. You’re just lucky it wasn’t on school premises and that Kirk is your friend. The consequences could have been so much worse than you having to wash dishes at TJ’s for a week.”
“He started it, I told you what he said,” I replied as I passed him the plate I’d just washed.
Watching Roger as he dried, I knew he was right. Me laying into Seth-fucking-Davies only did one thing, and that was to stoke the fires of gossip. If I’d ignored him and made him out to be a lying prick, everyone would have forgotten by lunchtime the next day. I hadn’t though, I waded in and punched the fucker. At least his eye, which had only just got back to normal from the last thumping I gave him, was black again.
“How did he find out? Do you know?” Roger asked.
I shook my head and drained the water from the sink. “No idea, but I’m going to find out.”
“Adam,” he groaned my name, a frustrated sigh, and dropped his head back to look up at the ceiling.
“I can’t let it go, Roger.”
His surprised gaze snapped back to mine, evidently shocked I hadn’t called him ‘Roge’.
“No more fighting. Please.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder and looked me square in the eye, his stare never faltering, until I finally nodded.
I was just about to shrug him off me, when Mum and Lori came into the kitchen. Mum looked at my face and shook her head.
“What?”
“How many times do we have to tell you, you can’t resolve things with your fists?”
I wanted to point out that she never had, it had always been Roger, but I couldn’t be arsed to argue with her. Instead, I looked down at my little sister who was dressed ready for a party, complete with a netted skirt, pale lemon dress and a bow on the end of each of her plaits.
“Where you off to, Munchkin? You look very pretty.”
Lori grinned and twirled from side to side, her tiny hands holding out her skirt.
“Sophia is having a party for her birthday and we’re having Karaoke.”
I stifled a laugh and grinned at her. My little sister was tone deaf as well as lacking in dancing skills, so I wasn’t really sure how her choice of future career i.e. West End performer, would pan out.
“On a school night?”
“She’s going to see her grandad at the weekend, so that’s why she’s having it tonight. And,” she said, her eyes shining with excitement, “we don’t get picked up until half past seven.”
“Wow, cool.”
“I know.” She nodded, looking at me with big, round eyes. “I think I’ll sing Bohemian Raspody.”
“Rhapsody,” I corrected her.
“Yep, that’s what I said, raspody. So,” she said with a frown, “do you think that’s a good choice? Or I could do that song you like about the Gorillas, what do you think?”
I almost choked on her second choice of song. It was Bruno Marrs’ Gorillas and it had become a song Sarah and I played a lot at her house, usually to drown out the noises of us getting each other off while her mum watched the TV down the hall. I’d now taken to playing it in my room while I wanked off thinking about Sarah.
“No, Munchkin,” I replied through a cough. “Stick to Bohemian Raspody, it’s much better.”
“Hmm and longer, so I’ll get more time to sing.”
“Thank God parents aren’t expected to stay,” Roger muttered under his breath and I found myself laughing.
Mum looked at us both, her face sullen, and then gently pushed Lori towards Roger. “Okay, Daddy is taking you.”
“Oh, I thought you were? I’ve got those shelves to put up in the hall.”
Mum turned her back to us and opened the fridge. “Well you can do it when you get back. I’ve got a headache.”
It didn’t escape my notice she pulled out a bottle of wine; her head wasn’t that bad.
Roger scratched the side of his face and then with a sigh picked up his car keys. “Okay, princess, let’s go.”
Lori reached on tiptoes and offered me her pursed lips, so I bent to give her a kiss and a hug.
“Have a great time and knock them dead with the singing.”
She frowned and shook her head. “You are so weird.”
Without saying bye to Mum, she swivelled around on her cute little black Dr Marten boots and strode out behind Roger. It was only as she got to the door that I realised that the boots were miniature versions of Sarah’s, and it made me grin. Lori thought Sarah was amazing for finding her in the shopping centre the other week when she got lost, and because she was one of her dance teachers. Now she knew that Sarah was my girlfriend, she’d gone up a whole new level of superstardom according to my sister, who was now even dressing like her.
The front door banged shut after them and I started to make my way out of the kitchen, but Mum stopped me in my stride. “Have you heard from your father?”
“No. Have you?”
Something deep in my head warned me she knew more than she’d been letting on. The weeping and wailing she’d done when Sarah and her mum had come over, had continued for an hour after they’d left, but as soon as Roger led her upstairs and got her to get into bed, it’d stopped like he’d plugged a dam.
Mum opened up a cupboard and stood looking at the rows of wine glasses on the bottom shelf.
“Why would I?” she finally answered as she pulled out a glass.
“Don’t know, Mum. I thought maybe seeing as you knew where he’d been all this time?”
I was calling her bluff and I doubted she’d fall for it, but I was fucking sure she was lying to me.
“I didn’t, I told you that.”
She still didn’t look at me while she poured herself a half glass of wine. It wasn’t even half past five and she was drinking, which proved to me she was hiding something. She didn’t drink a massive amount, but when she did it was for one of two reasons; she’d had a row with Roger, or she felt guilty about something. Her and Roger had seemed okay when he’d left, so guilt it was.
“I don’t believe you. You must have had some idea to be able to get divorced.”
“We only had contact through our solicitors.” She spun around to face me. “I had no idea where he was. I’ve told you now drop it. If I know Glen, then he’ll have left already.”
My heart plummeted and I had to swallow hard to speak around the ball of emotion in my throat.
“You don’t think he’d try and talk to me first?”
“I doubt it, sweetheart. He’s always been a waste of space.”
“So why come back in the first place?” I cried, throwing my arms into the air. “If he didn’t want to speak to me, why did he come here?”
Mum’s red fingernails drummed on the side of the glass. “Sarah obviously.” I flinched at the pain her statement caused within my chest. She gave me one of her sympathetic smiles. “Sorry sweetheart, but that�
��s all it can be.”
She moved past me out of the kitchen and when she was halfway down the hall glanced over her shoulder.
“Make sure you do your homework and maybe do some studying. Not long until your exams now and just because you’re not going to university, doesn’t mean you can’t try and get good exam results.”
As I watched her disappear into the lounge, humming to herself, I knew that homework and revision would be the last thing I’d be able to concentrate on. I wanted to go and see Sarah and make sure she was okay after what had happened at TJ’s. Plus, I had a whole load of things running around in my head, not least the sadness I felt that Dad hadn’t come here for me at all. Which not only proved he was a shit dad, but also that he really was guilty of raping Sarah. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, I did, but something inside of me was hoping that she was wrong, and it wasn’t him but rather someone else. I knew it was a stupid idea, but he was my dad and I had to cling onto something.
Without saying anything to my mum, I took my keys from the hook on the wall and slammed out to my car.
I was about to open the door, when I heard my name being called. I spun around to see my dad leaning against the wall that ran along the bottom of ours and next door’s driveways.
“Hi, Adam.”
A need to punch him and make him pay for ruining Sarah’s life buzzed through my veins as I thought about the pain he’d caused her, and how tortured she’d been in the school car park. This man needed to be taught a lesson, but as I stretched my fingers, clenching them in and out of fists, conflict had me struggling with staying on my spot next to my car. All I really wanted to do was run to him and beg him to hug me and make everything okay.
When he took a step closer to me, I took one back, watching him in his thick smart wool coat, with a scarf wrapped around his neck with some fancy knot.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well I haven’t had chance to see you since the day in the car park.”
“No, not here, now. But here, in this town.” I pointed to the ground and took a deep breath.
He took a step closer and shrugged. “I thought that would be obvious. To see you.”