by Nicola Haken
“Your father,” she murmured, lifelessly. Was she afraid of him too?
“My father what?” I snapped, suddenly eager to know if I was the only one who had suffered at his hands. It had never crossed my mind before that he would hurt Trudy – hurt any woman. A choking lump materialised deep in my throat… Kara? Would he hurt Kara? “Trudy!” I yelled I got no answer.
“Blaine,” she said solemnly, “we both know your father has ways to ensure he gets exactly what he wants.”
“You know don’t you?” I roared in utter disbelief. “You know what he fucking does to me!”
“Blaine, I- I-”
“What about Kara? I swear to god if he’s ever laid a fucking finger-”
“No, Blaine. He’s never hurt your sister. He wouldn’t stoop that low.” Rage seethed through my veins as I wondered if she knew as well as I did just how low he was capable of ‘stooping’.
“But he’s hurt you? Is that what you’re telling me? Because if it is then why the hell wouldn’t he touch Kara?” I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. If my dad was to walk into the room right now, I was pretty sure I would kill him.
“She’s his baby, Blaine.” So am I… “He adores her.” Trudy shrugged as if that explained everything.
“How badly has he hurt you, Trudy?” I asked curiously, almost as if I expected to find solace in our shared pain.
“That’s none of your concern,” she said bluntly. I opened my mouth to say ‘like hell it isn’t but she cut me off. “Are you going to tell Maddie?”
The sound of Maddie’s name sliced into my heart. If I didn’t tell her I would be lying to her. I would be keeping her from knowing who she really is. I would be committing an immense act of betrayal. But if I did tell her, I was almost certain she’d leave – run away back to England. She would hate Trudy. She would hate my father. Would she hate them more than she loved me?
I couldn’t do it – I couldn’t lose her. In that moment I decided my only option was to be the most selfish bastard in the world.
“No. No, I won’t tell her.” Bizarrely, Trudy looked disappointed. Did she want Maddie to know? In that moment it felt like my heart disintegrated into nothingness. This secret would be the end of me and Maddie. Somewhere along the line it would destroy us. She would find out… and she would hate me.
But I couldn’t tell her.
“I’m going out,” I declared. Trudy didn’t so much as look at me as I tucked the certificate file back in the drawer where I found it, and left.
Chapter Nine
Maddie
Lori’s mobile rang as I was making a coffee for her and a tea for me. She looked… worried… when she saw who was calling and stepped into the living room to answer. I could hear her clearly of course, seeing as my house was only marginally bigger than a shoebox.
“I’m at home,” she whispered. “I’m going to bed soon, I’ve, um, got a headache… sure… no, I said I wouldn’t didn’t I? No, Sky, I haven’t forgotten that… I know you do… I do appreciate you! Okay… you too… see you tomorrow… Bye.”
Lori re-joined me in the kitchen as I was squeezing my teabag against the side of my chipped white mug.
“It was just my mom,” she lied. She actually bloody lied!
“Cut the crap, Lori,” I spat, getting irritated. “What the hell is going on with you and Sky? It’s like she’s got some kind of hold over you! She treats you like shit, why the fuck do you put up with it?” I demanded in a temper.
Then… Lori started crying.
“I’m sorry, Lori.” I ambled over to her and threw my arms over her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.” Even though technically, I did.
“Oh, Maddie, I just don’t know what to do.” I pulled Lori into a full on hug and she sobbed silently into my shoulder. What the hell had Sky done to her?
Lori’s tears eventually turned into dry sniffles and we made our way over to the couch with our drinks. My mum was out shopping… alone… and I was trying hard not to worry about that and keep my attention focused on Lori.
“Sky knows something about me, Maddie. I did something a few months ago and although she was totally understanding, she knew everyone else would see me differently – they would judge me. She’s never told anyone – I owe her so much.”
“So what, she threatens to spill every time you don’t do as she says?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know. She likes to remind me what she’s done for me, and sometimes I think that’s what she means. But I’ve never gone against her to find out. I don’t mind though. I really do owe her.”
“Bullshit!” I snapped. “That bitch is poison and you know it. A real friend wouldn’t hold a secret against you like that. I know you know that, Lori, you’re not stupid.” Lori giggled and it infuriated me.
“What?” I urged.
“You know, you’re the only person who’s never thought of me as being stupid. I love you for that, Maddie.”
“That’s because I’m your friend. You’re real friend. I hate to see you being pushed around by that jumped-up slut.”
“She’s not that bad,” she excused. I glared wryly at her. “Really. I don’t think she’d tell anyone – she just likes to get what she wants. My life would be hell if it wasn’t for her keeping my secret.”
“You’re scaring me now, Lori. What the hell did you do?” I snapped a little more acerbically than I’d intended. But we were friends too. Didn’t I deserve to know as well?
“I kissed her,” she confessed, hiding her pained expression in her hands and letting her white-blonde hair fall over her face.
“Is that all?” What could only be described as relief flushed through my veins. “Jesus, Lori, I thought you’d fucking killed someone or something!”
Lori’s timid face slowly emerged from behind her hands and she stared at me warily, confused even.
“Did you hear what I said?” She sounded almost annoyed. “I kissed her, Maddie! I kissed Sky! And not by accident, not because I was drunk or fooling around… I kissed her because I was in love with her!”
“I’m sorry, Lori, but I still don’t get it. So you kissed her, she knocked you back, what’s the big deal? Isn’t that part of everyday high school life?”
“She’s a freakin’ girl, Maddie!”
“So? Wait, is this because you’re a lesbian? Is that what you’re so afraid of people knowing?” I remembered back to when I first told Lori I loved her and made some joke about her coming on to me. I felt guilty as I wondered if she took my mock-offence too literally.
“Of course it is! You say it like I’ve just confessed to having a gherkin fetish… like it’s so… normal.”
“Firstly, eww – no one likes gherkins. Second, isn’t it? What the hell difference does it make if the person you fall for has a corndog or a fur burger?” A smile burst through onto Lori’s angst-ridden face and we both laughed as she slapped my shoulder. “I’m serious though, Lori, if anyone looked at you different because of that, then they’re arseholes who don’t deserve to be in your life anyway. Fuck ‘em, Lori. Fuck ‘em all!”
A brief silence followed as Lori mulled over what I’d said. I broke it with a question which had been bugging me since ‘her mum’ called.
“Why didn’t tell Sky you was with me when she called?” Lori shrugged and then her expression fell into what looked like guilt.
“Sky doesn’t like you,” no shit, “she doesn’t want me to hang around with you anymore.”
That should have made me angry but instead I just felt desperately sorry for Lori. I wished she didn’t feel like she owed that bitch anything. I wished she could see how amazing she was.
“Listen, Lori, I know you’re struggling with this, and I wish to god you could see how unimportant this whole thing is – anyone who loves you will not think any less of you… but I also know you’ll find the strength to be yourself when you’re ready. I’m not going to ask you to throw a huge coming out party with cocktail
s and rainbows any time soon, but I want you to think about telling Sky where to go. She shouldn’t have such power over you, Lori. You’re so much better than that.”
“I’ll- I’ll think about it. I’m just not ready for anyone to find out yet, Maddie. It’s not just school, it’s my parents, my family…” Lori sighed heavily and I threw my arms around her. She was my best friend and she was struggling, hurting… that hurt me too. “Thank you for being so… ‘not arsed’, Maddie,” she said with a smile, trying to mimic my accent. Why did everyone feel the need to do that?
“Believe me I’ve had to bite my tongue through this whole conversation,” I said with mock-seriousness, causing the blood to drain from Lori’s face. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t give a flying crap if you have a sexual preference for boys, girls or kanga-fuckin’-roos… but Sky? Seriously? I thought you had taste, girlfriend!” I mimicked her accent this time and was pretty sure I was as bad at it as she was.
“I love you, girl,” I declared, nudging her shoulder.
“Jeez, I’ve been out to you for like five minutes and you’re coming on to me!” she teased. “I love you too… in a total sister kinda way,” she clarified with a playful wink.
“What? You don’t think I’m hot?” I said, feigning shock. Lori giggled and rolled her eyes at me. She’d been so down lately and as she smiled she finally looked… free. “Credit where it’s due though, you have exemplary acting skills. I could’ve sworn the first day I met you that you were fixated with Blaine.”
“That’s not hard. Every girl is fixated with Blaine. I just copied what I witnessed on a daily basis.” A rush of pride danced through my body. Every girl was obsessed with Blaine… and he was mine! “So anyway, you spent the night with him. I want all the gory details. Spill!”
We settled back into the sofa, drawing our knees up and facing each other. I relived the most wonderful night of my life in excruciating detail – minus the part about Blaine’s scars. That wasn’t my secret to tell. I blushed and giggled my way through the conversation like a cheerleader on crack and Lori gasped and laughed in all the right places.
My mum came home just after six pm with three string bag’s full of food. She looked anxious. I was sure something was troubling her and if I hadn’t been busy helping Lori to overcome her problems I could’ve quite easily obsessed over that. My mum asked me to put the shopping away and then took herself straight to bed. The old man style snores reverberated through the house just minutes later.
Lori left at seven and if I hadn’t had to move on to my next ‘patient’ – Blaine – I would’ve woken my mum up to check on her. I peeped through her bedroom door and felt content that she was fast asleep and I could deal with whatever was on her mind in the morning. After calling Blaine to tell him Lori had gone home I grabbed a quick shower whilst I waited for him to arrive. He was at my front door in just under thirty minutes, looking freshly showered himself – his tousled dark hair was damp around the edges and he smelt like citrus fruits, mint and something… hot.
Blaine popped one of his DVD’s into the side of the telly and we snuggled close on the sofa as it began to play out. It was something fast paced and action packed but neither of us were really watching it.
He asked about Lori and I simply said she was having ‘love troubles’. She could trust me to keep her secret – I was nothing like Sky. Then we chatted for over an hour about trivial things – school, football (he explained the rules to me twice but I still didn’t know the difference between a whatever-back he was and the whatsit-backer Jason was), and Jason’s latest squeeze.
Before long we were naked in my bedroom and working up a sweat. I hesitantly but purposely ran my fingertips across his back as he kissed me deeply. Instinctively he stiffened slightly, but then sighed and threw every emotion his body held into kissing me, into touching me, making love to me. I lost myself in him completely.
“Talk to me, Blaine,” I whispered into his ear which was nuzzled in my neck as we came down from the intense euphoria. “Tell me what happened to you.”
Blaine rolled to his side and propped himself up on his elbow. I traced the lines of his defined muscles with the tip of my finger whilst he twisted random strands of my hair around the tip of his.
He drew a deep, preparing breath and tipped his head down so I couldn’t see the pain in his eyes.
“They’re my punishment. The scars… if I cross a line I get a strike.” His beautiful body with its mismatched shades of skin started to tremble as he spoke. I scooted closer to him and draped an arm over his hip, gently stroking his back – stroking his ‘strikes’. It was heart breaking.
He said he received his first strike when he was eleven after calling Treacle a whore during an argument. How ironic, I thought sarcastically. He had thirty-nine scars in total and he remembered in vivid detail the events that lead to every single one. I wiped the sporadic tears from his face with my thumbs as he reeled off the memories one by one. It took almost two hours to get to his most recent strikes and I idly noticed he stopped at thirty-eight. I had been listening intently and was positive I hadn’t miscounted.
Was he keeping something from me or did he just forget?
Then came the question I knew I shouldn’t ask but did anyway out of sheer curiosity… and maybe a smidgen of jealousy. I asked him how he’d managed to ‘hide’ himself for so long given his reputation with the ladies (or sluts) as it were. He seemed genuinely ashamed, wouldn’t look me in the eye when he told me he had never slept with a girl while she was sober and never done anything which would require more than the undoing of his fly.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It seemed like I should have felt disgusted yet I only managed to feel… honoured maybe? Smug? Yes definitely smug.
“It just became habit I guess,” he went on, discussing his past harem of girls (sluts). “I can’t lie… I enjoyed the attention. It helped me forget who I was for a while. At school I was popular – everyone seemed to want a piece of me. I had a purpose I guess. Then I’d get home and I would just be the kid no one wanted again.” He shrugged nonchalantly, but the pain was radiating from his electric blue eyes.
“It feels so… liberating, being able to talk to you, Maddie. I don’t quite know what you’ve done to me, but I like it. You make me want to be better. You make me believe I can be better.”
“I love you, Blaine,” was the only possible response I could think of.
“I know you do, lish, and I can’t even begin to tell you what that means to me… how long I’ve waited for someone to say that to me.”
His words made my heart swell painfully. I had visions of a lost and lonely little dark-haired boy, sitting at the foot of his grand staircase perhaps as he watched his dad and Treacle laugh as they threw Kara up in the air – wishing that somebody could love him too.
I loved him. I needed him. And I spent the rest of the night telling and showing him just that.
**********
I think I can safely say the next three weeks were the happiest of my life. For the first time ever I felt… settled. There’s a new girl at school (Michelle, I think) who’s moved over from Texas and I’ve willingly passed on my ‘newbie’ title. I finally felt like I belonged in this massive country full of strange words and customs and I prayed every day that we wouldn’t have to run away again. In fact even if we did, I think I would refuse.
Not only was Blaine inhumanly gorgeous he was also impossibly sweet. He was all I could think about when I was awake, and all I dreamt about when I was asleep. I’d got in the habit of leaving my bedroom window slightly open and he would sneak into my bed every night once his dad was asleep. That was the highlight of my day. But then he would always be gone when I woke up. That was the low point of my day.
Lori’s secret is still safely tucked away and as much as I wanted to slap some sense into her when she avoided me in front of Sky, instead I’d just give her a knowing, understanding smile and leave her to it. She was struggling immense
ly and I didn’t want to make it worse for her.
My mum has been… calm. Not too happy and not too sad. I had mentioned Blaine’s offer of asking Treacle for help if she couldn’t cope – if I couldn’t cope – again and I wondered if maybe she was making an extra effort to ‘hold it together’ because she didn’t want anyone to find out.
Treacle is just plain weird – there is no possible explanation for how touchy feely she is and I don’t like it. I’ve been avoiding going to their house at all costs, even if that means missing out on extra time with Blaine. Plus, I don’t think I’d be able to look at his father without throwing up all over their marble floor.
Sadistic bastard.
Treacle has been to our house a few times though and I swear sometimes she got so close I thought she was going to sit on my bloody knee. There was an unmistakable atmosphere between her and my mum and I suspected they’d had an argument over something. I guessed my mum had finally plucked up the balls to tell her how hurt she was that she ‘abandoned’ us. Even though she didn’t of course - we were never Treacle’s responsibility.
All in all life was going great - maybe because I actually had one. But the best part was, two days ago… I got a job! After a successful interview with the Manager, Sarah, I had earned myself the sophisticated role of all round dogsbody at Brewed Awakening - a coffee shop serving California’s poshest school kids and snootiest businessmen.
My first shift starts tonight and I’m excited and nervous as hell.
Blaine
Trudy and I have barely spoken to each other since the big revelation. That suited me just fine. It’s strange because every time I’ve looked at Kara since, all I can see is a mini-Maddie staring back up at me. She’s got the same rich brown eyes, the same shade of chocolate hair, the same dimples in her pink cheeks… It’s only now I know the truth I wonder how I never noticed before – how nobody noticed. Now, to me, their beautiful faces scream sisters.