I weaved my way back through the crowd towards where Emma had been. She couldn’t have gotten far just yet. I’d been gone less than five minutes.
When I got back to the pillar I’d left her at, though, she was of course missing. My stomach dropped. There was no sign of Maurice, either. Maybe they’d just moved closer to the DJ.
I spent a good ten minutes searching around before I decided I’d have to just ring her. I almost hoped she was still inside the club and therefore didn’t answer as I stepped into the blustery night with my phone to my ear.
It was about to go to answer phone when Emma’s chirpy voice reached my ear. “Oh, hey Lily! That is you, right? I thought it might have said mum at first and was tempted not to answer it. Wait-”
“It’s me,” I derailed her sentence. “Lily,” I clarified, just to be certain. “Where are you? I couldn’t find you in the club. She wasn’t in the club anymore, that much was obvious from the lack of background noise. I could hear someone shouting in the background, but no music.
I could practically picture her smirk as she informed me that Maurice was taking her home. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You should wait until you’re not in this state.”
I didn’t doubt Emma had waved a hand in dismissal. “This drug doesn’t fuck with your decision making, don’t worry. I know exactly what I’m doing and I definitely want to do it.”
“No, you should wait. Where are you?”
“Lily,” she dragged out the Y with exasperation. “I’m just fine and horny and wanting to have sex. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Where are you?” I demanded, my voice becoming terse. She wasn’t in a fit state and neither was Maurice. She was going to regret it. “I have, erm, another present to give you. At least let me do that before the end of the night. It’ll make the evening.”
I was beginning to panic and had already started walking in the direction Emma would to go home. There was a tiny chance they were going back to hers – her parents were in, but she was also so impaired that she might have thought it was a good decision, no matter how clear her she claimed to be.
I had to give it a shot.
“It’ll be the perfect hangover gift,” Emma grinned and I heard her heels clacking against the pavement. “You can give it to me in the morning.”
“Emma, please just tell me where you are. I’m just worrying about you. Let me just check you’re okay before you go home and have some fun? It’s what we’ve been doing all night.”
“You don’t need to see me, you can hear that I’m better than fine. Look, I’m nearly at Maurice’s now, so I’m going to hang up. I’ll call you in the morning and we can meet up and I’ll tell you all about how awesome my night was. Don’t worry a bit.”
And she hung up before I could protest further.
My shoulders slumped. I’d been selfish enough to leave her alone so that I could fill my own bed tonight and this was what had happened. Emma was about to lose her virginity to a guy she’d never even mentioned to me before whilst she was completely off her head.
I supposed this meant I was just a bad person all round. Bad friend and bad girlfriend.
“Lily!” It was Luke who called my name, jogging towards me with knitted eyebrows. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Emma went home with some guy from her ballet class whilst I wasn’t looking and I couldn’t convince her to tell her where I was. She’s going to hate me for this and she’s going to hate herself.” I really tried not to get too overwhelmed by it all, even when Luke wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
“You’re freezing. Come on, we should go and get a taxi. Emma will be fine, I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”
Luke didn’t even know she was on something and I couldn’t tell him. Luke didn’t know she was a virgin and I couldn’t tell him. He didn’t understand. I shrugged out of his grip. “I need to go and find some of her stupid dance friends and find out if any of them know where this dickhead lives.”
I started striding back to the club with purpose, but almost lost my footing after only a few steps. I wanted to scream. I reached down to take off the extravagant heels that I shouldn’t have bothered wearing, but Luke stopped me. “Calm down. It’s too late to stop her now, just talk about it in the morning. Whatever happens, it definitely isn’t your fault. It wasn’t your job to babysit her all night.”
“Yes, it was, and I failed.”
“Hey, isn’t that-” Luke had started his sentence and began to lift his hand before stopping and letting the cringe show all over his face.
I turned to follow his line of sight, but he put his hand in the way. “Come on, let’s just go. We should really get you home.”
Luke was panicking and that made me do the same. I shoved his hand away and got to see what he’d been feasting his eyes.
It was my dad, with another woman. They were making out, pretty heavily, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away. The woman must have been half my mum’s age and groped at every part of my dad she could get to.
I wanted to be sick and for a moment, I really thought it was going to come. I retched and Luke instantly rubbed my back, gathering my hair out of my face. Nothing came, but I was just so unsure of how to react. Anger and despair warred to come out on top and as a result, it was only tears that managed to get through.
I’d always cried when I was angry, but this was something else entirely. I was heaving with sobs, clutching my stomach and just preparing to go over and rip that bitch away from my father when I realised they weren’t there anymore. Gone to get a cab back to her place, probably.
My dad was supposed to be fishing with his friends this weekend.
Luke continued to rub my back and attempted to gather me into a complete hug. I staggered backwards, shoving him away.
I was just as bad as my dad and I definitely didn’t need Luke’s comfort. “I cheated on you,” I told him through my tears, looking him in the eye to make sure he knew I wasn’t lying. “I fucked someone else, so please just go away.”
Luke stared at me as I stood in the middle of the pavement, crying. Thankfully, I’d gotten far enough away from the main street of nightclubs that it was relatively quiet. I didn’t get lots of stares, at least. “Why?”
“I don’t know, because I’m a bitch. Because I don’t know what I’m doing with myself anymore.” I couldn’t tell him it was because I was bored, or because he didn’t satisfy me, even if Luke probably knew that. It would be fair. “Just please, go away.”
And he did. He left me standing there in despair, his own horror at my revelation preventing him standing by me any longer. I couldn’t blame him and it was what I wanted.
I swiped at my eyes, knowing I was smudging my make-up, and slipped off my shoes. I didn’t know whether walking half an hour on the pavement barefoot or in these shoes was going to do more damage to my feet, but at least taking the shoes of now offered some instant release.
I needed to figure out what I was going to tell my mother.
She was going to be devastated.
My parents were approaching their thirtieth year of being married and they’d always been so happy. Never an argument, never a falling out. There was a chance it happened behind closed doors, but as far as I was concerned, my parents were perfect. They’d be together forever.
And now that was ruined.
I wrapped my arms so tight around myself that my nails dug into my stomach, but I didn’t mind the pain. At least that was a distraction. I’d let Emma lose her virginity whilst she was off her head, I’d cheated on my near-perfect boyfriend, and my parents were divorcing.
When my phone rang, I ignored it.
Mr. Lane wasn’t something I needed in my life tonight, or at all. My attraction to him had caused two disasters already and I wasn’t about to let it ruin anything else. I’d rather fail one piece of coursework and go to a lesser university than fuck up every relationship I had.
The cold was tugging at me and my arms were beginni
ng to feel numb. It was still February and it wasn’t the kind of weather to be walking around in nothing but a skimpy dress on. Even the alcohol wasn’t preventing me feeling the cold as well as normal.
A car pulled up beside me, but I ignored it. I was walking along a main road, of course people would be getting taxis home at this time of night.
A jacket was draped across my shoulders and I slung it off automatically, a scream barely being shoved down when I saw that Mr. Lane was the person responsible. He’d gotten a taxi to drive along my route home to find out where I was. “What’s happened?”
“My dad is cheating on my mum and I broke up with my boyfriend.” My voice was emotionless, the tears having dried up to be replaced by the numbness that was beginning to take over my body at this point. There was nothing left.
Oscar didn’t touch me. He just replaced the jacket around my shoulders and left me to walk on my own. “I’m sorry. If you broke up-”
“Of course I broke up with him because I fucked you. I cheated. I’m a cunt. That’s about all there is to it. I’m as bad as my dad.”
“If I’d known you had a boyfriend, I would have never proposed our deal, I just figured you were single. I would have just given you the extension, I was going-”
“Yes, I know you were going to revoke your offer, but I stopped you because I wanted to fuck you. I’m a bad person, can we move on now, please. Just leave me alone. I want to go home and think of how to tell my mum her marriage is over, if that’s okay with you.”
Mr. Lane sighed and looked tempted to embrace me, but he still resisted. “You’re not a bad person, Lily. You’ve just made some mistakes and I don’t think I have the right to judge you, anyway. Your parents will be fine, eventually. It’s just one of those things that happens.”
I wanted to scream. But why did one of those things have to happen to my parents. Everything had always been so perfect with them. “I just wish I hadn’t seen. Isn’t it awful, that I’d rather just not know, to let him continue to lie to my mum like that, to make myself feel better? I’m the most selfish person that there is.”
“Everyone would think that. It’s the natural reaction.”
“I let my best friend go home with some guy tonight to lose her virginity when she’s high on MDMA because I followed you in the club. I am shit. I don’t deserve anything.”
“That’s not your fault,” Mr. Lane insisted, this time giving into his urge and wrapping a secure arm around my shoulder. “Your boyfriend… that is your fault, but you can’t just pile everything on your shoulders. You made a mistake, but everyone does. Things will right themselves in the end.”
I had no confidence that things were ever going to get better, even if I was just being melodramatic in the moment. “Whatever. I just want to go home. Can you please leave me alone now?”
I didn’t need this, someone pretending to look out for me. I could handle self-loathing perfectly well by myself, which the remainder of what I’d been drinking before I went out and sad music. I was out of the city centre and into the safe part of town. I’d be perfectly fine.
“I’ll walk you home.”
“I don’t want you to walk me home.”
“I’m just trying to look out for you,” Mr. Lane tightened his grip and I shrugged away from him. Giving up the warmth probably wasn’t worth it, but I needed to make a stand on this. I wasn’t seeing Mr. Lane anymore.
I continued to walk, face straight, and didn’t turn to look at him as I spoke. “I don’t want to sleep with you again. I don’t want to see you again outside of the classroom. I don’t care if you fail me. I just want to be left. Alone.”
“You can’t just block everyone out. I want to help.”
“I don’t want your help!” I all but shouted. “I want to go home and get on with my life as if none of this ever happened. Me fucking you has messed up everything and I don’t want it anymore. I want to have sorted myself out before I go to university, so that maybe I’m not still stuck in a cycle of self-hatred by then.”
I quickened my pace, but Mr. Lane still insisted on catching me up. “This isn’t just about the sex. I like you, and I thought you liked me. That was the point of this whole thing. I wanted to get to know you more.”
“I don’t like you,” I lied. “It was about the sex and nothing more. Please go away.”
And I shoved another person out of my life. It was an easy lie to pull off: we’d had one dinner together and so I wasn’t supposed to have decided that I really liked him, I wasn’t supposed to have already established a good number of romantic fantasies that I played out in my mind over and over again.
It was easy to convince Mr. Lane that he meant nothing to me.
And when he shouted after me that I was making a mistake, he didn’t have to know that my tears had returned with a vengeance and I was this close to turning around and begging him to forgive me.
Mr. Lane was gone and that was good and simple. It was what had to happen.
I’d recover from all of this, eventually.
Chapter Six
The next day was painful. My hangover was one thing, but my mind was weighed down by far heavier things than that. I had to go and see Emma today.
I had to speak to my father this evening, when he returned from his ‘fishing trip’.
And I had to look my mother in the eye and pretend everything was fine.
Emma had invited me round just after lunch and I’d gone to her house with a heavy heart. I already knew what was going to happen before she’d curled into my side in heaves of sobs. She regretted it, of course, and told me how much she hated herself for having done that.
There wasn’t one mention of how I’d let her do it, but I was sure she must have thought it. I’d left her there and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her it was because I’d wanted to sleep with my teacher again.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was good, I think? He was really nice this morning, but I think he knew I was pretty distraught. Poor guy.”
“Poor guy? He took you home after feeding you drugs. I’m not feeling much sympathy for him.”
“He was drunk out of his mind, too. We were as bad as each other. I’m pretty sure I was the one who suggested we get out of there.”
I sat and listened to her talk and felt guilty as hell. I considered not even telling her about my parents.
“I really don’t remember what happened when I got back to Maurice’s, I think I’d drank a lot by that point, too. I’m sore this morning, though. I don’t feel traumatised, or like I was raped or anything, I just regret it, you know?”
“I know,” I definitely understood regrets. “I’m sorry for leaving you alone.”
“It’s okay, it’s not your fault. It’s my own. Anyway, I enjoyed the drug, it’s a shame I had to ruin the memory with my silly mistake,” she swallowed, before running a hand through her hair. “Actually, I kind of regret it most because I kind of fancy someone else.” Emma was blushing wildly and I raised an eyebrow. “I might have been keeping a few secrets, too.”
“Emma,” I whined. “Come on, tell me who. I was beginning to worry you weren’t interested in anyone.”
“Just this guy from gymnastics. We get on really well and he’s really nice… only he’s fifteen. Which makes it kind of weird. I wasn’t going to do anything, obviously, and even if he’d asked me out I’d have declined, but I just really like him. Do you think I’m a creep? At least you’re eighteen, that’s like two years over the age of consent, which stops Mr. Lane being really weird.”
I almost cringed to hear his name. “When’s his sixteenth birthday? I mean, it’s perfectly legal for you to date as long as you don’t sleep together until then, right?”
“I can’t date him, I just wanted to make sure just thinking about it wasn’t weird. I mean, he looks so much older, older than me even and he’s obviously,” she cleared her throat, “a man. I just feel like I’ve betrayed myself by sleeping with someone else, I guess.”
; “You don’t have to feel like that if you’re not together.”
“He’s sixteen in like a week, by the way. I suppose that is kind of important.”
I laughed. “Definitely not weird, then. There’s a two year gap, that’s nothing, and he’ll be legal in a week. Stop stressing about something like that and ask him out if you get along that well.”
She smiled. That was obviously exactly what she wanted to hear. “I might do. We’ll see. Thanks for confirming that I’m not a weirdo, anyway, I needed to hear it. How was your night, did you enjoy yourself? And hey, seriously, don’t beat yourself up about letting me out of your sight for like two seconds. You stopped me going home with some real maniacs, that much I do remember.”
I would have laughed; one problem had been kind of lifted, but two remained. “I broke up with Luke.”
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