“He was something, but he wasn’t clever,” Noah says quickly.
I look up at him from underneath his jaw. “My dad had obstructive sleep apnea, which means he used to snore really badly and really, really loudly,” I tell him. I see him frown, probably because he thinks it has nothing to do with the story. “My mum couldn’t sleep next to him, but there was nowhere else for her to sleep. So after years and years of sleepless nights and numerous visits to sleep clinics, she was prescribed strong sleeping tablets. But she was only to use them on the really bad nights.”
Noah nods and tucks my head back under his chin as his hand skims down my arm.
“When I try to recall what he did, I only get snapshots,” I continue. “It’s like when you’ve been drunk the night before and wake up with flashes of images of what you did, or when you wake up and try to remember your dream but you only remember slivers of it.”
Noah nods, letting me know that he understands.
“I eventually figured out that he must have slipped half of one of mum’s tablets into my meal or pudding in the evening and then wait until I was knocked out before coming into my room.”
I’m sure he doesn’t mean to, but I feel Noah tense underneath me. His hand that was gently skimming over my skin balls into a fist.
“It wasn’t every day or even every week,” I say. “And there didn’t seem to be any pattern or routine to it either.”
Noah takes a deep breath but doesn’t say anything. I appreciate that he’s letting me tell the tale at my own pace.
“I gave you my virginity, Noah,” I whisper. I don’t know why I had to say it to him like that, but I wanted him to know that he had that. It’s his and always will be. “Michael didn’t rape me.” I expect him to react, to breathe a sigh of relief or something, but he doesn’t. “From what I can remember –and believe me, it’s quite sketchy—he used to just mess with himself more than he messed with me.”
“What do you mean?”
I take a deep breath and pull away from Noah. I can’t be near him or look at him when I say this. I crawl to the bed and pull myself up onto it. I curl into a ball and face away from him. “He was obsessed with my tits,” I begin. “He started by coming in and just pushing my nightie up and messing with them for a while and then he’d leave.”
“Messing with them?” Noah asks.
“Touching, mainly. At first he used to just touch them with his hands, but I have memories of him putting his dick in between them and rubbing them with it.”
I look at the darkened window, leaving my words hanging between us for a while, hating how they sound out loud. I make a mental note to ask him how those windows work later. I think about some other stupid stuff. I think about the latest plot in one of the soaps that I’ve been watching. I think about the latest book I’m reading. I wonder what we’ll have for lunch and try to think about anything other than what I’m about to say.
“Ariel,” Noah whispers. “Can you tell me more?”
“Yes.” I close my eyes and clear my throat. “After he’d done that a few times, he started to—” I stop. I just can’t bring myself to say it. I can’t even articulate it to make it sound more mature.
“I’m here,” Noah says, pushing his hand across the sheets until he finds my back. “Just say it however you want.”
I huff loudly and screw my eyes up tight. “Some nights he didn’t wait long enough for the sleeping pills to take full effect. I know that he used to wank himself off over me. He used to play with my tits and masturbate until he came. He usually caught it in his hand, but there were a couple of times when it went on me and by that point I was too groggy to stop him,” I mumble. “Then there were times when I’d wake up in the middle of it. I’d be completely naked and he’d be standing at the side of the bed, doing it all over me.”
“And that’s how you got pregnant?” asks Noah.
I nod, but then I remember he can’t see me. “It could have only have been that way,” I tell him. “He didn’t rape me, and that’s the only time I came into contact with semen. I didn’t really have boyfriends. I kissed a few guys off the athletics team when I was younger, but they were just pecks on the lips really.” I breathe heavily and wipe my face. “I thought it was impossible to get pregnant without actually having sex. I thought those were just stories they told in sex education to try and stop us from wanking the boys off, but I looked it up. It’s possible if he did it near my…you know.”
“I did know it was possible,” he says, softly. “Did he touch you there?”
I shrug. “I don’t know for sure if he did. I can’t remember him doing it, but he must have. I think I’ve just convinced myself that he only masturbated, but the other part of my brain knows that semen can’t travel from your tits to your vagina on its own.” I sigh heavily and say, “You can trick yourself into believing anything if you tell yourself the same thing over and over again.”
“I know,” he whispers.
I feel my fingers curl when I think about what he must have done to me. Who does that to his own twin sister?! And why? Why would do that? “I think he must have touched me,” I breathe. “And I hate that thought more than anything.”
I hear Noah huff. I want to know what he’s thinking. I want to know if he now understands why I behaved the way I did.
“When did it start?” he asks.
I swallow and wipe an escaped tear from off my cheek. “The night I won the Juniors in the summer. It was a couple of hours after the garden party had finished.”
“What was he thinking?” Noah asks, but I think he’s talking to himself.
“I think he was jealous of me,” I say. “He was a bit of a black sheep of the family. He used to always jibe me about my sport and how well I was doing. Dad got really annoyed with him. A lot.” I turn over on the bed and look at Noah’s profile through the darkness. I’ll have to shower after this because I feel disgusting, but I hope I’ve given him the answers he’s been craving. “He used to spend a lot of time in his room on his own. He’d be playing video games or watching porn.”
“How do you know he watched porn?” Noah asks, turning enough for me to see the soft curve of his nose.
I remember the first time I heard those noises coming through the walls and shudder. “We used to be in the eaves of the house,” I tell him, “in rooms next to each other. He started watching it when he was about fourteen, I think. I used to hear it on most nights until way past midnight.”
“I’m so sorry, Ariel.”
I stare at him, even though I know he can’t see me. “It’s okay. I thought I was over it until we went to the grave yesterday.”
Noah gets up and crawls up the bed towards me. He lies next to me and pulls me into him so my back is against his chest. It reminds me of the first night he slept in my bed all those years ago. I feel safe. I felt safe then too. “You’re scared about the fact that he might be out?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Because you think he’ll come back for more?” he asks, breathing into my hair.
I shrug. “He confessed to a crime he didn’t commit and is in prison for it. I think he thought he was doing me a favour, so I’m afraid he’ll think I owe him.”
Noah pulls me into him even more. “Why would he think he was doing you a favour?”
“The night of the accident was the day that I confronted him about what he’d been doing to me. I’d just found out I was pregnant that morning and I told him that I was going to tell mum and dad the truth the next day.”
Noah wraps his arm around me and tucks it underneath my body. “Why the next day? Why not there and then?”
“I wish I had,” I tell him. “My family wouldn’t be dead.”
“You don’t know that,” he says gently.
“I do,” I say confidently, “because there’s no way I’d have been driving back from a bloody wedding because we wouldn’t have gone to a wedding.”
“You didn’t tell them that day because you were
all going to a wedding?”
I nod. I know that sounds silly to him. “My mum and dad had spent ages helping to sort it all out. They’d gotten us all new outfits and Daniel, Caleb and Lily were all looking forward to it.”
He leans in and kisses my forehead. “You can’t change the past, Ariel. You have to let that bit go.”
“I know.”
“Ariel,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“I hope he’s been anally fucked too. I hope that they’ve split his arsehole into two and that he gets some dirty infection in it.”
I trail a razor blade up my wrist, smiling as the tiny zaps of electricity make every hair on my arm stand on end. Noah is downstairs making breakfast and I’m in the bath. I’ve been in the bath for about an hour, just lying here thinking about things.
I don’t feel better for telling Noah, but I feel better about the fact that he might feel better about it. I hated saying those words out loud though, so now I know there is no way I can go and see a therapist about it like Noah wants me to. He said he knows someone who is the best. I said I don’t want the best. He told me he thinks I need serious help. He reckons that I never got over my families’ deaths and that on some weird level I blame myself for their deaths. Of course I blame myself. I was driving. I was the reason we were all there in the first place. Me. It was all me. The only thing I don’t blame myself for is Michael. I didn’t do anything to encourage him to do what he did, and I certainly didn’t do anything to encourage him to carry on once I did find out.
I’m not a cutter. I can see why some people are though. Physical pain is much easier to cope with than emotional pain. There’s some sort of chemical thing to it too. When I first started messing with candle wax, I’d get a bit of a buzz afterwards. My brain would release endorphins and I’d ride high on them just long enough for me to want to do it again. The reason I stopped with the candle wax was because I was scared that I’d want it more and more.
My form of self-harm is sex. I always used protection so there was no worry about diseases, but I’d do it with all sorts of people, in all sorts of places and I’d do it like the world was on fire. I’ve slept with young men, middle-aged men, older men, doctors, firemen, a milkman, a postman, a builder, a baker, an accountant, a banker, several CEOs, an escort, and men from all other various jobs. I’ve met nice men and some men that weren’t so nice. I’ve had sex in some of the world’s most expensive hotels, but I’ve also had sex in an alleyway that stunk of piss. The thrill of getting caught and the buzz from being chased by them was what kept me bouncing along onto the next one.
I don’t need a therapist to tell me that what I was actually doing was blocking the pain, that I used sex as a way to express my emotions or that I used it to get back at Noah. And I also don’t need someone to tell me that I was looking for Noah the whole time.
“What are you doing?”
Noah’s voice pierces through my thoughts like a spear, making me jump. “Ouch,” I hiss. I look down at my wrist and see a huge, bright red line that’s starting to bleed. Droplets of red slither down my arm and into the water where they spread out, diluting the water and turning it pink.
“Fuck,” I say. “Get me a towel, please.”
Noah stands in the doorway and just stares at me. I glance back at my arm and realise that it isn’t just a tiny scratch. I start to go dizzy.
“Noah,” I shout.
His eyes snap to my face.
“I need help,” I breathe. “It’s gone deep.”
Chapter 29
THEN
Coming Home
I climb out of the taxi and pull my suitcase out with me, letting it drop to the ground.
“How much, please?” I ask.
“Twenty-four quid, flower.”
What a rip-off. I pull out some money and hand it through the window to him. “Keep the pound,” I say, turning around.
I’m back home. Well, I’m back in my village. It’s summer, which means it’s been four months since I last saw or heard from Noah. I know he’ll be back here because he told me he always comes back here in the summer.
I’ve decided I’m going to confess it all to him. I want him, and for him to want me, I know that he needs to know everything. If he tells the police then I’ll have to run, but I’ll at least be able to live my life without constantly wondering, what if.
I stare up at the swinging wooden sign, the square, cottage-styled windows and the dark grey stone. This miniscule bed-and-breakfast has been in the village for as long as I can remember. When I rang and made my booking, I was told that the previous owners, Rosie and Jim, had sold it and moved down to Cornwall. I don’t know the new owners, which is a good thing because it means I’ll be able to sneak about the village without anyone knowing I’m here. I ring the bell and step back away from the door.
“Ay up, luv,” greets an old man, who has his trousers pulled up to his armpits. As he pulls the door open, I wonder if he’s really smiling or grimacing from the pain of his balls being in his stomach. “Flippin‘eck, it’s chilly out here. Hurry up and get yerself in, luv.”
I find myself smiling at the strong, familiar Yorkshire accent and step in through the door. “Let me tek that for thee,” he says, grabbing hold of my bag.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Oh,” he says, “you a Tyke?”
He’s asking me if I’m from Yorkshire. I shrug. “Sort of. I grew up around here, but I haven’t been around for a while.”
“That’s grand,” he says, waddling up towards the desk. “Wench!” he yells. “Are ye there?”
His wife comes down the narrow staircase and stands next to him at the desk. “Hi, Flower,” she says. “You booked in?”
I nod. “Miss Gregory,” I say, giving them my fake name.
“Ah, there ye are,” she says, scribbling something down. She pushes a piece of paper onto the small wooden shelf and holds the pen out to my left hand.
I lean over to get the pen and hear the man tut loudly next to me. “Not everyone is cack-handed like you, Pippa.”
He shakes his head at me and rolls his eyes. I smile at Pippa and push the completed form back to her. “I’ll tek ye,” he says, turning to go up the corridor that runs along the length of the building. “You here for the wedding?”
Wedding? “Excuse me?”
“Aye,” he says. “That young lad, Noah, from up the big farmhouse on the hill. He’s getting wed this weekend. Yer lucky we had a cancellation cuz we’re rammed.”
Noah? Noah from the big farmhouse? My Noah?
“Yes,” I lie. My voice is smooth and surprisingly calm considering how my knotted my stomach feels right now.
“He’s got more brass na brains that boy.”
Noah has lots of brains so God knows how much money he’s got. “Why’d you say that?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Hired all posh caterers and got a marquee and stuff. It’ll be shit with sugar on it.”
“Ah,” I say. What the fuck? My Noah is getting married? Noah Carter? My Noah? Who’s he marrying? Why? We’ve only been apart four months. How has he found someone in that space of time that upturned his special fucking balance for him? “I’m a distant relative of Noah’s,” I say, keeping my voice even, “but I keep forgetting his bride’s name. Do you know it so I don’t write one of his ex-girlfriends names in their card?”
He laughs and stops at a door. “That would be a bad’un. It’s Tara or Tanya, I think.” He scratches his head. “Short thing and not very bonny. Bit podgy if you ask me too. Good lookin’ lad like him could do much better.”
Tara. Yes, yes he could do much better. What the hell is he playing at?
He unlocks the door for me and hands me the key. “My name is Bill,” he says. “Shout if you need owt.”
“Thank you,” I say, taking the key out of his hand. “Are you going to the wedding?”
“Aye,” he says, pulling his trousers up even more. “Pippa used to know Noah’s mother back
in the day. Lovely lass she wer.”
“I guess I’ll see you there then.”
He nods. “We can give you a lift to the church in the morning, if you want. That’s if you can fit in the bloody car. Pippa got a hat for her bonce that’s bigger than my belly.”
I find that hard to believe. “I’m actually only invited to the reception,” I say with a smile. I’m going nowhere near that church.
“Alright then, have a good kip.”
I nod at him and enter my room. It’s basic, with only a bed, a set of drawers and a mirror, but at least it’s clean. That’s the main thing. I dump my bag on the floor and flop onto the bed. Have I made a big mistake by coming back here? Should I even attempt to see him? Maybe he doesn’t want to hear what I have to say now. Maybe I should just leave and let him live his life with Tara.
“We’re going to be bloody late!” bellows Bill down the corridor.
It’s eleven in the morning. I’ve had breakfast and managed to get it out of them that the wedding starts at twelve in the church. I go into the bathroom that literally just has a toilet, a sink and a single, stand-alone shower and plan on making myself as pretty as I can. If I’m going to do this, then I need to do it properly.
Forty-seven minutes later, I twirl in front of the mirror and fluff my hair up. I’m wearing a pale pink dress that is made up of layers of floaty chiffon. It’s sleeveless and pulls in on one side, making my hourglass figure look even more noticeable. It falls to just above my knee and I’ve teamed it with cream-coloured patent high heels. My skin is super soft and tanned from my travels around South America and my hair falls in soft, bouncing waves right down my back. I’ve clipped one side up with a glittery diamond clip that I bought in New York, and I’ve applied just a hint of foundation and mascara. I also dabbed a bit of blush on and coated my lips with a pale pink, shimmering lipstick. It’s the best I can do and it’s the closest I’ve come to looking like a lady in a while.
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