Chapter 22
The three of us, Matt, Jack and myself, stood on the veranda of the Whitby family house and looked apprehensively at the solid front door.
It was very still around us, no breeze rattled the leaves on the trees or bushes and all the birds seem to have taken up residence on somebody else's property that afternoon. The midday sun shone down onto the ground, slowly gathering strength as it climbed higher in the sky, although its heat couldn't penetrate the bubble of gloom cocooning me and the boys.
The garden was filled with scraggly, mostly dead, plants but the fences around the paddocks looked sturdy and well maintained as did the horses grazing within the fenced off areas. I had always thought that Mr Whitby had taken better care of his horses than anything else, including his own family.
As I looked at the brown brick house before me I thought how strange it was that I knew Jack so intimately and yet his childhood home was so foreign to me. I had only been inside the formidable house a handful of times, none of the visits being either particularly pleasant or long lasting. The general vibe of the place didn't encourage hanging around.
"Well, let's get it over with then," Jack said suddenly, making me jump. He strode forward and knocked smartly on the door and I waited, hardly daring to breathe, for the appearance of the most hated man in Bridunna (taking into account that Alex could hardly be considered a man yet).
After a couple of seconds there came the sound of heavy footsteps on the other side of the door and all three of us tensed up, Jack squaring his shoulders as if he was about to go into battle. I suppose, in a way, he was.
The door opened and Mr Whitby stood in the shadowy entrance way glaring fiercely at us. His expression didn't even flicker as he saw who was standing on his doorstep but then I suppose he was expecting our visit. He was a tall man, pretty much the same height as his son, with watery blue eyes and short hair that, although once as dark brown as Jack's, was now a silver grey.
As I silently scrutinised him he looked steadily at Jack before saying coldly, "Must be that time of year again."
To most observers it would seem that Jack had not reacted as his father spoke but I was watching him so closely that I had seen him give the tiniest of flinches and I shifted uneasily, wishing that Matt didn't stand between us.
Jack didn't seem to need my support, however, as the next moment he said, in a tone even icier than that of his father's, "You don't need a visit from me to remind you of the date, Dad."
I was glad to see that Mr Whitby didn't seem to have anything to say to that, but not so thrilled to see his eyes leaving Jack and falling onto me, the weight of his gaze making me feel as if he was physically pushing me down.
"Needed to bring a girl to protect you this year did you?" He said distastefully, continuing to stare at me as if I was something nasty someone had left on his doorstep and I suppose, depending on who you were, you might argue that that was what I was.
"Who do you think I need protecting from? You?" Jack laughed harshly. "Not likely."
There was an extremely awkward silence as Jack and his father sized each other up and I began to wonder if perhaps Jack did need protecting. Goodness knows that I would jump right in if he needed me but in terms of physical fighting I wouldn't exactly be much help. Maybe I would just shove Matt in there.
"Talia, didn't you say that you wanted to see the horses?" Matt said suddenly and loudly as if he'd heard my thoughts and didn't think much of the idea.
I craned my head up to look at him incredulously. "Um, no," I said honestly, wondering what he thought he was doing.
"I'm sure you did earlier, come on I'll show you." He took my elbow and began tugging at it, but I stood my ground.
"I've seen horses before," I said through gritted teeth, looking between him and Jack and wondering why my brother wanted to abandon his best friend at this pivotal moment.
"Yeah, but everyone knows that Whitby horses are something else," Matt said stolidly.
Trying to release his hand from me I said, with forced calmness, "Sure, but I've seen Whitby horses before as well."
"Talia, come with me now," Matt abandoned all pretence and pulled at me so insistently that I had no choice but to follow him, looking longingly over my shoulder at Jack.
"Don't spook the horses," Mr Whitby shouted after us and Matt had to tighten his grip on me to stop me turning, marching back, and giving him what for.
When Matt and I were a good distance away from the house and in front of a paddock full of well bred horses, he released me and I glared at him reproachfully before rubbing pointedly at the place he had grabbed me.
"Why did you do that?" I demanded looking back at the house and seeing that Jack and his father had gone inside. "Now Jack is alone with that prick and I promised we'd be there for him."
"That prick is his dad," Matt reminded me, hitching himself up onto the fence and looking down at me critically.
"I don't care," I snapped leaning against the wooden slats of the fence and looking through the gaps at the horses, "I hate him. And you hate him too so don't get all sanctimonious on me."
"Easy tiger," Matt chuckled darkly, "I'm not pretending that Mr Whitby is my most favourite person in the world, I'm just saying that he has his reasons for his attitude."
Not this excuses bull again, I thought crossly. "Yeah, and the major reason is because he's a complete and utter bas-" I began but Matt cut me off by saying,
"Look, do you know what happened on the day of the crash?"
This made me rock back and look up at him in surprise because the events of that day had always been very murky to me and I attributed some of the murkiness to deliberate blocking of information by Matt.
I remembered clearly what I had been doing that day. It had been term holidays and Simone and I had gone to the creek reserve which stretched down the entire length of Bridunna. It had been an unusually warm day for the season and we had stretched out along the bank with some friends and gossiped to our little 12 year olds hearts’ content. We had been there a couple of hours when suddenly a police car and the community ambulance and fire engine had raced past, sirens blaring. Simone and I had looked at each other in alarm, knowing that in the direction the cavalcade was heading there were only three properties- my family’s, the Smith's, and the Whitby's. We had scrambled up the bank and started pelting down the road after the emergency vehicles and I remember thinking over and over again 'Please don't let it be mine, please don't let it be mine, please don't let it be mine…' Clearly I hadn't been able to form a coherent sentence, even in my brain, but I knew what I had meant.
Simone and I had run about half a kilometre when I had seen my dad's Ute driving up the road towards us. I had almost cried at seeing him so obviously unhurt but when he'd jumped out and pulled Simone and me into a big hug I had felt like throwing up as I knew that something had to be very wrong. My dad had bundled us into the truck and driven us home, refusing to answer any of our questions and taking the back way which told me that whatever had happened had taken place on the main road linking the properties to the rest of the town.
At home, Mum was on the telephone, tears dripping down her face and this had scared me more than anything as you don't get much tougher than my mum. Simone and I had huddled together on the couch as my parents bustled about making more calls and talking in hushed voices, but eventually, I hadn't been able to take any more and I had shouted at them to tell me what was going on. It was then that my parents had sat down and told us that there had been an accident and that Jack's mum and brother had been killed. Lizzie was in a critical condition but still alive and had been airlifted to the city.
Mr Whitby had gone in the aero-ambulance with his daughter, but Jack, who had been the first to discover the accident, had gone with Matt to the police station to wait there. That was where the majority of phone calls were coming from.
After that Mum, Dad, Simone and I had sat silently on the couch waiting. Occasionally Mum made a cup of tea, b
ut she didn't drink it and, by late afternoon when news finally came through, there was a line up of mugs with tea in various stages of tepid sitting on the table in front of us.
The news wasn't good. Lizzie hadn't made it and, on receiving this news, Matt and Jack had run off and no-one knew where they had disappeared to. This was extremely worrying as, in our small community, everybody always knew everybody else's business and for two of the town's golden boys to be missing without any clues to their whereabouts was extraordinary.
As dusk had fallen Simone had gone home and so only Mum, Dad and I were there when, at about 7:30 Matt and Jack had staggered into the house looking like they had been fighting. Both of them were covered in dust and smears of blood and their clothes were torn.
Remembering this I looked up at Matt with a furrowed brow.
"You went missing," I said slowly, "and when you came back you looked like you'd been fighting."
Matt nodded, his sandy hair falling down and casting his face in shadow. "Yeah, it was the only way I could get him to come home with me. But what I meant was did you know what happened that day before the accident?"
I shook my head hauling myself up onto the fence beside my brother, hoping that the thick denim of my jeans would prevent me getting any splinters in uncomfortable places.
"There was a big delivery of hay for the horses that day and Jack and I were hauling bales from the truck into the shed," Matt said, his face turned from me as he toyed with a twig. "We hadn't been at it for very long when we heard Jack's parents screaming at each other." He grimaced. "Not exactly unusual considering the two of them, but Lizzie and Paul were firing gumnuts with Alex at a target they'd set up down the driveway and we didn't want them to hear so-" Matt threw the twig aside and stared unseeingly at the Whitby house, a pained smile twisting the corners of his mouth, "- we started singing random songs at the top of our lungs. Probably traumatised the poor kids more than hearing their parents…"
He trailed off and I felt a little lump rise in my throat at the image of a 14 year old Jack pushing aside his own pain and trying to save his brother and sister from it. Matt seemed to understand what I was feeling as he nodded again.
"Yeah, it was pretty much like that. Anyway, about half an hour later we were just taking a break and Mrs Whitby stormed out of the house with a suitcase. She was screaming like a nutter and we could tell that she was drunk again. Mr Whitby came out onto the veranda and shouted some pretty bad things at her, I remember he spat at her and I got so angry at him." Matt's smile turned almost rueful. "I thought then that the day couldn't get much worse, talk about jinxing it."
I stared at the house, filled with hatred for the man who was inside probably at this very moment cutting down Jack like he had cut down his wife.
"The twins had come running up as she'd come out of the house and we went over too," Matt continued in a low, steady voice. "Mrs Whitby grabbed Paul and Lizzie and shoved them into the car and then told Jack at to get in as well. He said no, that she was drunk and shouldn't be driving and she went nuts at him too, saying that he was just like his father and that if he was going to be like that then she didn't want him as a son anyway, stuff like that."
I sucked in an astonished breath and stared at my brother unbelievingly. "She said that?" I asked, amazed and then choked with anger as he nodded that she had. "Why would anyone say that to their kid?"
"She was pretty out of it," Matt said before holding up his hands as if in surrender when I rounded on him angrily. "I'm not saying what she did wasn't completely off, but by then I reckon she was so angry and drunk she would have lashed out at anybody, Jack just happened to be there."
I shifted slightly on the fence fully aware of how easy it was to unload on Jack, having done so myself, although never as badly as that. I saw that Matt was gearing himself up to continue and I thought fleetingly that this conversation was probably the most I'd ever heard him say on any subject other than footy.
"Anyway, while Jack was distracting his mum I was trying to get the twins to get out of the car. I don't know what was wrong with them, they were too scared or stunned or something but they wouldn't budge so I had to reach into the backseat and try to get them out myself. I'd just managed to unbuckle Paul when Jack's mum saw what I was doing and went feral at me too. Before I could get either of the kids out Mrs Whitby drove off, Paul was basically hanging out the door and Jack and I were shouting at him to jump but he wouldn't leave Lizzie."
He stopped and I realised that he hadn't chosen to fall silent but rather he was too choked up too continue. I sat stunned for a moment processing what he had told me and reeling at my own inadequacies in comforting my brother. There seemed to be nothing to say although I tried desperately to formulate something appropriate. In the end just blurted out, "Oh Matt!"
"Don't 'Oh Matt' me," he said gruffly, as always acting as if he was allergic to emotion, "I didn't tell you about all this before precisely because I didn't want you to get stupid about it. It's not like I sit around every day thinking about what happened, it's just every once in a while that I stop and think how different things could have been if I'd just managed to get the twins out." Pulling the hair out of his face he shrugged grimly at me, "Oldest cliché in the book, right? 'If only' and all that."
"Clichés are clichés for reasons I suppose," I answered, wondering how I'd managed to live with the two guys for years and not pick up that there was more to the story than the accident. It was like every time I felt that I was getting to know what Jack was all about I discovered that there was something else which kept him separate from me, something that I just could never understand. I was beginning to realise as well that maybe he had been right all along in shielding me from his grief, maybe I wasn't prepared to face it.
It wasn't the best time to have an epiphany so I shoved my thoughts aside to concentrate once more on Matt who had managed to push past the lump in his throat and keep talking.
"So she drove off, nearly skittling Alex who was still on the driveway, and I was shouting at Jack that we had to tell his dad that she’d taken the twins, but he ignored me and set off down the driveway after them."
"On foot?" I asked in astonishment.
"On foot," he confirmed. "He wasn't thinking straight," he added as if I hadn't gathered that from what he'd told me. "So I went inside and told his dad and the next thing I know we're barrelling down the road in his Ute and he's swearing non-stop under his breath. Seriously, I was a 14 year old boy and he said things that day that I'd never heard before, pretty out there stuff."
"We could've only gone, what, a couple of hundred metres or so, when we saw huge gouges in the gravel on Devil's elbow and I knew immediately that the car had skidded off the road and down into the creek. I mean, Devil's elbow is bad enough to drive sober, but drunk?" Matt shook his head at the thought then sighed. "Jack was already there, down in the creek bed pulling at one of the backdoors. After that it's kind of muddled, I remember that there was no water in the creek but that the mud was like quicksand, that we were all shouting at each other and that I called an ambulance but that's it."
He stopped again and I became aware of a wetness on my cheeks. It was a shock to me to realise that I was crying as I had suffered none of the usual side-effects such as a swollen face or chest tearing sobs that I usually got. Maybe it was like when you hurt yourself really badly but really quickly and, instead of crying, your eyes simply fill with tears at the shock of it all. I was sure that, same as when you do hurt yourself, the proper crying would come later.
Thinking about where we were in the day's events I supplied, "And then you were taken to wait at the police station." I knew at least this part of the story.
"Yeah," Matt agreed, "we were there until we found out Lizzie hadn't made it and Jack bolted."
I wiped at my face, knowing but not caring that I was smearing dirt from the fence across my cheeks. "What did you do?"
Matt shrugged once more. "Chased him, caught him, fought him, wha
t else was I supposed to do?"
We fell silent then and simply stared at the house waiting for Jack to come out again, after all, there didn't seem to be a hell of a lot left to say.
In the end we didn't have to wait too long. It was only a few minutes after Matt had stopped talking that the door that led onto the veranda banged loudly and Jack stormed across the yard and took off across one of the paddocks.
I jumped off the fence, brushed myself down and went to follow him but Matt called me back sharply.
"Where do you think you're going?" He said, not having moved a centimetre as Jack had emerged.
"We've got to go and see if he's alright!" I exclaimed, gesturing towards Jack's rapidly diminishing figure.
"Not yet we don't," Matt said firmly and, when I looked at him mutinously he shook his head firmly, "I've been doing this for longer than you, trust me, we wait."
I sighed but came back to the fence and leant against it, bowing to his superior knowledge on the touchy subject of the 20th of September.
We waited what I think must have been about 15 minutes before Matt landed beside me on the ground and jerked his head to indicate that we should follow Jack. He was, of course, nowhere to be seen by this time but Matt seemed to know exactly where we were going and marched off confidently, with me trotting in his wake.
We cut through three paddocks and then jumped a final fence to emerge out on the road directly opposite Devil's elbow. I suppose, in hindsight, I should have realised where we were headed but I hadn't really been thinking and our destination surprised me momentarily.
I didn't see Jack at first as my eyes were immediately drawn to the reinforced safety barrier which had been erected after the accident to try and prevent anyone else crashing down into the creek below. It was usually a dull, grey colour but today it was festooned with what must have been hundreds of flowers and cards placed there presumably by the town members. I saw Matt's mouth curl in disgust at this display and then he said quietly, "This town loves a tragedy," before vaulting over the safety barrier and making his way down the creek bank to where, I finally saw, Jack was sitting on a fallen tree trunk. I slid down after my brother and then stood for a moment looking at the pair of them.
Matt had put a strong hand on Jack's shoulder and Jack had reached up and gripped it tightly, his knuckles turning white in stark relief against his tanned skin. My gaze travelled higher and I saw then why we had waited back at the property. Jack, my strong, brave Jack, had obviously been crying, his eyes were red and watery, and I knew that there was no way he would have wanted either of us to be there to see it.
Watching Matt and Jack frozen together in a tableau of grief I felt a chill pass over and me and wished for a moment that I hadn't come, I felt like I didn't belong. The next moment, however, Jack looked past my brother to me and what I saw in that look convinced me that there was nowhere else in the world I should have been.
Instinctively, I staggered forward across the uneven ground and climbed over the log to sit down next to Jack, on the other side of Matt so we were flanking him like Davenport protectors. I reached for Jack's hand and linked my fingers through his, leaning against his side and resting my head against his shoulder. Matt sat down as well, his shoulder almost but not quite touching Jack's, providing support but maintaining his own and Jack's manly ego at the same time.
I could feel Jack almost vibrating with pent up emotion and, as we sat there in a weighted silence, I prepared myself for an outburst. After all, surely even Jack at his most repressed couldn't keep all the feelings brought up that day under control for long.
The minutes ticked by as we listened to the frogs humming away in the tiny pools of sludgy water and I focused intently on not crying. Finally, after a long, long time I felt Jack give a huge sigh and then begin to pull away slightly. I released his hand reluctantly and then sat back waiting to see what he was going to do.
He looked up towards the safety barrier as if noticing it for the first time and the same expression that Matt had had when he'd seen the tributes people had left twisted his face. "They do that every year, I was hoping that as time went on they'd get over their enthusiasm, but it hasn't happened yet," he said, his voice slightly scratchy presumably from disuse and the tears he'd cried earlier.
"It's the favourite time of year for florists within a 100 kilometre radius from here," Matt remarked with almost cruel humour.
"Glad to hear someone benefits from this fucking mess," Jack growled, surprising me a little with his use of language. He twisted his hands restlessly together and then suddenly got to his feet and walked forward a couple of paces to stare unseeingly down into the virtually parched creek. I watched him warily, a little nervous of being in the presence of so much raw feeling, sensing a hard little ball of tension developing in the pit of my stomach.
As it turned out I needn't have braced myself for a blast of emotion as, when Jack spoke again, it was quite quietly. "Why didn't either of you tell me?" He said.
After a beat of surprise Matt and I looked at each other and, seeing that he was just as clueless as I was, I gave a little shrug. My brother shifted slightly on the log, cleared his throat awkwardly and asked, "Tell you what?"
Jack shoved his hands inside his pockets, addressing us and yet looking over the creek and into the distance. "That all this had gone on too long." His voice was soft and sad but not as tense as it had seemed before. "It's been six years and I'm still reacting like I did when I was 14, it's enough." He turned back to face us and I was surprised to see that his expression was remarkably clear and open looking. Even on normal days he didn't usually look like that. "Sure running from the whole thing made sense at first, but so much stuff has happened since then and I've got to grow up some time."
He gave his old lopsided smile a wry twist. "It's unbelievable that it's taken me this long to figure it out! There I was sitting there listening to Dad go on and on about what a failure I am and I suddenly realised that I'm done waiting for him to say it's OK, to validate everything I've done in my life since the accident." His voice suddenly gaining in strength he said, "I've got stuff to do and I could waste my life hanging around hoping for him to get his shit together." Shrugging his shoulders slightly he added, "Who knows, maybe I could even do it first to show him how."
There was a pause and then Matt said suddenly, "The scholarship." I jumped at his voice beside me and looked at him in confusion.
Jack, however, seemed to know exactly what Matt meant. "Yeah, I've been thinking about this for a while and I reckon that's my way out." He swung around away from us again. "I've got to leave, get away from all…this!" He swept his arms encompassing the flowers on the bridge, the empty creek and, I realised with a sick feeling, me.
"You'll do it mate," Matt said, jumping to his feet and slapping Jack around the back. "No worries."
I recognised my cue and nodded sincerely, although I could feel tears welling up as I thought properly for the first time of what it would mean if Jack moved to the other side of the world. "After all the time I've spent helping you, you'd better bloody well get it!" I joked (or was it choked?), getting to my feet and smiling bravely at the two of them.
We fell silent then, all wrapped up in our own thoughts. We stayed this way for a moment or so, staring off into different directions, until there was a whoosh of wings and two magpies suddenly took off from a branch nearby and flew between the three of us.
"One for sorrow, two for joy," I quoted absentmindedly. "That's a good omen, right?"
Matt looked up to the branch where the birds had flown from and laughed. "Yeah? So what does seven mean?" He said, gesturing towards the tree and making Jack and I turn to look also.
There were seven magpies sitting in orderly fashion along the branch and I opened my mouth to reply before shutting it quickly as I remembered exactly what seven meant in the nursery rhyme. Jack looked round at me and I knew he had known what I was about to say: 'Seven for a secret, never to be told.'
&nbs
p; So much for omens.
"I've got to go to the graveyard," I said suddenly to fill the silence I realised had gone on too long while Jack and I looked at each other.
Just a hint, if you ever want a sentence to destroy a mood and totally distract people from your earlier conversation you can't go past 'I've got to go to the graveyard.'
Matt looked quickly at Jack to see his reaction before glaring at me and demanding, "Why?"
I knew why he was so cross, it just seemed like Jack had moved past the maudlin stuff of the day and my comment wouldn't have helped. Feeling a little flash of guilt at my carelessness, I wondered whether I would ever learn to think before I spoke and thought to myself that I would begin to make a concerted effort. Jack, however, didn't seem to be perturbed by my comment, he just looked interested in my answer.
I dug around in my jacket pocket and retrieved the gumnuts Alex had given me. I opened my palm to let the boys see what I was holding and they both leant in to look.
"Oh, right." Matt nodded when he saw what I was holding. "I was wondering how Alex was going to get them there this year."
"I'll come with you," Jack said and, again, Matt and I looked at him in surprise. It was a well known fact that Jack hated the graveyard and never went there so we were both a little thrown by his sudden interest.
"OK," I said slowly, "if you're sure."
Jack nodded and Matt shrugged. "Righto," he said, beginning to clamber up the bank back towards the road. "I'll see you guys back at the house then."
And so it was that a few minutes later Jack and I were walking down the unsealed road towards the graveyard. It was one such as you find in all small towns; abandoned church, overgrown and unkempt graves, rusted gates, the whole shebang. Every now and again someone from Bridunna was buried there, but the religious people usually went to the regional centre, where there were significantly more people and, therefore better places of worship and graveyards, and those who weren't usually opted for cremation.
Mr Whitby had insisted that the twins and his wife should be buried there despite Jack's objections. The family wasn't religious at all, but all of Mr Whitby's family for generations had been buried in the Bridunna graveyard and he wouldn't brook any arguments.
A wind picked up as we walked between the graves, sending the dust we threw up with our shoes whirling away in little eddies which disappeared off the road and into the bush. I couldn't help feeling like that was what was going to happen to Jack. He was going to be uprooted and flung away into parts unknown. What was he going to do without us? OK, or more pertinently, what the hell were we going to do without him?
I'd lowered my eyelashes to protect my eyes from the dust and so I almost walked straight past the little row of three graves even though they stood out from the others around them as they were relatively new. Staring at the three stones, which were each simply inscribed with a name and date of birth and death, I suddenly had an overwhelming repulsion to the idea of being buried. Away from the sun and air and…well everything. I also clearly knew why Jack never went there, just like it didn't seem right to me, it wasn't right for him.
I deliberately didn't look at Jack as we stood looking at the grave stones, tears were welling up again and I didn’t want them to spill over. He'd had enough to deal with that day, I didn't want to add crying female to that list. Taking a couple of deep breaths to make sure I was back in control, I stooped down and laid the two gumnuts I had carried around with me all day on Paul and Lizzie's graves.
"Hey guys," I said quietly, searching for something to say. "Um, Alex says hi," I said quickly, "So do Simone, Matt and I."
Feeling like I was turning into my brother with all my unease over the emotion, and having a sudden insight into why Matt hadn't volunteered to come with us, I stood up again and took a step back. I braced myself then to look up at Jack and was surprised to see him not looking at the graves, as I would have expected, but rather at me. I smiled a little feebly and he wordlessly wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in against him.
"You alright?" He asked and I felt one of the unshed tears I'd had lurking behind my eyes finally make a break for it and slide down my cheek at his concern for me when his pain was beyond all reason.
"If you are," I replied honestly because therein lay the crux of the issue. I was, of course, saddened by the deaths of Paul, Lizzie and Jack's mum but the truly distressing part of the situation was how badly Jack had been messed up. It can really hurt to be so close to someone, I was realising, and I felt something akin to ice drop into my belly as I realised that it was only going to get worse if Jack left.
"I'm getting there," he said slowly as I desperately tried to convince myself that I was happy that he had the chance to go away and break his destructive mourning pattern. Lying to yourself isn't really all that easy, however, the reality folder that we humans have stupidly put deep down in our gut always knows the true answer and delights in reminding us of its cleverness.
"It's just…" Jack suddenly burst out and I slammed the 'clever gut folder' closed once more and tilted my head up to show I was listening.
"Just what?" I prompted when he seemed to be having trouble formulating what he wanted to say.
"It's just that I'm about 99 percent sure that I'm right about leaving, but that last 1 percent wants to know that she wasn't right." He gestured towards his mother's grave sounding like he was having to force the words to come out and I understood. Jack hated talking about this stuff, hated portraying himself as weak because that was what his dad always told him he was. "Because running away is just what my dad's been doing all these years and isn't that what I'm hoping to do? After all my big words about never being my father, am I just going to turn out like him anyway?" His voice held a note of panic at the end.
"No!" The word was out of my mouth without regard for the fact that only a little while ago I'd promised myself I would think before I spoke. It came from such a primal, instinctive feeling, though, that I couldn't really blame it for ignoring my earlier instructions. "No," I repeated more gently, "you're not running away, Jack, you're getting away and that’s the vital difference."
"Is it really that different?" Jack wondered out loud and I pushed away from him with a derisive snort.
"Of course it is!" I exploded. "If you're in a really dangerous situation and you manage to escape no-one says, 'oh you ran away you big coward' they say, 'well done for getting away from that awful situation.' Do you see the distinction?" I asked desperately. "Please believe me Jack, you're not weak, you're not pathetic, you're just not. You're strong and smart and the absolute best person I know, you're just going to have to trust me on that."
Something weird happened to his posture as I talked, he kind of straightened and lifted his head up and, when I had finished speaking, he took a huge shuddering breath as if trying to breathe my words in. I was about to ask him whether he was OK when he took a couple of short steps to cover the distance between us and, without saying a word, lowered his head and caught my lips with his. His hands clutched at my clothes, lifting me up against him and holding me tight as if scared to let me go.
As for me? I felt like I'd been hit with a sledgehammer.
The way he was holding me, the way he was kissing me was technically no different from how he had done so before and yet so very, very different. Suddenly I realised what was making my heart thump so unpleasantly it was giving me a headache, he was coming to me for comfort! He was trusting me and caring for me and… I was scared shitless!
I couldn't do it, I wasn't strong or good enough to hold his trust like that. I'd let him down or disappoint him and I couldn't bear the thought of that. I put my hands up onto his chest and pushed until he broke away and looked at me somewhat dazedly.
"What was that?" I demanded, realising that my eyelashes were spiky with tears.
"I don't know," Jack admitted, obviously having felt something different too.
We stared at each other uncertainly, breathing h
eavily and scant centimetres away from one another. Finally Jack didn't seem to be able to take the silence anymore as he reached out to me imploringly saying, "Tally, please-"
"We should get back," I said quickly, cutting him off. Whatever it was that he wanted to say I couldn't hear it, I was too damn scared to hear it.
Cruelly forcing myself to think of the scratches on his chest and the blue bra in his bedroom I turned quickly and began marching down the path between the graves.
Jack was ridiculously loyal and I knew that if he felt he owed something to me or that we owed something to each other it would make it that much more difficult for him to leave if he got the scholarship. Maybe he even wouldn't go and he had to, he'd said so himself. So whatever stupidness I had forced him into, whatever it was that was making my head spin and my chest hurt it had to stop, I was going to stop it.
It was over.
So Much to Learn Page 39