A Kiss in the Dark

by Cat Clarke

  ‘I have no idea why you’re taking this out on me. I said you should be concentrating on piano and school but you didn’t listen, did you? You always think you know better.’ She pursed her lips into a thin, mean line. ‘Well maybe this will be a lesson to you.’

  I started crying again, more out of frustration than anything else. Mum took that as a sign of victory and gestured for me to sit back down. I sat and cried. Mum put her arm around me. ‘I’m sorry, love. This is all such a shock. But if you say you really didn’t know about Alex then I believe you.’ It didn’t sound like she believed me. ‘It’s just that it’s a lot to take in. I’m not quite sure what to think.’

  I chewed on my bottom lip – an old habit that drove Mum crazy. I tasted blood in my mouth as I said my next words. ‘She made me–’

  Mum interrupted me. ‘She made you what?!’ Her eyes were boring into me.

  Fall in love with her. That’s what I was going to say.

  ‘Oh my God, what are you saying, Kate? Did she … assault you?’ Her hand was over her mouth as if she wasn’t sure she wanted that awful word to be heard. Assault me? Where the hell did that come from? It was as if she was trying to misunderstand every single thing I said. She was so clueless about everything.

  I clenched my fists again. ‘No! That’s not what I …’ I stopped. That wasn’t what I’d been going to say. It wasn’t. But Mum was looking at me differently now – less confusion and suspicion, more concern. I wanted it to stay that way. She needed to see that I was the victim here. ‘She did stuff … to me. But I didn’t want to.’

  chapter twenty-eight

  I was expecting Mum to flip out completely. If she had I think I might have come clean there and then, but she just muttered a quiet ‘oh my God’ and sat very still.

  Take it back. Say you didn’t mean it. Do it now. ‘Mum, I didn’t …’ I was physically incapable of finishing that sentence. The truth didn’t want to come out of my mouth.

  ‘What exactly did she do to you?’ Her gaze stayed firmly on the TV.

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t … I don’t want to talk about it.’ My gaze stayed firmly on the TV too.

  I was sure she wouldn’t leave it at that, but she did. It wasn’t as if we’d ever talked about sex before. When I started asking questions a few years ago about where babies came from she changed the subject then left a book about puberty and sex on my pillow a few days later. That was the beginning and end of our birds-and-the-bees discussion.

  Mum put her hand on mine and squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry, love.’ Then she put her arm around me and I cried some more, because what else was there to do? At around two o’clock in the morning, she sent me to bed with a mug of hot chocolate and the assurance that everything was going to be OK. I didn’t believe her but I nodded anyway. There was a knock at my bedroom door a few minutes later and Mum came in and sat on the edge of my bed. She was wearing her ratty old dressing gown instead of the fancy new one she’d got from Mags for Christmas.

  I hadn’t even touched the hot chocolate, but Mum didn’t launch into her usual spiel about ‘waste not, want not’. Instead she asked how I was feeling and I answered with a shrug. I felt all hollowed out – as if someone had set about my insides with a melon baller. Every last feeling had been wrung out of my body, leaving me dazed and numb.

  Mum smiled tentatively. ‘I know this hasn’t exactly been the best start to the New Year, Kate. But you don’t have to worry anymore, OK? It’s all over now. And I’m … well, I’m here for you if you need to talk about anything. I can’t promise I’ll always say the right thing, but I’m trying. You have to let me be here for you. I think we should … well, let’s talk about things in the morning.’ I managed to say thank you. I didn’t say I had no intention of talking about things in the morning; that would just have caused another argument and I was too exhausted to think let alone fight. Mum left me, saying she’d leave her bedroom door open and I should shout if I needed anything. It was the exact same thing she said whenever I was ill.

  When I was sure she was gone for good I took my phone out from under the duvet. I’d hidden it just in case Mum came up with the bright idea of confiscating it. I thought she might be worried about Alex contacting me, that she might demand to know where she lived so she could storm round and talk to her parents. But no, Mum was treating me like I was ill, because that was something she knew how to deal with. If she treated me like an invalid she didn’t have to think about whether her daughter was a lesbian or not.

  There were four more texts on my phone. One from Astrid, three from Alex. Astrid’s was obviously a message she’d sent to everyone in her contacts list: Happy New Year, bitches! xxxxx

  I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t bothered to send me a personalized message, even though as far as she knew I’d been dumped by my boyfriend the night before. If she knew the truth she would probably have magically arranged to be on the next flight home just to make sure she’d be the first one to hear the juicy details. After all, gossip like this doesn’t come around every day. The thought of telling Astrid filled me dread. I knew she cared about me in her own way, but Astrid’s number one priority always has been, and always will be, Astrid. And her favourite thing in the world is drama. She wouldn’t leave me in peace until she knew every last detail. Then she’d proceed to call everyone she knew, no doubt adding that she’d always thought there was something strange about Alex but she hadn’t quite been able to put her finger on it. Astrid would never let me forget about it all; it would be unbearable.

  Then it hit me. There was no reason for Astrid to know. Come to think about it, there was no reason for anyone else to know. It wouldn’t even be lying – not exactly. I’d had a boyfriend, and he had broken up with me. Twenty-four hours earlier those were the facts as I knew them. No one needed to know about what had happened since. Being dumped was bad enough. There was no reason for me to be humiliated even more.

  Keeping the truth from Astrid wouldn’t necessarily be easy. She had an unnerving ability to sniff out things that people wanted to keep private – like the fact that Stella had started seeing a speech therapist about her lisp or that Martin Todd’s dad was in prison. Still, I’d been doing enough sneaking around in the past couple of months to become quite good at it. Astrid would have no reason to suspect what had really happened – she wouldn’t guess in a million years. No one would guess because it was all too bizarre. I had that going in my favour, at least.

  I’d have to tell Mum that I wanted to forget all about it and swear her to secrecy. She would be fine with that; she wouldn’t have to worry about people thinking her precious daughter was a lesbian.

  I would do whatever it took to wipe every trace of Alex and how I felt about him (her) from my memory. Maybe one day it wouldn’t hurt so much.

  *

  Alex’s texts were exactly what I expected. More sorries and please can we talk about this and I can explain. More lies from this person I realized I didn’t even know. I deleted each message and wondered whether I should go ahead and delete Alex’s number. I was just about to do that when another text arrived: Please. I love you.

  That was the last straw. I deleted every single message from her then deleted her number. Tomorrow I would shut down my profile on the Saving Serenity forum and get rid of everything that Alex had given me. All those little things that had seemed so special were now meaningless. The shell necklace was no longer a unicorn horn – it was just a shell on a string. It had always been a shell on a string, of course, but things acquire a certain kind of magic when they’re from someone you love.

  I love you. When Alex had first said those three little words to me I thought my heart might burst with happiness. Of course, I’d said them first even though I really hadn’t meant to. Astrid always said you should never be the first one to say it. She said it made you look weak, that it gave him (whoever he might be) the upper hand and you might as well just give him a licence to trample all over your heart. Whenever she talked like
that I would roll my eyes and smile but I’d never disagree – disagreeing with Astrid was never worth the hassle. She might have been right this time though. Alex had certainly trampled all over my heart. Steamrollered it, more like.

  I love you. I’d meant those words when I said them that day on Calton Hill. There had been no doubt in my mind. I’d been thinking about it for weeks, analysing every feeling from every possible angle. Asking myself if this was what love was. If it was thinking about someone every minute of every day or putting their happiness ahead of yours or feeling like you were unstoppable as long as they were by your side. Because that was exactly how I felt.

  I had loved the boy who thought bringing a skateboard on a date would make him seem so much cooler. The boy who always walked with his head down, shoulders slightly hunched because he didn’t realize (or didn’t care) how good-looking he was. The boy who’d nearly cried when he listened to me playing our song. He was the kind of boyfriend every girl wants – apart from Astrid, who claimed she’d never go out with a boy without a six-pack. Which was all very well if you lived in Los Angeles or Miami but not entirely realistic if you lived in Edinburgh.

  If I’d sat down and written a checklist of everything I wanted in a boyfriend, Alex would have ticked nearly every box. I couldn’t have hoped for anyone better. But it had all been too good to be true; my boyfriend had never even existed.

  I closed my eyes and tried to sleep but I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment when I’d seen Alex, when I’d seen her, wearing a skirt. And it was so blindingly obvious that she was a girl. Of course she was a girl. Her features were too delicate, too fine. She had breasts. That was the one thing I really couldn’t get my head around. I mean, they weren’t massive or anything, but they were most definitely there. And they hadn’t been there before. I may be stupid and clueless but I think I’d have realized if my boyfriend had breasts. Alex’s chest had been flat and hard, exactly like I’d expect a boy’s chest to be. But I’d never seen him without a shirt on; I’d never touched him without a shirt on. I’d seen it in a film once where a woman wrapped bandages around her chest to flatten her boobs. Alex must have done the same thing, going to all that effort to deceive me.

  I suddenly realized something, kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner. That was why she’d been so reluctant to take things further – there was no way she could allow me to see her without clothes. But was that the only reason she’d broken up with me?

  She loved me. A girl loved me – or at least thought she did. She was obviously a lesbian – one of those really boyish ones who buy men’s clothes and never sit with their legs crossed. Not that I knew anything about lesbians. All I knew was that the boys at school thought there was nothing hotter than two women together. But of course the women had to be blonde and skinny with huge, over-inflated boobs and loads of make-up. Astrid told me they weren’t real lesbians. They were just actresses (if you could call them that) who did whatever they were paid to do. It made me nauseous just thinking about it.

  I had liked kissing Alex. No. I had loved kissing Alex. I couldn’t imagine that there was anyone better at kissing in the whole wide world. That was Astrid’s one complaint about Justin; she said she had to teach him how to kiss the way she liked it. It was like training a dog, apparently. Astrid gave me a withering look when I told her Alex was the perfect kisser. When I’d ignored her and gone on to talk about how soft his lips were, she’d said ‘Yeah, well, it’s not as if you have anyone to compare him to, is it?’ That had shut me up. Astrid has always been an expert at cutting people down to size; it’s her special gift.

  It suddenly seemed like the most important thing in the world to me: my heart had been broken and I had been lied to and betrayed in the most unimaginable way, but now I had something to focus on. A single, concrete goal. Astrid must never, ever find out about this.

  chapter twenty-nine

  It didn’t go down too well, me telling Mum I just wanted to forget all about it. She’d made blueberry pancakes for breakfast; she only made them on ‘special’ occasions, like the morning after Dad left. It turned out she wanted to talk things over. And if I didn’t want to talk to her, she thought I should talk to Someone. She said it like that – as if it had a capital letter. I had no idea who this Someone was but I was sure I didn’t want to find out. I told Mum I needed some time to think – some breathing space – and she backed off, but not before telling me she just wanted to make sure she was doing the right thing by her little girl. I hadn’t been her little girl for years.

  I only managed to choke down half a pancake in the end – I threw the rest in the bin when Mum wasn’t looking. It felt like my stomach had shrunk to the size of a golf ball overnight. Dad liked to play golf. He probably still does.

  I turned off my phone after getting two more texts from Alex. It didn’t matter that I’d deleted her number because I knew it off by heart. The second text asked me to tell her if I wanted her to stop bothering me, which made no sense at all. Surely the fact that I was ignoring her was enough to show that I didn’t want anything more to do with her. It was like she was trying to trick me into talking to her, but it wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t let myself get sucked in. I pulled my desk chair over to the wardrobe, climbed on the chair, stood on tip-toes and pushed the phone out of reach. The top of the wardrobe was dusty; Mum never bothered dusting things she couldn’t see.

  Half an hour passed before I realized that I couldn’t possibly cope without my phone; Astrid would probably text me and if I didn’t reply she’d know for sure that something was up. She was due back from skiing tomorrow and no doubt she’d want to comfort me after my terrible break-up. (And by ‘comfort’, I mean ‘be patronizing and probably gloat a bit’.) I had to use my tennis racket to coax the phone to where I could reach it and I nearly fell off the chair and broke my neck in the process. When I turned my phone on there were no texts from anybody.

  Mum spent most of the day sitting at the kitchen table, tapping away on her ancient laptop. It was almost as if last night hadn’t happened. But there were certain things that made it obvious something had changed. Mum didn’t nag me once about piano practice and she suggested a walk on the beach after lunch (which I hadn’t eaten). We never went for walks on the beach – not since Dad left anyway. She didn’t put up much of a fight when I said I didn’t feel like it. I had no idea how long it would last, Mum treating me like a human being whose opinions were valid, but I wasn’t complaining. It was just a shame that something really awful had to happen in order for her to be nice to me. She made me my favourite toasted sandwich for dinner, with a tomato salad on the side. I nibbled at the crust, ate half a cherry tomato and binned the rest when Mum’s back was turned.

  I sat with Mum for a bit in the evening, just so she wouldn’t worry. I pretended to read the book she’d got me for Christmas while she watched one of the yawnsome antiques programmes she insists on recording every single day. For some reason she seems to really care whether a couple of strangers wearing matching red fleeces make a profit on some ugly vase they’ve bought. She didn’t seem to be enjoying it as much as usual this time though; out of the corner of my eye I kept on catching her glancing over at me. Usually if Mum has something to say she comes right out and says it – she never bothers about upsetting or offending people. These timid glances were new – and quite irritating.

  I didn’t need to fake my jaw-cracking yawn before saying I wanted an early night. I got up and leaned down to give Mum a kiss on the forehead and she said ‘Night, night, sleep tight’ which she’d said every single night since I was little. I realized then that she’d forgotten to say it last night.

  I was just picking up my book and empty mug when she cleared her throat and said, ‘I’m sorry this happened to you, Kate.’ Her eyes hadn’t left the TV screen.

  ‘It’s OK … I’ll be OK, you know.’

  She shook her head and looked at me. ‘What that girl did to you … it’s disgusting. I can’t even imagi
ne how you must be feeling. She can’t be allowed to do it to anyone else.’

  ‘I don’t think she’d … I mean, I don’t think she’s some kind of … predator.’ I had to be careful here.

  ‘How do you know? You don’t know anything about her, do you? For all we know you might not be the first girl she’s … abused.’ Mum grimaced.

  ‘Please can we just leave it? I really don’t want to think about it anymore. I want to forget she even exists and just get on with my life.’ I found myself staring at the piano. It gave me an idea. ‘You know … I was thinking of entering that competition this year. It would be good to have something to focus on.’ I said this casually, like it was no big deal.

  ‘Oh.’ She sat up straighter. ‘Now that sounds like a very good idea. Only if you want to though – no pressure.’ That was a laugh. She’d only been trying to get me to enter the Young Pianist of the North competition for the last three years, ratcheting up the pressure until hardly a day went by without her mentioning it.

  ‘No pressure,’ I echoed. ‘Maybe you can help me choose which pieces to play?’

  She looked so hopeful, as if a pointless piano competition could really fix everything that was wrong. ‘I’d like that. Now off you go to bed. And don’t you worry about a thing, OK? Everything’s going to be fine.’ She almost sounded convinced.

  *

  The next day I woke up to a text from Edward, sent at 2.34 a.m.: Happy New Year! A new year seems like the perfect time to dump that boyfriend of yours, don’t you reckon?

  Great. Just what I needed. I couldn’t say Alex and I were still together because Mum was bound to say something to Mags, even if she didn’t tell her the whole truth. I replied: As a matter of fact I have dumped him. Too busy for a boyfriend at the moment. Hopefully that was enough to get him to leave me alone. His jokes about us getting together had become a lot less jokey recently, and the looks he gave me made me uncomfortable. I’d tried to talk to Mum about it but she said he was just teasing me – that Edward would never be interested in a schoolgirl. She had no idea.