Because of Her

by KE Payne

  “My accent?” Eden asked. “It’s nondescript. I think your accent’s lovely, though.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah. It’s gentle, soft. Kinda mesmerizing. I often think you could lull me off to sleep with your accent.” Eden shifted in her seat. “I mean, you know, ’cos it’s so comforting.” She realized what she’d said and immediately faced away from me to look out of the window.

  I shuffled in my seat, too, still making sure my leg didn’t touch hers. A slightly uneasy silence settled over us. I looked at her through the corner of my eye, trying to gauge her mood, but she just gazed out of the window. While I was still looking at her, she turned and faced me.

  Matching self-conscious smiles tugged at the corners of our mouths.

  “Maybe that sounded a bit weird,” Eden faltered. Her eyes flashed over mine. “I mean…”

  My phone rang, echoing intrusively around the quiet of the minibus. In a fluster I pulled it from my jeans pocket, nearly dropping it in my haste to make it shut up. “Amy, hi.” Eden was still looking at me. Should I turn my shoulder from her? Too rude. I sat and stared straight ahead.

  “I was just ringing to say good luck,” Amy said. “Are you on your way?”

  “Yeah.” My voice sounded thin. I coughed. “We’re about an hour away from the venue.” Better.

  “You’re on the minibus? Cool,” Amy said. “Are you with Greg?”

  I threw a look to Eden.

  “No, someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Eden.”

  “Eden again, hey?”

  “Mm.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll knock them all dead today,” Amy said. “So to speak.”

  I laughed. “Hope not.”

  What was Eden doing? I flicked my eyes to her. She was texting. Good.

  “I miss you,” Amy said.

  “Me, too.”

  “And I love you,” Amy said. “I don’t think I say it enough.”

  I moved in my seat. “Me, too.”

  “And I’m gonna come visit you at the weekend,” Amy said. “I’ve decided.”

  “This weekend coming?” My stomach tightened. “Awesome.”

  “I figured your father’s never going to back down and let you come up to me,” Amy said. “Besides,” she continued, “I think it’ll be good for me to see you.”

  “Sounds great.” I was being monosyllabic. I knew it, but there was something about having Eden sitting next to me, listening to every word, that made me hesitant.

  Our brief conversation finished.

  “Everything okay?” Eden turned in her seat to face me.

  I’d sighed when I’d put my phone back in my pocket. She must have heard.

  “Fine.” I smiled.

  Truth was, everything was far from fine.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The fencing competition, when we finally got there, was awesome. Actually, it was beyond awesome. It was by far the best thing I’d ever taken part in, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even for days afterwards.

  When we arrived, we were ushered into changing rooms at the arena, more or less straight away; me, Eden, and Freya to one side, Greg, Tim, and Liam to the other. Each trio disappeared into their respective changing room, kit bags ready. There was much chattering and far too many nerves. This was a huge occasion for the school, Rob kept telling us. That didn’t do anything to assuage my anxiety at representing my school for the first time in my life.

  “At last we all get to see you in your breeches.” Eden leant over and patted me on the back, looking over to Freya across the room. “Do you know this one has a breech-phobia, Freya?” she called out. I wanted to curl up in a ball.

  “What could possibly be wrong with wearing them?” Freya called back. “I mean, look at me.” She flapped her hands up and down her body. “You’re not telling me these don’t look the business?”

  I looked at Freya’s sparkling white breeches, cut just below the knee, and groaned.

  “You look okay in yours,” I said. “You have legs with shape, unlike my skinny, shapeless, puny things.” I lifted one leg and waggled my foot.

  “You forget—I’ve already seen your legs,” Eden said, leaning over the bench next to me to rummage in her bag. “So quit being so coy about it and get changed.”

  She pulled out her breeches and shook them out, then held them to her chest and smoothed them down with her hands.

  “When?” I asked, looking up at her. “When exactly have you seen my legs?”

  “At the hospital that time,” Eden replied, placing her breeches back on the bench and unbuttoning her jeans.

  She remembered that? That means she must have remembered the Simpsons boy shorts, too.

  Great.

  I cringed. I also desperately tried to ignore the sight of Eden’s legs as she wriggled her jeans down over her hips and down to her ankles. Not easy, bearing in mind she was bending over, just inches from me. She kicked her jeans off and bent over to retrieve them, revealing far more cleavage than I felt able to cope with minutes before a competition. Totally unfair. The wall to my left suddenly became very interesting as I steadfastly stared at it.

  “Remember?” Eden asked.

  By the time I turned back, Eden had pulled her breeches up and was buttoning them at the waist.

  “Hmm?”

  “You had to pull your trousers down in front of me at the hospital when you crocked your knee,” Eden said matter-of-factly. “You were wearing Simpsons shorts, I remember.”

  Great. Fucking great.

  “Anyone who can wear those in public has absolutely no right to be modest about either showing her legs or wearing breeches,” she continued. “So get off your arse and get dressed.” She whacked my arm playfully with the back of her hand.

  “Ow.”

  “And quit with the ows.”

  Sighing, I stood up. I took my breeches from my bag and, just as Eden had done before, shook them out and smoothed them down. I tugged my sweats down, after fumbling like an idiot at the waistband, aware of Eden standing insanely close to me. Thanking God and myself that I wasn’t wearing any shorts with a cartoon character this time, I kicked my sweats off and yanked my breeches on before either she or Freya had a chance to see my skinny legs.

  Grabbing my chest protector, underarm protector, and jacket, I turned away from both Freya and Eden, noticing that Eden had done the same. I pulled the stripy rugby shirt and T-shirt I was wearing underneath up over my head. The two body protectors swiftly followed, then the jacket. All done and dusted before Eden had even had the chance to turn round again.

  “Looking the part now,” Freya said, sitting next to us and pulling her white knee-high socks on, to complete the outfit. “I think we all look great.”

  “Well, even if we don’t win, we’ll still look good,” Eden said, wriggling her feet into her shoes.

  She might. I just looked like an idiot.

  *

  We didn’t win, as it happens. If I’m truthful, we had our arses whipped by teams that were far better than us. I didn’t care. I’d had the best day ever with Eden, and now I had the prospect of having her all to myself for the return journey, too.

  The coach back home was uncomfortably warm. I wriggled my top off from my shoulders, crumpling it up and putting it on my lap, stifling yawn after yawn. I was sure the warmth inside the bus, combined with the low murmuring voices of others around me and the monotonous drumming of the wheels on the road, would soon send me to sleep.

  “Another three hours at least.” Eden’s voice wrenched me from my drowsiness.

  I blinked, foggy brained. “Sorry?”

  “Until we get back,” Eden said. “At least another three hours.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I dug my knuckles into my eyes and stifled another yawn.

  “Tired?” Eden asked.

  “Knackered,” I said. I dragged my hands through my hair and sat up straighter, trying to wake myself up. “You?”
/>   “Shattered.” She stretched. “I think the excitement of the day has caught up with me. I feel like I could sleep for a week right now.”

  Eden rolled her head across her headrest and looked out the window. She clenched her jaws, suppressing a yawn. We didn’t speak again for a few minutes. I put my head back against my headrest and stared, heavy-eyed, up at the skylight of the minibus, idly watching the still grey sky scud past overhead. My mind had at last drained of thoughts.

  “I’m so tired,” Eden repeated.

  I flicked a look her way, but didn’t reply. She hesitated, then reached over and took my rugby shirt from my lap. She rolled it up and placed it on my shoulder. “Do you mind if I…?” Eden motioned her head towards it.

  “I…guess not, no,” I said, a bit taken aback. My muscles tensed as she adjusted my rolled-up shirt, then nestled her head between my shoulder and neck. She moved her head a little bit and wriggled until she was finally comfortable.

  “Thank you,” Eden murmured into my shirt. “I promise I won’t fidget too much.”

  I gazed down at her hair, tumbling onto my T-shirt. A small part of me crumbled inside as she reached up and rubbed sleepily at her eye, then sighed with contentment. I tried to relax my muscles, sure that Eden would be able to feel that I was stiff with nerves and tension at having her so close to me. Everything inside me wanted to reach down and touch her skin, trace a finger along the outline of her cheek, which was so agonizingly close, it almost hurt to see it. I wanted Eden so badly at that moment. Agony and ecstasy, all rolled into one.

  Soon, her breathing became deeper and slower. She was asleep. My shoulders finally relaxed, and I allowed myself the luxury of looking at her, safe in the knowledge that she couldn’t see me doing it. My hand strayed towards her hands, lying limply in her lap, and I let it hover over them, imagining how good they’d feel to hold and stroke. I don’t know how long I sat there, just gazing at her, watching her breathe. All the time, I prayed my phone wouldn’t ring or that no one would speak loudly and wake her up. I wanted us to sit like this for as long as we possibly could.

  Finally, my own eyes became heavy with sleep again. With one last look at Eden, still fast asleep, I leant my head over and gently rested it on top of her hair. She stirred and shifted her position, sighing deeply as she did so. When she didn’t wake, I closed my eyes and at last drifted off as well.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “You two looked like you were made for each other.” Greg came around the side of the minibus and put his arm across my shoulder. He whispered in my ear so that Eden, standing a few feet away, wouldn’t hear. “I saw you. Don’t think I didn’t.”

  “So? She fell asleep on me,” I whispered back, playfully shrugging his arm off. “What was I supposed to do?”

  “In circumstances as lovely as that?” Greg put his arm back round me and walked with me away from the bus and towards the school entrance. “Nothing. I wouldn’t have, either.”

  “Exactly.”

  It was now shortly before seven p.m., and we’d just arrived back in the school car park. Eden had slept on my shoulder for just about the whole journey home, only waking when the minibus exited the motorway and wound its way along the roads back to school.

  I had slept only lightly—not the quiet, contented sleep that Eden had—and although I woke up way before she did, with a crick in my neck, I hadn’t moved my head from hers for fear of waking her. I hadn’t wanted to move it, either. Why would I? I’d loved the feeling of her resting on me. She’d slept peacefully, barely stirring. I’d wondered if she’d been dreaming, or whether she realized where she was, snuggled up cosily to me. I guessed she couldn’t have had any sense of embarrassment at being so close to me, either. When she did finally wake, stretching so much that her whole body shook, she just unfurled herself from me, rubbed her face, and asked me where we were. Nothing more than that.

  “You okay for getting home?” Eden’s quiet voice behind me popped my daydream.

  “Mm?” I spun round. Greg had left me and was standing by the school wall. I hadn’t even noticed. “Yeah. Uh, well I’m just going to Tube it home. You?”

  “Same.”

  She looked so tired and heart-wrenchingly lovely. I couldn’t bear the thought that my day with her was about to end. “Look, it’s getting late,” I said, glancing at my watch. “Let’s walk to Sloane Square together, and then I’ll come with you up to your station and walk you home, yeah?”

  Eden looked slightly taken aback. “You don’t have to do that,” she said. “You want to get home as well, don’t you?”

  “I’d be happier if we both caught the train together,” I said, lifting my kit bag up. “It’s dark, it’s Saturday night, and you’re going to have three connections home compared to my one, thanks to half the District Line being closed down tonight.” A rush of protective feelings towards Eden swept over me as I spoke.

  “And then once you’ve dropped me off, you’ll have to travel back down the line alone,” Eden argued, her face a picture of concern.

  “Pff!” I waved my hand. “I’m a big girl. I can cope.”

  “But your parents…” Eden persisted. “They don’t like you travelling alone after dark, do they?”

  “Let me worry about my parents,” I said, walking from the car park. “Come on.”

  I wanted to add that my parents worried unnecessarily. Both they and Eden should know that I was perfectly used to looking after myself, and that travelling on the Tube on my own didn’t faze me at all. Years of fending off the narrow-minded comments people said to me, and how they looked at me, had hardened me more than most. A journey on the London Underground on a Saturday night would be a piece of cake. Okay, so my wanting to travel with her up to Kilburn was selfish, because I didn’t want to leave her, but it was just as caring. Maybe I wanted to think that Eden was vulnerable because I wanted to protect her. Everything about her broke my heart, and I felt an overwhelming need to shield her from harm. Whether or not she needed me, I was damned if I was going to let her travel on her own after dark.

  “Are you sure?” Eden asked, her eyes steady on mine.

  “Absolutely.”

  We said our goodbyes to the others and headed off. The sky was pitch-black, the streetlights throwing out circles of yellow light, which rippled in the puddles across the pavement as we walked the short distance to the station.

  “Have you been to Kilburn before?” Eden asked as we hopped on the first of the three trains that were needed to get us to Eden’s station.

  “Nope.” I looked for a seat, but seeing none free, leant against a handrail. I moved so Eden could come and stand next to me as more people piled onto the train. “I’ve been to Maida Vale before, but not as far up as Kilburn.”

  “You’ll have to come and visit sometime.” Eden lurched and frowned as someone bumped into her from behind. “There are more Irish pubs there than you can shake a stick at.”

  The train juddered off, forcing Eden to stumble into me. Without thinking, I reached my hand out and grabbed her arm, holding on to it as the train rolled from side to side as it set off. Finally it calmed down. I dropped my hand and stared down at my feet. I was afraid to look at Eden in case she could read my emotions just from having touched her.

  We got off at Victoria, pushing past the people getting on the train while we were still trying to get off, and joined the crowds milling around on the platform.

  “We need the Victoria Line up to Green Park,” Eden leant over and shouted in my ear above the hubbub around us. “Then Jubilee. That’s it, then.”

  “Thank goodness.” I shouldered my way through the crowds and pushed my way along to the next platform, keeping my eye on Eden’s back in case I lost her in the mayhem.

  “Is it always this busy?” I asked when we eventually made it to our platform. I glanced up at the overhead display: five minutes until our train.

  “Yup,” Eden said, sitting down on one of the seats. “Saturday nights more so.�
� She looked at me. “Are you feeling overwhelmed?” she asked, patting my leg.

  “I’ve been living here for months now,” I said, looking around the platform. “And I can’t say I’ve done many Saturday nights out in the centre of town, ’cos that’s not really my thing, but you’d think I’d be used to the chaos that is London by now, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t think you ever truly get used to it,” Eden said, leaning her head back and resting it on the wall behind her. “I think perhaps you just become immune to it.” She pondered. “Does it make you homesick for Cragthorne?” she asked, turning her head towards me.

  She remembered where I was from?

  “No.” I didn’t miss a beat. “I don’t think about Cragthorne so much these days.”

  “You don’t miss your friends?” Eden asked.

  “Truth is, I didn’t have that many friends there,” I said quietly. “Amy was my only friend, really. Sad, hey?”

  “Not at all.” Eden smiled. “You miss her though, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Our eyes met.

  “I kept myself to myself,” I said. “The other girls at school were…judgemental. No point in hanging out with people like that, I say.”

  “You weren’t out at home?”

  I shook my head. “There were rumours about me,” I said, “but it wasn’t anyone’s business.”

  “One of the great things about living in London,” Eden said, looking away, “is that no one takes a scrap of notice of how you look, ’cos they’ve seen it all before, like, a thousand times.”

  “Gabby and Beth the exception to the rule, then?” I teased. “Their reaction to me is exactly what I was afraid of getting, back home.”

  “Gabby and Beth live in their own little world,” Eden scoffed. “Heaven forbid anything that’s not how they want it to be. Or anyone different, for that matter.”