The Girl She Was

by Rebecca Freeborn

  THEN

  I spent all of Easter Saturday studying in an attempt to allay my guilt over lying to my parents. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I’d told them I was struggling at school. Ever since I’d got involved with Scott, I’d been neglecting my school work and skipping classes, and my grades had been suffering as a result. And if I didn’t nail my mid-year exams next term, I’d be pushing shit uphill for the rest of the year to get into uni.

  On Saturday night I invited Renee and Shona over and, with Shona’s Reality Bites DVD playing in the background, I filled them in on my first sexual experience. Renee was initially shocked that I’d gone through with it, but even she couldn’t help hanging on to every word while Shona pushed me for details. I told them everything … well, not quite everything. I left out the fact that we hadn’t used a condom, and that I’d asked him to stop halfway through and he hadn’t. I wanted to ask them whether that weird, bereft feeling I’d had afterwards was normal, but I knew, instinctively, that it wasn’t something I should share.

  We drank the rest of the Jim Beam that Scott had left on the kitchen table. It still tasted gross, but it seemed funnier when I was drinking it with my friends. We all got rip-roaringly drunk and Renee loosened up and stopped looking at me like I’d killed a puppy. I put a Killing Heidi album on and we danced around the living room, giggling wildly. I felt older, gloriously liberated of my virginity. I felt fantastic.

  Renee slung an arm around both of our shoulders. ‘I love you guys,’ she slurred.

  ‘I love you too, man,’ I yelled.

  ‘D’you reckon we’ll still be doing this when we’re thirty?’ Shona picked up the bottle of Beam and took a swig, then screwed up her face in disgust. ‘Ugh!’

  ‘Pffft!’ Renee spluttered. ‘We’ll be old and boring and responsible by then.’

  ‘All the more reason to live it up now,’ I said.

  Shona laughed. ‘We’ll all have hot husbands by then, anyway, so we’ll be too busy rooting them to get pissed.’

  Renee’s smile soured. ‘Oh, but Layla’s got a hot husband already,’ she muttered darkly. ‘Only problem is that he’s someone else’s.’

  I threw her arm off me. ‘Can you give it a rest, Renee? You’ve been pushing me to have sex for the last two years and the second I do it, all you can do is judge me.’

  ‘Well, I never expected you to do it with someone else’s husband, did I?’ she shot back. ‘You’ve done the wrong thing. You know that, right?’

  I grabbed the bottle from Shona and took a gulp, but the liquid was like fire in my throat and I coughed roughly. ‘Can’t you be happy for me? I know it’s not perfect, but I love him. We’re just waiting until we can be together properly.’

  ‘Oh, you’re so fucking naive, Layla!’ Renee cried. ‘If you’d ever watched a single episode of Oprah you’d know that married men never leave their wives. He’s just using you up and then he’ll spit you out.’

  Before I could prevent it, doubt began to creep in. He’d come over for sex last night and had left almost as soon as it was over. Maybe that would be it now that he’d got what he wanted. But he said he was coming back tomorrow. It wasn’t going to be like Renee said. I jutted out my chin. ‘It’s different with him. He loves me.’

  She snorted. ‘Can you tell her she’s insane, Shona?’

  Shona was looking from one of us to the other, as if watching a tennis match. She swayed a little on her feet. ‘I have to spew.’

  She rushed off towards the bathroom. Renee and I tried to keep glaring at each other, but the room seemed to be tilting and I was having trouble remembering what we’d been arguing about. Her mouth twitched at the corners. Mine started smiling against my will. Then ‘Mascara’ came on the stereo, and we were dancing again, our arms around each other, singing our heads off over the sound of Shona’s retching from the bathroom.

  *

  My head was still woolly when I let Scott in the next afternoon. He was wearing a leather jacket over a white T-shirt, and his James Dean vibe was a balm for my hangover. Renee and Shona had only left an hour ago, eyes still bloodshot, clutching their bellies and moaning.

  Scott raised his eyebrows. ‘Big night?’

  ‘You could say that. The girls stayed over last night. We drank the rest of your Beam. Sorry.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s OK, as long as you enjoyed it.’

  ‘It tasted like shit, actually. But we had a good time. A bit too good, really.’

  He smiled, and his eyes crinkled in that way I could never resist. ‘Sometimes I miss the days of getting slaughtered with my mates every weekend. But I don’t miss the hangovers. I can go if you’re not feeling well?’

  ‘No! Stay. Come here.’ I pulled him to me. We kissed all the way up the hallway and into my bedroom. ‘Sorry, I didn’t ask if you wanted anything. Do you want anything?’

  ‘Actually, yes I do. I want this.’ He started tugging at my clothes.

  He’d been right: it was much better this time. I wasn’t as self-conscious or afraid, and I felt more confident in my skin. It wasn’t exactly good, and the whole thing was over before I could really get into it, but Scott’s obvious enjoyment made the experience worthwhile. He held me in his arms afterwards.

  ‘I wish I could spend the whole weekend here with you,’ he said. ‘Cook you dinner, walk around naked, make love to you every hour on the hour.’

  I smiled at the warmth in his words. This was real. Renee was wrong about him. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Was it better for you this time?’ He sounded anxious. ‘It didn’t hurt again, did it?’

  ‘It did a little bit at first, but then it got better. It was nice.’

  ‘This is only the beginning.’ He kissed my bare shoulder. ‘I’m going to show you how good it can be.’

  I stroked the fine hair of his arm. The empty feeling that had followed our first time had dissipated. I felt languid, lying in the arms of my lover, talking about what we’d do if we had all the time in the world together. What we would do when we could be out in the open.

  ‘Tell me about your kids,’ I said.

  He didn’t answer straightaway. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to know everything about you.’

  His arms stiffened around me. ‘We don’t get much time together, Layla. Could we keep this to just us? I don’t want to mix things up.’

  ‘OK, if you want.’ I fingered the raised veins on his forearm. ‘It’s just that they’re important to you. You love them. They’ll always be in your life, and maybe one day I will be too. So I want to know about them.’

  He raised his head to look at me. ‘You are in my life. You know that, don’t you?’

  I hesitated. ‘Well, there’s this. But it’s not exactly a relationship, is it? We can’t go grocery shopping together, or go out for dinner, or hold hands on the street.’

  ‘Layla. I love you. I want to be with you. But we need to take this one step at a time. For now, I need to keep my two lives separate. Can you live with that?’

  A pinprick of doubt punctured my serenity. I wanted to ask him what the next step was, when he was planning to leave his wife, but it was so warm and dreamy in his arms that I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  ‘Yeah. Of course. Of course I can.’

  He bent his head and we kissed, slowly, languorously. Shyly, I let my hands wander over his body and cup his buttocks, and his breathing quickened. ‘You’re so sexy, Layla. I can’t believe you’ve made me want to go again already.’

  ‘Really?’

  He grinned. ‘Really.’

  We went on kissing, and over the sound of our heavy breathing, I registered the faint crunch of gravel that sounded very much like it was coming from my driveway.

  ‘Shit!’ I sat up.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I think my parents are home!’

  We stared at each other in blind panic, then both leapt from the bed. Scott began to throw his clothes back on. ‘What ar
e we going to do?’

  I wrapped my dressing gown around me as the key slotted into the front door with a metallic crunch. ‘Come out the back. Quick.’

  He picked up his shoes and followed me out to the laundry, his eyes wide. I let him out the door. ‘Stay here a minute, then go down the side path to the front. They’ll come out to the living room looking for me, so they won’t see you leave.’

  ‘Layla! Are you here?’ came Mum’s voice from the hallway.

  ‘Out here!’ I called.

  Scott had already disappeared down the side of the house. I shut the door and came out of the laundry just in time to see my parents and Zach. I could feel Scott all over me, his hands, his smell, and horror gripped me at the idea they might be able to work it out.

  ‘Why are you home so early?’ My voice was too shrill.

  ‘Didn’t you get our message this morning? Zach was sick, so we decided to come home a day early.’

  ‘Uh, no … Renee and Shona stayed over last night and we slept in. I didn’t hear the phone and I haven’t checked the machine.’

  Mum looked quizzically at my dressing gown. ‘Have you only just got out of bed?’

  ‘I had a nap. I was about to get in the shower.’

  ‘What on earth?’ came Dad’s voice from the kitchen and dread thudded into me. He’d seen Scott passing the window. Scott had left something here. We’d been found out.

  ‘What?’ chorused Mum and Zach.

  I followed them into the kitchen, heart in my throat, and followed my family’s gaze to the glasses, sticky with syrupy Coke and clouded with fingerprints, and the empty bottle I’d forgotten to clean up last night.

  ‘What’s this, young lady?’ Dad’s voice was stern. ‘Did you have a party last night?’

  ‘Layla!’ said Mum. ‘No wonder you were still in bed. You told me you were going to spend the whole weekend studying!’

  ‘I have been!’ I gestured to the papers and textbooks that still covered the kitchen table.

  ‘Then where did the alcohol come from?’

  ‘Renee brought it.’

  ‘Where did she get it from?’

  ‘I didn’t ask.’

  Mum shook her head. ‘Very irresponsible of her parents to let her have access to alcohol. I’ve half a mind to ring them and—’

  ‘No!’ I thought fast. ‘There was only like two centimetres left in the bottle. We hardly drank anything, really. And it was just the three of us.’

  ‘We’re not stupid, Layla,’ Dad said. ‘We know that teenagers are going to try alcohol, but I’d rather you did it when we were around. You’re usually so responsible.’

  I nodded. ‘OK. Sorry, Dad.’

  ‘You’ll be eighteen soon enough, and then you can do it legally,’ Mum added. ‘There’s no rush.’

  ‘Yep, OK. I might go have that shower now.’

  My stupid brother followed me up the hallway to my bedroom. At thirteen years old, Zach was pretty much the most annoying person in the world, always hounding me to get out of the bathroom, telling me that no amount of makeup could ever make me look good. It was a wonder I hadn’t throttled him yet. ‘Alco, alco, alco,’ he sang.

  ‘Bugger off, idiot.’

  ‘Can’t believe you left out the evidence,’ he jeered from the doorway.

  ‘Well, I didn’t know you’d be such a pansy you’d have to come home early, did I? You don’t look too sick now, by the way.’

  He laughed. ‘I wasn’t sick, I was bored out of my brain.’

  ‘You pretended to be sick so you could leave the shack?’

  ‘Yep. And it was worth it to see you get sprung like that.’ He grinned. ‘Bet you got pissed after like two sips.’

  ‘Get lost, Zach.’

  ‘Captain Comeback strikes again!’ Then his gaze switched to something behind me. ‘Hey, cool jacket. Whose is it?’

  Shock juddered in my chest as I followed his gaze to Scott’s leather jacket draped over the end of my bed. My mind stumbled over itself to find a way out. ‘Oh, that. Renee wore it here last night. Think she nicked it from her brother. She must’ve forgotten to take it home. I’ll give it back to her later.’

  Faint surprise filtered through my panic at the lie that had tumbled from my lips. When had lying become so easy for me?

  ‘Whatever.’ He rolled his eyes and continued up the hallway to his own bedroom.

  My heart was still beating hard as I stuffed the jacket into the back of my wardrobe and went to the bathroom to wash Scott off me.

  *

  Scott looked sheepish when I handed his jacket over at the start of my next shift.

  ‘Sorry about that. I was so focused on getting out of there before your dad saw me that I forgot all about it.’

  ‘It’s my mum you have to be worried about, believe me,’ I said. ‘Luckily, I found it before they did.’

  He touched me lightly on the waist. ‘I’ve been thinking about you nonstop since Sunday.’

  I blushed a little. ‘Me too.’

  I’d assumed the lack of an available bed would limit our encounters, but Scott had a solution for every problem. He started keeping a swag in the storeroom, and he’d spread it out on the floor of the kitchen so we’d have something to lie on. Sometimes, if he couldn’t wait that long, we’d do it against the wall as soon as he’d locked the cafe doors. Sometimes we went up to The Knob after work.

  But while the sex was mostly nice, it was never amazing, and I never came close to that melting, fizzing feeling he’d given me the first time he’d touched me. I was often left with a lingering sense of disappointment and the feeling that Scott was getting a lot more out of the arrangement than I was. Was this really all there was to it, or was I just not very good at it?

  ‘Did you come?’ he’d ask afterwards, every time, and look increasingly despondent when, every time, I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ It wasn’t his fault I couldn’t get there. He didn’t deserve to take that on as his responsibility, and so after a while I started answering yes instead, and then, so I wouldn’t have to lie to him, I started faking it. It was awkward the first time, but he totally fell for it, and the look in his eyes encouraged me to do it again the next time, and the next. A small part of me wondered why making him feel good was more important than my own pleasure, but I pushed the thought aside. His home life was difficult, unloving. He needed to feel desirable, and I could do that for him in this one small way. It was so easy.

  I became bolder. I’d steal kisses from him in the lunch room; trail a finger over his groin when we were both behind the coffee machine. He couldn’t get enough of it. I felt powerful. Sexy.

  Jodie occasionally came into the cafe, sometimes with the kids, sometimes on her own. I felt sorry for her now. She’d lost her husband and she didn’t even know it, all because she didn’t know how to love him right. I was nice to her, almost to the point of excess. Even Scott told me I should tone it down a bit in case she got suspicious. But I couldn’t help it. Their marriage was over and the sooner she realised it, the better. It wasn’t fair for her to keep thinking they had a future together when Scott and I were in love. She was as polite and friendly to me as she’d always been, but every now and then I’d catch her looking at me shrewdly, and I’d quickly look away.

  It was then that I would feel ashamed at the thought of what it would do to her when they split up and she found out about me. I tried to imagine what I’d say to her – if indeed we’d ever speak again – but there was nothing. I couldn’t think about that reality now, I could only enjoy this moment while it lasted. It was exciting. I carried the secret around with me at school, pitying my classmates’ ordinary lives. I stopped giving a shit about what anyone thought of me, and out of the blue, some of the boys started showing interest in me.

  ‘Jason hasn’t stopped staring at you,’ Renee hissed to me in home class one day.

  I glanced over at Jason Stott and he looked away before I could catch his eye. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘What do
you mean, whatever?’ Renee seemed outraged. ‘He’s one of the hottest guys at school!’

  As I watched Jason, he looked up again and flashed me a half-grin that I might’ve found cute a few months back. ‘He’s all right, I guess, but he’s not really my type.’

  Renee stared down at her desk. ‘I take it this means you’re still doing it with Scott?’

  I glanced at her. She’d stopped asking about him since that night at my house, and I’d stopped volunteering information. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘Not really. Kind of.’

  ‘Yeah, we’re still doing it.’ My stubborn streak reared up, urging me to make out that it was better than it really was. ‘And it’s mind-blowing … being with someone who knows what he’s doing.’

  She threw a bitter look at me. ‘So, when’s he going to leave his wife?’

  I had no answer to this. I hadn’t broached the subject again with Scott, but he’d told me he wanted to be with me. He’d told me he loved me. That was good enough for me. It was enough to hold onto, for now.

  ‘Thought so,’ she muttered, and I scowled at her.

  NOW

  The pharmacy was quiet when the girl came in. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and Layla could tell she was nervous by the way her hands kept twisting, together and apart, together and apart. When she approached the counter, Layla gave her what she hoped was an encouraging smile. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I need …’ The girl’s eyes darted around the room, down at the counter, over Layla’s shoulder. ‘Can I get the morning-after pill without a prescription?’ Her words weren’t much more than a whisper, but they thumped Layla hard in the chest. She had to collect herself, to do her job and help this girl.

  ‘Yes, there are two types of emergency contraception, and you don’t need a prescription for one of them.’