I Hate Summer (19 page)

“Oh God, Ide, there is no way a random girl would let you do her ass,” Jason mocked.

“Why? I’m good at it, and that way I wouldn’t have t’ look at her weird flobby chest.”

Penny cuffed me and clasped her breast in mock indignation.

“Right, shots!” Matt announced.

I groaned. The three of them had clearly been drinking before they met us, but if I was staying out I was going to need Red Bull, not tequila. I humored them anyway and grimaced as I knocked the shot back and squeezed the lime wedge between my teeth to get rid of the sharp tang of cheap Mexican liquor.

“Right, now you basically
have
to come out,” Penny chimed.

“Fine, fine, I’ll come out.” I gave in—after all, it’d been a quiet week, and I was suddenly feeling like getting laid.

“Trys? It’s not a school night…?” Jason asked as he tried to sound more sober than he was.

I quirked an eyebrow at Trystan across the table. I was still pissed off, but I’d find some other way to get payback.

“Come on, man, we’ll definitely sort you something.” Matt egged him on.

“What do you take me for? Course I’m going to come. You think I’m going to sit at home by myself, or worse, with James?”

I chuckled. Despite my insistence that Trystan was straight, James had still been a twat to him just for being associated with me.

“And if ye need a lay so bad, ye can just have the bed,” I added for good measure. “I’ll sort myself out.”

Trystan shot me a funny look. But that didn’t stop him from taking me up on the offer.

B
Y
THE
time I’d got around to remembering to text someone about a bed—and associated activities—I’d had far too much tequila to really think it was a great idea. I’d sent Trystan off with instructions on where my condoms—and lube if he wanted—were stashed and for him to leave my sleeping bag outside the door.

“Dun missss me too much,” Trystan had managed to only slur slightly as he’d stumbled out of the club with a rather sexy brunette tucked under his arm. My assessment of him being a lightweight had been confirmed—to be honest, I was impressed he was still standing. I gave the brunette a cheery wave as they left.

When I finally arrived home with Penny and Jason—Matt had left early as well—I was equally impressed that Trystan had actually remembered to chuck my sleeping bag out onto the landing. My amusement was dampened slightly by the fact that the couch in the kitchen was pretty uncomfortable, and too short. But I’d drunk enough that I only had about thirty seconds to think about that before I was unconscious.

I was woken up by a hand sliding up my side.

“
Ferfucksake
, Trys,” I grumbled as I tried to push the hand away. “I’m sleeping.” A cold hand snared the wrist that I’d been using to free myself, and suddenly I remembered where I was and that Trystan was upstairs with a girl, and therefore very unlikely to be pawing at me.

My eyes snapped open. Suddenly the hands on me felt disgusting; in the dark I saw James leering down at me.

“I knew you two fags were fucking.”

“Shit, James,” I tried to keep the drunken edge of fear from my voice and struggled to sit up. But then there was another hand on my shoulder, pressing me down. My shout of protest was muffled by a mouth pressed hard against mine. He bit my lip and I tasted the tang of my own blood as I shrieked and he pressed his tongue into my mouth.

I managed to get my other hand out of the sleeping bag, but he had all his weight on top of me and I couldn’t get enough leverage. He grabbed my other wrist and tugged them both up over my head. His free hand ran down my torso. It was cold and clammy, and I shrank away from it as it slithered over my skin. I thrashed desperately as I tried to get free of my sleeping bag.

“James, what’re ye trying t’ do, ye fucker,” I shouted as I bit down on the tongue that had forced its way inside my mouth. He shouted out as he flinched away from my face.

“Shut up, whore. This is what you like, right, faggot?”

He punched me in the face and I saw stars. The dregs of the alcohol in my system and the pain in my face was blinding. I was being rolled over. Hands pressed into my shoulder, and I could feel the skin breaking. I shouted out and he hit me again. Clammy fingers tugged at my boxers. I kicked out and finally I felt something connect. The weight left me and I scrambled off the sofa, stumbling to the floor. But he was already on his feet and I was still struggling to mine as my head continued to spin. A garbled shout scorched my throat as a foot connected with my stomach and I collapsed back onto the cheap lino flooring.

“Stay down, you fucking tease, we both know you were waiting for me….”

Ohgod.

Ohgod.

I could hardly breathe. I thrashed and nothing happened. The hand was still tugging down my boxers, and all I could think about was the last time I’d been like this… ohgod. When I was fifteen. It had been the first time I’d had sex with a guy: a man had gotten me drunk and taken me into the toilets of a seedy club, and he’d fucked me with no prep and… ohgod. Someone had found me when the bar closed. I hadn’t bottomed for four years, not until Dan.

And now cold hard fingers were stripping me and my face was being pressed into the dirty lino and I was going to be raped in my own kitchen.

I was shouting something. I was fucking shouting as loud as my lungs would let me. There was a houseful of people. Probably unconsciously drunk people, but I kept shouting.

Then suddenly there was a break in the weight above me and I kicked out. I twisted round and managed to land a hand in James’s face. I scrabbled backward as he reeled back from me.

Only it wasn’t James; it was a slightly pissed-off looking Trystan.

He was breathing heavily with anger and concern shimmering in those brown eyes of his. His lip was split. His knuckles were bruised.

I stared as I tried to work out what was happening.

It had definitely been James a moment ago.

He grunted and rubbed the side of his face as he dropped down in front of me. He seemed faintly surprised by the blood, but not bothered.

He turned those brown eyes back to me and the anger was almost completely gone now. “You okay?”

I was not okay, I was about as far away from okay as I could get. He edged toward me and I scrambled back, tugging the sleeping bag over me as I went. Trystan sighed and stayed where he was.

“I’ve locked James in the downstairs bathroom. The police are on their way,” he explained in a slow, quiet voice.

I nodded blankly, unsure whether I was glad I wasn’t going crazy or…. Suddenly everything swept back in and hit me. I rolled over as stomach acid, beer, Red Bull, and tequila forced their way up through my throat, and I threw up all over the kitchen floor.

An hour later I was on the sofa with my legs tucked up against my chest and my sleeping bag wrapped around me. I was staring at a policewoman who was trying to ask me what had happened, and I was trying to explain but my body had other ideas. Despite having already evacuated everything from itself over an hour ago, my stomach was still insisting that it wanted to be sick, and I had to keep stopping to dry retch. I wanted to tell her what had happened because all I wanted was to go to bed and be alone. I had been seen to by a couple of paramedics, and James had been taken away. The girl Trystan had been with had been sent home in a taxi and all that was between me and bed was the woman in front of me.

I must have finally managed to say whatever it was she wanted to hear, because she gave me a last pitiful smile and told me she would contact me tomorrow and then she was leaving with the other police officers and I was finally alone. Except I wasn’t, because Trystan was still here.

He’d spent the last hour sat at the kitchen table. My other housemates had gone back to bed. I stared at him across the room.

He sighed.

“You’re actually a magnet for trouble, aren’t you?” He spoke gently, and although his words weren’t harsh and I knew he didn’t mean them unkindly, it was exactly how I felt right now.

I let my head loll against the back of the couch. I heard shifting and then felt someone sit at the other end of the sofa.

“Sorry, Ide,” he said with a sigh. “I knew what he was like and—”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. “I knew too. Nobody could’ve known he’d go that far.” I whispered because that was all my throat could cope with.

“What’s wrong with me? What do I have to do to get people to just leave me alone?” I felt completely sober but the dregs of the alcohol in my system were still loosening my tongue. A faint wave of anger hit through the wallowing self-pity that clung to me. “I make sure I talk like a straight guy, I wear the same clothes, do the same stuff. So why? Why can’t people just leave me alone?”

Trystan wrapped an arm around my shoulder and I let him tug me against his side. “Sorry, Ide. I’m as bad as the rest of them, aren’t I?”

I didn’t know what to say because he was, yet he wasn’t.

“I want to go to bed,” I said instead.

“Want me to sleep down here?” he asked.

I shook my head; I’m not sure why. I wanted to be alone, but the thought terrified me.

“Come on, then.” He slid himself out from underneath me. He didn’t carry me; he just walked next to me as I made my slow way up to the top of the stairs.

In my room I stared at my bed and my face crumpled. The bed was a mess. I could smell the brunette’s perfume.

“Oh, fuck my life,” I snapped, because all I wanted was to sleep in my bed, but I didn’t want to get anywhere near it when it smelled of some random girl. I crossed my room and riffled through the piles of camping equipment, pulling out the roll mat I had lent to Trystan.

“I’m going to sleep on the floor. Have the bed if ye like.”

Trystan heaved a weary sigh and held his hand out for another roll mat. I pulled a face but didn’t say anything as he laid them both out on the floor. I found two summer sleeping bags I’d got for a festival. The cheap nylon felt horrible against my skin as I slid into one and lay down. Trystan lay down next to me. I didn’t complain as he tucked me under his arm. I don’t think either of us slept for a long time. But neither did we speak.

T
RYSTAN
MOVED
into James’s room. Did you see that one coming? Maybe you did, but I didn’t. I would have said no, I still wanted to, but we needed someone to pay the rent.

I can’t explain to you what happened over the next two weeks. It passed in a blur. James got charged, but only for assault because Trystan had managed to stop him before anything actually happened. I was still shaken. I still hated sleeping and being touched. After that night in sleeping bags with Trystan, I couldn’t stand it. I hadn’t seen Dan or Ashlie or Echo or any of the other guys I sometimes called. I’d gone to lectures. I’d handed in my essays. I’d cancelled on Meredith. I think her reaction was one of the worst. Because she didn’t shriek and complain, she just told me it was fine, and from her more than anyone, that meant I wasn’t.

“Ide? You coming out for a drink?” Penny asked from the door. They asked me every time, even though I always said no and had no intention of saying yes anytime soon. She knew, and she asked anyway. But she’d slept through my screaming, just like Matt and Jason. They’d ignored James, ignored me when I said we should get the girl. And I could hardly look at them.

“Not tonight, thanks, Penny,” I said without looking round from my desk. I wondered how long I’d been writing the same paragraph.

“Ide?”

I sighed. “I’m not coming out.”

Behind me I heard the sound of someone sitting on my bed. “I’m not asking you to come out, Ide,” Trystan said in his soft southern accent. Or maybe he’d picked up a touch of a northern twang on some of his vowels already.

I twisted around to face him. He was the same as always.

“Then what’s up, Trys?” I asked, trying to make my face look neutral.

“I’m going home for the weekend, to see my family and pick up the rest of my stuff.” I waited blankly for him to get to the point.

“And?” I pressed when he didn’t continue.

“You going to be okay?”

This seemed like an odd question as I hardly saw Trystan anyway. He worked pretty long hours in the week, and at the weekend I’d been spending a lot of time walking or biking with Patrick and some of the other guys from my course.

“Maybe you should call Jorja; it’d be nice to see her,” he continued with the same look on his face.

I considered him across the room. “I’m not a kid, Trystan.” There was a flash of something in his eyes, and I was sure he noticed my use of his full name.

“I’m not suggesting you are.”

“Then go home and stop worrying about someone who isn’t yer problem. Yer not my boyfriend; hell, yer not even my friend out o’ choice. So leave me alone.”

He considered me in silence for a moment. A sad smile pulled at his lips, then he exhaled, stood up, and left me alone. I stared at the door after he’d gone. A breath escaped from me. I spun my office chair back around, grabbed my car keys from my desk, and headed downstairs.

It took almost two hours to get home, and it was dark when I arrived, the kind of dark that sets your nerves on fire and lets the sky shimmer with stars. I sat in my car for a few moments as I pulled to a stop in the farmyard. The back door opened and my mum stood framed in the golden glow that spilled out of the kitchen. Her suspicion turned into a look of concern as she recognized the car.

“Idrys?” she called in confusion. She was crossing the yard, there was bread dough all over her hands, and her hair was a crazy red halo around her head. Her feet were in those ridiculous yellow Crocs she loved, and the cats danced around her ankles, almost tripping her. I wasn’t crying when she pulled the car door open. I simply had my head dropped against the steering wheel. A rush of air that smelled like home washed over me, cold and damp and safe.

“Sorry for just turning up, Mam.” I forced the words out of a chest that felt too tight and turned my face slightly so I could see her.