So Much to Learn (17 page)

"Well, yeah. He
never bragged about having rooted me to his mates or groped me or
got off with any of my girlfriends."

"Well maybe that was because he was
gay
," Jack said in exasperation and I
narrowed my eyes at him.

"You say that
like it's a bad thing," I snapped.

"In terms of him being your boyfriend that
is
a bad thing and I don't think
anyone is going to accuse me of being homophobic for saying
so."

He was right as
he, infuriatingly, always seemed to be.

"OK, whatever.
He wasn't technically a brilliant candidate for my boyfriend, but
he was, nevertheless, one of the kindest, loveliest blokes I've
ever met," I surrendered, before continuing blithely, "So after
that I developed a serious crush on Tommo which saw me through the
rest of grade 10." As soon as the words left my mouth I froze and
Jack made a funny choking sound.

"Developed a serious crush on
whom
, excuse me?" He said loudly, and
my chest did a funny clenching thing at his tone. "Tommo? As
in
our
Tommo?" He
clarified, looking so horrified that I couldn't help a tiny smile
spreading across my lips.

"What's so
wrong with that?" I asked tentatively. "He's always been such a
sweetheart to me and those tattoos of his are…well I've always
thought they’re pretty sexy."

Jack's blood
pressure seemed to be rising with each word I said, but, at the
last, he smiled slightly and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"You think tattoos are sexy?" He asked and I nodded a little shyly.
Goodness, but I was unburdening all my secrets onto him at once
today!

"Well, that's
good to know," he said quietly, but, before I could ask why that
was, he moved on. "So you got a crush on Tommo, then what?"

"In terms of
the Tommo thing then nothing," I said focusing back on my story. "I
spent grade 10 going bright red and falling over myself whenever he
entered a room and nobody except Simone noticed. Tommo certainly
didn't anyway. Then that summer you and Matt moved away, Simone get
her first serious boyfriend and Rhys threw a party and didn't
invite me because I was a 'frigid bitch'."

I pulled a face
remembering how much I had hated that time. I had been desperately
lonely those holidays because, although Simone always invited me
when her and Dean had gone out, I’d had no desire to be the third
wheel on their dates. Then Rhys had pretty much started a campaign
to make me an outcast and something inside me had snapped.

"So, feeling
like things had to change, I decided that I could force myself to
like being with guys and became a party girl. Drinking helped a lot
and I had a very successful strategy of getting hammered then
pashing the closest guy available." I tried to make it sound like a
joke, but it wasn't funny and neither Jack nor I were laughing. "I
admit that it wasn't the best of plans and, although some of them
weren't so bad, most of those guys made my skin crawl when they
touched me."

Knowing that I
was coming up to the worst bit of the story I paused and started
playing with the tassel on a cushion. "Then it all came to a head
with that guy who decided I was a tease who 'needed to be taught a
lesson'," I said in a small voice, not managing to say those words,
almost exactly the ones spoken to me at a friend's birthday party
almost two years ago, without shuddering.

Jack was
looking like he either wanted to hug me or break something and, as
either occurrences might have led to me chickening out before I had
finished my story, I rushed on. "He used his strength against me
and pinned me to a wall before I even realised what he was going to
do. He didn't manage to get more than a few gropes of my breasts
before I managed to get away, but…" my voice cracked and my eyes
filled with tears. Jack seemed to sense that I needed to pull
myself together without his help and sat like a statue while I
wiped my eyes and evened out my breathing.

When I looked
up, his face was like stone and I knew he was using all his self
control not to leap off the couch and hunt down the guy who had
done me wrong so long ago.

"So," I
continued, my voice only wobbling a little bit, "after that,
needless to say, I went back to avoiding guys for a while. And I
began to feel like I was in control again, but it turned out I was
only in denial. I began not only trying to avoid dating guys, but
also to avoid having them get anywhere near me full stop. I pushed
all thoughts of boyfriends and dates and romance to the back of my
mind and concentrated on finishing high school and getting the hell
out of that town." Feeling like I was making the whole thing sound
a bit too dramatic I shrugged. "Everybody has their insecurities
right?" I asked. "Well that was just mine. Then I met Brad and,
well, you know the rest."

There was
silence for a moment after I finished my account then Jack cleared
his throat and said, "Was?"

"Sorry?" I
asked, not understanding.

"You said 'everybody has their insecurities and that
was
mine.'"

I stared at him in shock. He was right! I had referred to my
phobia in the past tense. It had been a slip of the tongue, I
hadn't consciously said it, but, as I thought about it, I realised
that I truly
did
believe that I was getting over it. Not just that, I believed
I
would
fully
master my fears and be done with it.

"You're going to do it," I said in wonderment.
"
We're
going to do
it! Oh my God, Jack, this is going to work!" I squealed in
excitement before throwing myself at him and flinging my arms
around his neck. Jack's chest rumbled beneath me as he chuckled and
then his arms were tightly wrapped around me and I felt a new batch
of tears spring into my eyes.

"You're
incredible," I murmured into his ear, delighting in the feel of my
cheek against his, despite the slight rasp of stubble.

"I'm nothing
special," he said gruffly and I leant back, straddling him, and
looked him squarely in the eyes.

"Yes you are,"
I insisted, punctuating each word with a light slap to his chest.
"And it's about time you admitted it."

"Oh, I don't know," Jack said with a sly smile. "I think I’m
OK with having
you
tell me just how perfect I am."

I raised one
eyebrow coquettishly at him and realised with a start that I was
engaged in bona fide flirting. Oh well, if I was already doing it I
might as well go the whole hog…

I daringly
leant forward until, from the waist to the neck, our bodies were
completely flattened against one another and our faces were so
close he had to tilt his head slightly so our noses wouldn't
collide.

"Who said
anything about perfect?" I purred, making my voice deliberately low
and sexy. I heard his breath hitch in his throat and noted, with
some satisfaction, that I was having an effect on something else of
his also. I didn't feel embarrassed as I thought I would, instead,
the fact that he was obviously aroused, gave me a great sense of
power.

It was pretty
intoxicating actually.

We were so
close I could feel his breath on my lips. If either one of us so
much as moved a muscle we would be kissing, but we were frozen a
hair’s breadth from each other.

Don't be so chicken shit
! A voice in
my head screamed,
just kiss him
already
! And I knew that I would, I was
just enjoying this moment beforehand when we each had the
understanding of what was about to happen and we were savouring
that knowledge. My eyes had just fluttered closed in anticipation
of his lips on mine when there was a loud knocking at the
door.

"Hello? Is
anyone home?" Haley's voice called through from out in the
corridor.

I was sorely
tempted to shout out 'No, so piss off!' but I did the mature thing,
simply sitting up and sticking my middle finger up at the closed
door in that time honoured gesture of irritation.

"Just a minute,
Haley," Jack called out and I looked at him sharply. A minute? A
minute before what?

"Come on,
Tally, let's just see what she wants," he whispered as he gently
manoeuvred himself out from underneath me.

I sat,
completely stunned, as he made his way over to the door and opened
it. There was Haley in all her scantily clad glory, hair and makeup
immaculate as only she would have during a Sunday night at
home.

"I'm so sorry
to barge in like this," she said in that breathless little voice of
hers.

Yeah I just bet you are
, I thought
sarcastically.

"But my aunt's
car won't start and she really wants to go to bingo. You couldn't
come and check it out, could you? I mean if you're busy then…"

"No, that's
fine," Jack interrupted. "It's probably just a flat battery like
last time."

Fine? It most
certainly was NOT fine! As Jack went towards the table to grab his
car keys, I stood up and grabbed him by the front of his
jumper.

"Could I have a
word?" I growled, dragging him over to the corner where the fridge
blocked Haley's view of us. "What do you think you're doing?" I
hissed angrily.

"Come on,
Tally," he said calmly. "Her aunt wants to go to bingo."

"Then she can
take the f-ing bus," I snapped, forgetting to whisper and Jack shot
me a pained look.

"I won't be
long," he said, before gently removing my hand from his jumper and
exiting the flat with Haley.

I couldn't believe it! He'd chosen
Haley
over me! Flying into a complete
rage I gave a shriek of frustration and marched into my room,
slamming the door behind me.

Her aunt wants
to go to bingo, indeed! I could just see Haley deliberately leaving
the car light on so that the battery would run flat and she could
come running to Matt or Jack to save her.

I heaved my
bookcase in front of the door and then flopped down onto my bed and
screamed into my pillows.

I was still
lying prone on my bed, my face buried in my pillows, when, about
half an hour later, Jack returned to the flat. I heard him drop his
keys onto the table and go into the bathroom to wash his hands.
Then, finally, his footsteps came towards my door and he knocked
gently upon it. I sat up and hugged a pillow to my chest, but
didn't say anything.

"Tally, can I
come in?" He asked. I said nothing. He went to open the door and
came upon the resistance the bookcase offered. "You do realise I'm
strong enough to just push the door open, bookshelf and all," he
sighed.

Yeah, but you won't
, I
thought.

"But I won't,"
he said after a moment. "Look, she needed a hand. That's what
neighbours are for and I'm not going to stop helping her out just
because you've decided you don't like her."

I kept my lips
tightly pressed together.

"Fine, sulk if
you want," Jack said sharply after the silence had stretched out
for almost a minute. "But move that bookcase away from the door, if
there's a fire I don't want you to die because of your
immaturity."

And he stomped
away again.

As if
determined to prove that Jack had been right when he called me
immature, I spent the next two days stomping around the flat with a
face like thunder. I nearly took Matt's head off when, after I
slammed down a glass so hard most of the liquid inside flew out, he
mouthed 'PMT' at Jack.

Of course I couldn't explain to him that, in actual fact, it
wasn't the onset of menstruation that was causing me to act like a
complete feral, but rather the fact that the bitch downstairs had
stopped me pashing his best mate. Wouldn't
that
have wiped the smirk right off
his face?

It wasn't just
at the flat that I was in a dark mood, either. The cloud followed
me to uni where I barely took in a word in tutes or lectures. Even
Adam couldn't seem to jolly me out of my foul mood, although he did
his absolute best; his antics would have had me rolling in the
aisles only the week before.

Simone, having
known me for so long, knew that it was just best to keep out of my
way when I was sulking and I barely saw her. We talked a couple of
times on the phone and I think that was quite enough contact for
her, wise girl that she is.

Jack, in his
totally oblivious way, didn't seem to understand what he'd done to
annoy me so much and I was too angry to explain it to him. I knew I
was behaving like a child, a bratty, nasty, rude child and was
ashamed of it. I knew I was totally overreacting but I couldn't
seem to help myself.

Lucky I didn't
see Haley on Monday or Tuesday, I probably would’ve pushed her down
the nearest available flight of stairs.

~*~

The whole thing
came to a head, as things usually do, on Wednesday. It was exactly
two weeks after I’d found Brad cheating on me and, after finishing
work, I was walking back to my car. My feet were aching and my head
throbbed from listening to the constant 'beep, beep, beep' of the
cash register.

Rounding the
corner to the car park, I froze as I saw the silhouette of a guy
leaning against my car. It wasn't that late, but the rest of the
area was completely deserted and the buildings surrounding the
asphalt were all dark. The streetlights offered some light, but it
was that eerie orange kind that seems to sap all the colour out of
everything making even quite ordinary objects seem really
creepy.