So Much to Learn (40 page)

I couldn't do
it, I wasn't strong or good enough to hold his trust like that. I'd
let him down or disappoint him and I couldn't bear the thought of
that. I put my hands up onto his chest and pushed until he broke
away and looked at me somewhat dazedly.

"What was
that?" I demanded, realising that my eyelashes were spiky with
tears.

"I don't know,"
Jack admitted, obviously having felt something different too.

We stared at
each other uncertainly, breathing heavily and scant centimetres
away from one another. Finally Jack didn't seem to be able to take
the silence anymore as he reached out to me imploringly saying,
"Tally, please-"

"We should get
back," I said quickly, cutting him off. Whatever it was that he
wanted to say I couldn't hear it, I was too damn scared to hear
it.

Cruelly forcing
myself to think of the scratches on his chest and the blue bra in
his bedroom I turned quickly and began marching down the path
between the graves.

Jack was
ridiculously loyal and I knew that if he felt he owed something to
me or that we owed something to each other it would make it that
much more difficult for him to leave if he got the scholarship.
Maybe he even wouldn't go and he had to, he'd said so himself. So
whatever stupidness I had forced him into, whatever it was that was
making my head spin and my chest hurt it had to stop, I was going
to stop it.

It was
over.

Over.

Easy to
verbalise, not easy to believe or to enact. In fact it is
unbelievably hard, especially when you're staying in the same house
as the person things are over with and, oh yeah, he just happens to
be the most beautiful, wonderful person ever.

The whole thing
sucked, and that was a major understatement.

I had one
saviour in my endeavour to avoid Jack during the mid-semester break
we spent at home and that was study. I used Jack's text books as
both weapons and shields knowing that once we got off angles and
theories I was treading in very dangerous water.

When we weren't
studying, I went for long walks across our property or glued myself
to the side of one of my parents so that Jack would never catch me
alone. Also, I memorised the family schedule and did my best to see
that we all stuck to them. In the morning I stayed up in my room
until I heard my dad's Ute head out, the boys had taken to going
out in the morning to work on the property and only returning for
lunch, then I would get up and go for walks or just loiter about.
After lunch I would help Jack study until teatime after which I
disappeared back up to my room to make phone calls or work on my
assignments and my mum took over the study with Jack.

Still, it
wasn't as if my plan or the schedule were anywhere near infallible
and I was constantly on edge, prepared to flee from a room if Jack
walked in with that 'we need to talk' face on. How stupidly
optimistic was I that I thought I could avoid Jack for a whole
week? Still, I did quite well, I made it all the way to Friday 25th
before the proverbial hit the fan.

Oh I thought I
was oh so clever watching from the window as the Ute left and then
sauntering down the stairs to the sunny kitchen to get some
breakfast. Yep, I was mightily pleased with myself for avoiding
Jack for so long and was merrily humming a triumphant ditty to
myself as I popped two pieces of bread into the toaster. My song
faltered, however, when I heard someone enter the kitchen behind
me.

I whirled
around, hoping it was my mum, and gave a little shriek as I saw
Jack leaning against the doorframe watching me. I eyed the space on
either side of him and wondered ever so briefly whether I would be
able to dart past. No such luck, he pretty much filled up the
doorway and was looking at me in a stony way which seemed to
indicate that he was one heartbeat away from saying 'go ahead, make
my day.'

"Yes?" I asked,
trying to sound nonchalant, but missing the mark by several high
pitches. To try and look unconcerned I made to retrieve my toast
from the toaster but misjudged the distance and pressed my fingers
against the burning hot metal part of the toaster. Yelping, I
yanked my hand away and waved it around trying to reduce the
horrible stinging, tingling feeling of the burn.

Jack swore
under his breath, left the doorframe, grabbed me by the wrist,
dragged me over to the sink, flicked the tap on, and stuck my burnt
fingers beneath the stream of cold water.

"Jesus, Tally,"
he said, sounding incredibly frustrated and, for about the
millionth time since that first fateful day I had run to Jack, I
had to quash the wormy feeling of guilt which twisted my gut. To
cover my remorse I turned my face away from him and said
irritably,

"God, Jack,
stop it! You don't always have to baby me."

He removed his
hand immediately and took a step away from me. "Hey, I wasn't-" he
began in confused tones, but I cut him off cruelly.

"Yes you were
and, thank you, but it's not necessary." I really was perfecting
this bitchy tone, shame I couldn't really take any pride in it.
"I'm perfectly capable of putting my own hand under cold
water."

"I didn't say
you weren't," he protested, quite legitimately might I add.

There was a
long, awkward pause which I ended by snapping, "Shouldn't you be
out with Matt and Dad?"

He leant back
against the counter next to the sink and looked at me sardonically,
"Why? Upset that I messed up your avoidance schedule?"

Annoyed,
although not really surprised, that he'd noticed how I managed to
never be in the same room as him for too long I decided to brazen
it out. Not exactly an odd choice for me after all.

"Look, with
things like they are and you trying for the scholarship and
everything I just think it'd be best if we left each other alone
for a while, you know what I mean?" Note to self, try to reduce
pleading note in voice when trying to be brazen.

He looked away
from me then, leaving me to look at his strong jawed profile. "No,
not really," he answered shortly and I realised that I didn't know
what I meant either.

Neither of us
said anything after that for a long time. I felt inside like my
burnt fingers under the tap did, hot yet cold, tingling and painful
yet numb.

Finally Jack
gave a little groan of frustration and ran a hand through his hair,
that familiar gesture making my breathing hitch for a moment. "Do
you-" He stopped short then started again, "Do you regret that
we-?"

This time I cut
him off, "No," I spoke quietly, but intensely, "No Jack, I don't
regret anything."

He let out
another sigh, this time of relief I think. "So what does that mean?
What are we going to-"

"Morning my
chicks!" My mum's bright, cheery voice made both Jack and me start
violently and I smacked my burnt fingers against the tap making my
eyes water, or had they already been wet…?

"Mum!" I
exclaimed breathlessly, turning off the tap and turning to see her
bustling into the kitchen "Don't sneak up on us like that, you
nearly gave me a heart attack."

"It's my house,
darling, I don't need to sneak," my mother sang, taking the now
cold toast out of the toaster and putting two fresh pieces of bread
in.

Have you ever had that feeling with your mum that her tone of
voice doesn't quite match her words? I had that feeling in spades
at that moment. Was it just paranoia or was she saying that
while
she
didn't
need to sneak
I
did?

Jack was
obviously feeling as freaked out as I was and, after he bade my mum
a good morning, he made a hasty exit from the kitchen. Coward!

I attempted to
escape as he had, but my mother's voice rang out, stopping me
before I'd taken more than a couple of steps. "One minute Talia,"
she said, her tone still chirpy, but with that hint of a threat
that indicated that if I took even one more step my life would stop
being worth living.

I turned back
and looked at her, raising an eyebrow enquiringly. "What?" I asked
a moment later after she'd just stared at me for a few seconds.

"Oh my darling
girl," she sighed deeply. "It's just that I don't know if the game
you're playing is going to do either of you any good in the long
run." She moved past me to the fridge as she talked, removed the
butter and then began to spread it on the freshly popped toast. In
fact her movements were so mundane I almost missed the significance
of what she was saying.

I mean what the
hell? You can't just say something like that and then start
buttering your toast!

As what she'd
said, or more importantly meant, sunk in I wished like nothing else
that I'd made a bolt for it when I had the chance. How dare Jack
leave me to fight this battle on my own?

"Could you be
any more cryptic?" I asked crossly, hoping against hope that she
was just fishing and didn't really have any real knowledge about
what was going on. This hope was shattered as she took a bite of
toast, swallowed and said calmly,

"Well, you
are
having sex with Jack, aren't you?"

I nearly swallowed my tongue in shock and despair. How did she
know? How come she
always
knows?

"Mum!" It came
out as a choked, agonised, shriek.

"What? You told
me to stop being cryptic, if you want plain language then there it
is."

"I don't know
what you're talking about," I said.

"Don't be
ridiculous, exactly how stupid do you think your father and I are?"
My mother said in a way that very definitely meant that her
question was rhetorical. "Things have been different between the
two of you for about a month now. Now, I'm not saying that you
should stop whatever it is that's going on, I'm just advising you
to be careful. I understand that you might think that what you're
doing is none of anyone else's business, but I doubt Matt will see
it that way." She took another couple of bites of toast, using the
pause as she did so to let her words sink in. "Boys are strange
about these things. Your uncle hated every single one of my
boyfriends saying it was because he didn't know them, but the
moment I even looked at one of his friends he would bite my head
off and refuse to talk to the friend for weeks at a time!"

She finished
off the toast and patted my cheek fondly. "Face it darling, if you
have a brother you can't win", she shrugged, "…or at least date. I
advise you to tell Matt now before things go any further or before
he finds out from someone else, damage minimisation is the name of
the game."

She wasn't
telling me anything that I didn't already know, but it was still
harsh to hear it said aloud like that. Especially from my mum who
had the unnerving power of seeing straight into my mind, reading
what it was that I really did not want to be said, and saying
it.

"Mum,
seriously," I sighed, rolling my eyes, "Nothing is going on between
Jack and me. You're just stirring up trouble."

She looked at
me for a long moment with that scary patented 'mum stare', that I
tried to take unflinchingly, then said archly, "You know there I
was worrying about my little girl growing up, seems I needn't have
worried."

Oh ouch!

"Never mind,
you know where I am if you need to talk." She gave me a quick kiss
on the cheek, another knowing look and left the kitchen leaving me
with nothing but cold toast and a lot of things to mull over.

~*~

On the long drive home on Sunday I sat in the back seat of
Matt's wreck of a car and contemplated where the events of the week
left Jack and me. We hadn't talked about our situation since the
Friday morning and, although I was trying to convince myself that
it was for the best, I couldn't help but miss the time we spent
together. After the talk with my mum…well, that is, after being
talked
at
by my
mum, I truly did consider whether I should tell Matt about what I
had blackmailed his best friend into. But, since I really couldn't
even begin to stomach the idea of how he would react I foolishly
hoped that, since I was hell-bent on this avoiding thing, there was
a chance that Matt would never find out what had happened between
Jack and me.

When we pulled
up outside our building we all sat in silence for a couple of
moments. The week off had started emotionally, but it had still
been a time of escapism. Now we were back we had to go back into
the fray with the whole Simone, Micky, Sam thing and Jack had to
face the interview and aptitude test on Wednesday and the
requirement test for the scholarship on the Thursday. It had been
such a long time coming that it seemed strange that Jack's moment
had almost arrived.

Eventually Matt
broke the silence saying that he had to go and meet up with some of
his sports science mates and Jack said that he was going to cram in
some more studying. Feeling at a bit of a loose end, I helped
unload the car and then called Adam to see if he'd come back from
his folk's place yet. He had and was well up for hanging out with
me and catching up on the past week.

I noticed
Jack's sour face when I told them where I was going, but I didn't
comment on it. Jack needed to concentrate and I needed to stay far
away from him, especially since with Matt out it would be just Jack
in the flat. Adam was a good laugh and I knew he would distract me
from the prospect of the possibility of time alone with Jack.

I spent the
rest of the day and well into the night at Adam's flat watching
Kung Fu films with him. Although I had fun, I was a little
distracted as I couldn't stop my thoughts drifting to Jack all
alone in our flat studying for his chance to win his chance to go
far, far away from me.