So Much to Learn (52 page)

“I guess you don't remember because you were kind of wrapped
up in Jack," - damn, had we been
that
obvious? - "but Micky just
stared at me the entire time he sang, it was like he was playing it
only for me and I know that sounds cheesy but that's what it was
like. I'd never really payed him that much attention before because
he'd barely spoken a word to me all year and because I knew you
hated him, but during that song, it was like he was not only seeing
me but
seeing
into
me or something."

She gave a
little shiver, presumably of pleasure, at the memory and I echoed
it with a matching one of distaste.

"It was so hot
and I couldn't take my eyes off him. When he finished I thought I
was going to cry because I was scared that would be it and he'd
never approach me after that."

"But he
presumably did," I interrupted.

"No," Simone
disagreed, "at least not that night, no it was Sam who came up to
me."

"Ah, Sam!" I
pushed myself more upright and looked at her eagerly, this was more
like it! "Sam who you get on with so well, what happened? Did he
ask you out? This isn't going to be one of those creepy stories of
twin confusion, is it?"

Simone laughed
a little at this and shook her head. "Let me talk," she objected,
"I can't tell you what happened if you keep interrupting!"

I made the sign
of zipping my lips and she nodded, satisfied.

"No, Sam didn't
ask me out he just said that he knew that I liked to jog in the
mornings and asked if he could join me because he wanted to build
up some extra endurance for footy. We started jogging together
every morning before uni and on the weekend and we became really
good friends. After a while we started telling each other stuff,
private stuff, like our own little therapy session. We just felt
that click that you get with some people, you know what I mean?"
She was smiling but I knew what she was really saying was that Sam
had filled the gap that I had increasingly left open.

I didn't have
time to throw myself into another good guilt wallow at this
thought, however, as Simone suddenly seemed to decide something and
looked at me sternly.

"Look," she
said earnestly, "I'm going to tell you something but you've got to
promise that you won't tell anyone."

Maybe I'm just
a particularly suspicious person but I've never found agreeing to
promise something before you've heard what you've sworn to keep
quiet to be a particularly attractive prospect. It's surely dodgy.
In this case, though, it didn't seem as if I had much choice but to
say yes.

"Not a living
soul," I said earnestly, thinking as I did so that as my usual
confidants in Jack and Matt weren't talking to me it was actually a
pretty easy promise to make.

Simone nodded
tightly at my acceptance and then began speaking very quietly
almost respectfully. "It took quite a while but Sam eventually told
me that the whole jogging thing had been a ruse so he could spend
some time alone with me. He'd really wanted to talk to me because
he wanted me to know how he felt…what I mean is that he felt that
someone should know…ergh I'm going about this all wrong." She
stopped talking and slumped back against the couch as I let out a
little sigh of frustration.

"What?" I asked
a little crossly. "What did he want you to know? His feelings about
you or something?"

"Oh, give it a
rest Talia." She sounded tired now. "There's nothing going on
between me and Sam and there never will be. He's gay."

Hmm well that
put paid to the theory of the twins fighting over Simone.

"Are you
serious?" I asked, completely flabbergasted. "Sam's gay? Our Sam?
But he's-"

Simone's grey
eyes suddenly flashed with anger and she cut me off fiercely, "He's
what? Captain of the football team? One of the guys? Butch? You
know as well as I do that it doesn't work like that."

I blinked in
surprise at her sudden outburst, but as her words sunk in, I knew
what she meant. Sure the stereotype might be that gay men are camp
and effeminate but stereotypes were dangerous things to judge
people by.

"I'm sorry," I
apologised, wondering what number apology I was up to by then. "So
he hadn't told anyone then, just you?"

"Yeah, just
me." She sighed again. "He came to me not only because he was
desperate to tell someone but also because he wanted my help. You
see he'd decided that he was finally going to come out to Michael
but he figured he needed an intermediary, someone just to help
things along, you know?"

For a moment
there I almost didn't know who she was talking about as I so rarely
heard people refer to Micky as Michael. Then realisation hit of
what she'd just said and I raised my eyebrows enquiringly.

"He needed an
intermediary with his own twin?"

Simone looked a
bit uncomfortable and then admitted, "Yeah, he was worried about
how Michael would react and it turned out he was kind of right to
be. Telling Micky wasn't easy, in fact saying that he didn't take
it very well is kind of an understatement."

Figures I
thought, out loud I said, "So on top of everything else am I to
assume that Micky's a homophobe?"

Simone seemed
to choose her words carefully as she replied, "Not homophobic as
such. I don't think he's against the idea in principle but-"

"NIMBY right?"
I interrupted, "Not in my backyard, or rather, not in my brother."
I snorted with disgust. "It's virtually the same thing, Simone,
prejudice and ignorance."

It was Simone's
turn to get up off the couch in frustration and I watched as she
tried to formulate best what she wanted to say next. "You've got to
remember," she began eventually as she paced the living room,
"they're twins, they've grown up together being pretty much
inseparable. Michael thought he knew everything there was to know
about Sam, just like Sam knew everything about him and then Sam
dropped a bombshell like that and it's completely thrown him. Sam's
been his only confidant through all the rubbish they went through
as kids and so you've got to understand that he feels
betrayed."

I had to
understand no such thing! That last sentence sent a little flash of
anger through me and I looked up at her and said furiously, "So
that gives him the right to lash out at everybody else does it?" I
demanded. "I don't know if you've forgotten but Jack didn't exactly
have an idyllic childhood but you don't see him playing mind games
with people or just generally being abusive and rude, do you?"

"People deal
with things in different ways," Simone said through gritted teeth.
"Jack clams up and, yes, Michael lashes out but it's just a
front."

I got to my
feet as well, too riled up to sit calmly. "Front smchont," I
snapped. "That’s no excuse for treating people the way he
does."

Her answer was quick and cutting. "To treat people or to
treat
you
?"

We faced each
other in the middle of the room, sporting identical patches of red
on our cheeks. Negotiations had well and truly broken down.

Unusually for
me I found that I didn't care if I was the first to back down. I so
wanted to know the rest of her story that I held out my hands in a
conciliatory manner and said, in a calmer tone, "Fine, for now
let's just agree to disagree on this. So tell me about what
happened when you told him."

Simone looked
for a moment as if she wanted to keep fighting but then she nodded
tightly and leant back against her sideboard. "OK, fine. Well, you
know that telling him didn't exactly go to plan. In fact he'd
barely heard what I said before he stormed off. Sam and I thought
it would be better if just I followed him because-"

"Because he was
probably less likely to punch you in the head," I finished for her
and she nodded to show the truth of my words.

"So I went
after him, managing to catch him before he drove away, and we
talked. Actually," she amended, "I talked and he yelled but I think
at the end of it he was a bit calmer. We agreed to meet up again
the next day and we talked some more then, and then we met up the
day after that, and then the day after that and so on until a
couple of weeks had passed and I realised we'd seen each other
every single day. Sometimes we just talked, sometimes we went to
the movies or went for walks, it was almost as if we were-"

"Dating," I
finished for her, my voice glum.

She smiled,
seeming to ignore my distinct lack of enthusiasm for this part of
the story, "Yeah, except he didn't even so much as put his arm
around me and I wasn't sure whether I was glad or not. I mean I was
developing some serious feelings for him, you have no idea, Talia,
he's really so sweet and caring."

Sweet and
caring? Micky? She was right. I really did have no idea.

"But then, on the other hand, he was refusing to even be in
the same room as Sam, even though they were still technically
living together, and sometimes he'd say these things that got me so
angry." She smiled in a sort of bemused way. "I was pretty much
torn over wishing he would make a move and refusing to ever see him
again. Then it all kind of came to a head one night when he
finally
did
make a
move and kissed me." There was that dreamy expression again. "It
was amazing, better than I'd even imagined." Her expression clouded
over and she continued reluctantly, "But then he somewhat spoilt it
by saying that kissing me could only have been more perfect if we
were doing it in front of you so maybe you’d have a heart attack…
"

I let out a
little gasp of outrage and Simone met my horrified gaze
miserably.

"That was
pretty much my reaction too," she said, beginning to fiddle with
one of her strawberry blonde curls. "He apologised immediately and
said he was only joking but I was too angry to listen and I stormed
out. That's when I started to ignore him, he called me just about
every hour for a couple of weeks there, but I was so upset and
confused I just hung up every time. When we had to meet up because
of a group thing I felt like I was going to rip in half; it hurt so
much to be near him but to blank him totally."

Once again I
stared out the window and felt bits and pieces click neatly into
place. Simone's sudden absences and strange behaviour for a while
there followed by that awful evening when she'd suddenly seemed to
snap and slapped Micky. Then Matt's words came back to me from when
we were up in Bridunna 'someone rang and it was like she didn't
want to talk to them in front of me and Tommo so she said she
couldn't talk and hung up.' And then later that afternoon that call
had come from Sam's house, but as Simone had just said, Micky and
Sam lived together so it was probably Micky who'd been calling. How
could I not have followed those clues up beforehand?

"So that's what that was all about," I said, feeling as if
someone had just turned a light on in my brain. "And then that God
awful football match happened and…oh my God," I suddenly exclaimed,
"
that's
why Micky
thinks that I've ruined everything for him, you wouldn't get with
him because he was such an arsehole to me?"

Simone
nodded.

"Well, bloody hell!" I exploded. "How is that
my
fault? I mean, sure,
if I'd known about the pair of you then I certainly wouldn't have
encouraged you but I didn't so how can he twist it so that I'm the
one to blame? Some would say if he wasn't such a dickhead then he
wouldn't have had any trouble getting with you in the first
place!"

"Logic kind of
gets forgotten when it comes to this kind of thing, though," Simone
said quietly and I definitely heard the unspoken 'you should know
that' hidden behind her calm words.

"So what
changed then?" I asked, determinedly ignoring her silent dig at me.
"I mean you guys seem pretty together now and considering Micky's
little outburst a few minutes ago about Sam and the fact that he
has been in no way any nicer to me I'm guessing something else must
have happened to make you change your mind about him."

"Which I
guess," Simone said with a little smile, "leads us neatly round to
the second thing you have to promise me you won't tell anyone else
about."

I rolled my
eyes, truth be told I was getting a little bit sick of all these
stupid secrets. Long live the day when I didn't have to watch what
I said or did for fear of giving something away. Still, didn't look
like that time was anywhere near yet.

"Of course, to
the grave and everything," I said tiredly, taking a seat on one of
her armchairs.

"It's to do
with Alex," Simone began and my ears perked up. Ah, the enigmatic
Alex! I was looking forward to finding out what had happened there.
"You remember how he was refusing to tell anyone what had happened
when that kid was pushed or fell or whatever off that fire escape?
You know how he wouldn't admit or deny that he had something to do
with it?"

I nodded, as if
I could forget!

"Well, it turns
out that, actually, my little brother is something of a hero."
Simone beamed at this and I saw the love that she held for her bad
boy brother shining clearly through her eyes. "And if it wasn't for
Micky we might never have found out what really happened that
night. He could’ve gone to juvie or anything."

Yes alright! I
thought impatiently, just cut to the chase already! But it turned
out that finally having someone to tell her story to meant that
Simone wanted to savour the moment and get it exactly right. To
this end she seemed to want Micky to be there with her and so,
before I could stop her, she crossed to her room and called him
out.