Three Hundred Words (6 page)

And he did. He
left me standing there in despair, his own horror at my revelation preventing
him standing by me any longer. I couldn’t blame him and it was what I wanted.

I swiped at my
eyes, knowing I was smudging my make-up, and slipped off my shoes. I didn’t
know whether walking half an hour on the pavement barefoot or in these shoes
was going to do more damage to my feet, but at least taking the shoes of now
offered some instant release.

I needed to figure
out what I was going to tell my mother.

She was going to
be devastated.

My parents were
approaching their thirtieth year of being married and they’d always been so
happy. Never an argument, never a falling out. There was a chance it happened
behind closed doors, but as far as I was concerned, my parents were perfect.
They’d be together forever.

And now that was
ruined.

I wrapped my arms
so tight around myself that my nails dug into my stomach, but I didn’t mind the
pain. At least that was a distraction. I’d let Emma lose her virginity whilst
she was off her head, I’d cheated on my near-perfect boyfriend, and my parents
were divorcing.

When my phone
rang, I ignored it.

Mr. Lane wasn’t
something I needed in my life tonight, or at all. My attraction to him had
caused two disasters already and I wasn’t about to let it ruin anything else.
I’d rather fail one piece of coursework and go to a lesser university than fuck
up every relationship I had.

The cold was
tugging at me and my arms were beginning to feel numb. It was still February
and it wasn’t the kind of weather to be walking around in nothing but a skimpy
dress on. Even the alcohol wasn’t preventing me feeling the cold as well as
normal.

A car pulled up
beside me, but I ignored it. I was walking along a main road, of course people
would be getting taxis home at this time of night.

A jacket was
draped across my shoulders and I slung it off automatically, a scream barely
being shoved down when I saw that Mr. Lane was the person responsible. He’d
gotten a taxi to drive along my route home to find out where I was. “What’s
happened?”

“My dad is
cheating on my mum and I broke up with my boyfriend.” My voice was emotionless,
the tears having dried up to be replaced by the numbness that was beginning to
take over my body at this point. There was nothing left.

Oscar didn’t touch
me. He just replaced the jacket around my shoulders and left me to walk on my
own. “I’m sorry. If you broke up-”

“Of course I broke
up with him because I fucked you. I cheated. I’m a cunt. That’s about all there
is to it. I’m as bad as my dad.”

“If I’d known you
had a boyfriend, I would have never proposed our deal, I just figured you were
single. I would have just given you the extension, I was going-”

“Yes, I know you
were going to revoke your offer, but I stopped you because I wanted to fuck
you. I’m a bad person, can we move on now, please. Just leave me alone. I want
to go home and think of how to tell my mum her marriage is over, if that’s okay
with you.”

Mr. Lane sighed
and looked tempted to embrace me, but he still resisted. “You’re not a bad
person, Lily. You’ve just made some mistakes and I don’t think I have the right
to judge you, anyway. Your parents will be fine, eventually. It’s just one of
those things that happens.”

I wanted to
scream. But why did one of those things have to happen to
my
parents.
Everything had always been so perfect with them. “I just wish I hadn’t seen.
Isn’t it awful, that I’d rather just not know, to let him continue to lie to my
mum like that, to make myself feel better? I’m the most selfish person that
there is.”

“Everyone would
think that. It’s the natural reaction.”

“I let my best
friend go home with some guy tonight to lose her virginity when she’s high on
MDMA because I followed you in the club. I am
shit
. I don’t deserve
anything.”

“That’s not your
fault,” Mr. Lane insisted, this time giving into his urge and wrapping a secure
arm around my shoulder. “Your boyfriend… that is your fault, but you can’t just
pile everything on your shoulders. You made a mistake, but everyone does.
Things will right themselves in the end.”

I had no
confidence that things were ever going to get better, even if I was just being
melodramatic in the moment. “Whatever. I just want to go home. Can you please
leave me alone now?”

I didn’t need
this, someone pretending to look out for me. I could handle self-loathing
perfectly well by myself, which the remainder of what I’d been drinking before
I went out and sad music. I was out of the city centre and into the safe part
of town. I’d be perfectly fine.

“I’ll walk you
home.”

“I don’t want you
to walk me home.”

“I’m just trying
to look out for you,” Mr. Lane tightened his grip and I shrugged away from him.
Giving up the warmth probably wasn’t worth it, but I needed to make a stand on
this. I wasn’t seeing Mr. Lane anymore.

I continued to
walk, face straight, and didn’t turn to look at him as I spoke. “I don’t want
to sleep with you again. I don’t want to see you again outside of the
classroom. I don’t care if you fail me. I just want to be left. Alone.”

“You can’t just
block everyone out. I want to help.”

“I don’t want your
help!” I all but shouted. “I want to go home and get on with my life as if none
of this ever happened. Me fucking you has messed up everything and I don’t want
it anymore. I want to have sorted myself out before I go to university, so that
maybe I’m not still stuck in a cycle of self-hatred by then.”

I quickened my
pace, but Mr. Lane still insisted on catching me up. “This isn’t just about the
sex. I
like
you, and I thought you liked me. That was the point of this
whole thing. I wanted to get to know you more.”

“I don’t like
you,” I lied. “It was about the sex and nothing more. Please go away.”

And I shoved
another person out of my life. It was an easy lie to pull off: we’d had one
dinner together and so I wasn’t supposed to have decided that I really liked
him, I wasn’t supposed to have already established a good number of romantic
fantasies that I played out in my mind over and over again.

It was easy to
convince Mr. Lane that he meant nothing to me.

And when he
shouted after me that I was making a mistake, he didn’t have to know that my
tears had returned with a vengeance and I was this close to turning around and
begging him to forgive me.

Mr. Lane was gone
and that was good and simple. It was what had to happen.

I’d recover from
all of this, eventually.

Chapter Six

The next day was
painful. My hangover was one thing, but my mind was weighed down by far heavier
things than that. I had to go and see Emma today.

I had to speak to
my father this evening, when he returned from his ‘fishing trip’.

And I had to look
my mother in the eye and pretend everything was fine.

Emma had invited
me round just after lunch and I’d gone to her house with a heavy heart. I
already knew what was going to happen before she’d curled into my side in
heaves of sobs. She regretted it, of course, and told me how much she hated herself
for having done that.

There wasn’t one
mention of how I’d
let
her do it, but I was sure she must have thought
it. I’d left her there and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her it was because
I’d wanted to sleep with my teacher again.

“Don’t get me
wrong, it was good, I think? He was really nice this morning, but I think he
knew I was pretty distraught. Poor guy.”

“Poor guy? He took
you home after feeding you drugs. I’m not feeling much sympathy for him.”

“He was drunk out
of his mind, too. We were as bad as each other. I’m pretty sure I was the one
who suggested we get out of there.”

I sat and listened
to her talk and felt guilty as hell. I considered not even telling her about my
parents.

“I really don’t
remember what happened when I got back to Maurice’s, I think I’d drank a lot by
that point, too. I’m sore this morning, though. I don’t feel traumatised, or
like I was raped or anything, I just regret it, you know?”

“I know,” I
definitely understood regrets. “I’m sorry for leaving you alone.”

“It’s okay, it’s
not your fault. It’s my own. Anyway, I enjoyed the drug, it’s a shame I had to
ruin the memory with my silly mistake,” she swallowed, before running a hand
through her hair. “Actually, I kind of regret it most because I kind of fancy someone
else.” Emma was blushing wildly and I raised an eyebrow. “I might have been
keeping a few secrets, too.”

“
Emma
,” I
whined. “Come on, tell me who. I was beginning to worry you weren’t interested
in anyone.”

“Just this guy
from gymnastics. We get on really well and he’s really nice… only he’s fifteen.
Which makes it kind of weird. I wasn’t going to do anything, obviously, and
even if he’d asked me out I’d have declined, but I just really like him. Do you
think I’m a creep? At least you’re eighteen, that’s like two years over the age
of consent, which stops Mr. Lane being really weird.”

I almost cringed
to hear his name. “When’s his sixteenth birthday? I mean, it’s perfectly legal
for you to date as long as you don’t sleep together until then, right?”

“I can’t date him,
I just wanted to make sure just
thinking
about it wasn’t weird. I mean,
he looks so much older, older than me even and he’s obviously,” she cleared her
throat, “a man. I just feel like I’ve betrayed myself by sleeping with someone
else, I guess.”

“You don’t have to
feel like that if you’re not together.”

“He’s sixteen in
like a week, by the way. I suppose that is kind of important.”

I laughed.
“Definitely not weird, then. There’s a two year gap, that’s nothing, and he’ll
be legal in a week. Stop stressing about something like that and ask him out if
you get along that well.”

She smiled. That
was obviously exactly what she wanted to hear. “I might do. We’ll see. Thanks
for confirming that I’m not a weirdo, anyway, I needed to hear it. How was your
night, did you enjoy yourself? And hey, seriously, don’t beat yourself up about
letting me out of your sight for like two seconds. You stopped me going home
with some real maniacs, that much I do remember.”

I would have
laughed; one problem had been kind of lifted, but two remained. “I broke up
with Luke.”

“Last night? I
thought you were planning on doing it today. Did you really get
that
drunk?
Oh, you didn’t mention Mr. Lane, did you?”

I scowled. “I’m
really not that stupid, you know, of course I didn’t mention him. I just, I did
a really awful job of it,” I groaned and lay down, disrupting the comfy
position Emma had been in, head rested on my lap. “I saw my dad kissing another
woman and I was really upset and so I told him I’d cheated to get him to
leave.”

“Wait, what? Your
dad is sleeping with another woman?”

I shrugged,
feeling the weight of that knowledge on every muscle. “Yeah, he is. I have to
talk to him about it today when I get home, to get him to tell mum.”

“I’m so sorry,
that’s awful.” Our positions switched and I was the one being comforted. The
familiar feel of my best friend’s fingers dragging through my knotty hair did
go some way to make me feel better.

“Yeah, it really
sucks dick. My mum’s going to be crushed. They’ll probably divorce. I don’t
know how to deal with that kind of thing. Especially not on top of all the
other shit. I told Mr. Lane that I’m not seeing him anymore.”

“When did you see
him? Or do you actually have his number or something ridiculous?”

“I saw him last
night… but he also did give me his number last night. I should probably delete
that.” I weighed it up for admitting exactly when I’d seen him. I was just
begging for Emma to blame me, to make me feel even worse than I already did. “I
saw him when you were dancing with Maurice, that’s where I disappeared to, and
then I saw him when I was walking home.” I groaned at the entire memory and
Emma frowned.

“Really that bad?”

“Yes. He admitted
that he liked me and I told him I didn’t care about anything more than the sex
and that I didn’t care if he failed me, but that I just didn’t want to see him
again. I’m pretty sure that’s what I said, anyway. I don’t remember much of
anything after I got home.”

Emma whacked me
across the forehead with a magazine from her bedside table. “You’re a moron. I
mean, you do actually like him more than just for the sex, right? If you don’t
then fair play, I suppose.”

I almost didn’t
admit it. “I like him more than just for the sex.”

“You’re just a moron
then, it’s confirmed.”

“I’m not a moron,
I was doing the right thing. I can’t be in a relationship now, not after what I
did to Luke. I cheated on someone, I’m not fit for a relationship. He’d
probably never trust me. I need a new start at university.”

“If he’s telling
you he likes you, don’t you think it’s worth the chance?”

“No. Besides, he’s
still my teacher, he just wanted to cash in on the rest of his sex and so he
tried to sweet talk me, he’d never risk being in a relationship with me when he
could lose his job. He doesn’t even know me, really. We’ve had one real
conversation in our lives. That would be completely foolish.”

“And yet, you know
that you like him, why wouldn’t he know that he likes you?”

Emma really liked
to make things difficult with me. I’d have preferred it if she validated my
actions and let me just lay this whole thing to rest. There was no reason I
should even see Mr. Lane outside of school again – no way for us to be anything
more than teacher and student.

“He wouldn’t risk
his job, not for an actual relationship. Bringing me to his house three or four
times, fucking me, and letting me walk home is practically risk free, really.
Who on earth is going to ever know about that? Being in a relationship means
texts and going out for dinner and more than just holing up in his house for an
hour. I’d be an idiot to think he meant that. And even if he
did
, I
don’t want it. I’m not interested in a relationship right now.”

Emma gave up
trying. I wasn’t even sure if my arguments were rational at this point, I just
knew that I had to stick to them. Mr. Lane and I were never going to be ‘a
thing’ and that was final. We’d gone too far already. I’d already fucked up too
many things.

“What time does
your dad get home today? Are you going to be able to speak to him alone? Does
he know that you know?”

This conversation
wasn’t any better, but I supposed they were questions I needed to address. “He
gets home at five, just in time for dinner, but I can talk to him after that.”
The thought of sitting through dinner, watching him come in and kiss my mum on
the cheek, made me feel a little bit ill. “He doesn’t know that I know. I was
too shocked to do anything before he’d gotten into a taxi with the whore.”

If I hadn’t still
been feeling ill from last night, I got the feeling Emma might have suggested
we crack open the wine. Instead, she was forced to sit uncomfortably, with no
idea what to say to me. “Well you can stay here as many nights in a row as you
want. If you don’t want to be in the house with them, I mean.”

“I couldn’t do
that to my mum. I think she’s going to need the moral support.”

“Maybe you could
morally support each other.”

“I’m never telling
my mum anything to do with this entire escapade. Luke and I broke up because we
were arguing a lot and that’s final. I can’t possibly tell her I cheated on him
after this, can I?”

“I wasn’t really
implying you should,” Emma chuckled, though I could see the concern all over
her face. “I just meant since you’d broken up with someone, too.”

“Three months of
dating isn’t really the same as thirty years of marriage,” I muttered, drinking
sickness and nervous sickness mixing together in the most unpleasant way. “I
don’t know if I can even do this. It’s going to be so horrible.”

“You’ll be fine,
and it will all be fine eventually. I’m always here when you need to chat and
stuff.”

“Thanks, Emma.”

At least she would
always be there, even when I managed to push everyone else away.

***

We sat at the
table as though everything was normal. My dad laughed about something stupid
his friend had supposedly done during their trip, but my face was a blank
slate. It was taking everything in me not to leave the table and I received a
great number of worried glances from both parents.

No doubt they
thought they’d been sitting down together after this to try and decide what was
wrong with me.

It was all
incredibly sad.

I hadn’t touched a
single thing on my plate, either. I felt like throwing up. My stomach swirled
with unease and whenever I lifted my gaze from my lap it was overpowering.

There was no way I
could have this conversation, with either parent.

I had to pray my
dad would tell my mum and didn’t make me do it. I wouldn’t be able to take her
crumpled face.

Their giggles
echoed around the room. They sounded like school kids, sharing funny stories
about other people that they’d been supposed to keep to themselves.

I didn’t know
whether to be relieved or horrified when my mum began clearing the plates away.
“Are you really not going to eat anything?” She put the back of her hand to my
forehead. “It’ll do you good.”

I shook my head,
throat dry. “No, thank you.”

“Okay, well, I’ll
leave it in the fridge. You can warm it up later when you’re hungry.”

He slipped into
the kitchen and my dad stood up, ready to settle down on the couch and watch
some TV. I blocked his path with a grimace on my face. “You’d better tell her
about that woman you were with last night.”

Silence reigned
supreme as my dad attempted to process what I’d just said. At first it was wide
eyes, as if he couldn’t possibly have heard me correctly, and then it was
despair. “You can’t tell her,” he whispered in low tones. “You can’t say a
word.”