by Nikki Ashton
Dragging a hand through my hair, I closed my eyes against looking at him. If I saw the lies in his eyes, I wasn’t sure if I’d get over it… having him and losing him again.
Fuck, what was I thinking, he raped my girlfriend?
“I don’t want you here,” I grunted and pulled open my car door. “Just go and leave me and Sarah alone.”
“She’s a liar you know, Adam,” he shouted as I put one leg inside the car, causing me to pause. “She agreed to sex. We had consensual sex, twice, son, that’s all. Twice and I called it off and she cried rape because of that.”
I breathed heavily, my anger pushing out through my nostrils, and got back out of the car.
“You’re a liar. You raped her. She told me.”
“She told you a lie, Adam. She told you the same story she told the court and they didn’t believe her either. She asked me to help tidy up my art room. She asked me if we could have pizza afterward. And she kissed me first. She had been flirting with me for weeks. Why else would she spend her own time cleaning up paint?”
“Did she ask you to rape her too?”
I could hardly breathe as I stalked towards him. The thought of what he’d done made me feel sick. With my fists clenched at my side I leaned into his space while a wave of sadness cracked my chest.
I was close enough to touch him.
My dad was here.
“I didn’t,” he said steadily, shaking his head. “She’s lying.”
“Why should I believe you.” My chin trembling.
He took a deep breath and looked me right in the eye.
“Because I’m your dad, your flesh and blood. Why would I lie to you?”
I couldn’t help it. I tried not to, but I fell forward into his arms, wrapping mine tightly around him.
“You left me. You went away and left me. I needed you.”
I drew in a pained sob as his big hands landed on my back and rubbed gently. “I’m so sorry, Adam,” he whispered against my ear and my lungs jerked out another pitiful cry. “But I’m here now. I’ve got you.”
Even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do, and it was betraying Sarah, I hung on to him like he was a lifeboat and he was the only thing that could save me from drowning.
6
Sarah
I hadn’t had the best of mornings. It had got off to a shitty start with a text from Adam saying he was running late and would see me in history. This meant I’d had to walk in with Alannah wondering whether people were gossiping about me.
A couple of people had stared at me and then quickly turned away, but no one actually came up to me and said anything about what had happened in TJ’s. I mentioned it to Alannah as we unpacked our stuff into our lockers.
“Can you believe no one has said anything,” I whispered as my eyes flicked around the corridor.
“Ellis cut it off while you and Adam were in the bathroom.” She shrugged. “It’s standard.”
“He can’t warn everyone to keep quiet. Someone is bound to say something.”
“I doubt it. He made out that Davies was lying because he had it in for Adam, and that if anyone repeated it there’d be consequences.”
I stared at her wide-eyed. “And they’ll take that? They’ll do as he said?”
“There’s always a first time, but yeah, pretty much.”
She sounded so casual about it, I was a little shocked. I knew Adam and his friends had a hold over the girls of the school, but to be able to keep a whole sixth form quiet made me wonder what consequences there’d been in the past.
“Don’t think too much about it,” Alannah said as she linked her arm with mine. “For once just be grateful that they have the authority to shut it down. How are you feeling anyway? Did Adam stay with you for long after he dropped you home last night? Or did you have one of those middle of the night conversations that you enjoy having? You look knackered.”
I gave her a small smile. “No, he went home after about an hour, and I didn’t hear from him until my text this morning.”
Alannah halted in her step momentarily but then continued. “All that fighting must have worn him out.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I didn’t think so, but Alannah was still finding it difficult to trust Adam, so I kept my thoughts to myself and went off to English.
When I finally saw Adam, it was in our second lesson of the day, history. When he walked in though it was evident that he was not in a good mood. He wore his baseball cap pulled low, but the scowl beneath the peak was plain to see.
“Morning.” He flashed me a smile and dropped a quick kiss on my lips. “You okay?” He exhaled, pulled his hat off his head, mussed up his hair and then replaced the cap.
“Fine, what about you?”
When he didn’t answer, but started to search inside his bag for something, my stomach twisted. His shoulders were tense, and he kept sighing heavily. When he sat up straight and thudded his textbook onto the desk, he didn’t even look at me, but stared straight ahead to the front of the class where Mr Raymond was talking to a boy called Daniel.
“I thought you might call me last night.”
“I was knackered,” he replied, with only a quick glance in my direction.
“Fine.” Call me a child but I pouted and shifted my chair.
I got that everything happening was difficult for him, but there was no reason for him to be salty with me. We were supposed to be helping each other through the pile of shit that had landed on our laps, not act all sulky when we were together. I was entirely sympathetic to how he must be struggling with his emotions, but I didn’t want be treated as though it were all my fault. He could stew on his mood if he wanted to, but there was no way I would allow him to make me feel isolated or uncomfortable.
I leaned forward and poked Shannon. “Did you hear from Liverpool uni?”
“Err, yeah,” she replied, blinking rapidly. “I need two B’s and an A.”
“You think you’ll get them?”
Shannon tucked her hair behind her ear and studied me. We’d barely spoken in the couple of months I’d been at the school, apart from the odd conversation during our history lessons, but I needed to make more friends, plus part of me thought it might piss Adam off because when we were together my attention was usually on him.
“I hope so,” Shannon replied, curling her lip. “I’m struggling with English lit though. I just don’t dig deep enough with my essays apparently.”
“I can help you, if you like.” I leaned over the desk. “It’s one of my better subjects.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
I shook my head and, in my periphery, noticed Adam shift his chair a little closer.
“Catch up with me later and we’ll sort something.”
Shannon grinned and was about to say something else, when Mr Raymond barked at us all to be quiet.
I sat back in my seat and felt a warm hand on my leg.
“I’m sorry,” Adam whispered. “I’m a dickhead and I shouldn’t take my bad mood out on you, especially not at the minute.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” I looked straight ahead.
“Can we talk before the next lesson? We need to, about what Davies said at TJ’s.”
I turned to him and nodded. “Yes, I think we should.”
Adam smiled and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “I am sorry, more than you know.”
“I know.” I sighed and smiled back.
Adam pulled at a strand of my hair as I stood in front of him where he sat on the wall which surrounded the yard. He’d told me that sixth formers rarely visited it, leaving it to the younger kids to congregate, gossip and bitch in, and as most of our year group were gathered in the dining room, he’d thought the yard the better place to talk.
“Has anyone said anything?” he asked and dropped my hair, taking my hand instead.
“No, I had some strange looks, but nothing else.”
His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened. “Tell me who the fuck it was, and I’ll sort
it.”
“No, you won’t,” I replied with a shake of my head. “I can cope with a few side eyes. If you say anything it’ll just fuel the fire, anyway Ellis shut it down apparently.”
“Yeah he said, but there’s always some dickhead who thinks they’re a fucking joker.”
“Has someone said something to you?”
“Davies. He thought he was fucking hilarious in maths. Mrs Baker was talking through a problem and he shouted, ‘sorry to be sloppy, Miss, but can I have a few seconds to write the problem down. I want to try the pen my dad bought for me, just because we’re really close’.” Adam pulled me closer and rested his forehead on my shoulder. “Then the fucking knob said, ‘are you close with your dad, Hudson?’. Kirk had to hold me back. I don’t know whether the stupid prick has a death wish or something, but he won’t get away with it.”
I let out a long, exasperated sigh, wishing I had the nerve to kick Davies in the bollocks myself. I didn’t want Adam to be getting into fights over me all the time. “How the hell did he even find out?”
Adam grunted. “No idea.”
Silence fell between us and I wondered what had happened to his desire from the night before to stop at nothing to find out how Davies found out. Something had changed in him since he’d held me tight in the bathroom at TJ’s.
“Are you okay?” I asked, moving back so that Adam had to lift his head. “I get it, if you’re pissed off by everything, but I thought we were in this together.”
“We are.”
His words were sharp, and as he looked over my shoulder my stomach and heart drummed an erratic beat in unison. Everything had seemed a little bit easier since Adam and I had been together. With the robbery at the Tesco Express, him saving me with the EpiPen and then holding me together when Mr Mills arrived, I’d felt like we could become indestructible together; but now something was gnawing at my nerves causing me to doubt everything.
“You just seem distant that’s all.”
I didn’t want to sound like some pathetic little girl, who needed her boyfriend to hold her hand, but I couldn’t help being fearful. If he ended things and went back to being horrible and mean to me, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to cope. Alannah was a good friend, but Adam got it, he knew about having sadness smother you until it took your breath from your lungs. He knew how it felt to face every day with a blackness shrouding your soul.
“I’m just worried, that’s all,” he replied, finally looking at me.
“Okay.” I studied him carefully and watched as his eyes flickered around, looking everywhere but not seeing anything.
“How come you offered to help my dad… him, to clean up the art room?”
Adam’s question shot sudden and unexpected. It punched me in the stomach and physically knocked me back a step.
“W-what?” My mouth went dry as instinctively I pulled my hand from Adam’s and pushed it up the sleeve of my jumper, rubbing at the raised skin on my wrist. Adam finally looked at me, really looked at me, and took a deep breath. I waited for him to let it out, but his chest remained still as his gaze stayed pinned to me. Finally, and very slowly, he exhaled.
“What made you offer to help him clean the art room? Didn’t you feel uncomfortable being alone with a teacher?”
I shook my head and rubbed furiously at my scar. “He was my teacher. He was supposed to protect me, of course I felt comfortable with him. W-w-why are you asking this?” My chest started to move up and down with erratic breaths as I stared at Adam.
“I’m just trying to get the facts,” he replied and jumped down from the wall.
“The facts? The fucking fact is that he raped me.” I hissed out my words, chancing a look over my shoulder to check we weren’t being overheard. “What other facts do you need?”
“I’m trying to…” he paused and ran a hand through his hair, a pained look crumpling his handsome features. “Build a picture. I’m trying to build a picture.”
I shook my head and took another step away from him. “No, I don’t want to help you build a fucking picture, Adam. I don’t need to build a picture, because I still have them whirling around in my head every minute of every day. I see them at night when I’m sleeping too. They never go away, Adam, so if you want a picture go and ask your fucking dad.”
I ran from him, stumbling against groups of kids, pushing through them. I had no idea if Adam was following me. I didn’t care, I just needed to be away from him so that I’d be able to breathe.
The door back into school slammed against the wall as I shoved it and ran into the corridor which led to the sixth form part of the building.
“Watch it,” a boy carrying a stack of chairs cried as I almost sent him toppling over.
I didn’t respond but kept running. I was going to get my stuff from my locker and go. I couldn’t sit in a classroom and pretend I was fine; that my boyfriend wasn’t a dick.
With the bell only a few minutes away, the corridor where our lockers were heaved with everyone grabbing their books for their afternoon lessons. As I moved past them, I sensed that I’d grabbed their attention; I was running, was close to tears, and I was desperate to go home.
“Sarah.” A large hand grabbed my elbow. “I’m sorry, okay?”
I swung around to face Adam and pushed both my hands against his chest. “I don’t want to speak to you, or even see you right now.”
“Babe, please.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re supposed to believe me, but you obviously don’t.”
“I didn’t say that. I was just—”
“Yeah you said.” I turned away from him to see most of the people in the corridor had now stopped what they were doing and were listening to us. “Seen enough?”
A few people rolled their eyes or laughed but most continued to stare as Adam reached for me.
“Sarah.”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m going home.”
“Let me take you,” Adam offered but then turned on a girl who stood whispering behind him. “Why don’t you fuck off and get a life.”
I took the opportunity to move away from him and quickly open my locker and pull out my backpack.
“Sarah, just wait. I’m sorry.” Adam sounded desperate
Pushing past him, letting my bag smack him in the stomach, I marched out of school and once I was outside, I let the tears roll.
7
Adam
“Happy birthday, mate.” Ellis slapped my back and pushed an envelope against my chest. “It’s from my mum and dad, so don’t start thinking I’ve turned into a girl.”
I forced out a smile and glanced down at the card. “Tell them thanks.”
“So, plans for tonight? You have to have one because having your eighteenth birthday on a Friday night is pretty fucking lucky, if you ask me.”
I shrugged.
“Don’t tell me that because you’re all wifed up that you’re not having your first legal drink with your mates.”
“No,” I protested. “I’m just not in the mood to do anything to be honest. Like you said, it’s not like we haven’t been in a pub before.”
I looked over Ellis’ shoulder when I felt the breeze from the main door into school opening. My heart jumped when I saw a flash of blonde hair, but it wasn’t Sarah. I hadn’t seen her since she’d stormed off home two days before. I knew she’d been in school, but she’d somehow managed to avoid me as we hadn’t had any lessons together. The only one we did have normally had been history, but Mr Raymond was off sick and so Miss Daniels had given us a study session instead of bringing in a substitute teacher—as usual no fucking expense spared at Maddison High School. Apparently, Sarah had studied in the library rather than the classroom like the rest of us, but by the time I’d got there she was nowhere to be seen.
I hadn’t seen my dad again either. After I’d cried on his shoulder like a big fucking baby, I’d pushed him away and then gone back into the house yelling at him to stay away from me. The problem w
ith that was that he had kept away, and I was kind of missing him too, despite barely knowing the man.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ellis groaned, bringing me back from my thoughts. “Has Sarah told you you’re not allowed out? It’s not that crap that Davies was saying is it? I told you, I warned everyone not to repeat the shit he comes out with.”
“No, none of that.” My head snapped up and I faced him with narrowed eyes. “I just don’t want to go out drinking.”
Guilt rolled around my stomach at the fact I hadn’t told Ellis about Sarah and my dad. He was my best friend and I didn’t want to tell him that Davies wasn’t talking shit, everything he said was true. What made me feel even more guilty was that I hadn’t told him to protect Sarah. He’d shut things down for me, not because I’d demanded it for my girlfriend.
As I contemplated how crap I felt, we started to walk down the corridor towards the IT & Science block where we both had Chemistry, but there was none of our usual joking and talking shit. I couldn’t bring myself to even muster a smile, I was so miserable about the situation with Sarah. I’d called her numerous times and sent text messages, but not one of them had been answered, even though I knew she’d read them and listened to my voice messages. Not seeing her had knocked me off kilter and I felt as though I was wading through mud. My soul would be in danger of turning black again if I didn’t get to touch her soon, that realisation made my nerves bounce like a series of live wires sparking off each other.
How could I feel so lost without her after only three weeks of being together – well two and a half, because my heart felt as though she’d actually dumped it.
As we reached the labs, I noticed Tyler and Kirk. Kirk was looking at his phone, while Tyler kicked a football against the wall.
“Have you actually had sex with that thing?” Ellis asked Tyler as we approached them. “Because I see you with that more often than I see you with a girl.”
Tyler gave a sarcastic smile and volleyed the ball at him. Ellis, with the lightening reflexes which made him a great keeper, caught it and pulled it to his chest.
