‘Standard name calling for scout leaders or teachers that.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s not fair on me.’ He looked at the floor.
‘So I guess you’re not doing the activity then?’
Jarrod looked at me as if I’d asked him if he was going to the moon. ‘No chance. I’ll just turn up at the meeting point. They expect me to be useless anyway.’
‘I’m sure you’re not. Look, how do you fancy going round together? See if we’re better as a team. I hate the kids in my own group.’
Jarrod tilted his head. ‘I thought you said you were insular?’
‘I usually am. But I must recognise you as being cut from the same cloth I am. There’s an old saying for you.’ I laugh.
‘My dad talks like that. He’s an idiot.’
‘Well, he’s no doubt expecting to hear you failed at the activity, so let’s go and do our best. Let word get back to him that you aren’t what he believes you are. Then I can go back and say I’ve made a friend and shock my own parents.’
He nods and follows me. He never was a challenge.
On the second camp, we acknowledged each other as we arrived. I got to see Jarrod’s father. I overheard him calling his son a pansy and saying that he would stop him hanging around with Melissa unless he manned up.
It disgusted me to see him treated that way. Yet in front of everyone else, his father portrayed himself as a friend to all and holier than thou.
We met up where we could during the weekend. I found Jarrod easy to talk to. I looked forward to meeting up with him. He was completely transparent with me. Admitting to his weaknesses. No lies. No falsehoods. I told him so.
His face fell, and he looked on the verge of tears. ‘Oh Edward. I’m sorry, but that’s not true. I’m a walking web of lies.’
My forehead creased. ‘I don’t understand. Have you not been telling me the truth?’
Jarrod turned to face me with a look of sheer terror. ‘I daren’t tell you the truth, Ed. You’d hate me, and I couldn’t bear for that to happen. You and Mel are all I have.’
I bristled at the mention of her name.
‘You can tell me anything, Jarrod, anything at all.’
He began to cry. I couldn’t bear it and pulled him into my arms. I couldn’t explain it, but it felt right. I felt his suffering as if it poured from him and through my own skin.
‘Not even Mel knows this,’ he said.
Then he told me how he wished he’d been born female. He was attracted to Mel, but also found himself drawn to some men. That he didn’t feel he really knew who he was. I had to hide the shock on my face. What he’d given me was the perfect story for revealing to Melissa. To take away her relationship. But I stared at the mixed-up teenager who had disintegrated into a ball of nothingness, not believing he had any worth and I realised I could build him up, make him stronger, make him who I wanted him to be. So I stroked his hair and reassured him that he was not alone. I confessed that I was adopted – that my whole world was a lie. I didn’t tell him I was Melissa’s brother. I wasn’t that stupid. That weekend he looked up to me like you would a pop star or film star that you’ve made into your hero. He hung onto my every word as if I was the Lord himself.
On the third camp, when we escaped to the woods to talk, I made a move that could have killed my plans, but it was my last scout camp, and I needed to make progress. We’d been chatting for ages. He’d been telling about how he’d been dressing in Mel’s clothes. How he felt guilty after.
‘Why do you feel guilty for being you?’ I asked him. ‘You need to embrace who you are. If it has to be in secret for now, so be it. I’ll keep your secrets. I’ll always be your confidante.’
‘I know I rarely get to see you, but I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ Jarrod had said. ‘Just knowing when I lie in bed at night, that someone out there knows how I really feel. It helps, you know? If it weren’t for you, Ed, I think I might have done something stupid by now.’
I pulled him towards me and wrapped my arms around him. ‘You must never talk like that, Jarrod. You hear me? Being different does not mean you should have to conform to other people’s versions of acceptable. You can always be yourself with me.’
‘But I hardly see you. I wish you lived a bit nearer and that Melissa didn’t get so jealous of other friends. I haven’t told her about you, do you know that? How bad is it that I can’t even be honest with her about making a good friend? She’d get jealous, so it isn’t worth the hassle.’
‘Then we’ll stay a secret, and one day maybe it will be different.’
It’s then I took the chance. I turned Jarrod’s face to my own, leaned in, and kissed him.
Jarrod pulled his head back sharply and stared at me, anger displayed in his eyes, and tension in his jaw. Then he threw himself towards me, his lips back on my own, with an ardour I’d never experienced with any woman. I realised later, the anger he’d displayed was not at me, but the period of being at war with himself.
I backed him up towards the tree. Dusk was coming, and there was no one around. We didn’t have long before we’d have others looking for us though. I pulled down his tracksuit bottoms and returned to kissing him. I wet my finger, having read about such things in the top shelf magazines passed around the classroom, and I pushed it up his arsehole. Jarrod arched towards me, his dick erect. Lowering myself to the ground, I took his cock in my mouth and sucked him until he erupted into my throat. It didn’t take long.
When he cried afterwards, I licked up every tear. I told him I was sorry for doing it.
‘No. Ed. You don’t understand. I loved it. I felt things with you I’ve never felt with Mel. Almost everything I do with Mel is a lie. I’m so confused.’
I placed his hand around the girth of my own cock. ‘Please.’
He pumped, tentative at first, and then his breath came harder until I came. I pulled out of his hand as I felt my balls tighten and sprayed cum against the tree.
‘Meet me here again in the early hours of the morning. Please?’ I begged.
He gave me his phone number and very occasionally, for the next year or so, we met up. We’d progressed to me fucking his anus while he pleasured me with his hand and mouth. He didn’t want to take me the same way, and that was fine. We’d determined this was the way we fit best. I fell in love with him and begged him to move in with me when he turned eighteen.
‘I can’t,’ he said with tears in his eyes. ‘I’m going to marry Melissa.’
My heart shattered, and I placed barbed wire protection over it. Blocked him from my mind. Blocked out the words that said the world wasn’t ready for us. We’d be beaten up. Spat at.
I told him I couldn’t see him anymore, and with a final farewell fuck, he agreed that was how it had to be.
‘I’ll come for you,’ I said. ‘When the world has a better tolerance, I’ll come for you. So don’t do anything stupid.’
Yet it appears I only delayed what he would do anyway, years down the line. That bitch made him believe he’d lost me forever. Now he’s in hospital, and it’s her fault. Well, if she thinks we’re done, she’s a fool.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ed
I’m exhausted. Adrenaline had pushed me to the hospital. Now I was fading fast. I needed to get to bed. Tomorrow, I would start afresh with my diet and strength building. Get back to the man I was before. I’d look into laser surgery for the tattoos too. Today, I admitted defeat. I needed my own bed.
‘Christ, what’s happening here, man?’ the taxi driver mutters.
I look out of the front window and see people out of their doorways, standing on the pavement.
‘Fire engine up ahead. Looks like a house fire,’ he says.
I know before I get out of the taxi. I pay the driver and thank God I took some money out of the house and stuck it in my pocket. As I walk as near as the barricades will allow, I realise it’s all I have left. The heat from the fire hits you from metres away.
A fireman a
pproaches me. ‘Keep back, mate. No one can go any closer. We’ve had to evacuate.’
‘It’s my house.’
I look towards Dave and Melissa’s house as I wait. Their curtains are closed upstairs. Are they fucking while my house burns down? Are they celebrating that they won?
What is the loss of our home going to do for Inez’s mental state?
With my details handed over to the fire brigade and a contact number taken, I make another call to a taxi firm and get taken to a hotel. Then I sleep until the phone interrupts me. It’s the fire brigade with an update that the fire is out. Then I sleep again, my body wracked with exhaustion. I’ve paid for a week’s stay at this budget hotel, added to my credit card. In the morning I’ll phone work, make up some excuse as to where I’ve been and get back to my desk. I need to get earning again while we await the insurance on the house.
In the end, I decide to call into the office in person. I end up in a heated argument with Jack.
‘No. I did not hand in my resignation. I assure you.’
‘It came from your email address, Ed,’ says Jack. ‘I don’t know what’s going on with you and your wife, but you need time out. She was in here last week not making any sense either.’
‘I didn’t hand in my resignation. Someone else did.’
There’s a pause. ‘Someone broke into your house and used your computer to send a letter of resignation?’ He shoves his hands in his pockets. ‘You agree that sounds a bit weird, don’t you? Unless… Was it Sam? Is it true you’ve had it away with her, you naughty boy? Whoa, bit Bunny Boiler her breaking into your home to do that. Or did you have her round while the missus was out shopping, you sly dog, Ed.’
I sigh. At least he’s offered me a decent excuse. ‘Yes, Sam probably did it. So can you destroy it? Can I come back to work?’
‘Sure you can, mate.’ He comes towards me and bumps shoulders. I want to push him into the wall. ‘We’ll have to get down Spearmint Rhino now I know you’re one of the boys. Unless you’re still with that Sam, you lucky bastard. Those tight thighs, fuck, I’d have liked those around my head.’
I endure ten more minutes of this before we agree I’ll return to work on the following Monday. That’s my job back. It’s time to phone the insurance company so I can see about getting the house rebuilt.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Bonham. A chip pan fire is excluded from your policy. You cannot claim on this occasion.’
I try so very hard to hold my temper, but my voice rises anyway. ‘I’ve told the fire brigade. I didn’t leave a pan on. I hadn’t had anything to eat. I don’t even eat chips.’
‘Look, you’ll have to take it up with them. We have their report. It states major damage to the kitchen and dining area, and the rest of the property is badly affected by heavy soot and smoke deposits on all surfaces. There’s nothing more we can do from our end. Good day, sir.’
I throw a water glass at the wall where it sprinkles in shards. Before, only my stepmother made me lose control. Now she had. My sister. Now I had a fucking glass to pay for on top of house repairs if the fuckers didn’t cough up. I pick up the shards one by one. Might as well put them to some use seeing as I’ll have to pay for the glass. I wrap the shards in tissue and place them in my pocket.
She still has fucking everything. A loving husband that she’s with because of me. Why did she never see it like that? Her ex-husband was not the route to her happiness. It was a fucked-up way, but she ended up with a husband who loved her, and stepchildren. But she still wasn’t happy. I see the surly face of a young Mel in my mind. The one who didn’t want to give me directions. She has no room in her life for anything not carefully considered. I guess in that way we’re quite similar. Maybe it’s a trait from our mother? I wouldn’t know because Mel kept me from knowing her.
I mutter to myself. Shaking my head as I think things through.
Tomorrow I get my car back.
Time for some visits.
Inez. I’m coming to see you, Inez. I’ll bring my belt.
I chuckle.
Then sister dear, I’m coming to see you.
I shake the shards in my pocket. I have just the idea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Melissa
The For Sale sign swings in the breeze outside our house. I’ll be glad when someone purchases it, and we can be on our way. Far from here and from them. I don’t know what’s happening with Jarrod, Edward, or the house, and I honestly don’t care. It’s as if a huge weight has lifted from me. Our daughters found their stepmother’s makeover strange, but they quickly came around. My grandchildren are adorable. I’ve missed so much. Jude is now fourteen. He’s taller than I am. Becky also has a ten-year-old son called Marc. Today little Millie is here. She’s Joanne’s daughter and is three years old. She delights with her singsong voice and theatrical ways. I realise that we’d miss them so much if we moved to the States. Why should we miss out on time with our grandchildren? Haven’t I missed enough? We need to stay nearer.
I’m making an apple pie when Millie runs in clutching a wrapped gift box.
‘Millie. Where’s that come from?’ I laugh, assuming grandad is spoiling her once again.
‘Man passed it through window.’
I drop the pie dish and snatch it from her hand. ‘What man?’
She stands startled. Her lip wobbling and tears threatening.
‘He said give you box. He said friend, Grandma.’
I clutch her towards my apron. ‘I’m sorry, Millie. You did nothing wrong. The naughty man shouldn’t have come to our window. He’s still a stranger, okay? I’ll lock the windows now. Don’t go near him again if he comes back, Millie.’
‘Okay, Grandma. What’s in the box?’
‘I’ll look later.’ I stuff the box in my apron pocket. ‘Can you help me finish this pie?’
Thank goodness three-year-olds are easily distracted.
When the pie’s in the oven and Millie is on the sofa watching children’s TV, I hover in the kitchen doorway and remove the box from my pocket. When I remove the lid, shards of broken glass are contained within. A gift tag says simply, ‘Ed’. The message is clear. He gave my granddaughter broken glass. He’s not finished. We’re not safe.
I hate him. Why did he decide to ruin my life?
It’s time to move. To escape. Also, it's time to seek answers.
We’ll have no choice but to temporarily move to the house at Handforth. I don’t know what I’ll do with it going forward. Maybe I’ll see if a developer wants to take a gamble on it? It’s uninsurable, so I doubt it, but maybe they can make the surrounding area safe again? If not, I’ll have to leave it behind. It reminds me too much of Edward now. This was my parents final home, but their happy place has been soiled by that man. He’s like a slow spreading toxin. I need to know one way or another if we’re related. For that, I’m going to need to see him again.
I’m going to get rid of this man once and for all.
But how?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Edward
‘Edward Bonham speaking.’
‘You got your job back then?’ Melissa’s voice teases down the line. My hand tightens around the telephone.
‘No thanks to you.’
‘Thank you for the gift. If you ever pull a stunt like that with my granddaughter again, you’ll be back at my house eating a cake with those very ingredients.’
‘Is that why you’re ringing, Melissa? To warn me off? Good to know I got to you.’
There’s a sigh down the phone.
‘No. I need to know something once and for all. Can you give me your current address? I need to get something delivered to you.’
‘I’m not sure about that. You’ll forgive me for being suspicious.’
‘It’s a DNA test kit. I’ve been in touch with a company. Results within 24 hours for sibling tests.’
‘Oh, in that case I’ll definitely tell you. Can we meet for the results? I want to see your face.’
&n
bsp; ‘How’s my ex-husband doing?’
I stay silent.
‘Oh, my God, he won’t see you, will he?’
‘Inez is a she, Mel. Can you get your head around that? Jarrod lived a lie.’
‘Yeah, well he/she lived one with you too. Who knows who’s coming out of that hospital.’
I tell her my address and hang up.
Two days later we arrange to meet in a cafe. Melissa has the results envelope in her hand. I watch as she walks toward me, her face devoid of any emotion.
‘Lovely to see you again, sis. Have you missed me?’
‘Save it, Edward.’ She sits down and re-opens the envelope. ‘Our score indicated that we are indeed half siblings.’
I clutch onto Melissa’s arm and act like it’s the best news I’ve ever received. It isn’t difficult because knowing what this will do to her, makes it some of the best news I’ve ever received.
Melissa gets up to leave.
‘Where are you going, sis?’
She turns towards me. ‘I’m going for a drink. Coffee won’t do it for me today. I suggest you follow me. I want to know what this is about. What do you want so I can live my life without you in it?’
‘That’s not very sibling-like, is it?’ I reply and then guffaw.
She orders a bottle of red wine. It’s a good name, not the house crap and I tell her we’ll share. We take a seat opposite each other next to the large windows of the bar. It gives me a sense of satisfaction that she chooses a public seat – shows me she’s afraid of being in a dark corner with me. I have control. It makes my dick hard. Not for her. She’ll never do that for me, bitch. But the power. The control. I realise how things could have gone very wrong if I’d have slept with Sam. She didn’t know we were related and I didn’t know she was Melissa. The thought makes me boil with anger. The stupid bitch.
MInE: A Hate Story Page 13
