Because of Her

by KE Payne

  “I miss you, too.” Amy comically jutted out her bottom lip. “I don’t know when I can get down to see you, though.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “S’okay.”

  “You know I’d be down in a flash. It’s just always a case of this”—Amy rubbed her index and middle fingers against her thumb, indicating money—“isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It always is,” I agreed.

  “I guess you won’t be coming back up this way again for a while now, will you?” Amy said, motioning towards my knee.

  “I guess not,” I said simply.

  Strangely, though, that thought didn’t feel as awful as I thought it would.

  *

  “Y’know, I thought you were gawky enough as it was,” Libby said, walking slowly beside me down the corridor at school as I hobbled along on my crutches. “But you’re a million times worse with these things.”

  I stopped hobbling. “You’re a pal.”

  “Is it still really painful?” Libby walked ahead of me and opened a connecting door to the next corridor, stepping aside as I went past her.

  “Only when I try to run on it.”

  “You tried to run on it already?”

  “No, Libby. I was kidding with you.”

  I slowed as I saw Gabby, Beth, and Eden just up ahead of me, waiting to go into the biology lab. Gabby and Beth were leaning against the wall, while Eden stood in front of them both, talking animatedly about something, waving her arms around. I wondered for a moment if she was telling them about what had happened the previous evening, but then I saw Gabby laugh, doubling over at something Eden had said, and immediately hoped she wasn’t talking about me after all.

  As we approached, Eden caught my eye. A meltingly gorgeous smile lit up her whole face. I returned her smile, a twinge pinching pleasantly in the pit of my stomach.

  “What have you done to your leg, then?” Eden spoke before either Gabby or Beth had a chance to ask me. She bobbed her head towards my crutches, then implored me.

  “I…” I frowned slightly, but the pleading look in her eyes told me to be vague. “Ah, I hurt my knee at my fencing class last night.”

  “Nasty.” Beth looked at my crutches.

  “You fence?” Gabby asked, witheringly.

  I looked directly at her. “Yeah.”

  A look shot between Gabby and Beth.

  “Who in the twenty-first century fences?” Gabby said.

  “Me.” I tried to stand taller. Not easy when you’re on crutches.

  “Loser.” That was Beth. Said quietly, but loudly enough that I’d hear. “Doesn’t that weedy little friend of yours do it, too? Greg?”

  I stepped forward. Well, shuffled.

  “Even I didn’t know Tabby fenced.” Libby draped an arm over my shoulder to stop me. She glanced to Eden and back again. “Did you, Eden?”

  I knocked my crutch against Libby’s leg.

  “Ow!”

  “How would I know?” Eden held my gaze. “Is it very painful?”

  “Better now.” I lowered my eyes.

  “She was at the hospital all yesterday evening,” Libby chipped in, rubbing her leg. “Weren’t you, Tab? Just you and Rob, was it?”

  “Mm.” I looked back up. Eden was still looking at me.

  “So, what have you done to it?” Gabby asked. The bored look on her face said she didn’t care, but she thought she’d ask anyway.

  “I’ve just twisted it, thassall,” I said. “But I’ll be back to normal in a few weeks.”

  “So no more fencing for Tabby for a while,” Libby said, watching Eden.

  “That’s a shame for you,” Eden said softly.

  “It is, yes,” I replied, turning my head as the door to the laboratory opened and the previous class came spilling out.

  I shuffled back a bit to allow people to pass me, then lost sight of Eden as she disappeared inside with Gabby and Beth, getting sucked into the melee of students. Conversation over. Just like that.

  “Why did she act so dumb?” Libby hissed as we settled ourselves on a bench at the back.

  “I told you.” I propped my crutches up against the back wall. “Beth and Gobby don’t know she fences, remember?”

  “Even though she spent pretty much the entire evening with you at the hospital?”

  “She has her reasons.”

  “Despite the fact she practically caused it in the first place?”

  “No one caused it, Lib,” I said, getting my books out of my bag. “It was just an accident.”

  “Well, at least she had the grace to look sheepish.” Libby fired a look towards Eden.

  “You think she did?”

  “Yeah. And rightly so, too.”

  I looked over to where Beth, Gabby, and Eden were sitting and stared at the back of Eden’s head. I willed her to turn around just so I could see her face, but she remained looking at the front, watching as Mrs. Hamilton strode up to her bench and placed her laptop onto it.

  “Today, photosynthesis,” she said, flipping open her laptop. “Pigmentation and the absorption of light.”

  Reluctantly I dragged my eyes away from Eden, then opened up my notepad. I clicked the end of my pen with my thumb, ready to begin.

  Somehow I knew Eden would still be on my mind by the end of the lesson.

  *

  “I’ll catch up with you guys down there,” I heard Eden’s distinctive voice say from nearby as Gabby and Beth gathered up their books and disappeared out the lab door, chattering away to one another.

  I slowed down the packing away of my own things and glanced back over to where Eden was, hoping that if I timed it just right, I might be able to walk—or in my case, hobble—back down the corridor with her.

  “I’ll leave you to it.” Libby bumped my arm with hers and tipped her head towards Eden. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

  I grinned. “See you in chemistry this afternoon, yeah?”

  “Good luck,” Libby whispered in my ear as she picked up her bag and left the lab.

  I leant down from my chair, holding on to the bench for support, my damaged leg poker straight, and tried to grab my bag. I cursed my stupidity for not only dropping my rucksack on the floor before the lesson, but for also not thinking to ask Libby to pick it up for me as I balanced precariously on my chair, my hand flailing and repeatedly missing the handles.

  “Let me.”

  I looked up and saw Eden standing next to my bench, her own bag slung diagonally across her shoulders. She bent over, picked my rucksack up, and placed it in front of me.

  “Thanks.” I pulled it towards me, putting my books inside it.

  “You want these?” Eden pointed to my crutches, still propped up against the wall behind me.

  “Won’t be going very far without them,” I said. “Thanks.”

  She stood back as I slotted my arms into the crutches and gingerly stepped down from my chair.

  “Still not quite used to them.” I pulled a face as I leant over to pick up my rucksack from the bench and wobbled slightly. I put the rucksack on my back, jiggling my shoulders up and down a few times until I felt more comfortable. “Okay, we’re good to go.”

  I followed Eden out of the lab and turned left, walking with her back down the corridor.

  “So, how is it?” she asked, waving a hand towards my knee.

  “Stiff and painful. But I’ll live,” I replied.

  “You’ll still come along to the meets, won’t you?” Eden asked. “Even though you can’t fence for a bit? I mean, it would be a shame not to see you there,” she added hastily.

  “I guess I could,” I said, catching her eye.

  “Actually, I’m glad I got a chance to see you alone,” she said, slowing her step so I could keep up with her. “I wanted to say sorry for before.”

  “Sorry?” I faced her. “What for?”

  “For acting like I didn’t know what you’d done to your knee.”

  “Ah. It’s okay.”

  “It’s just…we
ll, like I said before. They don’t need to know I go to fencing classes,” she said. “You saw what their reaction was just now, didn’t you?” Her face fell. “It’s not worth the piss taking, trust me.”

  “You don’t ever worry that someone else from the class might tell them?” I asked.

  “No one in the group knows them. Only Greg, and he’d never say anything,” Eden said simply. She thought for a moment. “My fencing is something I can do for myself, you know?” she said. “Without the pair of them.”

  “Libby reckons you three are joined at the hip,” I said.

  “Sometimes it feels like we are, yeah,” Eden said. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the pair of them. It’s just—”

  “Sometimes it’s good to do something that doesn’t involve them?” I offered.

  “Exactly.”

  “You have your fencing, Beth has her singing, and Gobby has her men,” I said. “It’s healthy for people to do things independently sometimes.”

  “Gabby,” Eden corrected.

  “Sorry?”

  “You called her Gobby.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Gabby. I meant Gabby.” I looked away, trying not to laugh.

  Eden stopped walking. She appraised me, eyebrows raised. “Gobby, hey?”

  “Slip of the tongue,” I said, chewing on my lip in an attempt to avoid the smile that was trying to get out.

  “I think it kinda suits her,” Eden said. Her expression was poker straight.

  “Mm-hmm?” I clamped my lips shut.

  The poker face broke. A broad grin spread across Eden’s face, followed by laughter from both of us.

  “Don’t tell her, will you?” I said, still laughing.

  “What’s it worth?” Eden winked.

  I stopped laughing at her wink and looked away. My face flushed hot. I gazed out of the corridor window, hoping that Eden hadn’t seen that I’d gone bright red.

  “I won’t tell her, don’t worry,” Eden finally said, bumping my arm with hers.

  We carried on walking down the corridor a little further, neither of us speaking this time. We stopped just next to the canteen, and I looked at my watch. I had forty-five minutes until my next lesson.

  Enough time to hang out some more with Eden. I could buy her a coffee, right? Splash out even—go for a cappuccino. She always left straight away after fencing because her dad picked her up from outside school. How awesome would it be to spend some time alone with her in the canteen right now?

  Eden pulled out her phone. Looked at the clock on it. She was stalling for time. Or was she desperate to get away?

  But if I didn’t ask her, I’d regret it. I just knew it. If only my brain would connect with my mouth. Bit difficult to talk when your heart’s floundering in your throat, though.

  Quit being so chickenshit, Tab. Ask her.

  I swallowed. Was it hot in the corridor all of a sudden?

  Do it.

  “I’m kinda at a loose end for the next half hour or so,” I said. I put both crutches in one hand and rested my left foot on top of my right one. “Fancy a coffee?” I kept my voice light. If I didn’t, it would tremble. I was sure of it.

  Eden looked towards the canteen door. Her face flickered. “I can’t, sorry,” she finally said. “I have a report to write for my Spanish class this afternoon, so I’d better head up to the library and finish it.”

  Deflated.

  “Of course.” I looped my arms back into my crutches. “No worries.” I stepped back, my arms stupidly shaking. A conflict of emotions—relief at actually managing to get the words out to ask her in the first place, followed by crushing disappointment.

  Eden started to walk away from me. “Another time, though? I’d like that.”

  “Sure.” That was definitely a positive, right?

  And then she was gone.

  Guess I was having that coffee alone, then.

  Chapter Ten

  The following week was half-term, which meant one whole glorious week away…from school, from the grubby Tube train grind, from nightly homework.

  Unfortunately for me, it also meant one not-so-glorious week away from Eden.

  Out of the nine total days I had off, I can confidently say, if I grouped all the minutes and hours together, I probably spent at least four of those days thinking about her.

  Where was she?

  Had she gone away?

  Would I perhaps bump into her if I went out?

  Of course I wouldn’t. But that didn’t stop me going to bed each night with Eden on my mind, or waking up thinking about her. My constant craving for Eden was eating away at me, though. I had a girlfriend, right? A girlfriend who loved me very much and who was missing me nearly 300 miles away. Yet all I could do was think about some girl I still barely spoke to outside of our fencing classes, but whom I just couldn’t get out of my mind. The only way I could possibly think of at least trying to forget about Eden, if only for a few hours, was by either going to visit Amy or speaking to her on Skype.

  But, almost as if to deliberately thwart my plans, Amy’s school wasn’t on holiday the same week mine was. A few brief conversations when she came home from school in the afternoons, a daily text message, and a couple of e-mails were all we managed the entire week.

  I had another trip to the hospital during my time off as well. All I could think about while the doctors were telling me that my knee was healing nicely and that I didn’t need my crutches any more was how the last time I’d been there, it had been with Eden, and not with my mother. More precisely, the last time I’d been there had been with Eden and her cleavage—the image of which had refused to leave my head since I’d seen it and kept floating back in at the most inappropriate moments. Like when one of the female doctors was inspecting my leg. Awkward.

  With a week away from school, and only Libby to play with on a couple of days, I had far too much time to think. And at times, I thought my longing for Eden was getting too much. She infiltrated my every thought, my every move, and I knew I needed Amy right now to help me get my head straight and remind me that I was being not only stupid, but totally unfair to her. I’d made a vow to her that we would be together again soon, and I wasn’t about to break that. Nothing was ever going to happen with Eden. Amy loved me, and I loved her, yet I was treating her like she didn’t matter to me at all. If I was to make sure I didn’t get completely obsessed with Eden, then I needed much more than the occasional Internet chat with Amy.

  I knew, more than ever before, that I had to make plans to get Amy down to see me before I went out of my mind. I’d been in London for three months already. Three whole months without seeing my girlfriend. If ever there was an ideal time to chase Eden out of my head and bond with Amy again, it was now. Besides, I needed to give her the attention she deserved, and to remind myself the promise I’d made to her wasn’t just made on a whim.

  It was time to reconnect with Amy.

  Chapter Eleven

  “God, I’ve missed you so much!” I wrapped my arms around Amy and held her tightly, remembering how good she felt to hold.

  “The train was a nightmare.” Amy pulled away. “Signalling problems at York, and it all went crappy from then on.”

  It was Saturday. The last one of my holiday. In two days’ time I’d be back at school, and back in Eden’s sphere. But for today, Amy was my priority.

  “You’re here now,” I said. I took her rucksack from her and carried it. “That’s all that matters.” I’d never meant something so much in all my life.

  We walked away from the barrier and towards the station exit.

  “How’s your knee?” Amy asked as she saw me limping slightly.

  “Better,” I said. “At least I’m off the crutches, so that’s something.”

  We walked in silence for a bit, both of us acting stupidly shy all over again in one another’s company. It was madness, I thought, as we walked down the steps outside the station and into the morning sunshine
, that we’d known one another for years, yet still felt somewhat hesitant towards each other.

  That’s what distance does to a couple, I guess.

  “So what do you want to do?” I asked as we sauntered down the road away from the station.

  “I dunno.” Amy shrugged. “Coffee, then show me some sights?”

  “There’s a Starbucks just around the corner,” I said, taking Amy’s hand, feeling a stab of hurt when she casually let it drop again a few seconds later.

  We went into the Starbucks I’d suggested. It was already beginning to fill up with the Saturday morning crowd, but we found a small table by a window. I ordered us a cappuccino each, Amy shaking her head at my offer of a blueberry muffin to go with it. I ordered, then returned to her, a steaming drink in each hand.

  “So,” I said, sitting down. “Any other news from home?”

  Amy stirred sugar into her coffee. “No, not really.”

  “Your mum and dad okay?”

  “Fine, yeah,” Amy replied. She sipped at her coffee. “Thanks.”

  “And you handed your assignment in on time yesterday?” I asked.

  “Assignment?”

  “The one you were stressing over the other night,” I said. “You told me about it on Skype.”

  “Oh, that,” Amy said dismissively. “Nah.”

  “And Smith didn’t kill you?”

  Amy laughed. “I didn’t go in all day, so she didn’t get a chance.”

  “You skipped school?”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?” Amy came back, quick as a flash. “We used to do it all the time.”

  “Yeah, but you still do it?” My brows pinched into a frown. “Even now?”

  “You’re telling me you don’t do it?”

  An image of Eden flickered and then faded in my mind.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “So your boasting to me about behaving so badly they’d boot you out of your la-di-da school was all bollocks?”

  “No, I—” I sat back in my chair. “Let’s not argue, Ames. I’m sorry.” I skimmed the froth off the top of my cappuccino with my spoon. “I’ve missed you,” I repeated. “It’s been horrible being down here without you.” I reached across the table and took her hand in mine, turning it over and rubbing my thumb across her palm. “But every day apart just takes us closer to when we can both finish school and be together again,” I said, looking down at her hand in mine. “It’ll just take longer than I first thought.”