Because of Her

by KE Payne

  That’s what love does to a person.

  I loved Amy. Don’t get me wrong. I loved her unconditionally, madly, spine-tinglingly. Totally. She was my world for two years, and I thought we’d be together forever. I thought we’d go through university with one another, live together, and then I thought we’d end up marrying.

  She was everything to me.

  Until I met Eden.

  Amy was a livewire: argumentative, frequently critical of me, and sometimes extremely intolerant. Life with Amy was like walking on a tightrope without a safety net. I was crazy about her…or at least I thought I was. As far as I was concerned, that’s what being with someone was supposed to be like—an unpredictable and fiery roller coaster of a ride.

  Meeting Eden changed all that.

  Eden made me realize that in order to be on a level playing field with someone, you have to treat them with kindness, respect, and empathy. You have to value them as much as you’d want them to value you. The Saturday I’d just spent with her was possibly the best day of my life—better than the day we spent together on the Eye, and better than the fencing trip to Manchester.

  Because she wanted me.

  She wanted me as much as I did her, and after the hiccup with Gabby and Beth, she treated me with so much affection and tenderness that my time with Amy seemed like it had never happened. She made me complete. I was living in a huge Eden-shaped bubble, and I never wanted it to burst.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “Someone’s happy.”

  I’d been whistling and I hadn’t even realized it. I never whistled. My father knocked on my door, then poked his head round before I’d even had the chance to tell him it was okay to come in.

  “Is the sun shining? Is it half-term?” he asked. “Because when I last looked, it was raining outside and you still had three weeks of school left before the holidays.”

  Staring out of the window at a pair of blackbirds chasing each other around in the sky, I wondered what Eden was doing at that precise moment. Was she thinking about me? Was she whistling, as I apparently was? Could she even whistle?

  “Hello?” My father’s voice seeped into my consciousness. “Earth to Tabby?”

  “Mm?”

  It was now over a week since Eden had left her date with Marcus to come and tell me she liked me. In that time, there’d hardly been a minute when we’d not been in contact. School carried on as normal. I continued to hang out with Greg and Libby, while Eden hung out with Beth and Gabby—that didn’t change. Looks between me and Eden were exchanged in class, although they must have been totally undetectable to anyone but me because nobody picked up on them. It wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t care. I knew everything would change once the school day was over and Gabby and Beth were no longer around.

  Then Eden was all mine.

  “You were miles away.” My father again.

  Was he still here?

  I blinked.

  “It’s Sunday, I’m not at school, and I don’t have any homework to do for a change.” I so could do without a lecture right now. “That’ll do for me.”

  “So you’d rather sit up here and daydream, huh?” He came further into my room.

  “Don’t start.”

  “I wasn’t about to,” he said. “Can I?” He gestured towards my bed, indicating that he wanted to sit down.

  “Go for it.” I immediately felt bad for thinking he’d come in to have a go at me. “Sorry.”

  “What for?” My father sat on the edge of my bed, his hands tucked under his legs.

  “For thinking you were going to have a go,” I said.

  “An apology”—his expression was dubious—“from the girl who never says sorry about anything.” He avoided my eyes. “That was a joke, before you get uppity about it.”

  “And not a very good joke at that,” I muttered.

  “You’re happier again,” my father continued. “This last week, I mean. Got a bit of spark back in you.”

  “Have I?”

  “It’s good to see.” He stared down at his legs. “I know you hated me for bringing you down here, but as the months have gone on, I’m becoming more and more certain it was absolutely the right thing to do.” He hesitated. “I think you’re happy here. Am I right?”

  “I am happy, yes,” I said, a smile spreading across my face. “Very. I love it here. I never thought I would, but I do. I can’t imagine being anywhere else now.”

  Or being with anyone else.

  “One time we spoke about London, you told me you thought it sucked.” He did that irritating quotation thing with his fingers. “You’re saying it doesn’t any more?”

  “I guess not,” I said. “Maybe London’s changed.”

  “No, not London. You’ve changed,” he said, adding, “for the better, I mean.”

  “Thank you.” I reflected. “I’m certainly happier than I was when we first moved here.”

  My father cleared his throat and shifted his position on my bed. His brow creased in thought.

  “Is it Eden?” he finally asked.

  An icicle slithered down my back.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked.

  “Is it Eden who’s made you happier?” He scrutinized me.

  I swallowed in an attempt to clear my dry throat. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, my voice reedy.

  “Since Eden came into your life, I’ve noticed a change in you,” my father said. “Can I assume it’s her to thank for turning your mood around?”

  “Eden, Libby, Greg, fencing, school,” I said. “School definitely makes me happy.”

  “Because Eden’s there?”

  “Because Eden’s there.” Barely a whisper.

  “And you like Eden.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah, she’s cool,” I said.

  “No, Tabitha, I mean you like like Eden?”

  I nodded, not sure how to answer.

  “And she likes you just as much?”

  “She does,” I replied after a pause.

  “Okay.” He drew the word out.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  “Okay.” Better.

  “But don’t start telling me it’s wrong,” I said, “or that you’re disgusted. Because if you do, I’m walking out of this room right now.”

  My father breathed out slowly, thinking. “Tabitha, I’m not going to tell you anything like that.” He sat up straighter. “But I’m not going to tell you I completely understand, either.”

  “There’s nothing to understand,” I said. “She makes me happy, I make her happy. End of.”

  “I’ve had an inkling for years that you might be…” He spun his hand. “More so just recently, though.”

  “Might be…?” I spun my hand, too.

  “What do you want me to call it?” he asked, an exasperated look on his face.

  “Gay, Dad,” I said. “You can say the word. It’s not going to bite you.”

  “Okay, so I’ve had an inkling for years that you might be gay,” he said. “Better?”

  “So why didn’t you ever ask me?” I asked.

  “Would you have wanted me to?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not.” He reflected. “And Amy?”

  “What about her?”

  “Was she your…”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Ah, yes. Before?” Apparently he had trouble with that word, too.

  “She was.”

  “And how many others have there been?” he asked.

  “Please! Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m some serial Romeo, you know.”

  Unbelievable.

  “Juliet,” my father corrected. Such a pedant.

  “Juliet, then,” I said. “There’s only been Amy and now Eden.”

  “And any ideas what turned you gay?” he asked.

  “Turned me?” My voice rose a touch. “Nothing turned me. I wasn’t out walking in the woods one day and got bitten by a huge gay monster who, with one chomp, sucked me into
a vortex of gayness.” I scrambled my legs off the bed and got up to leave. “This is pointless.”

  “I’m sorry.” He put his hand towards me, beckoning me to take it. “Do you want to know what I think? Are you interested?”

  I took his hand. It felt strange being there. Primarily because I could count the number of times I’d ever held my father’s hand on, well, on one hand.

  “I want to know what you think, but I don’t want a lecture,” I said. “You can’t tell me to change.”

  My father shushed me. “I’m not going to tell you to change.” He looked at me. “The way I see it, Eden has been something of a godsend for you.”

  “You think?”

  “I do.” A definite answer.

  “How?”

  “Before we moved to London, you were an immature, stroppy, moody teenager,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “But since meeting Eden, you’ve grown up,” he said. “You’re less argumentative—even your mother’s noticed that.”

  “You’ve talked with her about stuff?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he replied. “You seem to be doing well at school, too. That’s a first.” He smiled. “And you’re obviously doing really well with fencing, and we can see how dedicated you are to it. That’s the first time you’ve stuck at something. We’re proud of you for doing that.”

  Compliments. I could get used to this.

  My father thought for a moment. “And Eden,” he eventually said.

  “What about her?”

  “Your face lights up when you talk about her. You’re animated, alive, vibrant when you’re around her.” He squeezed my hand. “You think I don’t notice these things, don’t you? You think I’m so wrapped up in my work that I don’t notice when my kids smile when their phone beeps and they think no one’s seen.”

  “I…”

  He quieted me again.

  “You think I’m such a bad father that I couldn’t see how you looked at her that day she came here just before you both went to Manchester,” he continued, “and you think I’m so selfish and concerned with making money that I can’t see when my own daughter’s so happy she’s practically radiant?”

  I stared at him, too dumbfounded to speak.

  “Well, I’m not,” he said. “And if it’s Eden that’s making you like this, and if it’s her I have to thank for changing you, then who am I to tell you that what you’re doing is wrong, or that you can’t see her? What kind of parent would that make me?”

  “Thank you,” I mumbled, my face hot with embarrassment.

  “I can see how much Eden means to you, Tabitha.” He patted my hand. “Since you met her, you’re calmer. Nicer to know. I used to worry about you, but I think you’re going to do just fine, and I think you’re going to turn into a very nice young woman.”

  I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “A nice young woman?”

  “A very nice one.”

  “Just don’t expect me to suddenly stop wearing jeans and start wearing dresses, okay?” I glowered. “I don’t do dresses.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “What about Mum?”

  “I don’t think she’ll expect you to start wearing dresses, either.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  My father took a deep breath. “You leave your mother to me,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  “But she wasn’t,” I said to Libby the next day at school. “Fine, I mean.”

  “Awkward.” Libby leant against the wall outside the Science block. “And after your dad had been so awesome about it?”

  “I know.” I scuffed my foot in the ground. “I was summoned to the dining room yesterday afternoon, like a condemned prisoner going to the gallows.”

  “And then?”

  “My dad had obviously only just told her, by the look on her face.” I put my hands in my pockets and leant against the wall next to Libby and Greg. “I think she took it worse than he had.”

  “Did she go mental at you?” Greg asked.

  “Not at first,” I said. “That happened later, when she’d had time to think about it.”

  “What the?” Libby flashed a look at Greg.

  “I know, right?” I studied the tarmac on the ground, remembering.

  Arguments. Shouting. Crying. Appeasement from my father.

  She’d even mentioned my grandmother. I’ve no idea why, she’s been dead for three years. And it’s not like Mum ever got on with her, anyway. “I’d been so stoked that my dad had been so brilliant about it. I thought, of the two of them, he’d be the one who freaked, not her.”

  “Well I think you’re amazing for coming out to your parents.” Greg suddenly leant over and grabbed me into a hug, nearly knocking me off my feet. “Seriously.”

  “Thank you,” I wheezed into his jacket. “And I think you’ve been awesome since the day I met you,” I said, releasing myself from his grip. “In fact, you both have, right through all this.”

  “I don’t think I’d ever have the nerve to tell my parents I was gay, though,” Greg said, leaning back against the wall. “I think it was very brave of you to do it.”

  “Good job you’re not gay then, hey?” I reached over and playfully punched him on the arm.

  “Very good job, I’d say,” Libby said to Greg.

  “Would you now?” Greg returned her gaze while I stood watching the pair of them. The penny, while not completely dropping just yet, was well on its way.

  “Am I missing something?” I asked.

  “We, uh…” Greg began.

  “Are sort of dating,” Libby finished.

  “For real?” A grin spread across my face. “Since when?”

  Libby flashed Greg a look. “Since the day you went to Manchester for the fencing thing.”

  “We texted each other all day and it kinda spiralled from there,” Greg said.

  My brow creased. “But that was ages ago.”

  “We know,” Libby said. “But we thought, with everything going on, all the shit you’d been going through, it would be the last thing you’d want to hear.”

  “Your two best mates getting it on,” Greg added.

  “Well, I think it’s fabulous,” I said. I meant it, too. “And I think you two are made for each other.”

  “Like you and Eden?” Libby nudged my arm. “Hey, maybe we can start going out on foursomes?”

  “You’re funny.” I rolled my eyes.

  “So do you think your mum’s gonna be okay with everything?” Greg asked.

  “She’ll have to be okay with it,” I said. “Anyway, I’ve got my dad and Ed on my side, so at least two of them are with me.”

  “You’ve never called him your dad before, you know,” Libby said.

  “Haven’t I?”

  “Nuh-uh.” Libby shook her head. “Always your father, never your dad.”

  I looked down and exhaled. “I guess he never felt much like a dad before. A father, yes. But not an actual dad. Does that make sense?”

  “Perfect sense.”

  “And Eden knows?” Greg lifted his chin in the direction of Eden as she rounded the corner and approached us.

  “She does.” I kept my eyes on hers the whole time she came closer, my pulse quickening with nerves and excitement with every step she took towards me.

  “You okay after yesterday?” She glanced around her. Coast clear.

  “Coming out to both parents in one afternoon is gonna test anyone really, isn’t it?” Libby said, a bit too sarcastically for my liking.

  “I think she’s very brave, yeah.” Eden faced me. “So, are you? All right?”

  “I’ll live,” I said. “The last thing my mother told me last night was that I had to give her time to come to terms with things.”

  “That was big of her,” Greg muttered.

  “Understandable, I guess,” I said. “It’s not every day your daughter tells you she’s gay, is it?”

&nb
sp; “But your dad was a hero,” Eden said. She leant against the wall with me, so that now all four of us were lined up against it in a row.

  “Total hero.” I twisted round to face Eden, one shoulder leaning against the wall. “And now it means I don’t have to play this stupid game of pretending you’re just my friend,” I said. “It means you can come around whenever you want, as my girlfriend. We don’t have to creep around, being quiet, locking the door every time we want to make out in my room.”

  Eden didn’t reply.

  I ploughed on. “You’ve no idea how awesome the thought of that is,” I said, “after years of sneaking around with Amy.”

  Eden nodded, then looked at her watch.

  Lame reaction. Totally not what I was expecting.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Meeting Gabby and Beth in the library.” She made to leave. “I’m glad your parents know,” she said, smiling. “It must have been tough, keeping it quiet for so long.”

  “Will I see you later?” I asked. She’d only just got here. Why did she have to go already?

  “Sure.” She nudged my arm. So damned platonic. Then she turned and walked back across the yard from the same direction she’d just come.

  “I think,” Libby said, pulling herself away from the wall, “that Eden is going to find being gay even harder than your mother does.”

  “Tabby’s mother isn’t gay, Lib,” Greg noted.

  “Arsehole.” Libby spun round and flitted a hand at him. “I think she might need time to get her head around everything, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I know,” I said, my heart sinking as Eden turned the corner and disappeared from sight once more.

  *

  I didn’t see Eden alone again for two days after that. Sure, we Skyped at night, but for actual physical contact, for the one thing that I really craved? Nothing.

  Our fencing classes had now finished because of the Christmas holidays, which were just weeks away, so it wasn’t even as if I could be alone with her in the gym. So frustrating. The only time I did see her in school was during our biology and philosophy lessons, when the chance to have even just five minutes alone with her was impossible. After each lesson, the most I could hope for was a glance my way and a texted promise—presumably when Gabby and Beth weren’t near enough to see her use her phone—to try and meet me down in the canteen later.