by Sara Barnard
I can feel tears pressing behind my eyes. ‘What are you saying?’ I ask out loud.
‘I don’t know,’ he replies. His unslinged arm drops to his side. ‘That’s the problem.’
I don’t want to go home. Not yet, anyway.
I take Rita to the park and let her off the lead, watching her fly joyfully across the grass as if her owner isn’t currently trying to hold off a breakdown. Rhys and I haven’t broken up, but we don’t exactly feel together right now, either. I’m so confused by what he said and what he didn’t say, what I’m feeling and what I want.
I’m trying to understand what he meant, but I keep coming back to that moment on Arthur’s Seat when I had the panic attack. That was right in front of him. He saw me do that. I feel so ashamed of my stupid, weak self that I want to claw my hands into my skin and rip it into pieces. Of course he doesn’t want to depend on me. Who would? I don’t even want to depend on me. I just don’t get a choice.
I stop at home to drop Rita off and then head straight back out again. The need to see Tem is suddenly so strong it almost hurts. I decide to get the bus, but when I step up to pay the driver I find my voice has deserted me. God, I’m falling apart. I’d come so far and now I’ve slunk right back down again.
‘Where you going, love?’ the driver asks, brusque and impatient, into the awkward silence.
I look at him. Speak, Steffi. Your voice is yours. This choice is yours. I could hold up two fingers to indicate that I want a £2 ticket. He will understand this – I know from experience that they always do – but, God, I have to be able to do this.
I focus on a small nick on the corner of his jaw. I imagine this man shaving in front of the mirror, in the home he probably shares with his family, when he is an ordinary person with ordinary worries and not anyone remotely scary.
‘Bourne Street,’ I say, my eyes on the nick. My voice comes out funny, kind of flattened and deep, but I don’t care. I have done what I thought was impossible. I have spoken when my voice had disappeared; I have found it again.
I rip out the ticket when it appears and stumble to the nearest free seat, slightly dazed, replaying the moment in my head. I hear myself saying Bourne Street, Bourne Street, Bourne Street over and over until the words lose all meaning.
I get off at the Bourne Street bus stop and walk the five minutes to Tem’s house, suddenly wishing I had Rita back by my side. My bus confusion has disappeared, replaced by the all-encompassing terror of facing an angry friend.
It’s Ebla who answers the door. As soon as she sees me I know that she knows, and I almost turn and run away.
‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Hello, Steffi.’ The faint accent that is all that remains from her life before England is always clearer on the syllables of my name. Tem used to say my name that way, back when she was still learning to talk and her entire world was her mother, her father and me.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’ve . . . I’ve come to see Tem?’
Ebla hesitates and my heart gives an almighty lurch. I am as welcome in this house as I am in both of my own. Tem and I are Steftember. There is no hesitation when it comes to us.
‘I don’t think . . .’ Ebla pauses again. I see her bite her lip. ‘I don’t think Tem really wants to see you.’
My voice comes out in a high-pitched, garbled mess. ‘Oh God, it’s not – I’m here to – I tried to – I got the bus here and I need to see her and she does want to see me.’
Ebla blinks.
I swallow. ‘Please can I see her,’ I say. ‘Please.’
She lets me in, of course. When I get upstairs, Tem’s door is closed and for a moment I actually stand outside it, trying to figure out what to do. I can’t remember ever seeing Tem’s door closed. At least, not without me on the right side of it.
So I do the thing that simultaneously makes sense and no sense at all. I knock.
I’m greeted with this: a pyjama-clad September, hair wild and free, face scowling. She stares at me for a moment, saying nothing.
‘Hi,’ I squeak.
She doesn’t reply. Her eyes flicker from my face to my shoes and back again.
‘Can we . . . can I come in? Can we talk?’
Tem’s eyes narrow further. She doesn’t reply but steps aside so I can walk into her bedroom. It’s messier than usual, the bedcovers crumpled and strewn, clothes scattered over the floor.
‘Are you sorting?’ I ask inanely.
Silence. Oh God. Is this what it’s like for other people, when they try to talk to me?
‘I like this top,’ I say, poking a long-sleeved dragonfly shirt with my foot. ‘Don’t get rid of this one.’
‘I’m not sorting my clothes,’ Tem says, her voice low, more like a growl than anything else.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Do you want me to help you tidy up?’ When she says nothing, I start picking up clothes. ‘Is this knitted thing machine-washable?’
‘For God’s sake!’ Tem explodes. ‘Just say you’re sorry!’
I freeze, an inside-out T-shirt that I’d been about to pull the right way around dangling from my fingertips.
‘Say, I’m sorry, September,’ Tem continues, her eyes fierce and blazing. She advances on me. ‘Say, I’m so sorry I ignored you, Tem. So sorry I waited ten freaking hours before replying to your very frantic messages. So sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. So sorry I turned into the most boring cliché ever and chose my boyfriend over you at the first opportunity.’
She is standing right in front of me now, her face inches from mine. Tem is utterly fearless, and it’s one of the things I love most about her, but now it’s turned on me I’m cowed rather than impressed. And very guilty.
‘So?’ she prompts.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mumble.
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry!’ It comes out like a shout.
‘Good!’ she shouts back. ‘You should be sorry! Ten hours, Stef. I was waiting for you.’
‘Rhys had an –’
‘Accident, yeah. I read your messages. A couple of broken bones, right? That sucks, but it doesn’t take ten hours, and it’s not a reason to ignore me. And that’s not even starting on you being in freaking Edinburgh and not telling me. Why wouldn’t you tell me that? Why?’ Her expression has moved from anger to bafflement. On balance, it’s preferable, but it doesn’t make me feel any less guilty.
‘I don’t have to tell you everything,’ I say, and immediately regret it. Her face crumples, right in on itself, tissuelike and surprisingly fragile.
‘But you do tell me everything,’ she says, and her voice is all crackly, and my heart is pounding guiltily and anxiously, and my head is still going RhysRhysRhysRhys, and I just don’t know what to say.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, because what else can I say? ‘You know I would have been here if I could. I’m always there for you. Always.’
She lets out a noise that is half snort, half laugh. ‘Sure, Stef. Always. Always, because you don’t have anywhere else to be.’
Her words sock me right in the stomach. I’m almost winded. ‘That’s . . .’ My voice dies. That’s not fair, I want to say. That’s not true.
‘I know you think I take you for granted, because I’m the sociable one or whatever, but I don’t. It’s you – you take me for granted. And I don’t like it.’
I lick my lips, then swallow, playing for time. Speak, Steffi. Speak, speak, speak. Defend yourself. ‘I . . .’ I begin, and my voice is shaky, but it’s there. ‘I let you down once.’ I squeeze my hands into fists at my sides, trying to anchor myself. ‘Once.’
Tem looks at me for a long moment, the silence stretching between us, then seems to make a decision. ‘Oh yeah?’ she says, finally. ‘How are things with me and Karam?’
The question throws me. ‘Uh,’ I say. This must be a trick question, right? This is clearly linked to whatever she was upset about. ‘Not . . . good?’
Her eyes blaze. ‘No. Not good.’
I wait for more. When she offers nothing, I say, tentatively
, ‘I thought things were going so great for you both.’
‘Well, they weren’t,’ she snaps.
‘What went wrong?’
‘Nothing went wrong, it was just never right,’ she says. ‘And you’d know that if you’d ever asked.’
My heart drops. ‘What?’
‘You could have asked me, Stef,’ she says. Her face is tense. ‘How’s it going with Karam, Tem? Hey, how’s you and Karam?’
‘I just . . . I just thought it was going well . . .’ I say lamely.
‘So what? You thought that was boring or something? You should have wanted to hear about it if it was going well or not.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I protest, but weakly, because I’m worried she’s got a point. ‘I always listen when you talk about boys you like.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she says bluntly. ‘You think you know what I’m going to say, so you don’t listen. God, Steffi, just because I talk more than you, that doesn’t mean the extra words don’t mean anything.’
‘I know that! You know I know that!’
‘Do you? Then where were you? Why didn’t you find out why I wanted to talk to you? It was important, and I needed you, and you weren’t there.’ Her hands have clenched into tight little fists, the strained skin around her joints turning white.
Tem and I have never been the fighting kind. Not since we were kids, when it was clear that she was capable of walking all over me if she wanted to, so we both made a kind of unspoken agreement to not get ourselves into the kind of situation where that could happen. Plus, we’ve never really had anything to argue about. I’m too grateful for her to get mad at her, and I’m too easy-going and pliable for her to get mad at me.
At least, that’s what I thought. But maybe I just never gave her a reason before.
‘I’m here now,’ I say. ‘So why don’t you tell me?’
‘Because I don’t want to tell you now,’ Tem says.
A wave of frustration is starting to build in my stomach. I can feel it burning up into my throat. ‘For God’s sake, Tem,’ I say, even though I know it won’t help the situation, because I can’t help myself.
‘Oh for God’s sake yourself,’ she snaps. ‘Look, why don’t you just go? I’m sure Rhys needs you, or something.’
I think of the way Rhys looked at me on his doorstep. Like I’m the last person in the world he needs.
‘Tem,’ I try. My voice is all thin and pathetic. I open my mouth to tell her this, to tell her that Rhys and I might have broken up, that I might have ruined everything. But her face has closed, and even though Tem is standing right there, my best friend has gone.
‘Go,’ she says again. Her voice is hard.
So I do.
I walk home in tears.
I should really get the bus, but I can’t bear the thought of having to speak to anyone, even – especially – strangers/bus drivers. It takes me forty-five minutes to get from Tem’s house to my dad’s house, but even in that time I’m not done crying, so I circle back round, looping through the streets until I’m done.
I could say I don’t understand what happened or where I went wrong, but that wouldn’t really be true, would it? I do know. I came out of my comfort zone and it was just as uncomfortable as I’d always known it would be. This is what happens when you come out of your shell. You get rocks thrown at you by the universe. I tried to be brave and bold, but fortune didn’t favour me – it laughed in my face. It waved a boyfriend in front of me then snatched him away, taking my best friend as an extra-mean bonus.
I should never have tried to prove myself this year. I should have just stayed how I was. Being quiet isn’t the worst thing in the world. It might not make my life exciting, but at least it makes it less scary.
Except, that’s not quite true either, is it? I still found everything scary. Oh God, what’s the point in anything? Why do I even bother?
I kick a pebble off the kerb and watch it skitter across the road. I’m all cried out and now I just feel desolate. If I can’t even handle something as ordinary as a trip away with my boyfriend, how am I ever going to manage a huge life change like university? Maybe my parents have been right all along. Maybe it really is too much for me.
I shove my hands into my pockets and take the turning on to my dad’s street. I see almost immediately that Mum is already there from the sight of her car parked outside. When I let myself into the house, I can hear her clattering around the kitchen – she tends to do this when she visits my dad’s house, as if her mind regresses to the point when they were living together – while she lets out random exclamations of . . . what? Shock? Anger? I can’t tell from the hall.
But when I walk into the kitchen, I’m faced not with shock or anger. Instead, Mum is all smiles, sitting across the table from Dad, her hands around a steaming mug.
‘Oh, there you are,’ she says. ‘We were just talking about you.’ Her smile fades a little when she sees my face. ‘Oh, love. Have you been crying?’
I pause in the doorway, confused. Where’s the outburst of rage and disappointment? I shake my head at the question, even though I clearly have been crying, and hover in the doorway, trying to think of what to say.
‘Come and sit down,’ Dad says. He points to a cup of tea. ‘That’s for you. Excellent timing – your mother just made it, so it’s hot.’
I sink into the chair and look from Mum to Dad to Lucy, who is sitting beside Dad, searching for clues. ‘You’re not . . .’ I hesitate, then say it anyway. ‘Mad?’
They all laugh. ‘No,’ Mum says. ‘We’re not mad.’
‘We tried to be,’ Dad says.
‘We tried really hard,’ Mum agrees. They look at each other and start to laugh again.
I’m so confused.
‘Do you want us to be angry?’ Mum continues. She looks amused. ‘Was that what you were hoping for?’
I frown. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘A big, bold gesture?’ Mum offers, raising her eyebrows. She’s still smiling. ‘Weren’t you trying to prove something to us?’
Well, yes. ‘Of course not!’ I can’t quite think of how to follow this, so I take a glug of tea instead. No one says anything, so finally I add, ‘You’re not upset that I lied?’
‘Yes, I am upset that you lied,’ Mum allows with a slow nod. ‘But, love . . . you could have lied about hitchhiking to a drug-crazed rave in a field in Scotland. You could have lied about eloping to Amsterdam.’
‘Or cooking meth,’ Lucy adds.
‘Or covering up a murder,’ Dad says.
‘Or planning one!’ Mum says.
They’re enjoying this, aren’t they?
‘What we’re saying,’ Dad says, seeing my face and smiling gently. ‘Is that we know that teenagers lie to their parents all the time.’
‘And the fact that you did it in order to go to spend a weekend in Edinburgh with your lovely and trustworthy boyfriend . . .’ Mum’s mouth twitches. ‘Well, that’s quite sweet, really. If this is you being bad . . . I think that’s quite good.’
I’m not sure how to take all of this. On one hand – yay! I’m not in trouble! On the other – this is quite patronizing and offensive, isn’t it? Aren’t they basically calling me a sad excuse for a teenager?
‘I think I’d rather you were angry,’ I say, frowning.
‘You still should have told us,’ Lucy says and, despite the conversation, part of my mind registers how she includes herself so naturally in the ‘us’. ‘You’re not that off the hook.’
‘I thought you wouldn’t let me go,’ I say.
‘Why wouldn’t we?’ Dad asks, confused. ‘The two of you are seventeen and eighteen. Of course you can go away for the weekend if you want to. Why wouldn’t you?’
‘Mum said she didn’t think I could go away without support,’ I say.
‘Oh.’ Mum’s face clears. ‘That’s what this is about.’ She closes her eyes for a moment and rubs her forehead. ‘Steffi, that was just concern. It wasn’t an
order. It wasn’t me trying to restrict you.’
‘Sounded like it,’ I mumble grumpily.
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’ Lucy asks gently. ‘Is it just because you thought we’d stop you?’
I shrug. ‘We wanted it to be ours.’
‘It would have been,’ Mum says, ‘but you still could have left a note.’
‘I was going to call you from there,’ I say. ‘After we’d met up with his brother. We just wanted some time alone first.’
‘If you were going to call while you were there, why not tell us before you went?’ Mum asks.
‘This is going round in circles,’ Dad says. ‘Who wants some more tea?’
‘I wanted to surprise you,’ I say. ‘I wanted to show you that I could do it without support, OK?’
‘Well, you succeeded,’ Mum says.
‘No, I didn’t.’ Here we go: my voice cracks and tears spring to my eyes. ‘I completely failed, actually.’
There’s a pause. I keep my eyes on the tablecloth, but I know they’re all looking at each other.
‘What do you mean?’ It’s Lucy who asks. ‘Why do you think you failed?’
‘I messed everything up,’ I say. So much for being out of tears. ‘I couldn’t help Rhys. And Tem’s mad at me.’
Mum gets up from her seat and comes to sit beside me, putting her hand on my back and rubbing gently. ‘What makes you say that you couldn’t help Rhys?’ she asks. ‘It sounds like you did help him. You went to get help, and you got him down from that hill. That’s what help is, love.’
I shake my head. Tears start sliding down my cheeks. ‘I had a panic attack. I was all by myself and I freaked out. You were right. I can’t look after myself.’
‘It must have been frightening,’ Lucy says softly. ‘Rhys being hurt like that, and it just being the two of you.’
‘What happened after the panic attack?’ Dad asks.
I take a deep breath, trying to swallow back more tears. ‘Well, I had to go and find someone. And there was a woman with her dog nearby, so I got her.’
‘You got her?’ Mum repeats. ‘You went to speak to her?’
I nod. ‘She came to help us.’
