Bad Girl

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I shake my head. “You tell me.”

  “I don’t know, haven’t got a clue.”

  “So you’ve never been attracted to me?” I challenge him.

  He tries to laugh it off, then admits, “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “There were times when you seemed very interested.”

  “Chloe,” he says in a soothing voice, “we were kids.”

  “Yeah, and your second sexual partner turned out so much better, didn’t she? You made the right choice.”

  I see I’ve shocked him. He’s frozen still, unable to come back with anything, his back straight and his jaw set.

  “How do you know she was only my second?”

  “Theo,” I whisper.

  “Of course, he told Lily, she told you.”

  I finish my pot noodle and fold my arms, ready to get out of here, but also ready to know the score.

  “I’m going to tell you something now, okay?” He stares at me hard.

  I nod for him to get it over with.

  “I thought I loved Susan, I really did, but the more distance I get from the whole thing, the more I see she was really this huge mystery I didn’t want to solve. A bit like my games. You don’t really ever want it to end, you want to keep playing for as long as possible, keep that window open so you can continue enjoying the adventure. You don’t want to complete it. Completing it isn’t the aim, enjoying the journey is. But the journey was a fantasy, like a lot of other things in my life. I was so wrapped up in the fantasy I couldn’t see her. Not only did she want to hide from me, but I also didn’t dare get beneath her layers, afraid I might reach the end of the game and that’d be it, all the tasks complete, the endpoint reached… life goes on, but without this epic fantasy to drown yourself in.”

  I tap my finger against the counter, wondering if this applies to me. “You’re saying she was a fantasy but she wasn’t real. She never became real to you.”

  “Towards the end, yeah, she was very real. I was even willing to forego the fantasy and accept her for who she is, take her entirely in all her fucked-up ways of being, but she only wanted the fantasy. The note she wrote me, can you guess what it said?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “It said ‘I know when I’m beaten.’ That’s all it said. She’d lost the game she was playing. She was outed. By you. She was made real. She’d lost too many lives, lost the game, couldn’t ever go back.”

  I sigh heavily. “Everyone was worried about you, so I went looking for the truth, because I was the only one who could get it. I had the ego to have him meet me. That was all. I was doing it for not just you, but for Lily and Theo and Sass. They were all really worried about you being with that woman.”

  “I know,” he says, and a tear spills down his cheek so fast, I almost don’t see it, but what I do see is him trying to swipe any residue away.

  “That’s why you didn’t want to be with me,” I murmur, “because I’m the real one.”

  “That’s not it at all. I did want to be with you. I could’ve loved you, maybe, I don’t know. But that wasn’t it at all.”

  I pull my hair out of the hairband it’s been in all day and shake out my hair, digging my hands in it, hiding my face behind it.

  “I loved you,” I whisper, “I did.”

  “I know,” he says, “I know. And I’m sorry.”

  He reaches across the table for my hand and I burst into tears, desperately sad for that teenage version of me who had her heart broken and didn’t think she could go on.

  Suddenly he’s at my side and has his hands in my hair, holding my head against his body. I cry for a while and then he tips my head up, wiping my eyes.

  “What I’m saying is don’t fall for the fantasy, Chloe. Go after something real. Don’t make the same mistakes I have. I wouldn’t wish what’s happened to me on anyone. Which is why I don’t know if I will ever be ready to love again. I don’t.”

  The thing I love about Adam and will always love is that he’s gentle and kind and generous. He’s everything I’m not. I’m ferocious. I can argue the toss about everything, anything. Put me in a courtroom and I’m home. Put me in a relationship and I’m in hell. He’s everything I want to be, everything I’m not. He couldn’t do the job I can. He doesn’t know about the foulness of humanity, he couldn’t cope with it, he dwells in fantasy worlds because he’s safe there, he doesn’t have to get hurt. He avoids life… because he’s fragile, tender and gentle. And I love that about him. He’s my opposite. Cole’s my equal, but Adam is my entire opposite.

  I eventually stop crying and he pulls his stool close to mine, holding my hand as I quieten down and dry my eyes.

  “You just… put a stop to it.”

  “It was the look in Paul’s eyes,” I explain, “that time, at the pub. If he disapproved, I wondered who else would. And there was the look in your eye. I thought it looked like shame.”

  Adam pulls back slightly, elbows on the counter, his hands steepled in front of him. I can see he’s at war, shaking his head slightly and trying to stop himself saying the wrong thing.

  “Tell me I’m not mad, Adam.”

  He presses his thumb to his lips, then says, mumbling, “No.”

  “I need to know!” I exclaim, begging.

  “Well, aren’t you gonna tell her?” Paul demands, suddenly in the doorway, like he never left and just pretended to so he could eavesdrop this whole time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Go home to your mother, Paul,” Adam says, the anguish in his tone of voice palpable.

  “I came back for my other keys,” he laughs, “and look at you both, so cosy. And so fucking pathetic. Skirting around the real issue.”

  Adam flies across the room and grabs Paul by his jacket collars, pushing him against the doorframe and squeezing his throat so his face starts to go purple.

  “Whatever ugliness you’re thinking of, just think, the true ugliness would be you, spouting it. When you know it’s not right. You know it’s wrong, Paul.”

  Adam lets Paul go free and I wish this evening would just end. I’m exhausted and dead. I’m drained. To see Adam react like this, it must be bad, so very, very bad.

  Paul swaggers like he’s undeterred and comes towards the kitchen island, resting his forearms on the edge of the counter, hunched over so his eyes meet mine.

  “Adam was using you for sex,” he garbles, “and we all knew it. Like mother, like daughter.”

  “PAUL,” Adam growls fiercely, “STOP!”

  “You took his virginity,” he says, licking his lips, “and some girl down in Oxford took Theo’s. Kirsty took mine behind the bike sheds in Year 10. That’s why I split with Lil. Kirsty threatened to tell everyone that I cheated on Lily with her. I was a boy confused and with needs, my dad kept telling me blokes had needs.”

  He’s drunk and glassy-eyed, gone to someplace else, a part of his brain where only hate lives.

  “And then,” he smiles sweetly, “there was Tom. Dear, delicious Tom. Did he not tell you who took his virginity, Chloe? Did he not.”

  Adam flies at Paul and tries to manhandle him out of the room and out of the house but Adam ends up flying backwards and into the kitchen cupboards, shocked and appalled at what’s about to come next.

  “He was fifteen, Chloe. A baby. A baby, like me. And I bet you can’t guess who deflowered him, can you? Can you?”

  “DON’T LISTEN TO HIM!” Adam yells, louder than I’ve ever heard him yell.

  “You’re lying, you cunt, you’re lying,” I yell.

  “Helen and Tom, kissing in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G. First comes abuse, then comes drugs, third comes being fucked up and never being loved.”

  Then Adam grabs Paul by the jacket and headbutts him. Paul falls backwards, his nose bleeding profusely. He passes out cold, lolling around on the floor.

  I rush over and put him on his side, tucking his sleeve underneath his face to catch the blood.

  Of course, he’s lying. He has to be. There’s no t
wo ways about it. He’s lying. I check Paul’s breathing and he’s going to be okay, I hope.

  The next thing I know, I hear Adam dialling on his phone.

  “What do you want?” Theo answers, angry, then his tone changes. They’re obviously on a video chat. “What’s happened? Adam? What’s happened?”

  “He told Chloe about Tom, he fucking told her… I tried to stop him… he was drunk, stupid… he told her. I couldn’t stop him. I was throwing him out and he was upset and he fucking told her, Theo. How could he tell her?”

  “Oh, fuck,” Theo replies, and I know from the tone of voice, he recognises this is about as bad as it could possibly get. “Where is he now?”

  I look up and watch as Adam turns the phone around, showing Theo the image of Paul on his back, his face covered in blood.

  “I saw red,” Adam says.

  “He’s knocked out cold, he’ll live,” I tell them both. “It’s not broken, just very bruised and bloody.”

  “That fuck,” Theo shouts, his voice so hollow, so full of hate.

  Adam moves across the room, back talking to Theo. “He was stirring things… I saw red. I can’t believe what I just did. And Tom. What if he… we promised. We promised him.”

  “Put me on with Chloe,” Theo demands.

  I’m handed the phone and I wipe my eyes and face clear before talking to him, so I can actually see.

  “Tell me this is a lie, Theo. Come on, tell me it is.”

  Theo looks ghost-white. I can see he’s in a dressing room. Maybe it’s the break. Maybe he’s just about to go on. I don’t know.

  “It’s true,” Theo says, the wind knocked out of me, my stomach aching. “We thought it had finished, he said he knew it was wrong, that it’d ended… but when me and Lily were in the Bahamas a year ago for Christmas, we saw them there together. He takes her there every Christmas, we found out. Lily didn’t know anything about it until we were there and she saw it. I swear, she didn’t know.”

  I’m shaking my head. “But she has a boyfriend?”

  “She’s had several,” Theo corrects. “As far as we knew, it was over with Tom and her. He swore us to secrecy, said it wasn’t ever going to happen again. He lied.”

  I look between Adam, to Theo, to Paul, who’s groaning on the floor and in and out of consciousness.

  “You’re all mistaken.”

  “We’re not, Chloe,” Adam professes.

  “Are you okay, Chloe? You’ve had a shock,” Theo says.

  “No, I’m not fucking okay. My mother is a nasty bitch, I knew that… but a fucking pervert? A child—” I can’t even say the word.

  “He hid it so well,” Theo explains, “the supposed working abroad… but he could have been living here the whole time, for all we know. How do we know the guys she hangs out with aren’t just friends and that it’s been Tom all this time?”

  I hand the phone to Adam and lurch towards the sink, spewing up into it. I catch my hair before it gets covered and the hot noodles I had just a short while ago come spewing out of me… raging, in fact.

  No.

  I can’t.

  No.

  “Call his brothers to come get him,” Theo tells Adam, “say you found him like that in the street and you can’t take it anymore. Paul won’t remember it tomorrow. Tidy him up a bit and send him home. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Jump in the car and come visit us this weekend, Chloe,” he shouts, then we hear in the background his name being called. “I gotta go.”

  He hangs up.

  Adam hands me some kitchen paper and starts sending a message on his phone. Within a few minutes, he has a reply.

  “They’re coming,” he says.

  I have no words right now.

  Then I’m pressed from all sides into Adam’s chest and he hugs me tight, gathering me to him.

  “I’m so sorry, Chloe.”

  “That’s the secret,” I murmur.

  “Yes. I thought we were protecting Tom from people finding out… turns out, we were only protecting his secret relationship. His dark truth. He knew it was wrong…”

  “…but like the true victim, he let it keep happening.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  I flee his arms, flee the house, flee the truth… jump in my car.

  I know what I have to do.

  Chapter Eighteen

  March arrives, along with my last day at Heptonstall’s. I gave my notice the day after I found out about my mother and Tom. It was a no-brainer. I’m not staying in this city a second longer than I have to.

  I sold my car. I’m giving up the lease on my house.

  Polly walks into my office carrying a cake with sparklers and sings, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!! Happy birthday dear Chloe, happy birthday to you! Make a wish!”

  I struggle to blow out the sparkler, and in fact it dies like a limp blade of grass, but I make a wish anyway.

  I wish to be free of this unbearable pain… this agony. This treachery.

  She could have had anyone.

  Anyone.

  She had to go after one of my friends.

  Tom.

  Yes, Tom the weirdo, the mysterio… but still, my friend. My good friend.

  Adam and I… we never got our time together… because of her.

  Because of it.

  The sin.

  The ultimate treachery.

  The lawlessness of her… despite being in law.

  I hate her guts and I never want to see her again.

  Thank goodness I don’t have to.

  “What did you wish for?” she asks, gleeful.

  “Oh, I think you know,” I tell her, though in truth, I absolutely don’t know what I want.

  I don’t.

  All I know, for sure, is that I have to be out of this city.

  “Funny how today is also your last day,” she says.

  “I know, perhaps it’s fate telling me this is my birthday present,” I tell her, laughing.

  “Perhaps,” she says, “perhaps.”

  She cuts a couple of slices of cake and I look out into the other offices, realising nobody else is joining us. Perhaps I intimidate them. Perhaps they never made an effort because they always knew I wouldn’t be here long. Maybe they’re pissed off that they’re now going to have to employ at least two people to replace me.

  Fair game.

  I’m shocked when someone arrives at the door, their face eclipsed by flowers.

  “Delivery for you,” Morag says, our receptionist, whose diminutive stature may make her seem sweet and innocent, but man she has a set of lungs on her that come in handy for dealing with irate clients.

  “Thanks, Morag, cheers.” I take them from her.

  It’s a massive bouquet of spring flowers – all yellow.

  I take the card out and read it: For my sunshine, all my love, C x

  I grin from ear to ear.

  “They’re beautiful,” Polly says, “and what a lovely vase.”

  I groan inwardly because I don’t need a vase!

  I’m thinking about buying a plane ticket next week and surprising Cole by asking him to pick me up from the airport. I haven’t decided yet. I haven’t even told him I’ve quit my job… or about Mum… Adam, or Paul… I’ve just been telling him it’s that I’m missing him – hopefully he believes that accounts for my sad face whenever we video chat, which has become less and less lately as his workload has piled up.

  It’s eleven at night there and I usually don’t call him during the day – we normally stick to pre-arranged slots where we call one another, which today was meant to be later tonight when he’s waking just as I’m heading to bed. He usually puts me on the phone holder of his running machine as he completes his morning workout in his apartment. Still, it’s my birthday and I haven’t spoken to him yet today and these flowers are beautiful.

  “I’m going to call him,” I tell Polly, hustling her out.

 
She’s grinning as she takes her slice of cake towards her desk, a napkin catching the crumbs.

  I press call and hear the tone ring out a few times, then it’s dark on the screen and I whisper, in case I’ve woken him up, “Cole?”

  I see nothing on the screen but eventually I hear noise.

  “Did your phone ring?” a woman asks.

  “It was work so I declined it, go back to sleep.”

  No it isn’t work…

  …and he didn’t decline the call, but accidentally answered it.

  In his sleepy state, not expecting my call, he probably thought he was declining my call – if he even looked hard enough to see it was me. I’m still on the line, unbeknown to them.

  “I’m awake now,” the girl says.

  “I’m not,” he groans, “go back to sleep.”

  “Fine, be that way.”

  She sounds young… someone he can use for sex. Someone impressionable. Someone he doesn’t plan on staying with.

  I hang on a little longer, waiting to see if anything else might transpire…

  … anything at all.

  After a while, he groans, “You just don’t give up.”

  “You’re so easy to get hard.”

  I could hang up now, or I could listen in.

  I grab the birthday cake Polly gave me and listen fervently as my alleged boyfriend fucks some tart a million miles away – all while he’s meant to be in love with me.

  How would he explain this away?

  “It’s just sex… you hurt me… I needed some physical release… just sex… just sex… it’s you I love.”

  We get to the point where she’s crying, “Oh god, oh god, you’re so big… you’re so big!”

  Then the bed bows under his weight as he rolls off the bitch, Cole having made little noise at all except for the squeaking mattress beneath his body. He didn’t even groan once.

  I wait for them to quieten down, then I speak, “Cole, oh Cole. COLE… I heard you… Cole… are you there?”