“I’m good to go if you are?” he says, running his hand across my thigh and chuckling as I sigh and roll my eyes back. I did not mean to do that, but it’s not like I have much control here. Around him I don’t need it.
Jay scrambles over me and opens his drawer.
“Shit.” He grabs his wallet open. “Fuck.”
“Yeah — that’s what I’m waiting for.”
“No condoms.”
This would be the point where I’d have some in my handbag or my pocket or my bra. Only I don’t. Jay climbs back next to me, frowning.
“Never mind,” I say. “You don’t need condoms to do this.” My hand goes straight down and I start again, kissing his neck until he relaxes. Soon we’re fooling around, kissing, stroking… and it feels good. This is enough, I tell myself firmly. This is totally enough.
But tomorrow Jay will pack up and leave for university. There’ll be no sneaking off to do this some other time unless I manage to go and visit him, but I can’t see that happening. There’s always the hope that Jay will come home one weekend but…
It feels so good to be this close to him. Why do I want more than this?
“We could…” I start to say, then stop. Jay stops what he’s doing, but I shake my head. “Don’t stop.”
He starts up again. It feels amazing. I close my eyes and shuffle down until I can feel him hard against me, then I slip up and under and around until he’s almost…
“Hannah.” Jay pulls away, but I shift so he’s trapped and I look him in the eye.
“I’m clean, I promise.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Jay says. “Tell me you’re on the pill or something.”
I nearly do. I so want that to be the truth.
“You could pull out, or I could take the morning-after pill,” I say hopefully, twisting my hips so he can feel me against him. It’s killing me, being this close.
“I could…” He edges in, just a little, and I bite my lip in ecstasy. I want this so much. “Or you could…”
Out again.
“We could…”
In again.
“But…”
Out.
“Please, Jay.”
In. All the way.
“Have it your way,” he mutters, before we stop being able to say anything at all.
The second time is better than the first. Longer, slower, more intense. There is no one I trust more than Jay and, just like I asked, he pulls out.
And so it ended now, him pulling away, his hands warm from holding me. How did a kiss turn into Jay — the first boy that I’ve loved, that I still love — telling me that he can’t do this with me, that everything that’s happened was a mistake? How did a kiss turn to this? To nothing but silence? I was so stupid to hope things were about to change… The tears I’m crying as I stare out of his car window are no longer for my baby, for my family or for Jay — they’re for me.
Because tonight I have learned that Jay is not the boy I thought he was and, as it turns out, Aaron isn’t quite the boy I thought he was either.
Two let-downs in one night is more than I think I can handle.
SUNDAY 14TH FEBRUARY
HALF-TERM
AARON
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you and your missus, or are you just going to sit there and lose at cards?” Neville says. If I hadn’t already moved our “date” from Friday, I would have cancelled — but even sitting here with a cracking headache, losing every hand and wondering whether I’ll bump into Hannah is better than the wrath of a Neville scorned.
“Hannah’s not my missus.”
“She’s carrying your baby, sunshine. That makes her something more than a friend.”
“Whatever,” I say and slump back in the chair and gingerly touch the bridge of my nose. My face hurts. So does my hand. “It’s not mine.”
Did I really just say that? I open my eyes to see whether Neville heard me, but there’s nothing wrong with his hearing aid and he’s looking at me keenly, waiting.
“You absolutely cannot tell anyone this. Not the pretty nurse you gossip with when she checks your blood pressure, not the receptionist when you try and charm your way outside.” I look at him seriously. “And especially not Hannah’s gran.”
Neville’s looking at me under lowered brows. White wiry hairs emerge from the tangle like antennae and they quiver as he stares at me.
“I know how to keep a secret.”
Possibly — provided he remembers it’s a secret he’s meant to be keeping. I guess it’s too late now anyway.
“We’ve never had sex.” Neville frowns, waiting. “I offered to pretend to be the father to help her out — to protect her from everyone at school, to give her support in front of her family.” But that’s not why I offered. “I offered because I wanted to help her. I wanted to do something meaningful.”
Neville slurps his coffee, working his jaw as he thinks over what I’ve just said. “‘Meaningful’. That’s a telling word.”
“What do you mean?” I expected him to ask about the real father. I didn’t expect this.
“You think there’s something meaningful in helping out a girl in a way no sensible boy ever would. You two barely knew each other at the start of the year and yet you signed up for this?”
“Hannah needed helping and I need to help — I need to feel like I can do something that matters, like there’s a reason—” I stop myself.
“A reason for what?”
I can’t tell him. I can’t tell anyone.
“Nothing,” I say. “I just wanted to help her out. I like Hannah. A lot.”
Neville raises his eyebrows and I tut.
“Not like that.” Probably not like that. “She’s special.”
“Not special enough if she don’t know the daddy of her babby.”
“Stop it.” I know he was only joking, and I don’t mean for my voice to sound so harsh, but after last night… I’m glad it’s half-term. Dad asked if I’d help him fix the fence and there’s my cousin’s wedding at the weekend. I’ve enough excuses to avoid Hannah until I can get my head straight and be the person she wants me to be.
Neville stands up, joints popping, his movements stiff. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, boy.” He looks down at me. “But one day you’ll realize she’s not the only one who needs a friend. And, when you do, you’ll know I’m here for you. You might think you’re good at hiding whatever it is that’s troubling you, but you’re not as good as you think.”
“There isn—”
“Now get off your arse and help an old man walk to the toilet, will you? I need a piss.”
SATURDAY 20TH FEBRUARY
HALF-TERM
AARON
We get lost on the way there. I’m not surprised since Mum refuses to buy a satnav and Dad gets so carsick he can’t read a map. So it’s down to me to look up our location on my phone and navigate us to the church.
Cousin Sarah’s wedding. Had Dante experienced any of my mum’s family get-togethers, I’m sure that he’d have allocated a tenth ring of hell for such occasions. Mum is stressing out so much that the steering wheel is less a tool with which to direct the car and more a prop around which she can curl her shoulders as she snarls at hedgerows and passing pheasants. Dad has wisely reverted to silence after the map debacle. All three of us are aware that we are walking into an afternoon of whispers and “concern”, when distant relatives will stare at me as if I’m about to break down on the spot.