Follow Me Down (23 page)

‘Orla—’

‘What if I—’ she interrupted, then stopped to cover her mouth with her hand as she let out another hiccup of a sob.

I knew what she was getting at and shook my head at her. ‘You didn’t.’

She took her hand away from her mouth and pressed it to her forehead. ‘He knew that I wanted to wait, but I was so drunk. What if I told him we could?’

That threw me, my heart spinning, like a weathervane in a sudden gust of wind. Molly was right – there
was
something going on between Orla and Mr Lucas – and I’ll admit to feeling a stab of betrayal, even though I had no right to. Orla and I barely spoke before she admitted what happened to her that night. I’m the one who’s been lying to her for the last five months.

‘That doesn’t matter, Orla,’ I said and I wonder if she heard it, the sudden hardness in my voice as I tried to compensate for the shiver of shame. ‘Knowing who did it, doesn’t change a damn thing. He still hurt you, he still took advantage of you.’

‘But there’s no way I can prove I said no, is there? He’ll just say I didn’t. And even if I could, the police won’t be able to do anything now. It’s been
months
.’

She turned and started walking back in the direction of the village and I knew she was right, but I felt a surge of anger at how resigned she was to it. It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair.

I caught up with her and stepped in front of her.

She stopped, then crossed her arms. ‘I know what you’re going to say and
don’t
,’ she warned, her brow tightening. ‘I’m not putting myself through that for nothing. I’m not going to sit there while the police ask me how much I had to drink and what I was wearing so they can tell me there’s nothing they can do.’

‘But what if he does it to someone else?’

‘I said
don’t
,’ she barked. ‘I can’t, Adamma. If I tell the police it’ll be my word against his and if the police believe him, then it will have been for nothing. Everyone would know – my friends, my dad, Molly
bloody
Avery – and I’ll have to see him every day and—’

‘It’s OK.’ I rubbed her arms as she started sobbing again. ‘I’m sorry.’ I waited for her breathing to settle then said, ‘Why don’t we tell Mrs Delaney? She won’t tell anyone.’

She looked confused. ‘Mrs Delaney?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe she can tell Ballard what happened, find a way to get him fired without anyone finding out why. I’m sure Ballard will be more than happy to make all of this go away as quickly and quietly as possible.’

‘Fired?’

‘Don’t worry about that. This is his fault. He should have thought about that.’

‘Fired from
what
? Sam doesn’t have a job.’

I stepped back and stared at her. ‘Sam?’

‘Yeah. Who did you think I was talking about?’

‘But Sam couldn’t have murdered Scarlett.’

‘He wouldn’t!’ she said with a fierce frown, then caught herself. She looked mortified and I wanted to hug her, tell her that I got it – she’d loved him, it was an instinct to defend him – but she wouldn’t look at me. ‘Look. I don’t know what Sam’s capable of any more, but his arm’s in a sling so, and I can’t believe I’m saying these words,’ she shook her head, ‘he can’t have murdered Scarlett. Unless he strangled her with one hand.’

She was right and with that, everything in my head dislodged and ended up in a different place. All that remained was one question that circled my skull like a fly:

So who did?

104 DAYS BEFORE

FEBRUARY

You know how Charles Dickens said that it was the best of times, it was the worst of times? Well, it’s been the best six weeks of my life, and the worst. The worst because I was sure that after what happened at Edith’s wedding, everyone would side with Scarlett and I would be the bitch who threw away her best friend for a boy. But when I got back to Crofton in the new year, girls – not all of them, but some, more than I expected – began to gather at my end of the table in the dining hall. The next day there were a few more and the day after that a few more and, by the end of the week – when she made a nasty quip about me in class and not everyone laughed – I began to realise that Scarlett was more infamous than popular.

‘The queen is dead,’ Molly said, breathless with awe, the first time we watched her walk across the Green to have lunch on her own. It made sense, I suppose. She’s been at Crofton since she was eleven and I was the only person she hung around with regularly, the only one she spent exeat weekends with, the only one who went to her house for dinner. She must have had friends before me. I keep thinking about the story Orla told me, how she ran away to Glastonbury with Dominic last summer. Was there another girl, like me, who didn’t hear about it until Olivia called? Who had no idea they were seeing each other? Every time a girl smiles at me in the corridor at school or asks if she can sit with me at lunch, I wonder if it’s her. If I’m just one in a long line of Scarlett’s best friends.

That’s not to say that what happened at Edith’s wedding wasn’t a scandal, because it was. Our fight is all people have talked about and everyone seems to be divided into two camps: the ones who don’t get why Scarlett flipped out and the ones who think I let a boy come between us. There seem to be more in the former than the latter, which is flattering, of course, but that doesn’t mean I’m enjoying it. I’m not like her, I don’t have to be the prettiest girl in the room. And I don’t like being talked about; I’d rather people knew my name because I’m nice or because of the stuff I write for the
Disraeli
, not because I fell out with her. Mind you, as high school indiscretions go, I suppose I got off pretty easily.

But as awkward and embarrassing as it’s been, it’s still been the best six weeks of my life. It’s been almost impossible to be discreet with everyone watching, but we’ve seen each other as much as we can. I catch myself smiling sometimes and I can’t stop.

I’m the one who suggested we hide it and I think that surprised him. He says that I’m not like the other girls at school, that I’m mature. Maybe I am because it’s more than not wanting my parents to find out; I don’t want to hurt her, either.

I think all of this has kind of forced me to grow up. My father being shot put a lot of things into perspective. I know now what I should hold on to, and what I should let go of. But I didn’t used to be like that, before I started at Crofton, before I met him. I used to think that the number of photographs that I was in with other people was a measure of how popular I was, and I’d fret if I wasn’t invited to a party. Looking back on it now, I’m almost embarrassed by how much those things used to upset me. I thought it was hilarious when Jumoke would plot the demise of a girl who’d kissed a boy I liked. We’d spend hours and hours discussing it, wallowing in the drama of it until we were lightheaded. But when I’m with him, I don’t even think about those things. All I think about is him, about the shape of his mouth and the lines on his palms, comparing them to my own and pressing my hand to his so our love lines touch.

It wasn’t like that with Nathan. We didn’t sneak around, I didn’t skip swimming practice to linger in the backseat of his car, my fingers curled around his tie. Nathan and I went on dates. We’d miss movies because we were kissing so much and eat dinner at restaurants he could walk me home from that weren’t two villages away where no one knew us. I could have photos of us on my phone and could tell him that I loved him and not care if anyone heard. And he’d give me gifts: perfume for my birthday and jewellery on Valentine’s Day and flowers every Friday. I’d come out of school with my friends to find him leaning against a town car in his St Luke’s uniform, a huge bunch of roses in his hand. He could have waited until we were alone, but I would feel a sweet thrill when he told me that he loved me in front of my friends and they gushed, saying that he was the perfect boyfriend.

It was as if it didn’t count if they weren’t there to see it.

I didn’t love Nathan, though. It was as though we were playing house – playing at love. We did everything couples did, but I didn’t feel anything for him. That isn’t fair actually; I did, but it wasn’t love. It wasn’t that bone-deep ache that I feel for him when I’m alone in bed, counting the hours until I see him again. I can’t lie though, I’m surprised I don’t miss it, I never thought that sharing a cupcake he’d sneaked out of the dining room or getting a tatty copy of
Love in the Time of Cholera
that he’d found in a second-hand bookshop would be enough.
More
, even, because he didn’t just walk into Chanel and point at a purse like Nathan did, he’d remembered it was my favourite book and inside he’d written it again –
No one’s ever picked me
– and
that’s
love, I know, those secret moments that are ours, that aren’t diluted because I’ve shared them with everyone else.

It’s overwhelming and excruciating, all at once. I can’t call him when I want to, can’t kiss him when I want to. But it makes things so
intense
. I’ve had to learn to be patient, to wait, something I’m not very good at, I admit. I can’t just throw my feelings around like I used to. I have to hold on to them, save them for him. It’s unbearable. I used to spend almost every moment with Nathan, but some days I only see him for an hour. Some days it’s just a few minutes during lunch or between classes. If I didn’t see Nathan for a few hours, I didn’t notice, whereas if I don’t see him, it’s like I’m
starving
. When I finally see him, I’m shaking, my heart ready to burst, and when he reaches for me, the relief brings tears to my eyes. And when we’re together it isn’t like it was with Nathan, all sweaty and awkward and unsure. He doesn’t keep asking me if I’m OK, and when he touches me, it isn’t with wide-eyed curiosity, he knows what’s going to happen, even if I don’t and oh, it’s magnificent.

It’s an impossible thing, to control yourself when everything you feel is wild, when you feel untethered. But there’s a thrill to it, too, to sneaking around. I’ll be kissing him, hands curled around the tops of his arms, tight enough to leave bruises, and ten minutes later we’ll pass one another on the way to class without a glance. I’ll feel a rush of excitement when we pass, especially when he can’t stop himself and his gaze flicks to mine. That moment of weakness is as delicious as any kiss and knowing that I can do that to him, that I can make him lose control like that – if just for a second – makes me feel like I can do anything.

But as frustrating as it is at times, I love how fiercely protective of us he is, as though he and I are a baby bird he has to keep cupped in his hands, too fragile to trust anyone with. There’s a thrill to that, too, to how close he holds me sometimes, hearing him breathe
mine
between kisses. He isn’t as worried about what she’ll do as I am, but I think he’s scared that if people know, they’ll try to warn me off him, tell me that he’s no good. I guess I’m scared about that too, because I haven’t told Orla or Jumoke and I tell them
everything
. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I know what they’re going to say, that he’ll never be the boyfriend I need him to be, that my parents will go nuts, that once the initial excitement of hiding it has passed, he’ll get bored and move on.

But it’s been six weeks and the joy of seeing him hasn’t dampened. We were in touch constantly over the holidays, knocking so many text messages back and forth that my cellphone provider cut me off, convinced that my phone had been stolen. My parents will kill me dead when they get the bill.

This morning, he told me to skip breakfast and meet him behind the library before assembly. It had been snowing all night, so I heard him before I saw him – heard the crunch of his shoes – and my heart leapt into my throat at the thought that it might be someone else. How would I explain why I was lurking behind the library at 7 a.m.? As often as Mrs Delaney encourages us to get fresh air, it was hardly the weather to be languishing outside. But then I saw him. He smiled loosely when he saw me and I had to resist the urge to fly at him. I told myself to stay still, to let him come to me, and when he did, I couldn’t resist filling in the last few steps.

It probably sounds cheesy, but Crofton has never looked so beautiful. It’s been snowing on and off since the day my father was shot. Not fiercely, but just enough to keep the ground covered and ensure that there was a white Christmas for the first time in years, even if I wasn’t there to see it. Everything is perfect, like a holiday card, the green lawns white, the trees drooping under the weight of the snow. The old buildings look like gingerbread houses, their pitched roofs dusted white and their crooked lead windows glittering with frost.

It was so cold that my breath puffed out of me in a great cloud. His did too, so I knew he was struggling to catch his breath as well and it made my heart beat harder. We stood so close that the tips of our shoes were touching, his hands fisted in the back of my coat, mine clinging to the lapels of his. I saw his cheeks get pinker as it started snowing again. We looked up at the sky with a giggle and when I looked at him again, he had snow in his eyelashes. I reached for his hand, but before I could thread my fingers through his, he pulled his away. My heart shuddered to a halt, sure that I’d done something wrong, that I’d misunderstood something, but then he began to tug off my leather glove. When he had done so, he tucked it into the pocket of his coat and reached for my hand again. His fingers were cold and the shock of them against my warm ones made me gasp.

I’m lucky, I know, to see that side of him. I’m sure everyone sees him at Crofton, and doesn’t think him capable of such vulnerability. They’ve never seen that side of him. Never seen him blush. Never seen his hands stutter. They don’t know that sometimes, after we’ve kissed, he’s too shy to speak or that he leaves me notes, like the one he left in my coat pocket at Edith’s wedding. He hides them between the mail in my pigeonhole or drops them into my open bag as he passes my desk in class. It’s kind of old-fashioned, I suppose; he could send an email or a text, but there’s a romance to it, to finding one and unfolding it to see the slant of his handwriting, his perfect Os and long, loose Ps.

It’s nothing I’ve felt before. It’s changed me, as though my heart has shed its skin and it’s all red and tender and new again. I’m nervous around him, as though we’ve just met. When he calls, I stumble over my words and the last time we kissed, my hands were shaking so much I had to ask him to stop. ‘They’re supposed to shake,’ he told me with a slow smile before he kissed me again.

There’s something between us, something I hadn’t noticed until right now, as I’m thinking about it. A thread that I only feel when he moves away from me. Whenever he does, I feel a tug in my stomach. I watch him walking away sometimes and I feel it tug and tug until he’s so far away from me that the ache is unbearable. I miss him. Even when I’m with him, I miss him. It’s as though I can’t let myself be with him, because I know that in a few minutes he’ll be gone. I don’t know when it happened, but
want
became
need
and I find myself brushing past him in the corridor at Crofton sometimes, just for a second, just so I can feel the heat of him next to me. Sometimes, he gives into it too, allowing his fingers to brush against my knuckles while everyone sweeps past us on the way to their next class oblivious that we’ve even touched as I continue on, my legs weaker.

I wonder sometimes if we still need to be so careful. Some girl just bought a pregnancy test from the chemist in the village, so no one’s even talking about me anymore. But I kind of love the melodrama of it: the lying, the hiding. I devour the desperate text messages he sends, begging me to skip class and see him. And I love knowing things about him, secret things no one else knows. His fear of heights, the three moles on his back, the milk-white scar on his knee from when he fell off his bike when he was six. I’ve never known anyone like that, known their skin, recognised the curve of their mouth, even with my eyes closed. And no one has ever known me like that. I never cried in front of Nathan, never spent an afternoon with him giggling as he tried to count my eyelashes with the tip of his finger.

I don’t think I ever even memorised Nathan’s cellphone number, but I know his. He bought me another cellphone, one of those disposable ones, one just for us, so we can keep in touch without worrying. I thought it was a little much when he gave it to me, but he told me to pretend we were spies. I enjoy that, too, keeping the phone hidden in my tuck box and charging into my room at lunch to check it. The rush of it is almost too much, knowing that every voicemail is from him, every text message. So while we don’t have a relationship like the other couples at Crofton, we don’t eat lunch together in the dining hall, don’t hold hands on the way to class, we have
that
, and it’s just as exciting. It’s too much, yet not enough, all at once.

He was right to be paranoid, though, because, last night, Scarlett stole my phone – not the disposable one, my other one, the one that everyone knows about – while we were at Sam’s seventeenth birthday party. I thought her ‘accidentally bumping’ into me was an attempt to spill her drink on my shoes, but when I felt her hand linger on my waist a moment longer than was necessary, I pulled away. By the time I checked the pocket of my tuxedo jacket and realised what she’d done, she was heading out of the kitchen and I chased after her.

‘What do you want back, Adamma?’ she asked with a smirk. ‘Your dignity?’