And it would be a relief, really, Ella told herself, so good to actually get the whole thing out, but where did she start?
She took a sip of her tea.
Examined the tendons on her wrist, flexing and moving where she gripped the cup.
There was a chip in one of her nails she’d painted hot pink to match her boots, and a nick in another.
Need to file that down.
‘Ella? Who is Sam’s father?’
Her gaze flew from her tea, hands and nails, and shuddered to a stop on Jake.
‘The whole thing is pretty messed up,’ Ella said, voice tiny and small, but it was her voice and that was something.
‘Come on,’ he said, the barest flick of his finger waving her on.
‘The night of the 2006 Australian trials, I did what just about every swimmer does after a big meet. I went out. I got terribly, terribly drunk. And I made a really shit decision. I was eighteen years old.’
‘What shit decision?’
‘I slept with Marshall Wentworth—’
Jake let out a breath and sat back, like the words had punched something out of him.
‘Marshall was in Erik’s squad. I had the biggest crush on him, and, well, I’d never had a crush on anything or anyone except Kieren Perkins, and that wasn’t a crush so much as hero worship. I’d never been with a boy. I’d never been drunk either.
‘That’s life when you’re swimming. You don’t go out at night because you can’t. You have to get up too early to get to the pool, and you swim a bazillion laps, then you go to school. When you get home from school you swim a bazillion laps, and somewhere in there you do some weight-work in the gym. Somewhere in there you do your homework and you eat. Not much. Soup mostly. Protein shakes. And you die in bed at night because you’re so damn tired, and then you get up and do the whole thing all over again the next day. You don’t go to birthday parties. You don’t go to friends’ houses.’
Ella swiped at a tear trying to roll its way down her cheek. Jake stayed quiet.
‘So when Marshall and all the others from our squad headed out in the city when the Nationals wrapped up, they asked me to go with them and I went. We all snuck out. Marshall knew someone. Marshall always knew someone. He got the cars figured out. Found some people to give us a lift into the nightclub, and we drank. Shots. Beers.’ She shrugged. ‘After a while I didn’t know. We were the toast of the town and everyone wanted to buy us drinks.’
Ella heard the scuff as Jake shuffled a boot, and the clock ticked on.
‘The guy driving the car didn’t want to take me home in it. He thought I might be sick—I remember that. Marshall argued with him. He told the driver he had to take me. I thought he was looking out for me, taking care of me.
‘I don’t even know where we went. I must have crashed out in the car and he carried me out when the taxi got to his place. I woke up and I had no clothes on, and Marshall was with me, and I thought, you know, that this was the moment where I’d lose my virginity …’ Ella looked away, ‘and that was okay because I wanted it to be him. I’d wanted it to be Marshall since I joined Erik’s squad. I dreamed about it all the time.’
She shuddered in her kitchen, and the tea couldn’t warm her because it had gone cold, and because this was where it got ugly.
Jake reached across and tucked his finger under her chin, bringing her head up.
‘He’d already done it, Jake,’ Ella said. ‘Marshall was getting dressed. He looked at me and he said, “Get your clothes on and get out. Don’t know why I bothered. That was like sandpaper.’”
‘Jesus,’ Jake breathed, and on the table his hand clenched to a fist.
‘He said the driver would be outside. He said he told the driver to … wait because he …’ She nearly choked on it. ‘He knew he wouldn’t need long to break me in.’
‘Break you in?’ Jake breathed, his face hard as stone.
‘That’s what he said.’ Ella had the tears now; she couldn’t stop them. Fat and angry, raw and hot, running so hard she had to wipe the wet from her neck before salt bled and ruined the hired seventies’ dress.
‘That one time and you got pregnant?’ Jake asked.
‘Pregnant, and chlamydia.’
‘No condom then.’
‘I didn’t know enough to even think about a condom. I didn’t know a lot of things.’
‘I can’t believe Erik let you go …’
Ella sat straight. ‘Erik didn’t know. No one knew. We were swimming kids in the big city, letting off steam. It happens all the time, Jake. But it was the first time for me. Erik blamed himself, after, you know? Because it happened on his watch—I snuck out with Marshall and the others on Erik’s watch. But I never told him what really happened that night. Not the way I just told you. I’ve never told anyone that.’
‘What about Marshall? Did he, shit, did he even apologise?’
Ella huffed. ‘You don’t know Marshall. It was like he’d done me a favour, you know? I don’t think he’d have thought he had a thing to apologise for.’
Jake scrubbed his fingers through the hair on top of his head. ‘Surely when you knew you were pregnant … when you dropped out of swimming and every magazine had the story. Didn’t Marshall contact you? Wouldn’t he have known? I mean, he must have asked himself the question. I would have.’
‘I wrote to Marshall and I got this horrible letter back from his coach that said Marshall was too busy training for Beijing to be distracted by someone who was jealous she’d missed her chance. Swimming
