I’m thinking of how I can punish Alex for this week, but maybe I need to remember what he means to me, and what he knows. Alex knows what Molly did, because I told him. He knew about Tristan too, what he tried to do to me. I wouldn’t tell Serena and Tilly anything about that but I trust him more than them, even if he did do a disappearing act on me. There’s just something about him that makes me think he’s like me. We’re different, we’re not like other people. Special.
Thinking of everything we’ve shared makes me change my mind – I will meet him – as I need to find out where he’s been and how he got in my mum’s pictures. Because they can’t know each other. She tells me everything, doesn’t she? She would have told me she had met someone who was at the college. And I can’t even bear to think about them actually knowing each other – what if they talked about me? What would she tell him? The thought leaves a bad taste in my mouth so I push it away.
When everyone goes to lunch I gather up my things and I slip out of the door. As promised, Alex is waiting in a battered-looking car that’s even more of a shit heap than Tristan’s was. The doors have gone pink from the sun and there is a hub cap missing.
I have to fiddle with the handle of the door to get it to open before jumping in the passenger seat and just sitting there stiffly, giving Alex as cold a look as I can muster, even though my insides are tying themselves in knots about seeing him again. A low heat sparks in the bottom of my belly, a tight, stretching kind of feeling that makes me want to squeeze my legs together. He looks exhausted: he has dark rings under his eyes and his hair looks a bit funny, like it needs a wash, but he’s still gorgeous. We don’t say anything for a while. The car smells like him, slightly smoky, salted almost. Like the sea, even though we live so far away from it. He doesn’t look like he knows what to say, so I talk, break the quiet.
‘I have to be home soon. My mum wants to leave as soon as I get back to try and beat the traffic down to the coast.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Dorset.’
‘That’s not very specific.’
‘Why do you care?’
I’m completely mesmerised by his eyes, which are getting darker with every word we speak. I wonder if he’s angry with me, but why would he be? I’ve not done anything to him; he’s the one who buggered off to London and didn’t even say goodbye. He puts a hand out – I notice he has bitten down his nails, they weren’t like that before – and puts it on my shoulder, a thumb reaching into the gap between my neck and the collar of my shirt, scuffing up and down against the soft skin where I can feel my blood throbbing. His hand twitches, thumb still moving back and forth. Eyes even darker still, he bites his lip and I wish it was my lip.
‘We’re going to where those big rocks are in the sea. The arch. It’s famous. A painting holiday, we go every year for a couple of days. We’ll be back next week.’
‘Durdle Door. I went there once, when I was a kid.’
‘Isn’t it so boring?’ I reach out now myself and touch the skin of his knee. He has jean shorts on and the hairs on his leg tangle with the loose threads of the cut denim. I smooth them away, run the tip of my finger underneath the edge of the material and he shifts in his seat.
I have him, I know I do.
‘No. It’s beautiful. We had a lovely time. We were all happy then.’
His voice catches and he looks angry again when he says this; he flinches, and while part of me wonders why he was happy then but not now, another, bigger part of me doesn’t really care. I have other things on my mind. I move my hand higher up. I don’t want to quiz him about anything, I just want him. He shifts again, looks away out of the window.
‘The police were at college this week, asking about Molly,’ he tells me, and I bite my teeth together, try not to groan at her intrusion, again. ‘Where do you think she is?’ He’s antsy, squirming, his thumb brushing back and forth, back and forth on my neck. I can feel tension in it.
‘She’s fine, she emailed me. She’s just gone somewhere to hide for a few days because Serena was pissed at her for sleeping with Matt. She always runs off. She’s probably embarrassed about last week too – you know, I told you. What she did to me.’
‘I know what you told me.’ He turns back to me, looks into my face, his hand moves to cup my cheek and I lean into it. ‘She’s okay? Honestly? Where is she?’ I look back at him. I don’t want to think about Molly or about where she is.
‘Yes, she’s fine. I promise. Now, do you want to drive this rust bucket somewhere more private?’
Rachel
I was not sure what the parenting procedure was for finding a naked drawing of your fifteen-year-old daughter, which was quite possibly – well, definitely, if I’m honest – drawn by your erstwhile teenage lover. The shock of seeing it pulled me out of my dream state back to where I should have been. Awake. Observant. I had been so caught up in trying to forget what had
