‘He’s your stepfather, isn’t he?’
My mouth falls open.
‘I suspected when you were in Wyatt. Something about the timing of it – your arrival, the arrest; the pregnancy – it seemed more than coincidental. Too many things in quick succession.’ She pushes away his glass with the backs of her fingers, like she can’t bear to touch it. ‘And when I told you he’d been arrested, you didn’t cry. You were silent. Like you were numb already.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘To you? Never. You were far too fragile, you wanted it behind you, over, it took so long to get you well, I couldn’t risk it. We did have a meeting about it though, with Mrs Parkinson, the school board, and we decided to say nothing about it. With the length of his sentence, he wouldn’t be able to pull you out. We never told the police, we didn’t want you taken into care, in the school holidays, we just looked after you here.’ She presses her palms against the back of the door. ‘It’s different now; we have a duty to call the police. But for you, I don’t regret it. Wyatt was the best place for you, in the circumstances.’
They knew. They all knew. I press my fingers over my mouth. Why have I kept all these secrets, for what, for whom?
She sits beside me on the sofa. Puts her hand over mine. Her skin is velvet and cool. ‘What are you doing with him, Lauren?’
‘There are things I need to speak to him about.’
‘He’s dangerous. Remember what he did. Not just your age, the abortion, but what happened afterwards. You weren’t well for months.’
‘Months? You mean days. I only stayed in your study a few days.’
She looks at me, her grey eyes clear and unblinking. ‘You stayed in my study for almost a year.’
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. I remember certain things – the curiosity of Jennie and Lisa when I rejoined the dorms, how quickly that faded when I told them I’d been ill, how I failed art year after year because I refused to lift a paintbrush, a chalk, a pencil. But all that must have been after my stay with Mrs Hannington. And then I think memory must have a will of its own, speeding up time, making it run slow, blotting out sections of reel. ‘A year,’ I repeat, dumbly.
‘You don’t recall?’
‘No.’
‘You were hollowed out. A shell. I worried about you for years afterwards.’ Her fingers tighten round my wrist. ‘That’s why I’m saying he’s dangerous. The way he looks at you—’
‘—I know. Like he loves me.’
She shakes me, like she’s waking me from a dream. ‘No. Not like he loves you. Like he’s obsessed. Love and obsession are different things. You know this. Iago and Othello, Mr Rochester and Jane Eyre. He doesn’t see you clearly, only what he wants to see. And once that illusion is shattered—’ She seems to realise she is squeezing my wrist, she lets go with a start. ‘You get what you need from him and then you leave.’
I feel suddenly very frightened. Like I’ve been ignoring warnings, signs. Now, I’m about to go into the woods. It’s pitch black and quiet.
‘Don’t stay a minute more.’ She pulls me into her then, I feel the familiar generosity of her body. I want to stay in her arms forever. ‘You remember our school motto?’
‘Ad astra per aspera,’ I reply instinctively.
‘Through hardship to the stars,’ she whispers. ‘Be finished with your hardships. It’s time for the stars.’
From: Kit McDermott
12:08
That time Emma messaged me to say she’d taken you home. I was there within the hour but, when I knocked on the door, you looked so normal, so calm, you were surprised I’d come over. Said it was nothing. But later, when I spoke to Emma, she told me it was serious. She said she’d never seen you that way, it was a full-blown panic attack, you could barely breathe. I believed you instead of her. But now, I wonder if I made that choice because I didn’t want to believe there’s a side of you I have no idea about. A side I didn’t want to see.
48
Soft
Then
‘You’re what?’ says Alex.
‘I’m pregnant,’ I repeat, but he heard me the first time because the shock of it destabilises him. He stumbles on the sand.
‘I don’t understand,’ he says, as he sits down. His eyes on me are wide, he is trying to process all the things I’ve shared against the enormity of what I haven’t. ‘You never said anything about—’