Save Me (25 page)

“We’
ve talked about this before. I’ll always be friends with Kai.”

He sighed.
“I know, shorty.” I think he wanted to say more but he kissed me instead, which I definitely preferred. “So, where are you going?” I smiled and kissed him again.

“
To a beach. I didn’t ask which one but they’re all pretty much the same, right?”

“You didn’t ask where?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “It’s in England.”

He laughed
and gently pulled me onto his lap. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you
, too, but it’s only for four days and you can catch up with your friends. I’ve been stealing you so much.”

He smiled.
“Wanna go see them together now? There’s a race this afternoon.”

God, I really wanted to get out of
this house and get some fresh air. “Heck yeah. I’ll grab my hoody.”

Lucas never took his eyes off m
e as I taped a smaller bandage over my wrist and slipped my hoody on. I hated the cut and hated even more that I’d have a scar, but at least I had something to show me where I never wanted to go again. The angry red gash kept me just above water.

Lucas left me getting my phone and putting a little make-up on and went to clear our outing with my mum. She’d say yes to him and we both knew we’d have a better chance if I wasn’t there. I couldn’t control my mouth when she questioned what I wanted to do. I felt like everything was an attack or a judgement.

I relaxed further when we were in Luke’s car and on our way. “So how are you gonna get your mum to agree to let you go to the beach?” he asked.

“
I have no idea. Right now she won’t let me go in the garden alone.”

“Do they all know about
what happened?”

“No
, just Kai.” I thought about telling Sophie but I wasn’t sure how she’d react and I couldn’t handle her looking at me like I was made of glass or had gone insane. “I don’t want anyone else to know.”

“Of course,” he replied.

“You know they’ll all be too drunk to realise if they’ve left you at the beach, right?” he said. “Well, except for Holly. She’ll look out for you, won’t she?”

I nodded and h
e seemed happier about me going, not that he shouldn’t. If he was going away with friends I’d tell him to have a good time and have a drink for me.

I didn’t need looking after but I wasn’t in the best position to argue that.
“I’ll be fine but Holly will definitely be looking our for everyone. She’s firmly in mum-mode now.”

We finally pulled up next to Danny’s car and Lucas ran round to open the door for me. I stretched up and kissed him, making him
smile. Lucas and Danny slapped hands. There was some girl here with him, too, but she looked nothing like Barbie. She was pretty, taller than me – but that wasn’t hard – and had hair that I couldn’t decide if it was dark blonde or light brown.

Lucas turned around.
“Annie, hey,” he hugged her and they kissed each other on the cheek. I was pissed off but only by the double standards. Lucas grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. “Tegan, this is Annie.”

“Hi,” I said.

She nodded and replied, “Hey, Tegan.”

“Alright
, race time,” Danny said, bouncing up and down like a child.

He
and Lucas left me with Annie and went to get Danny’s car ready. I could’ve kicked him for leaving me with someone I didn’t know. I smiled up at Annie. “You staying to watch?”

She nodded. “Yeah, let’s make our way over to the wall.” Last time I didn’t sit on one of falling down walls. Two reasons: it was full of half naked women at the time
, and I could barely move through fear.

We hopped up and waited for the race.
“So, how long have you known Lucas?”

“We went to school together
, so a while.”

“I can’t imagine
Luke at school.”

“He was the naughty kid, always getting sent out of class for doing or saying something
wrong,” she said. “He turned into a bit of a ladies’ man in his teenage years. Well, until we got together.” She smiled shyly and her cheeks turned pink. She hadn’t figured me out yet and wasn’t sure if she should’ve said anything.

Most people had a past. Mine was far too colourful for me to get pissed off that Lucas had an ex!
“How long were you together for?”

“
On and off for about a year. I don’t think we were together for longer than about two or three months at a time, though.”

“Hey
, shorty.” Lucas stood in between my legs and kissed me.

“I was just talking to Annie and about to get her to dish the dirt
.”

He looked horrified and
widened his eyes at her. Laughing, she winked at me. Wow, out of all the women here the only one I liked was the one that had actually slept with my boyfriend.

She jumped off the wall
and said over her shoulder. “Back in a minute, just going to wish Danny luck.”

When she was out of earshot, I wrapped my arms around his neck and said,
“So, you didn’t mention she’s an ex.” He groaned, looking uncomfortable. “It’s fine, Luke. You had a life before me and I’m really not that jealous or insecure.”

He nodded and
kissed me. “I’ll talk to your mum for you, get her to agree to you going away. I think it’ll be good for you to have some fun with your friends.”

“
I love you,” I said.

“Love you
, too,” he said before kissing me properly and making my toes curl.
He’s back. We’re back. Finally.

Chapter Forty-Fo
ur

Tegan

I woke up to Lucas, Mum and Ava in my room looking at me. It was creepy and starting the day with a mini heart attack sucked. Mum’s eyes snapped to my wrist and I looked away, shoving my arm under the cover. It didn’t hurt now and the redness was subsiding but it might as well be neon red and glowing. Everyone spotted it and I was feeling really self-conscious.

It’
d been almost two weeks since I got home and no one had left me alone for more than five minutes. And I was counting. Showers were super quick because if I’d been in there longer than a couple minutes someone would knock on the door until I was done.

Having so many people care enough to watch over me was pretty overwhelming but so was
having them standing over me all the time. It was like they were just waiting for me to fuck up again and I was working on making sure I wouldn’t.

Since getting back Mum had also put me on lockdown from school. I was ready to go back and get my life on track again but she didn’t think so. I was giving her one more week and then I was going with or without her blessing. I’d worked hard to catch up once and I already had some work to do. I didn’t want to do it again.

“Morning, honey. Do you want breakfast in bed or downstairs?” I looked at her for a minute. Was that really my mother? “Tegan?” she prompted.

“I’ll come down,” I said, shaking my head. We
weren’t usually allowed to eat upstairs and it bothered me, for the first time ever, that it was an option now. For someone who claimed she wanted everything back to
normal
she wasn’t doing a good job of actually doing it. The only relief I got was when Kai picked me up to take me to his parents’ so I could have my twice-weekly sessions with Melanie. The second I got in his car and shut the door I felt human again rather than a pet project. I was so thankful that I had a session today.

When M
um and Ava walked out I turned to Lucas. “How long have they been in here?”

“Not long.”

Liar.

Sighing, I got out of bed.
“Let’s go eat.” I didn’t need to look around to know he’d be following in a second; he didn’t give me an inch of space.

I slipped a
hoody on before I went downstairs so I wouldn’t have to see Mum get that pained look in her eyes whenever she saw my wrist. Kai texted as I reached the kitchen asking if I wanted to go to Holly’s for a pizza night with the guys tonight. I wanted to, really badly needed some time where I could relax but I wasn’t sure if that’d be allowed.

Taking mugs out of the cupboard for tea and coffee, I swallowed my nerves and turned to Mum.
“Can I go to Holly’s tonight, please?”

“
I don’t think tonight’s a good idea, Tegan.”

“Please
? Just for a couple hours.”

Her lips pressed into a firm line.
“I really don’t think you need to be going to any parties.”

“It’s not a party.
It’s me, Kai, Holly, James, probably Sophie, too, watching a film. No party, I promise. Please, Mum.”

“No
, Tegan.”

I felt like screaming. She was well within her rights to tell me no after everything I
’d done but I was suffocated and I’d never needed anything more than I needed to leave this house for a while. “Okay. Just going to the bathroom,” I said. I had to get away from her for a second and calm down.

“Where are you going?” Lucas asked,
following me out of the kitchen. I turned around. Luke was in front of me and Mum and Ava were watching from the door.

Oh, for fuck sake!

“I’m going to have a shower now since breakfast won’t be ready for a while,” I said as calmly as I could. I turned around and shot a text back to Kai telling him what was going on. Lucas was following me but I didn’t acknowledge him.

I reached my room by the time Kai replied.
‘Sucks. She better let you come next weekend or I’ll have to bust you out!’

Why couldn’t he bust me out now.

Luke followed as I opened my wardrobe to pick out something to wear. He sat on my bed, watching my every move. “You okay?” he asked, breaking the silence. I smiled. I tried hard not to take my frustrations out on him but sometimes it was hard when he wouldn’t even let me shower in peace.

“Fine,” I said,
grabbing some clothes and heading to the bathroom.

I
managed to shower and get dry in peace but just as I was getting dressed I heard a knock on the door. “Tegan?” Lucas called.

I took a deep
, calming breath. “Almost done.”

Well
, he gave me nine minutes. That was a new record. I finally walked back into my room and he was sitting on the end of my bed, looking pretty stressed.

“What time is Kai picking you up?”

“In an hour.”

Luke followed me downstairs and we all ate breakfast together. I tried to make myself smaller so I couldn’t get much attention and when that failed
I asked Ava about this guy she’d mentioned months ago and hoped he was still on the scene so she’d talk about him.

Kai pulled up outside my house and I almost ran out of my room. All me and Luke had done after breakfast was watch TV but it was exhausting. I felt like I had to be extra cheery to convince him I was going to be okay. I wanted to be perfect for my mum, my sister, Lucas, hell, my whole family, but I wasn’t and I struggled with getting my head around what was expected and what I could actually live up to.

Right now I was still a mess, I didn’t quite know how to get things straight
and I was fed up of feeling like I took a step forwards and then nine back.

“
Tegan, Kai’s outside,” Mum said as I came downstairs with Luke.

“Yeah, I just saw his car.”

She stepped in my way as I went to walk past. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry about earlier but I really don’t think you should be in that environment yet.”

“I
appreciate that and I don’t want to be in that environment right now. But it
isn’t
a party.”

“Okay
.” She paused and then added, “After what happened, you need to earn my trust back.”

“I know I do
. Believe me, I do know that but how can I when you don’t give me a chance to? I understand perfectly why it’s hard for you but you have to give me the freedom to prove that I won’t do it again and that I am trying. I’ve barely left this house and there’s someone watching me the whole time. I can’t breathe, Mum, and I certainly can’t show you that I’d never do anything so stupid again when this is how we’re living.”

“You’re right,” she said.
I’m what?
I mean, I knew I was right but I’d never expect her to say it. “You can go for two hours. That’s it.”

“Seriously?
” Two hours felt like two weeks. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Two hours
, Tegan,” she repeated. “Either me or Lucas will take you and pick you up. Okay.” I nodded and squealed. Those terms were perfectly okay with me. The doorbell rang. I kissed Lucas and almost sprinted from the house.

“Hey,”
I said as I kicked the door shut. I grabbed his wrist and pulled him back towards his car.

He laughed at me as I threw myself in his car. Resting his arm on the top of my open door, he said,
“You drunk?”

“Nope
, but I’m coming tonight. I get two hours.”

“
Yeah, that’s great. Your mum’s trying, too. Need me to take you?”

“
Mum or Luke has to.” Kai would have to drive past my house to get to Holly’s but there was no way I was going to question Mum in case she changed her mind.

Melanie ushered me into her study when I got there and Kai went off to find his dad.

“How are you?” she asked as we settled down on her big, sink-right-into-it armchairs.

Every time she asked that I fought the urge to just tell her I was okay.
This was a place I was supposed to be honest. “I’m better than I was last week but everyone is still crowding me.” She tilted her head. “I know, I know. That’s totally all my fault but it’s not helping me move on.”

“Have you considered it might be helping them?”

“Briefly. I can’t see that it would be, though. Sure, right now it might help but by watching me twenty-four-seven they’re not moving forwards.”

“Perhaps it’s a little too soon for your mum to be thinking about moving forwards.”

I hadn’t thought of that, I just assumed we all wanted to move past it right away.

“Maybe. But then where does that leave us?”

“Time, patience and honesty is what’s going to heal this, Tegan.”

I didn’t think very highly of any of those things at the minute.

“She’s letting me go to Holly’s tonight.”

“Well, that’s a big step and it can’t be easy for her.”

“No, I guess not. I want her to trust me.”

“You’re scared you’ll do something that will break that?”

“Yeah. It’s already pretty non-existent and I worry that I’ll snap under the pressure of having Big Brother watching all the time and that’ll be it.”

She leant forwards, tilting her head. “How do you mean?”

Oh God, not her, too. I felt like getting a tattoo of ‘I will never OD again’ on my forehead.

“Not like that. I don’t want to hurt myself or worse. I just mean that I’ll say something or run out.”

“You can control that.”

“See
, there’s the thing, I don’t feel like I can control a lot anymore.”

“You’re more in control of your emotions than you give yourself credit for.”

Alright, sure, I was good, or used to be good, at pushing everything and everyone away but it exploded sometimes. I’d ignore and ignore and ignore and then everything I was shoving away would boil over suddenly and I was left wondering what the hell was going on.

“I don’t know. I’m sick of feeling I’m on a never
-ending rollercoaster.”

“Life is a lot like that. When something happens that’s out of your control it’s not about getting off the rollercoaster but about learning how to ride it and see it through.”

“Only to have it stop and be launched onto a new one. Life sucks.”

She laughed and leant back. “Often it does, yes. But you don’t have to allow it to
suck
forever.”

I nodded. “Learn to ride the rollercoaster. What if I don’t know how to do that?”

“Some things can’t be learnt in a day.”

I was worried that it’d take years.

After my session Kai took me straight home. He was so strict about that. I wanted to hang out for a while but my sessions lasted an hour a time and Mum would question me if I was back
late.

“How was it?” Lucas asked as I flopped down on my bed next to him.
He was laid out on my bed watching a show about really big lorries driving on ice.

“Good.”

He rolled onto his side and traced patterns on my hip. I tried not to let it affect me because he’d been very hands-off recently but I couldn’t help my blood pumping that little bit faster. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I replied breathlessly as his hand dipped a bit lower.
“I love you, Lucas.”

Groaning, he rolled on top of me and his hands and lips were everywhere. For the next hour we
made up for all those nights he laid beside me and didn’t touch me. And when he dropped me off at Holly’s that evening I was feeling a hundred times more positive about the future.

Holly opened the door
and pulled me into a tight hug. I hadn’t seen her in two weeks. “Come in,” she said and pulled me into the house. I checked out her bump, it was so cute.

In the living room
Sophie and Mark were kissing on one of the chair. They didn’t even notice I had walked into the room and no way was I interrupting that face-eat fest to say hi.

James shouted ‘hey’ as he whisked past me to go into the kitchen. “I’ve got him on
drink duty,” Holly said, following him into the kitchen.

Kai looked up at me from the recliner he sat on and gave me a lopsided smile. “Hey,” he said, shifting over and patting the seat. I didn’t need asking twice, I sat down and laid back in the chair.

“Hi.”

“I’m tired and hungry.”

Rolling my eyes, I replied, “Poor you.”

“Kai, order the pizza,” Holly shouted from the kitchen.

Handing him his phone from the side table, I kicked my eyebrow up. “Don’t forget a Hawaiian.”

Sophie let Mark up for air when the pizza arrived. I’d not seen her much either, pretending to have a virus so she wouldn’t come over. Swallowing a bunch of pills, cutting myself and almost dying was something I deeply regretted
and didn’t want everyone to know.