The Deepest Cut (17 page)

Dad turned to me. ‘Adam, I don't know how you feel about this, but I was going to ask Jackie to move in with us.'

Even though I could have predicted it, it still felt like I'd been punched in the stomach and winded. My jaw clenched and my lips tightened. David was watching me really closely.

‘I think we could use a woman around, you know?' Dad said.

I reckoned she'd already got her feet under the table. She'd been itching to for years.

‘Who is Jackie?' David asked. He knew who Jackie was, he'd read it in my pad. I looked at him, confused. He checked Dad wasn't looking, and gave me a nod, and a little wink.

‘Jackie is my girlfriend,' Dad said. He was gazing at me. I stared him out. A proper stand-off.

‘How long have you been in a relationship with Jackie?' David asked.

‘Quite a while, years,' Dad said.

‘Adam?' David was waiting for a reaction. He knew how I felt about her.

My legs were bobbing up and down furiously. The anger was there, in my body, shooting around through my veins at a million miles an hour, looking for an exit to explode out of.

No way did I want her there. It was bad enough that I had to go back there at all, let alone to her pretending to be wifey and mummy, but there was nothing I could do about it. It wasn't my house, it wasn't my decision.

I swung my legs around and stood up. I stormed off across the grounds, with David probably pissing his pants with worry that I was going to escape through a bush and out into the big wide world.

He chased after me, Dad after him.

I got back to the doors to our wing. They were locked. There was a buzzer on the door next to the key code thing. There were three wards listed on there, but I had no idea which one was mine.

I pushed all three buttons as they came up behind me.

My dad was huffing and puffing and red in the face.

‘Come on then, Adam, let's get back upstairs and calm down,' David said.

As soon as the door was open, I took the stairs two at a time, leaving them behind again. At the main door for our ward, I got stuck, because of the other door-entry thing but luckily Josie was just walking past. She waved down the nurse at the station who buzzed me in.

‘You OK?' Josie asked.

I ignored her. I didn't want her talking to me. I didn't want anyone speaking to me, touching me, trying to make me laugh or telling me to play pool. I wanted everyone to leave me alone.

So my dad's only reason for coming in to see me was to tell me about Jackie. He wasn't there to offer me any support. He was meant to be there for me and love me but he had only come to get my approval to move that slapper into my mum's bed.

‘Adam?' Josie called after me.

I kept walking, head down, straight into my room.

I sat down on my bed and rocked. The anger was still there, still flying through my veins, and I was trying to control it but I was raging at the thought of how selfish he was.

I hate him.

‘Adam,' David poked his head round the door. ‘How are you feeling?'

I didn't look at him.

‘Would you like something to help calm you down?'

‘Is he OK?' I heard Josie's voice.

‘Not now, Josie. Go back to the rec area, please, this doesn't involve you.'

I sat on my bed, breathing deeply. I looked down at the floor because if I looked up, Dad might still have been there and, if I saw him, I would have launched myself at him, and hit him, or something.

‘Adam, I think your dad wants to say something. Can he come in?' David was still there, watching me sway back and forth.

‘Adam,' Dad's voice came out from the doorway. I looked at the floor and put my fingers in my ears. ‘I'm sorry. I just don't know how to handle any of this. I don't know what it is you need or want from me, and you're not talking. If you were talking–'

I got up and pushed past him. I stormed across the corridor and went in to the shower room. I couldn't believe he'd just turned it round on me. If I was talking, he could what? Ignore everything I say anyway, because that's all he ever did.

There was a knock on the door.

‘I'm going to go now,' Dad said.

Good. I didn't want to see him ever again.

He had never been a dad to me, so there was no point in pretending now.

Any hope I'd had after seeing Polly the day before had gone, along with any thought that I might have been getting better. I was back to where I started. Even the comfort of my emotions being numbed had disappeared and all I felt was anger. Anger at everyone for forcing me to try and get better when all I wanted was to die.

I had to get out of there. As soon as I was certain Dad had gone, I went back into my bedroom and picked up my pad and started writing so quickly and so furiously, it made my hand ache.

I let go of Polly's hand and opened my front door. I walked in first. The place was empty and quiet; Dad was out, thank God. I knew he'd embarrass me, maybe enough for Polly to change her mind, regret holding my hand all the way home and run all the way back to hers, screaming her head off.

‘Smells funny in here,' she turned up her nose.

Oh God.

‘Stale booze and fags?' I asked, and she nodded.

I hadn't been home for ages and the place was a tip. Even if housework had been a skill of my dad's, he was never here to do any.

‘I'd offer you tea, but there won't be any milk,' I said. I grabbed a can of air freshener and took Polly straight up to my room.

‘Don't worry,' she smiled.

I leant across her and opened my bedroom door and, as soon as she was in, I opened the curtains and the window and sprayed some of the air freshener about.

‘Better?' I asked.

She stood in the space between the door and my bed and looked around. There wasn't much to see, just my furniture, a few books, my ancient TV …

‘Do you play?' She asked, picking up my guitar.

‘A bit,' I said. ‘There's a string broken, so not really anymore.'

‘Why don't you get a new one?' She asked.

I shrugged. She wiped the dust off the guitar with the sleeve of her jacket, and started randomly strumming.

‘Do you play?'

She looked at me and laughed. ‘Does it sound like it?'

She put the guitar back and looked around the room again.

I took off my coat, took hers, and put the TV on. I wished it smelt nicer, was more homely, or at least that I could have made her a cup of tea.

‘Sorry,' I said, as I hung our coats up on the back of the door.

‘For what?'

‘The state of this place. It's not exactly welcoming, is it?'

‘I'm here to see you, Ads, not judge your house.'

She picked up one of the photo frames from my bedside table and laughed right from her belly. ‘Is this you and Jake?' she shrieked. ‘How old were you both?'

I loved that picture. ‘It was taken on Jake's tenth birthday.' I sat down next to her and leant over to see it. ‘He was meant to have a big bowling party but it snowed really badly. We basically ended up in the garden having snowball fights.'

‘And making epic snowmen,' she said, touching the picture. Between Jake and I was our snowman. He'd taken us almost all day to build and he was huge, taller than we were.

‘We named him Bobski,' I said. I looked at the photo, at Jake and I wrapped up in our coats, hats, scarves, and gloves, with huge smiles on our faces. I couldn't help but smile.

‘What happened to Bobski?' Polly asked.

‘He melted,' I laughed.

‘So sad,' she said, pretending to wipe away a tear. ‘I hope he's happy in snowman heaven.'

‘After that picture was taken, Jake thought it'd be a really good idea to bobsleigh down the stairs in one of Debbie's washing baskets.'

‘Noooooo, did he hurt himself?'

‘Cracked his head open, blood everywhere.'

‘What did you do?'

‘I cried.'

She put her head on my shoulder, laughing. ‘That's brilliant,' she said.

She put the photo back and picked up the one next to it. ‘This is your mum, isn't it?' She asked.

I nodded.

‘I know that because you look like her.' Her smile took away the sadness that was creeping up my throat. She held the picture up to the side of my head. ‘Spitting image,' she said. Then she placed it back gently and perfectly.

Things were getting pretty intense. I was probably going to have to kiss her soon and I was really nervous about it. I'd never kissed anyone before. I stood up and pretended to wipe a bit of dust off my chest of drawers.

‘How's Nathan being?' She shuffled back onto my bed a bit and crossed her legs.

‘Bit of an idiot still,' I said. ‘He was being a dick while we were making the mince pies today. He shoved me out and was trying to get Jake to agree to go out with that Sarah's mate.'

‘Lucy?'

‘Yeah.'

‘That's crap. Danny'll get bored of him soon. Then he'll be back with his tail between his legs. Trust me.'

‘I hope so,' I said, and I really did. I sat on the floor and picked up my guitar.

‘It'll be OK,' Polly said.

I shrugged. ‘Thing is, I can see he might have been pissed off with us, but dumping us for Danny like that. And … this thing with Lucy and Jake–'

‘You're worried he's going to take Jake away, too?'

I nodded.

‘That's never going to happen.'

I couldn't make sense of the new Nathan. All I could do was cling to the hope that both Ed and Polly were right, and Danny would get bored of him, and then everything could go back to how it was before.

Polly cleared her throat.

I looked up at her.

‘Am I going to have to come down there or what?'

‘Huh?'

She slid down onto the floor next to me, took my guitar, put it gently to the side, then wrestled me on to my back.

Then she was straddling me, pinning my hands down above my head, her face inches from mine.

‘I have to warn you, I've never kissed anyone before; I might be shit at it,' she said.

I smiled. I smiled because her blatant honesty took all my nervousness away.

‘Neither have I,' I whispered as she leant in closer.

‘Good, then we'll have nothing to compare it to, as far as we know, we're the best kissers in the entire universe.'

She was still smiling as her lips touched mine.

‘Whoa, look who looks like the cat who's got the cream?' Jake said as I strode towards them with a mouth full of chips.

Even though it was only the afternoon, it was almost dark already. The streetlights in the park had just flicked on. The cold was biting my neck. I was going to have to convince them both to go back to Jake's. I was freezing. It was OK for them in their big jackets and beanies.

‘And we've not seen him for all of Thursday night, all day Friday and half of Saturday. Does that mean what we think it means?' Nathan asked.

I sat down on the bench next to them and completely ignored the fact they were both staring at me. I just carried on eating my chips. While grinning.

‘Spill,' Jake said, taking my chips off me and giving them to Nathan.

‘Oi, that's my breakfast, lunch, and dinner,' I said.

‘And you can have it back when you give us the gory details,' Nathan asked.

‘Nice to see you here at the weekend, and not off with your boyfriend Danny,' I stuck my middle finger up at him.

‘Oooooooh, the sex has made him all cocky and shit,' he said.

‘For your information, I have not had sex with her,' I said, taking my chips back from him.

‘Liar,' he said.

Jake looked me square in the eyes, took my wrist, and felt for my pulse.

‘What are you doing?' I asked.

‘He's checking to see if you're still alive, you know, like an alive, breathing, human who actually wants to have sex, and not some sort of frigid corpse.'

‘I'm not, actually,' Jake said. ‘I'm checking to see if he's lying. I saw a programme about how people's pulses change, like go faster I think, when they're lying … You're not lying, are you?'

‘Nope,' I said.

‘Then if you haven't been in bed with her for two whole days, where the hell have you been?'

‘Well, Thursday night we went round to the shop, got some tea, milk, and biscuits, and sat talking–'

‘Talking?' Nathan spat.

I ignored him and carried on. ‘Yesterday we bailed on school, with it being the last day of term, and we went to that park. We were gonna get out one of those pedalo things but they don't do them in the winter, then it started raining; so we ended up huddled under that bandstand thing holding hot cups of tea I bought us from the tea hut–'

‘How romantic,' Nathan laughed.

‘Then when we got back, we chilled at hers, listening to music and stuff. This morning, I've been asleep.' I grabbed the last few chips out my box and shoved them in my mouth.

‘And there was no shagging, at any point?' Jake asked.

‘Nope.'

‘Look into my eyes,' he grabbed my head and turned it round to his.

‘Nope,' I said again.

‘So you, like, dated her?' Nathan asked.

‘I'm aware of the fact that being a gentleman might be a bit of an alien concept to you, Nathan, owing to your current attitude problem but, yes, that is exactly what I did.' I smirked at him.