The Glass House (19 page)

His face actually flushed an even deeper shade as he said this, and I wondered what on earth it was he’d told her.

Steam erupted from a water bucket as Helen cooled the glass she’d just worked. The sound startled us.

“Hi,” she said as she strode toward us. She held out her hand to me. If I’d had to choose a single word to describe her, it would have been
confident
. “I’m Helen, and you must be….” She cocked her head. Her mouth on the edge of a smile. “Sasha? Am I right?”

“Yeah.” I shook her hand. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

I meant it.

If Helen had done all this glass work, she was amazingly talented, and I was in awe.

Beside me Thomas was still blushing furiously as he stared at the floor. I was beginning to think dark pink might be his permanent skin color.

“I’ve heard good things about you, Sasha. Great things, in fact. I was hoping Thomas would bring you down. I’ve finished for the day, and I’m just going to make some tea. Would you both like something to drink?”

Helen drew down the shutters, closing the workshop, and we sat around a small table near the bauble room drinking sweet, milky tea out of heavily chipped mugs.

“So how do you like Glass Street, Sasha?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thomas said he thought you’d like it.” She pursed her lips and looked at Thomas knowingly, as though they were sharing a private joke.

“I might’ve gushed a bit about you,” Thomas mumbled.

Helen laughed. She must have been in her forties, but she suddenly looked years younger. “I think he likes you, Sasha,” she said with a wink and took a sip of tea.

Something about her made me feel at ease. Like Thomas made me feel at ease. As though I knew I could speak my mind because the truth was welcome here.

“Oh, I know he likes me.” I nudged Thomas so hard his tea sloshed. “I kinda like him too.”

Helen laughed. “You make a beautiful couple, you know. I’m really happy you both dropped by. Having two gorgeous young men to drink tea with before I go home for the evening has made my day. Would you like me to show you around the studio?”

G
OD
, I
was pathetically in absolute awe of everything she showed me. I wasn’t faking it. I had no idea what she must have thought of me.

School had none of the tools Helen showed me. I’d never blown glass. I’d taught myself lampworking on a tiny scale for Thomas’s necklace. I wanted to try everything.

Thomas trailed behind us, more interested in the pieces of finished art than the processes.

“Did you always want to work with glass?” I asked.

“No. At your age I didn’t even consider it. I wasn’t particularly interested in art.” Helen turned to face me, evening light framing her body, outlining her with a brilliant halo. Her expression became suddenly serious. “Want to hear a story?”

Leaning against the table behind me, I nodded. Thomas stepped up close and stroked my fingers with his. I twined our fingers together. It felt safe to do that here, and it felt so good to show someone, a stranger almost, that we were together, that I wanted him like I wanted no one else.

“I was on the street at your age—ran away from a bit of a crap situation at home.” Helen smiled tightly. The admission seemed to be something that still affected her, and for a second she paused, swallowed.

“It was a pretty low time for me, but luckily a homeless charity found me a place on one of their schemes. It got me off the streets, and to be honest they saved my skin, though I still had a few problems.”

This time when she smiled, it was a little brighter.

“I had some counseling, and it was decided I might benefit from an art therapy course. And that, guys, was the turning point in my life.”

Now her eyes lit up, sharp and bright as the sun
surrounding her.

“The sessions focused on different mediums—drawing, sculpting… but I discovered a real feeling for glasswork. I’d never had any particular flair at school. I wasn’t an academic success as a kid, but when I began working with glass, nothing had ever felt so right. One of the founding members of this place, Michael Shaw, saw my work at a gala evening the Charity held and he encouraged me to go to college. He even mentored me through an art foundation course, though I’d not finished school. He believed in me because I’d shown him I could work hard, and I know without that belief and without him, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”

She held up her hands and grinned, and though her eyes flicked between us, I knew she was focusing her attention on me.

“I run an art therapy course myself now, for the same shelter. If I get to make the difference to one kid like the difference art made to me, then that’s it, you know. Meaning, purpose, all the success you could ever want.”

Helen kept looking right at me. Perhaps she could see how her story affected me.

It was too much. I looked away.

The old squares of Victorian glass that still remained in the window panes weren’t perfectly hewn like modern glass and cast strange shadows about the room. I could study the way the surface of each pane was crosshatched and wavy and different from every other all day.

“You’re very welcome to come back and use some of this equipment, Sasha,” she said sincerely.

“Thanks,” I said shrugging awkwardly. I’d loved talking to her and seeing this place, but now it was getting to be just a little too much. I needed some space to think about what she’d said and why it felt a little too close to the bones of my own life.

“We’d best get going,” Thomas said.

I was so glad he was with me, so glad he could read me as though my stupid behavior was just words on a page instead of the indecipherable scribbles I imagined it would look like in my head.

“It was great to see you, Thomas, and anytime, Sasha,” Helen repeated as she lifted the shutter for us to get out.

“I’
M
GLAD
you liked Helen,” Thomas said as we sat squashed together on the train home.

For once I was glad the train was busy—because it meant this, it meant Thomas’s warmth pressed against my side.

I wanted to ask him how he knew me so well. At what point I’d become so easy for him to understand. Had I always been that way? Was that why he’d never given up on me? But it wasn’t really important. What was important was that he did.

D
AYS
PASSED
,
and exam week approached. I didn’t return home, but I didn’t miss another day of school either.

The day of our first exam, I awoke to the sound of rain. Blue light was leaking through Thomas’s curtains—it was barely dawn, the world still more shadow than shine. I checked the time and decided if I got up to take a quiet shower, it would be okay. Thomas could be a deep sleeper and only rolled sleepily away from me as I eased out from beneath his arm.

Corinne had dropped my school clothes and books around while we were in London, and I was downstairs, dressed, and eating breakfast by the time I heard Thomas moving around.

With a curious smile, he sat down at the kitchen table, but he didn’t say anything. His gran often got up later, and we didn’t see her in the mornings.

Before we left his house, he hugged me in the hallway.

“I hate not being able to do this at school,” Thomas whispered, taking a deep breath. “Sometimes I just want to touch you and I know I can’t and it’s unbearable.”

“Jessica Cassidy figured out we were together that day on the playing field, you know. Other people might have figured it out by now.”

“Are we… an item, then?” Thomas asked tentatively, leaning back to look at my face.

I was in love with him. I’d been sleeping in his bed, I’d never had a closer friend, and we did sex stuff together, and I got crazily jealous if I thought about Thomas doing sex stuff with anyone else. I shook my head and said, so he didn’t take it the wrong way, “An item? What does being an item even mean? You’re my boyfriend and I love you.”

He smiled, and it was as if all the light in the world was shining out of him. There was still nothing that beat the feeling of knowing I’d made him smile like that.

“And if everyone at school finds out?” he said.

“I don’t care about them knowing. I just don’t want anyone to hurt you because of it.”

C
ORINNE
HAD
brought most of my books over, but there were a couple still in my room that I needed to drop back to school. Thomas was going to go into the flat to get them for me while I waited, out of sight, in the stairwell.

We walked across the car park to the tower block, the sunlight bright, glittering off all the cars.

I think that’s why I didn’t notice him at first. I was blinded by the light, by Thomas’s warmth by my side.

“Hey, Sasha!”

I stopped, my gut clenched with dread.

I knew that nasally voice.

I turned.

Trent Blake was standing about ten meters away, next to a powder blue Ford Escort.

His
powder blue Ford Escort. Oh God, that
car
. Bizarre as it seemed, I hardly looked at him—it was the fucking car that caused the world to heave and spin off its axis.

I knew that car.

I knew the smell of the ridged backseats as my face was pressed against them. They looked like brown leather, but they were just dirty plastic. I knew the brakes squealed and the left-hand back door didn’t always open because the lock was sticky. I knew he had a set of false plates stored under a blanket in the boot if he needed them. He loved that car, and yet after all these years, I couldn’t believe he still had the same one. That it wasn’t as fucking broken as I was. That it was
there
, clean and shining in the fucking sunlight, like some poor kid hadn’t lost his innocence inside it.

“I thought I would have seen you by now, Sasha,” Trent Blake said.

He’d moved closer.

I could hardly hear what he was saying over the roar in my head. My body seemed to be chanting
No no no no
.

His dirty blond hair was receding at the temples. A crooked smile hid his yellow teeth. When I was twelve, I’d thought he was tall and strong, but he wasn’t. He was scrawny, and I was taller. I wasn’t some kid he could lie to and manipulate, some kid whose arm might be made to snap painfully behind his back if it was twisted too far.

I don’t want to hurt you, Sasha. Please don’t make me hurt you
, he’d say.

“Corinne says you’ve been hiding away at a friend’s. Is this your friend?”

No no no no no.

He held out his hand to Thomas.

“Hi, I’m Trent,” he said.

I thought I was going to retch, but I didn’t. I tried to yell
Don’t fucking touch him
. But I’d locked up, and all I could feel myself doing was rocking backward and forward on my toes, a buildup of energy swelling inside me.

I’m not afraid of you
, I thought with clarity as sharp as the glass lying on the ground
. I’m not scared of what you’ll do. I’m not scared of seeing you.

What I was afraid of was me. Of my emotions being too big to contain.

I knew Thomas was watching me, that he was more concerned with my lack of outward reaction than Trent Blake’s hand, which he was ignoring.

“Sash?” Thomas said gently.

The light shifted, shadows fell on us, clouds obscured the sun.

Trent Blake could see something was wrong. He backed away.

I closed my eyes and focused on Thomas, on his nearness, on knowing he was there for me. He’d promised he would always be there for me, whatever happened, whatever
had
happened, and I was starting to believe it.

“It’s him,” I said quietly, though I was strangely disconnected from the words. From everything. I wanted to introduce him properly with full descriptive phrases like
fucking scum
, but all I could manage was “Trent Blake. Mum’s ex-boyfriend.”

How could this man fucking dare speak to me again? How could he fucking dare come within a hundred meters of me? I wanted to destroy something, like he had destroyed me. Because I didn’t want this inside me anymore. This hurt. This anger. All this
feeling
.

There was no noise but the high-pitched whine, loud as a car alarm, in my head. Slowly I opened my eyes. One of the cars next to us had half a brick propped under the back wheel to stop it rolling in bad weather. I dropped my schoolbag and scooped the brick up off the ground.

I wasn’t even thinking. My mind was a glorious blank as I strode past Trent Blake and straight to the fucking blue Escort. I lifted the brick and with all the strength left in my whole body, I brought it down on the windscreen. Fractures rippled across its surface, but it didn’t shatter, so I slammed the brick down again and again, and then I marched around the sides of the car and smashed every single fucking window. They shattered beautifully. Glass rained down all over the car park, all over my feet, all over my hands. I’d never smashed anything before. It was a startling relief.

Someone’s hand tried to touch me, but I shoved them violently off.

Then I dropped the brick and without looking anywhere but straight ahead, I ran.

I didn’t run because I thought I’d done something wrong. I didn’t run because I was afraid. I ran because I didn’t want the anger, the rage that had flowed so cleanly through me to touch me again. I ran because for a few seconds after I’d smashed those windows, I felt free.