The Glass House (20 page)

I
DIDN
’
T
know where I was going or where I was going to stop. I thought about getting on a train to Brighton. It seemed fitting somehow. Maybe I could smash all the windows in that flat we’d had and feel even better. Except it wasn’t our flat any longer. It would belong to someone else.

I slowed, out of breath, and leaned back against a wall near the train station before sinking to the ground. As soon as I stopped, I immediately felt like crap for running away from Thomas like that. I didn’t even have my phone with me—it was in my schoolbag. I hoped to God he hadn’t tried to follow me. What if he had, though? What if he was in trouble? What if he couldn’t breathe?

What had I just done?

I
HAD
a snapshot in my memory of Trent with his hands on his head, a look of absolute horror on his face. I would keep that forever. I deserved that. But, shit, everything else? I’d kind of calmly lost it. It had felt what could possibly be described as good to trash his car like that, but what if this fucking escalated? What if Trent wanted some sort of revenge? What if he took it out on Corinne or Mum? He had never been calculatedly violent—he and Mum had argued heatedly, but that was all.

I pushed myself up off the ground and went in search of a pay phone.

T
HERE
WAS
a phone booth on the corner of the street. I reversed the charges and called Corinne.

“It’s Sasha,” I said quickly.

“Sasha! What the—”

“Are you okay? Is Thomas okay?” I asked hurriedly.

There was some shouting in the background.

“Thomas is fine. I asked him upstairs, but he said he was going to call his gran and get her to drive around to find you. He was so worried about you. Trent, as you can probably hear, is going spare! What happened, Sasha? Where are you?”

The sun was warm on my back. I turned around in the booth so I could feel the heat of it on my face. I closed my eyes. What happened? I didn’t want it inside me anymore, a sunken dark secret that only weighted me down, kept me low.

“You know you asked me about the teacher? Asked if he….” I kept reminding myself I’d told Thomas—telling someone else would be easier. I could take it slow, take it one word at a time. “You asked if he did something to me, because you said you knew I wasn’t happy.”

Corinne was silent, but I knew she was listening.

“It wasn’t the teacher. It was him. It was Trent.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “Oh my God, Sasha, you mean he…? Oh God, oh God, oh God. I wish I’d known. I would never have had either of them here. I’m sorry, Sasha. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Mum didn’t know,” I said quietly. I still believed that. I had to.

“We should call the police. He can’t get away with it.”

“No,” I said too sharply. My throat burned.
I’m not going to retch. I’m in a public place. I’m not going to retch
, I repeated.

There was a cracked but intact glass bottle under my foot. I rolled it back and forth across the floor of the booth, but I didn’t break it. I concentrated on not breaking it.

“Come home, Sasha. I’ll make sure they’re gone. Please, just come home.”

“Can you do me a favor first?”

“Of course.”

“Can you find Thomas? I don’t have my phone. I think he’s probably picked it up with my bag. Tell him… tell him I love him, and I’ll be back later. Tell him I’m sorry about the exam, but he should go. Make him go. Don’t let him miss it. Please.”

“Shit, your exam, Sasha! I don’t want
you
to miss it,” Corinne said, distressed.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll retake it if I have to.”

I put the phone down and looked around at the sun-soaked street.

The shakiness I normally felt at my core had been replaced by something solid, something that felt surprisingly unbreakable. Perhaps it had always been there, hidden by a fragile glass-like layer of fear that had now been swept away. I was still scared, but I was okay with that. I didn’t know exactly what it was I wanted to do, but I knew what direction I needed to go in. I turned back toward the tower block, the car park, the powder blue Ford with the smashed-in windows and all the shattered glass. Home.

I
PAUSED
at the top of the stairwell. From the volume of the argument coming from the flat, I knew Corinne wasn’t there. She was probably still out looking for Thomas.

The front door was unlocked.

Mum was screaming something that sounded like “What did you do?” over and over, and Trent was roaring “It’s all lies!”

They were in the living room. They didn’t see me at first. Mum was crying as she sat on the sofa, her makeup smeared down her face. Trent knelt on the floor next to her.

“Get out.” I spoke quietly, but they both stopped shouting and stared at me in shock. “Get out,” I repeated. I didn’t look at Mum. I was speaking to Trent. He opened his mouth and closed it again but no words came out.

“Leave the car. You can pick it up tomorrow—”

“It’ll get completely trashed,” Trent cut in.
Whined.

I ignored him.

“If you come within a mile of me, of this place, I’ll make sure you regret it. Leave now.”

“What if I don’t want to leave?” He stood up, but he didn’t step any closer to me. It was a weak challenge, and I was ready for it. Resigned.

“Then I’ll call the police. Do you know what they do in prison to people like you?”

I wasn’t bluffing. If I had to go through the hell of speaking to the police about what he did, I would, because I could see now that having the truth out there was better than having it destroying me from the inside like it had been.

I stepped out of the doorway, and he strode past me without looking back, without saying good-bye to Mum, nothing.

“I think you should leave too,” I said quietly to Mum once Trent had slammed the front door so hard I’m sure residents on the first two floors heard it.

I expected her to tell me this was Corinne’s flat, not mine, and therefore I had no right to ask her to leave. But instead she shakily pushed herself off the sofa and stood up.

“My bag’s in the other room. It’s all I have. I need to pack it up.”

I nodded.

“Is it true?” she asked.

“You think I’m lying?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“This isn’t a conversation I want to be having.”

It felt good to say that. It felt good to be honest and unafraid.

“You’re still my son, Sasha.” She reached for me as she passed. Perhaps she thought she was going to hug me, I didn’t know, but I stepped back, out of her reach.

“I’m not sure I can forgive you yet,” I said. “You need to prove to me that I mean anything to you at all.”

“Why should I have to prove that to
my son
?” She emphasized the words, but that’s all they were, words. Empty ones at that.

“If you want to be a part of my life, it’s going to take more than you showing up on the doorstep after you walked out on me and expecting me to feel good about the fact you’re here. It’s going to take more than you blackmailing my teacher because you thought he turned me gay. I
am
gay.” I swiped my sleeve across my eyes. “It’s not because of what happened to me or
anything
. It’s the way I am. I have a boyfriend, and I’m in love with him. And if you want to be part of my life, you’re going to have to accept that too.”

A muffled cough in the hallway made me look past Mum to Corinne and Thomas. Mum glanced at them too. Corinne smiled at me, her eyes full of tears. Thomas pushed past them both to reach me.

“You okay?” he whispered roughly. His eyes were red, as though he’d been upset, and his hands were shaking, but not quite as badly as mine. Adrenaline was a bitch when it started to wear off.

“I’m okay.” I pulled him into a hug.

Until his arms came around my back, I didn’t realize how much I needed to feel him holding me like this—as if it were necessary, as if this were something we had to do to survive.

“Please don’t ever do that again,” he whispered against my ear.

“What?” Because I doubted I’d ever trash a car like that again. Self-destruction was always going to be more my style.

“Run like that. I was fucking terrified you were going to do something stupid. I knew I couldn’t go after you. I felt so helpless.”

Thomas always was better at articulating his feelings than me. I remembered him lying in my arms on the playing field—I knew what being helpless felt like.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I looked around, expecting Corinne and Mum were in the room, but they weren’t there any longer. Corinne must have decided we needed a little privacy. I brushed my lips against his, expecting to feel a jolt like a flicker of static electricity, but instead what I got was plugged into the mains.

“You’ve got an exam to go to,” I whispered, placing my head back down on his shoulder so my words would be warm breath against his skin. He shivered.

“So have you. We’ve got fifteen minutes or so until it starts. Gran’s downstairs in the car.”

“Are you serious?” After what had just happened, I couldn’t quite believe he was suggesting I go.

“If you don’t go, I’m going to stay with you.”

I lifted my head.

“Are you using emotional blackmail to get me to go to my exam?” I pursed my lips and frowned at him, though I wasn’t being particularly serious.

“No. I’m really not. I’m worried about you,” he said, shaking his head. “I’d rather be somewhere with you.”

God, it was only two hours of my life. I sighed.

“Okay. I’ll go. But I’ve got to do something first.”

T
HERE
HAD
been a reason I didn’t want Trent to take his car.

Before we left for the exam, Thomas and I collected all the glass from beneath my bed, and then we went downstairs to pick up the shattered glass from the windows of the powder blue Ford. Trent had been right, it would get trashed—the kids on the estate would take great pleasure in it. I guessed he was within his rights to call the police and get me arrested for criminal damage. I suspected that would never happen, though.

Corinne watched us from the stairwell. She kept turning her head and pressing her lips together to try not to show how tearful she was.

“Good luck in your exam, Sasha,” she called. And I had to go back in and hug her.

“In nine months you’ve been a better mum to me than she ever was,” I whispered.

T
HE
TEACHER
monitoring the exam gave me a questioning look when I arrived with the plastic carrier bag heavy with glass in my arms, but she stored it under her desk until the exam was over. The exam itself wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. Focusing on the questions in front of me had me not focusing on the morning’s events, and that was a good thing.

“Y
OU
DON
’
T
have to come. You should probably be revising or something,” I said to Thomas as he walked with me to the train station after the exam had finished. Thomas had two exams tomorrow. I had one.

“Nah, exam stress is nothing. You’ve already broken my heart and fixed it back together this morning, so I’m curious as to what else you’re going to do,” Thomas said wryly.

The bag of glass was heavy, but I carried it against my chest all the way to Glass Street. We took the same route Thomas had taken me through the narrow streets of galleries, everywhere just opening up. We saw John Greene’s gallery with the Open sign hung on the door, but I couldn’t see John Greene himself inside—he was probably at a shoot or with one of his models.

I never wanted to be anyone’s model again.

Glass Street was lit up and glittering, just as it had been the last time I was here. I hoped Helen’s “anytime” offer really was genuine.

But when I saw the shutters to Helen’s workshop were down, I was floored by disappointment. I’d come all this way for nothing. Maybe that was a bigger symbol than the one I was trying to create with all this damn glass.

“Wait. I think she’s downstairs,” Thomas said.

As soon as he said it, I heard her bright laughter coming from one of the galleries. Thomas left me on the stairs to find her. But she’d already seen us first.

With her long black glittering coat and high, high heels, I couldn’t get a handle on her style at all. She seemed to wear an eclectic mix of whatever she felt like and still looked amazing.

“Hey, you two. What are you doing here? I thought you had exams this week?”

She wasn’t being unwelcoming—she just said what she meant. I liked that. I knew where I stood.

“We do.”

I sensed she was waiting for a little explanation. I shifted uncomfortably.

Helen eyed my bag.

“I was just going to check on the furnace in the workshop. Want to give me a hand?”

I think she must have known. Perhaps she had a sixth sense for these things, like Thomas seemed to. Perhaps some people really could see through all my defenses, see all my secrets as though they were stored in clear glass jars.

I
DON
’
T
know why I needed to do this. It just seemed right, symbolic. It struck me as a way to make one broken thing—even if it wasn’t the most broken thing—whole.