Three Hundred Words (7 page)

“I can and I will,
but you should be the one to do it, not me.”

He was shaking his
head so much it made me feel queasy and all the colour has dissipated from his
face. Even the healthy glow he always carried after work thanks to his evening
drinking had vanished. “We need to talk about this. Let’s go to the garage.”

I nodded once, not
seeing the point. I didn’t need his excuses or his reasoning. Cheating was
never okay and he had to tell my mother. That was all there was to it.

He shut the door
so there was no chance our voices could be heard. “You saw me?”

“I was out for
Emma’s birthday and yes, I saw you. And now you need to go and tell mum. I’m
not sure what the garage conversation is needed for.”

I could barely
look at him. He’d always just been my dad, doing everything I asked of him and
more.

And now he’d broken
up our family.

It was amazing how
my opinion could change in the space of a few minutes, but it seemed like
everything I’d ever known about him was being turned on its head. He was a
loving husband and dad; we were the happy family that people were jealous of.

“You have to think
about this. It was a mistake and I love your mother.”

“It wasn’t a
mistake, it was pre-meditated. You lied about your fishing trip. Don’t try and
get out of this. Go and face your consequences.”

And the only thing
he could really do was nod. “You should go out,” he pulled his wallet from his
pocket and offered me some money. “Go and get some food with Emma or something,
you don’t want to hear this.”

I really didn’t,
and yet I crawled upstairs and lay in my bed listening to the screaming,
swearing and crying.

My own crying was
silent as I wished I could remove the past month from my life.

Chapter Seven

Today had been the
hardest day of life.

The moment I’d
gotten to school, I’d been met with stares. Luke had obviously told someone,
who’d told someone else, until everyone in the school knew that I’d cheated on
him. We’d never been together at school, Luke hung with his friends and I hung
with Emma, but everybody knew we were together.

Everyone had
always wondered how we’d even started talking. I was the non-entity who barely
spoke a word to anyone and Luke was the swim captain, bringing home the school
trophies.

And so that fact
that I’d been the one to screw him over was certainly big gossip.

I kept my head down
and cursed Emma for choosing today to stay off sick. She’d apologised
profusely, even ringing me up because she knew how cruel it was to be off
school the day after I’d had to cause my parents’ divorce, but she’d been
throwing up all night and she really couldn’t come in.

It turned out it
was even worse than I’d been expecting.

I wasn’t simply
allowed to wallow in the shadows about my life, I had to actively avoid the
people who were talking about me behind my back. And it wasn’t pleasant.

Thankfully, no one
was allowed to talk in the silent study area and that was where I headed,
taking the seat closest to the librarian.

English had been
painful.

I’d kept my head
down all lesson, letting Oscar’s perfect voice wrap around me, but never daring
to look up and meet those green eyes. He could hear the whispers and at want
point he sent two girls on the front row outside for talking whilst he was
lecturing.

Everyone kept
quiet after that and the smile on my face had been miniscule, but I was mostly
just filled with regret.

I imagined what
could have happened if I’d just admitted that I did like him. Maybe after
school today I could have gone to his house and we would have laid and he would
have comforted me and maybe I could have felt like everything might be okay in
the end.

Instead, I sat
here and berated my own stupidity, knowing that if I could actually relive that
moment I would have done exactly the same thing.

He was better than
me and he deserved someone else.

When it came to badminton
practise, I was more than tempted to just leave. One of the girls on our team
went out with one of Luke’s closer friends and so there was no chance of me
having a reprieve.

Actually showing
up at the changing rooms let me know it was going to be even worse than that,
because I hadn’t been picked for the county tournament, they’d been forced into
picking me. The girl who started for the team normally was in the hospital
having her appendix removed. I definitely hadn’t been the first choice and,
paired with the rumours about me cheating, I was practically public badminton
enemy number one.

I shrank away from
the group whilst our coach explained the tournament format and how everything
would work. There wasn’t a lot of time to practise for it, but she assured us
we were good enough to win. We had two weeks and then we’d be playing. Practise
would be every other day.

I wasn’t sure I
could stand to be around my teammates for that much time.

They still didn’t
say anything straight to my face, but their expressions said it all. Sneers
every time I dared raise my gaze from the floor and a constant flood of
whispers about what a bitch I was. They weren’t overly quiet whispers.

Warming up was
fine, but I would have killed for some headphones as we jogged up and down the
sports hall. I could have just ran and blocked everything out – I’d always
found it relatively soothing and decided that, if I ever got a decently paying
job, I’d invest in a treadmill.

Today I just felt
nervous. The urge to just jog straight out the door and hole myself up in bed
for the rest of my life was almost overwhelming. But, I kept my feet moving in
the straight line of the sports hall, my breathing as steady as it could be.

I could do this.
It wasn’t like anyone really
cared
about me or what I’d done. They just
liked to gossip. And I didn’t care about them, I never had done and I shouldn’t
know. It shouldn’t have mattered what they had to say about me, but it did.

When we set up for
drills, my hands felt numb. People were slamming the shuttlecock towards me
with outrageous speed, and I was more uncoordinated than normal, too. It was a
disaster in the making. “There’s no way we’re going to be winning anything if
that’s the best you can do,” my partner for this drill grumbled.

It was no surprise
they felt bad about having to play with me, I really was just average and
everyone else was above the bar. We were a standard school, but one of the
younger kids’ mum was a professional coach and so our performance level had
shot right up. Well, the people with natural talent had shot through the roof,
I was still scraping behind and had been enjoying the casual practises and
getting to play a few matches.

The competitive
setting wasn’t my kind of thing at all.

In game, we
practised against the team of the year below us, and they smashed. I missed
almost every serve and when I dropped my racket, even the girls I was against
couldn’t hold in their sniggers.

I couldn’t deal
with pressure and right now it was being heaped onto my shoulders. The wiping
of my tears was subtle and no one noticed them, but I was beyond glad when
practise was finally over.

I scampered out of
the room before anyone else had even stood up and ignored my coach’s request
for me to stay behind and talk to her.

There was no way I
could play in this tournament. I was average at the best of times, but with all
this shit piling up around me I was playing abysmally. I’d cost them games and
I couldn’t face their angry stares when that happened.

I swiped at my
tears without care, now, sniffling in the most unattractive manner. I’d email
the coach tomorrow and tell her I couldn’t play. They could find someone else,
someone better who they didn’t hate, hopefully. And if not, at least there
would be no real life embarrassment for me. It was the same conclusion whether
I played or didn’t. We’d no doubt lose.

“Lily,” the voice
cut through the silence and I wished I’d got my headphones even more now.
“Wait, I need to talk to you.”

“About what?” I
stopped, even though I longed to do anything but, and prayed that none of the
other girls walked this way. I didn’t want to see their reactions if they saw
me talking to Luke now.

“I have to
apologise,” he scratched the back of his head and took in my tear stained face.
Why he thought he had anything to be sorry about was beyond me – that just
showed how much of a better person he was than me, I supposed. “I only told one
person and it just spread. I thought it was implied that I didn’t want him to
tell anyone, but I’m just so sorry it’s all happened.”

“It’s not your
fault. And besides, it’s the truth so what does it matter?”

Luke still looked
like he was beating himself up about it. My broken expression probably wasn’t
helping, even if I was trying desperately to reign it in. “And I shouldn’t have
left you to walk home on Saturday night, it wasn’t fair. Look, I’m sorry about how
all this has gone, I wanted you to know that.”

I stared at him,
mouth practically agape. “What are you
talking
about? You should hate
me.
I
hate me. I did the shittiest thing known to man,
why are you
apologising
?” I wanted to sob, but instead my voice just cracked
periodically. “Look, please don’t say sorry to me when I’m a complete bitch. I
just want you to move on with your life and not talk to me again. Just go and
be happy.”

“I was happy with
you,” Luke fired back instantly. “I was really happy with you.”

“You can be happy
with someone else who’s far better than I am.”

“I’d give you a
second chance, you know, if you wanted it. I think, well, I was going to tell
you I loved you and then all this happened and I just feel like we’re still
young and we could get past this, you know? People cheat early on in their
relationships all the time and it works out in the end.”

“No.” It hadn’t
meant to come out quite that blunt, but I shook my head profusely. “No, I
can’t. Our relationship really just wasn’t working for me, that’s why I cheated
in the first place. I do like you, Luke, but we need to just go our separate
ways.”

Being in a
relationship with someone when I spent all my time pining after someone else
wasn’t going to work. Because I did like Luke, we got on great, but he was a
friend not a boyfriend. Of course that was impossible now, but in another lifetime
me, him and Emma would have been the perfect trio.

Now, I had to be
the dickhead that turned him down because I’d fallen for a guy I could never
have.

Luke didn’t look
overly surprised by my response, and I supposed that was a good thing. “Who is
it?” He asked instead, folding his arms against the cold wind and staring me
down. He was miserable and I wished there was a good answer I could give him.

“You don’t know
them.”

“I want a name.”

I stared at him,
somehow forgetting that this kind of confrontation was inevitable. I hadn’t planned
out anything when I’d shouted at him that I cheated on Saturday night. Had
forgotten that the most sensible option was to sit down and explain that I
didn’t think we were compatible, rather than telling him the truth.

Now I had to
answer this question without drawing any suspicion towards Mr. Lane. Not that
there should have been any, really. Aside from Saturday night we’d never spoken
a word to each other in a public setting. “You don’t need a name. Why does it
even matter if you don’t know him?”

“I just… have to
know.”

“No, I’m worried
you’d do something to hurt him,” that seemed as good an excuse as any. And Luke
could never make me tell him, anyway. Footsteps and light chatter reached my
ears and that was my cue to leave. “I really have to go Luke, I’m so sorry it
all worked out like this. I really never meant it to, at all.”

Luke was angry
about my refusal to tell him, but he at least had the decency to let me go
before the girls reached us. “I’ll see you around then, I guess.”

“See you around.”

I left the scene
with a heavy heart, once again having to shove the thought of going to Mr.
Lane’s house from my brain.

I got as far as
opening the text message with his name on before kicking myself out of it.

I could be alone
and I could be fine about it… eventually.