Chapter 8

Tuesday

Marissa

Sometimes you just need someone that understands it all, you know. My mother got me into this, but she knows why it all happened in the first place, she knows it all. We don't have secrets, just differences of opinion, so I talked to her about it.

"Better day?" she asked, as I got into the car.

"Yes and no." I admitted. "Nothing quite so obviously confrontational."

"Is that the yes, or the no?" she smiled — that was risqué for my mother, I promise you.

"That's the yes."

"Ah... so what was the 'no'?"

"Alban."

"Did he... try..."

"No, he was... he was great."

"Oh, that bad." My mother failed to hide her obvious amusement. "It's not good. I don't... I can't..."

"You can. You won't, that's what I'm trying to knock out of you this week."

"He won't, either."

"Doesn't he like you?"

"I think he does."

"So why wouldn't he? You're bright, you're young, you're attractive..."

"I don't know why. It doesn't matter, I can't either."

"The only thing stopping you is you..."

"Mum, we've talked about this. It was my mistake, I have to live with the consequences..."

"Now you're feeling guilty because you mean we have to..."

"Maybe." I admitted... I had to look out the window at that point.

"Look, when you're dad left there were lots of things going on. You didn't make hi..."

"I didn't help. I certainly couldn't make him stay. I... I contributed."

"So having ruined my life now you're going to ruin yours?" She didn't mean it, I know she didn't. You know how people say something that they think is totally ridiculous to try and get you to see how stupid it is? That's what she was doing. She failed... it's true, I did ruin her life. She had me late in life, something of a surprise. She stayed home, looked after her little girl, left work to be a mum.

Dad didn't like that, didn't like having his life changed like that, and it just wore him down. I wore him down... he left just before I was fifteen. We still hear from him, now and again. He sends money, but there are two houses to keep now, two sets of lives. That's why mum has to go out and work.

"Fair's fair." I managed, through the tears, staring out the window, watching the world go by.

"Oh, honey, how many times do we have to go over this? My husband walked out on me, not on you."

"But he walked out because of me."

"If you don't stop this you're going to be as old as I am before you know it, without even the memories I have... you have to live your life, Marissa." We all get what we deserve, in the end.

Alban

Sometimes you just need someone that understands. That's what friends and family are for, right? Somewhere to go when it's all dark and lonely, when you've done stupid or the world tries to cut your legs out from under you. That must be great, to be able to do that.

Tuesday night I just felt like the whole world was waiting around the corner, wielding a scythe with my name on it. I liked her, I can admit that. I'd liked Issy, a little, when she'd asked, but it had been easy to turn her down. Which isn't to say I took it lightly, you understand. I tried to be nice, tried to make her understand that it wasn't that she wasn't good enough of anything, just that I didn't think it'd work.

Same with Pete, though in a different way. I like Pete, but I don't like him, you know.

So what was different this time?

With Issy it had been easy, in a way — she was genuinely better off without me, and I would have been too guilt-ridden at getting her dragged into my life to have enjoyed anything anway. This time... I think I actually like Marissa enough that pushing her away hurt more than the guilt did. It's all maths, in the end, one of Connor's 'delicate balancing acts of algebraic precision and harmony' — did I like her more than the guilt made me feel bad.

I called it 'enlightened self-interest', that idea that everyone does what makes them feel good. It's not, it's selfishness.

I can't unload that on someone else. I'd love to have a friend to talk to, love to have someone I could call up or call in on, drop this on them and say 'help'. I can't, no-one deserves that sort of responsibility, no-one I know's done anything that bad.

Except me. Maybe I deserve this too? We all get what we deserve, in the end.

Kelly

Sometimes you just need someone that understands. But to understand you have to have been there, you know? Even if I sent everyone in my school out with patches over their eyes, they've still got the memories of seeing, still got the hope — a good hope, for them — that they'll see again at the end of the day. Now, I know there are worse things, really there are. There's a deaf girl in one of the lower years, stone-cold deaf. That must be awful — at least I can talk to people. We communicate in sounds, mainly — we modify what we say with body-language and things, but the core of the communication is audial.