Ethans Fal (47 page)

“I know, but it won’t, I won’t let it. I know how important-” I don’t finish because he huffs in frustration. I reach my hand to his cheek, his smooth skin hidden beneath his evening stubble. I try to ease his tension and get a smile from his lips by covering them with my own. I am bolder with him now and the tender touch is quickly consumed with pent up passion that is slowly destroying me and driving me insane. I turned sixteen at the end of the summer, it’s nearly Christmas and he is almost seventeen. I kind of thought he would be just as eager as me to experience each other in a way we had promised. I had the briefest meltdown when I thought that at best he had the patience of a saint or at worst he just didn’t think of me that way. I was very wrong on both counts and he assured me he thought of me like that every second of every day, but he wanted to wait. He wanted to make sure I was ready and not just because I had reached a legal age and I know he knew I
was,
but he also wanted it to be perfect. He had saved his wages over the months and had bought the raw materials to fashion a unique promise ring. A smooth band of silver looped in a heart, which was beautifully distorted to look like the symbol for infinity, and had two shiny blue stones set where the metal crossed. He gave this to me on my birthday, his promise to me, and I was so ready to give myself to him as my promise to him. This weekend he was moving into his own place and had a special day planned. With no expense spared he promised, but said we would play the rest by ear, adding that he’d had enough self-restraint to last him a life time.

He groans against my lips and I can feel his smile against my mouth as he pushes my shoulder back trying to break away, but I stretch my neck to try and keep the sweet contact a little longer. I let out a heavy sigh and mourn the loss of warmth when he finally succeeds with the separation.

“I’ll meet you after college tomorrow, now go get some sleep so you can study hard.” He kisses me once more, but with tight lips. It’s a definitive dismissal and I pout, but he laughs and shakes his head at his own personal struggle to leave.

“I can’t wait for the weekend,” I whisper and grin when I hear him draw in a sharp breath.

He flashes his bright white smile, “Why? What’s happening…Ow!” He grips his ribs as I retrieve my finger from jabbing it in his side.

“You’re an idiot!” I try to hold my narrowed eyed scowl but end up laughing with him. He steps back to me his body all hard heat and muscle. He cups my face, his mint fresh breath kisses my skin when he whispers back, “Me too,” and with one last kiss he starts to walk backwards down the path.

“I saved for this because although I know it’s just for one day, I want it to be special. I want to treat you like a princess.” His eyes are darker now because his face is in the shadow of moonlight, but I can feel his fire.

“It better not be just for one day.” I choose to misinterpret his meaning and am rewarded with a deep laugh as he chooses to misinterpret me.

“Well, in that case I’m gonna need a second and third job, princess.” He quips.

“Dumb-ass” I call after him. It’s not about the money, he treats me like a princess every day, but I’ll wait for him because as crazy as I might think it is, it’s important to him. It was the worst choice.

Today

“OH GOOD GOD
, Bets, what are you wearing?” Sofia practically screams at me as she bounds into my bedroom only to freeze with a look of complete horror on her face.

“What?” I ask with genuine surprise as I look down at my ensemble.

“I’m supposed to be a ‘mature student’ remember?”

Sofia has been my best friend since college. She sat next to me at the induction meeting and within five minutes of break time I knew everything. She told me she had recently moved to the area, had four brothers, many many more cousins and worked in one of her families’ restaurants. She loved dancing, loved drinking more though, and she had a small angel tattooed on her butt that would have her shipped to the mountains of Italy if her father was ever to find out. We were both aged sixteen starting college and since John had decided not to go the college route, I was grateful she decided we would be friends. I had only known her four years, but the events of that time irrevocably changed my life, and Sofia, her brother, and her family were my lifeline and I couldn’t repay their kindness if I had a thousand lifetimes. I immediately liked her openness and quickly fell in love with her energy for life, her confidence but above all her honesty. This is why I had asked for her assistance in creating the ‘appropriate’ first impression for my first day at University.

“Well yes, but mature doesn’t mean dead. I’m pretty sure my Aunt was wearing the same outfit when she was buried and that was eight years ago! You haven’t been digging have you?” Sofia giggles but abruptly stops when she sees my expression has quickly changed from confused to worried, and that really wasn’t what she had intended with her little joke.

“Besides,” she gently adds. “‘Technically’ a mature student is defined as aged twenty five and over remember and what age are you supposed to be?”

“Twenty five, or so it says on my recently doctored and scanned birth certificate.” I smile as I wave the documents I have to take for registration today. I can’t think of a time when I thought I would be thankful to my sister. In fact, I can’t think of her at all without grinding my teeth to the point of inducing a mind numbing headache, which is why I don’t think of her at all. I have not thought about her for years, not since the day she died. She didn’t die, but she was dead to me. She’d wanted a clean slate; hers was dirty I was sure of it, not just her reputation, her juvenile record for theft and drug dealing, but I always just got the sense she was hiding more. I gave up caring what that was when she stole all the money from the sale of our home and left me to pick up the tab for our mother’s on-going health care. Our mum was diagnosed with Alzheimers’ when I was fourteen, but she’d deteriorated rapidly and when I was sixteen, Kit and I made the decision to sell the house. I had found a nice care facility, the sale would mostly pay for, and between us we could make up the rest. Kit had Power of Attorney and ultimately had access to the money. She’d talked about starting afresh, rewriting her life and I didn’t understand why that was important at the time. I never believed she meant a fresh start away from me. I was staying with Sofia for a couple of months while Kit stayed at her boyfriend, Dick’s flat. She said it would take a while to sort out her new life and find somewhere we could both live. She just disappeared one day and shortly after that I got notification from the care-home that the next quarter payment was due, which when I knew, really knew, what she had done. Sofia’s family helped me with a full time job and sorting a payment plan with the nursing home. I couldn’t move my mum into state care after seeing that she was settled and happy. I could still do my A-levels at night school, it would just take a little longer. I wasn’t giving up on my education. The promise I made may haunt me because of what I’d lost, but it keeps me focused. “Ok, I may have overdone the age thing.”

“Ya think?” mumbles Sofia.

“Let me change, just wait a moment.” I try to spin quickly only managing to jerk and squeak on my flat, square, crepe, heeled shoes. Really what was I thinking? I return moments later.

“Oooo, yes, that’s much better.” Sarcasm dripping from every slowly uttered word. “An amorphous blob is exactly the right way to go.” She raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows and I sigh. Damn those judgmental eyebrows! I slump on the edge and fall into the one and only armchair. I am actually feeling a little lost and Sofia seems to know this as she quickly has me in her tight embrace, squeezing the very uncertainty out of me.

“Bets, you have always been ‘mature’, regardless of the clothes you wear, I’m afraid, ‘an Old Soul’. Remember that’s what Mama has always called you? So how about you forget this,” she says waving her arms erratically around the array of clothes I’m wearing and have dropped in a heap. “Just wear something you are going to be happy in, comfortable, more confident and more you?”

The uncertainty I am feeling right now and the knots I have in my stomach aren’t me. I know I don’t reach the dizzying heights of super confident Sofia, but I have had to assert myself from time to time and I’m not shy. I don’t have hang ups and insecurities because frankly I don’t have the time to care. I don’t want a relationship other than my friends, and everything I have gained in my life is down to my own abilities and hard work. I’d like to say I wouldn’t want it any other way, but I’m not a masochist and I’m not an idiot. But I am definitely floundering here. I am uncomfortable with the fact that I’m pretending to be an age I’m not in order to study for a degree I want. It has to be part-time because I can’t afford to not work full time. I’m uncomfortable with living illegally above the restaurant, a commercial property with no permission for residential use. Sofia’s family are too sweet to let me live here, but this is a risk for them. The benefit of additional security, which I afford, could easily be performed by a decent alarm system.

“Bethany Edith Thorne!” Sofia scolds, interrupting me from my inner flagellation. I hate it when she uses my middle name, it means she’s losing her not-so-famous patience. I exhale despondently and I bury my head in my hands.

“This just isn’t you, Bets. I’m your best friend and I don’t understand why you’re trying to hide who you are. You’re bright and confident, and you’ve got a cracking bod under all that shit! I mean killer curves. You know it’s not just your sparkling personality that has the boys lining up, right?” She’s sitting directly in front of me now daring me to break eye contact. She knows I’m not happy with the direction this conversation is heading, but before I can challenge her she interrupts. “Brothers, I know, they are all like brothers. This is me, sweetie, I know how you feel and I know why you feel like that. I understand, I do, and I can see you’re shutting down, so I won’t push but you know I want to right?” She nudges my leg and I give a weak grin. “Just don’t hide.” She whispers.

I smile with a bit more life and give a sharp nod of determination. “All rightAll right then!” I leap from the chair lifting the gloom that had descended, forcing Sofia to fall on her butt.

“Give me five minutes.” I call over my shoulder as I leave the room once more.

“Your last chance Miss or I’ll dress you myself. I’ve got hot pants, boob tube and high heels with your name on them!” She half threatens.

Well, okay so I shouldn’t want to hide, just stay under the radar maybe, blend in and I’m thinking six inch heals clip-clopping across the cobbles of the Quad would not aid this objective. So third time lucky, I emerge.

I’ve settled on my soft and worn pale blue Levis rolled up with my favourite red lace-up pumps, a fitted plain white T and my dark green, short, leather jacket and striped cotton scarf wrapped loosely several times around my neck. My wavy dark chestnut hair is scooped into a loosely manageable knot and my make-up is barely there, with some mascara and a splash of nude lip gloss.

“Beautiful butterfly, beautiful butterfly.” Sofia beams and I lightly punch her on the arm for taking the piss, but I know I’m good to go.

“I’ll want all the deets later…so call me?” Sofia’s hug is getting a little emotional and tight.

“Stop! You’re making me nervous and I don’t need to call. I’ll see you later, I’m working the late shift.”

“I thought you would take tonight off at least, you know, just in case you hook up?” She teases.

“Bye Sofs.” I leave, she has a key, and she can lock up.

I tend to walk everywhere, but today I’m running late and don’t want to spend the rest of the day sweaty from rushing. All the same, it’s a shame to get the tube when London is in midst of Autumn and there has been no wind severe enough to strip the trees bare. It’s my favourite season and the only time of year when you really notice the sheer number of trees around the city, which are now golden, bronze and fiery copper.

The campus itself is spread over a few locations across the city, but the oldest and main part is the Quad: a cobbled courtyard surrounded on three sides by early nineteenth century buildings. They may no longer dominate the skyline as they once had but they are imposing nonetheless. I pass the Gate House and make my way through the crowds of students to the Student Information Centre. My main objective today, aside from the actual registration, is to work out how I can fit my part-time degree into a full-time time-table without raising suspicion. I need to double up on the part-time units in whatever way my work time-table will accommodate. I really don’t want this degree to take the typical eight years when I know I can do it in three. As I see it, I just have to approach each subject tutor individually and get them to accept me taking their extra lessons in addition to the lessons I’m actually assigned and just hope they don’t compare notes. Simple.