Marshmallows for Breakfast (50 page)

Up and down the aisle, people were heading our way. I stepped out from behind my trolley, pulled Kyle's to one side and touched him to get him to step aside. He jerked himself away from my touch and moved aside on his own.

The first person to sidle past us, to witness Kyle's very physical reaction to my nearness, was our neighbor with the abused eyebrows. Her eyebrows virtually shot off her face as she looked at Kyle, his face crumpled with anger, his body rigid with fury. She walked on, but then stopped by the pop, started eyeing it up as though she was going to find next week's lottery numbers on the labels.

I moved closer to Kyle, lowered my voice so Mrs. Eyebrows couldn't hear. “It's not like I'm leaving tomorrow.”

“Why do you have to leave at all, huh?” he replied, loud enough to be heard in Scotland. “Answer me that. Why do you have to leave?”

I glanced over at Mrs. Eyebrows—her eyes were bulging out of her head as she stared at the fizzy drinks. “Shhh,” I hushed. “Keep your voice down.”

“No,” Kyle replied, even louder. “Tell me why you have to leave.”

“I won't tell you anything if you don't quiet down.”

Kyle folded his lips into his mouth and nodded his acquiescence.

“Look, like I said, I'm not going tomorrow or anything. Maybe in a few months. The thing is, the three of you don't need me anymore, I can go now.”

“What?”
he almost shouted. I raised my eyebrows—after looking at Mrs. Eyebrows (she was openly staring at us)— and gave him a silent warning. “OK, OK,” he said quietly. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You're all doing so well now and it looks like pretty soon Ashlyn's going to become a bigger part of your lives again, so you don't need me, I can go.”

“What the—? Do you think you're some kind of Mary Poppins, dropping in wherever you're needed then off you fly again? Kendra, you're a part of our family. We
want
you around.”

I had to tell him, to explain. “I… I want to be with Will.”

He drew back a little, stared at me in confusion. “Who's Will?” he asked.

“My … The …” I motioned vaguely over my shoulder.

“The guy in Australia?” Kyle said, catching on. “You haven't seen him in, what, eight… nine months? How can you go back to him? What's so special about him?”

“Everything. Nothing. It's not him. It's how I feel when I'm with him. I feel normal. Like a normal person. Things like not being able to have kids don't feel as bad. I haven't felt like an ordinary person in so long, but when I'm with Will, when I talk to Will, that's how I feel. Like everyone else.”

He stared at me for a moment as though trying to unravel the knots of secrets that made up who I was, as though if he looked long enough, he'd find out what was wrong with me. “Why do you hate yourself?” he asked quietly.

I felt my face do a passable impression of Mrs. Eyebrows as my eyebrows went up in surprise. “Sorry?” I asked.

“You told me once that you hate yourself. Why?”

I turned around to glare at Mrs. Eyebrows, to make sure she wasn't overhearing this part of the conversation, which should have been carried out behind closed doors, if at all, but she had gone. Obviously our whispering had cut short her fun. Or maybe she was running off to the manager's office to get them to announce over the loudspeaker: would the couple quietly rowing in the soft drinks aisle either move on or speak up so everyone can hear?

“I didn't.”

“You did. The day we went to the museum. I tried to take a picture of you and you said you hate yourself.”

“In pictures, I hate myself in pictures.”

He shook his head. “No, there was definitely a period in between saying you hate yourself and in pictures.”

“Are you some kind of grammar freak because, seriously—”

“I knew the second you said it you didn't mean only in photographs. Tell me why you hate yourself.”

He'd been holding onto that all this time, waiting for the perfect moment to bring it up. “It's hard to explain,” I said to Kyle, knowing that trying to fob him off incorrectly would make him even more curious.

“Try me.”

“Pardon me?”

“Try explaining it to me.”

“I don't see what difference it'll make,” I said. “It's got nothing to do with me leaving.”

“You can tell me anything.”

I shrugged at him. “I know, but there's nothing to tell.”

His eyes started to bore into me, seeking out the truth in what I was saying. There really was nothing to tell. Nothing at all. A woman's arm came between us as she reached for a bottle of bright red cherryade. She hefted it off the shelf and removed her arm from between us, but Kyle stared at me as though we hadn't been interrupted.

“You can tell me anything,” he said again. “It'll go no further.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

“You know everything about me. Everything. Stuff I haven't even told my wife. I want to do the same for you.”

“Like I said, thank you, but seriously, Kyle, there's nothing to tell.”

“Kendra, you can tell me anything—I will believe you.”

Time stopped for a moment. Just a moment. I had an out-of-body experience. Like so many I'd had recently. Like watching as I threatened Janene. Like seeing myself react to the kids disappearing. Like not being there in the nook in the hotel as
his
hands ran over my body. Now I watched myself
as time stopped. Standing in the brightly lit supermarket, with the buzz of Saturday carrying on around me, I could see myself. I looked fragile. Even though I was wearing a fleece, jeans and trainers. Even though my hair was hiding my face, there were hairline cracks covering my body. Touch too hard and I would shatter. Those four words had stopped time. I never knew I needed to hear them. I never knew they would unlock everything. Would unravel the permanent knot that was embedded in my chest.

When time started moving again, I was back inside my body. I couldn't see myself from the outside. “Why would you believe me, Kyle?” I said, shaking my head. “I don't even believe myself.”

AIR, JUST AIR

CHAPTER 46

I
want you to stay in here while you read it. I'll be in the bedroom. I… um … here.” I stuck the sealed white envelope into Kyle's hand, avoiding his eyes all the while. It'd taken me two weeks to do this. To tell him “anything.”

In the end I'd gone for the safe option, Plan B. Basically, I chickened out and wrote a letter.

Kyle reached out to touch my face, probably to reassure me, but I flinched away. He held his hand midair for a few seconds then dropped it. “I'll call you when I've finished reading it” was all he said.

I wanted to apologize, to let him touch my face and reassure me. But I couldn't. Everything was about to change between us. And when he found out about my past I knew nothing would ever be the same again. I dragged my feet through my flat to my bedroom. I paced about for a few minutes, then found myself sitting on the bed, staring at the knots blemishing the wood floor, my arms wrapped around myself. I imagined Kyle sitting on the sofa, turning over in his large hands the white envelope I'd written
Kyle
on, his fingers tearing it open. I could imagine him taking out the sheets and sheets of white paper, unfolding them and beginning at the first line.

He'd find no
dear,
no
Kyle,
no date, because it'd taken me so long to write.

I'm going to tell you everything. Everything that has
led me from where I was, who I was, to here.
I'm going to tell you everything.
I haven't talked about it before. I rarely even think
about it. Only one other person knows what happened.
And his account may differ from mine.
When I was twenty a man I trusted forced himself on
me. Before you think it was what I wanted, it wasn't. I
promise you it wasn't.

CHAPTER 47

I
‘m going to tell you everything. Everything that has led me from where I was, who I was, to here.

I'm going to tell you everything.

I haven't talked about it before. I rarely even think about it. Only one other person knows what happened. And his account may differ from mine.

When I was twenty a man I trusted forced himself on me. Before you think it was what I wanted, it wasn't. I promise you it wasn't.

It began in the middle of the night, the night I went to Harrogate for his work party.

He'd been the perfect gentleman when we got to his place. He made me coffee and showed me the room I was going to stay in. It wasn't the room I'd stayed in with Tobey, but it was nice. Tidy, clean, bed neatly made, curtains drawn. He put on the bedside lamp for me and we sat on the bed talking. I was a little uneasy, abstractly unsettled. He hadn't mentioned that all his flatmates were away, that it'd be just the two of us in the house. But again, I told myself I was being silly. That I shouldn't think I was so extra- special that he was a good guy and he hadn't tried anything since I'd stopped him kissing me.

I got changed for bed—he'd lent me one of his lumberjack shirts, which was missing its top button, to sleep in. I
was grateful for the loan because I didn't want to sleep in my clothes.

Once my head hit the pillow, I fell asleep. I could do that, then. I could fall asleep at will.

In the middle of the night, when it was dark, when it was pitch black, I went to turn over in bed, but there was a heavy weight on top of me. I tried to turn again, but still this weight… It was getting heavier, or maybe I was waking up so I was more aware of it. But it was bearing down on me and making it difficult to breathe.

I opened my eyes as his hand came down on my mouth, shutting off my ability to speak, shout or scream.

For a moment I thought he was playing around, was being silly, trying to scare me maybe. I moved to push him off, but my arms wouldn't work; they were pinned I didn't know how, but I couldn't move. I couldn't move at all. That was when the fear, thick and deep, like a vat of hot tar, started to creep up on me. I started struggling. Trying to get him off me, trying to stop him from doing whatever it was he was doing.

Suddenly one of his hands clamped around my throat. Squeezing, shutting off all air to my lungs. As the fear started to rip me apart molecule by molecule, and blackness started to seep in at the edges of my sight, two thoughts popped into my head at the same time:
He's done this before. He's going to kill me.

His lips were against my ear. “You're special. Stop fighting, you're special,” he whispered. “Stop fighting and I won't kill you.” I had to stop. If I didn't stop fighting he was going to squeeze harder. If I didn't stop he was going to …

It happened for the first time. I left my body. I was a day-dreamer as a child. I could go to places inside my head, I could read a book and explore new worlds, but I'd never
done this before. I'd never left my body and found a place to hide. I closed my eyes and curled up inside that darkness, safe from everything else. Disconnected and safe.

Something was happening, I knew that, but I wasn't there.

I heard what he was saying in my ear, but it didn't connect. His scent crawled up my nose and slid down my throat, but I wasn't there. He was moving against my body, inside my body, but it wasn't real. It wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening and I wasn't there to witness it.

Suddenly it was over. It was over and he was lying on me, breathing hard, his chest the only part of him that moved. His chest and his sweat. His sweat. It rolled off him and onto me. Covering me in his scent. Covering me in more of him. I wanted to push him off, to get him away from me, but I didn't move. If I moved, I'd be admitting I was there, I'd be admitting it'd happened.

The rest I remember in snippets. In snapshots and flashes. Like clicks of a camera shutter.

Click.
He was talking. He was lying beside me, propped up on one arm and talking. “Don't you ever get frustrated?” he asked after a while. “Haven't you ever wanted something so much you'll do anything to get it?”

He was staring down at me, waiting for an answer. I could hear my breathing. That's how I knew I was alive. I wasn't moving, I was staring at the hairline cracks in the ceiling, but I couldn't move. I couldn't feel anything. But I could hear my breathing. Short shallow breaths in my ears. I could still breathe so I knew I was alive.

“Aren't you going to say something?” he asked. “Talk to me, Kendra.” His long fingers reached out towards my forehead, to maybe brush away a few strands of my hair, to maybe just stroke my forehead, to maybe just touch me. I flinched. Scared. Terrified that he was going to hurt me. Again.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” he said, horrified by my reaction, but he didn't touch me. “I'd never hurt you. Kendra, you're so special to me. I wouldn't ever hurt you. I thought that was what you wanted.”

He'd just said that he was willing to do anything to get what he wanted, and now he was saying it was what I wanted. Which was the truth? Was it him or was it me?