Page 27

“Shit,” I mutter as I read the message.

Mum: I’m down the coast for the rest of the week, but Duncan is coming to the house tonight to collect his camping stuff.

Across the table, Joseph is suddenly a little more alert.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I shoot back as I type a response.

Me: What time? Can I put his stuff outside for him so he doesn’t have to disturb me?

Her reply arrives quickly.

Mum: Fine, be difficult. I’ll tell him to let himself in. He still has a key. He said about seven, as he’s going away as soon as he has the stuff he needs.

I’m suddenly aware that the safe nights I thought I had under my own roof have been an illusion. It isn’t safe if Duncan can come into the house whenever he pleases. This knowledge is far too unsettling. The fact that he’s been walking around with a key to the house—something I wasn’t aware he had—makes my stomach tighten. The rest of the pastry looks so unappealing now, I’m sure it would make me want to vomit if I took another bite. I push it away from where I placed it when texting.

“Something is clearly wrong,” Joseph comments.

I force myself to look at him properly. His blue eyes feel like they have the ability to burn me as I make myself hold his gaze. I know if I don’t tell him, I run the risk of him bringing the safeguarding team into my situation. I’ll do anything to avoid that. I’m eighteen and almost out of her house. I don’t want to complicate things so close to the finishing line, so if telling Joseph Wakefield that I’m pissed off with my mother means I get to hide my secret from everybody else, I’ll do it.

“My mother is away. One of her boyfriends is coming to the house tonight to pick up some camping stuff. She’s just told me he has a key, which I didn’t know. That’s all.” I shrug.

“One of the shitty ones or really shitty?” His voice is so low that I almost don’t hear what he says. He glances around, but the area we’re in is deserted—nobody to overhear. Whether it’s to prevent my home life being discussed or to avoid being reprimanded for swearing on school premises, I can’t decide.

“The worst.”

“Is there anything you need to tell me about this man, Delilah?” Joseph continues to stare at me, and I feel my heartbeat pick up in pace.

I shake my head. Duncan is a piece of shit, a terrible excuse for a human being, but he’s never actually touched me. Not really. Not in any way that would be illegal, anyway. When he first started dating my mother, he came into my bedroom when I was in bed, sat himself down on the edge of the mattress, and rubbed my arm as he told me a story that I no longer remember because the only thing I could focus on was how my skin itched under his touch. As the years passed, touches continued, coupled with leery sentences whispered against me, making me recoil at his words as well as the stench of alcohol on his breath. He’s hit my mother—and she him—but he’s never been violent to me.

“He’s just never been around to the house when my mother wasn’t there, and I didn’t know he had a key,” I explain. I’m not sure it would have made a big difference, but maybe my mother’s presence is something that prevents any of the dark and disgusting things my mind conjures up when I hear his footsteps on the hallway.

Now, though, the thoughts in my head are running in various tangents. Regardless of my mother’s assurance that he’s going away, I know what Duncan says and what he does isn’t always aligned. What if he comes over when he’s had a drink? What if he isn’t really going away anywhere, and he has the whole night to stay at the house? What if he doesn’t want to just collect his stuff but is going to linger? Talk? Touch me? Let his hands wander further than they already have done?

Joseph’s words from the night after the club seem to echo in my head: “You’re a tiny slip of a person.” He’s right. I’m not big nor strong, and if Duncan wanted to overpower me, he wouldn’t have to even break a sweat. He—along with most of my mother’s boyfriends—has felt like an abstract threat in the past. Nothing has really changed because I doubt she would choose to protect me over one of her boyfriends, but it feels like things have changed now.

I feel vulnerable, and I fucking hate it.

A wave of panic and sickness washes over me. I shove against the table, pushing my chair out, ignoring the fact that the coffee cup shudders with the movement and spills its contents over the table. I ignore the surprise on Joseph’s face and sprint in the direction of the girls’ toilets at the back of the history block. I shove through the door with more force than I thought myself capable of, slam open the cubicle door, sink to my knees in front of the toilet, and throw up.

Once done, I straighten myself up, wiping my damp eyes with some tissue before flushing and washing away all evidence of my fear. Stepping out of the cubicle, I stand in front of the slightly dirty mirror on the wall and glare at my reflection as I tell myself I need to toughen up. I need a plan. I’ve planned my way out of difficult situations before. If Duncan has a key, that’s fine. I can go out tonight. The place can be empty all night; he can wander around at leisure. I can find a place to stay. A safer place than home.

Except he’ll still have the key. What about tomorrow? Or the next night? Or the night after that? How many other keys has my mother given away like they mean nothing?

I take a deep breath and head back to the table where I abandoned my things. The spilt coffee has been cleaned—no evidence that it even happened. The only sign is the slightly pinched expression on Joseph’s face. I sink into my chair and reach for my water bottle so I can take away the taste in my mouth.

“Do you trust me, Delilah?” Joseph asks. His tone is still low.

Trust is an overused commodity, one I know is often thrown away by the recipient, regardless of how much it costs the giver. I hold onto my trust more tightly than I hold onto anything else in my life. I’m never going to be like my mother, somebody who gives her trust far too quickly to people who never deserve it.

Yet, there is something about him that I do trust. Enough to have spilt some secrets to. Enough to engage in conversation these past few weeks. Enough that now, as I look at him, I slowly nod my acceptance.

“Yes, Joseph.”

“Then meet me at the end of the high street after last lesson,” he prompts. It’s a fair walk away from the school, but at least in the direction of my house.

I nod again.