Sighing, I caved in. “Yeah, we can do that.” I couldn’t help taking her not wanting to open up personally. She was my girlfriend, she should want to let me in and let me help her. But I wasn’t going to give up; I cared about her too much to let her do this on her own.
Not knowing how to handle her right now, I followed her lead, watched a film and sat up when it finished and she untangled herself from me.
“Let’s go out. You’re not here for much longer and I want us to have fun.”
“Where do you want to go?” I said, kissing her cheek, “And please don’t say to the zoo.”
She laughed and looked up at me in the mirror. “What if I wanted to go to the zoo?”
“Then I’d take you, I guess. But how about dinner and a movie?”
“Sounds perfect to me. I don’t know what’s on, though.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” We weren’t going to pay a whole lot of attention to it anyway.
***
“Do you want to eat there?” I said, pointing towards a little restaurant off the main street.
“No!” she snapped and pulled me in a different direction. What was that all about? There was something, or someone, in there that she was avoiding and it bothered the shit out of me.
“Let’s go here.” She pointed to a Pizza Hut just up the road. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind but at least it wasn’t somewhere with tiny portions that left you hungry ten minutes later.
We were immediately seated in a small red booth. I reached over and held her hand. Time for more difficult questions. “Why didn’t you want to go to the other restaurant? What’s wrong with it?”
She gulped and her eyes emptied of what little emotion was left. “We went there for my sixteenth. Dad made a big speech and gave me this.” She held up the heart charm on her necklace. I had looked at it before, engraved on the back in small letters were the words a daughter is a gift of love.
I nodded and squeezed her hand. Shit, now I felt like an arsehole for asking. “Do you want to talk about your dad?”
“I… I think so.” Her voice was barely a whisper and her eyes looked so sad. She took a deep breath and let go of my hand. “I don’t really know what to say, Luke.”
I shuffled round and pulled her into my arms. “You miss him and that’s okay. That’s normal. You don’t have to shut yourself off, you’re allowed to feel however it is you feel.”
“I wish I could have just one more minute with him. Just sixty seconds so I can tell him I love him.” Her voice broke and I watched her focus hard. She took a long, deep breath and clamped her mouth together. She was good at keeping her emotions in check; I’d give her that.
That was sort of the problem, though. How long before she lost that control and it all poured out? I was fairly certain that it wasn’t going to be pretty when it happened, which was why I was trying to get her to do it gradually now. I felt like I was trying to run underwater, though.
“You alright?” I asked, willing her to just let it out and shed a tear – to do something.
Leaning up, she kissed me. “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you having a starter?” I’d lost the chance again.
I moved back to my seat through dinner and Tegan acted like normal. There was no trace of the girl that was just sad over her dad’s death. I didn’t know how she was able to do it. I don’t think I would be strong enough to lock something like that away. But perhaps it wasn’t about strength; perhaps it was more about desperation.
“Have you thought anymore about sixth form?” I asked.
She picked up a slice of pizza. “Not really,” she said, looking at the table, avoiding eye contact.
“You’ve not missed that much. You could catch up pretty quickly if that’s what you’re worried about? I can help you.”
“It’s not that. Everyone knows what happened and I can’t stand people feeling sorry for me.”
“Tegan, it’s something you want to do, you can’t let other people stop you. They’re your friends so of course they’re sympathetic. It’s not a bad thing.” Her eyebrow kicked up, telling me that to her it was a bad thing.
She thought for a minute and just when I assumed she was about to tell me to drop that too, she nodded. “Will you come with me to talk to the head of sixth form tomorrow?”
I almost fell off my chair. Her shutting me down I was prepared for, her agreeing with me I was not.
“Yeah, of course I’ll go with you,” I replied, unable to keep the smile off my face. It was a step in the right direction.
After dinner we went back to hers because she didn’t feel like going to the cinema anymore. I was relieved because after today I was pretty beat.
“So what did you want to do instead of the cinema?” I asked, lying back on her bed. God, it felt good to be lying down.
She had a mischievous smile as she got on the bed. What’s she up to? Her leg swung over and then she was straddling me. “Hmm,” I said, gripping her thighs. “I like this plan.”