My fingers are shaking as I pick up my uneaten burger for the dog. My throat is scratchy as I dump the empty wrappers in the bin on the way out.
I park up at the meadow a couple of streets down from Claire’s, and Brutus piles out happily, wagging his tail as Thomas clips on his leash.
We walk in silence, lapping that meadow three times before I can bring myself to speak.
“Tell me about school,” I say. “What do you want to do?”
Thomas looks up at me, and I keep my expression as neutral as I can.
“You can tell me,” I say.
So he does.
My boy tells me how he hates the school I picked for him. How he hates the other kids, and thinks the teachers are stuck up and boring.
He tells me how he feels sick to his stomach every time he has to go there.
How the other boys call him a common little freak because he likes football now and not rugby.
He tells me how they call him a little gay boy because he doesn’t scrum like he used to.
I’m sure there’s no blood left in my face as I land a hand on his shoulder and ask him why the hell he didn’t tell me this before.
And now it’s Thomas who has the trembling lip, wiping tears away on the back of his sleeve before they have chance to spill.
“Because… because I didn’t want…”
“Didn’t want what?”
It breaks my heart when his face crumples, and in some deep part of me I’m relieved to find I still have one.
“I didn’t want you to be ashamed of me.”
And now Matthew is crying too. My two boys stand and cry in front of me and I feel nothing but a cunt.
It’s so easy to pull them into my arms, so easy to breathe into their hair so they don’t see I’m right on the fucking edge myself.
“I’ll never be ashamed of you,” I tell them. “Not ever. No matter what. Do you understand me?”
I have to pull away long enough to check their faces.
“Boys, do you understand me?”
They nod.
I can’t believe I’m saying this. I can’t believe I have to say this.
Most of all I can’t believe Claire is going to get her fucking way, but that doesn’t matter now.
Only the boys matter.
“I’ll let the school know in the morning,” I say. “You can switch over next term.”I have to pull over into a layby off the A3 to vomit on the way home.MelissaDean and I have finished up half a bottle of wine before I’m brave enough to broach the subject.
He shifts in his seat as I turn to face him, knowing full well I’m about to rope him into something shady.
“No,” he says, just like that. “Whatever it is, no.”
“You don’t even…”
He shakes his head. “It involves Henley, right? Some crazy plan? Another crazy plan?”
“Well, maybe… but it’s not…”
“Forget it, Lissa.”
We sit in silence. He tops up our wine and takes a forkful of noodles from his takeout tub.
“You want him, right?” I ask, and he stops chewing. “You said you’d do him for free. I’m saying you don’t need to. I’m saying fifty-fifty, maybe just once if you want… but just think about it…”
“Are you fucking nuts?”
I shake my head. “I’m serious, Dean. He wants men. He told me.”
“He fucking told you?”
“Yes.”
He swallows. “No.”
“No?”
“No, Lissa. This shit is way too fucking much.”
“He wants men. And if I give it to him… if I like it too…”
“If you give it to him then what?” he snaps. “Have you even listened to yourself? Crystals and music, whatever, but this is…”
“Crazy, right?” I finish. “Maybe it’s crazy, yeah. But maybe it’ll be the ace in my deck, maybe it’ll be the thing that makes him really fall in love with me.”
He looks at me as though I’ve suddenly grown an extra head. “Jesus wept, Lissa. Have you heard yourself?”
My stomach is in knots as I look at him.
“I don’t want it to be some random,” I tell him. “I don’t want to hook up with some random guy who doesn’t know what he’ll be… getting into…”
“Being choked half to death you mean? Sure, it might be a tough fucking sell, Lissa. No shit.”
I sip my wine. “Forget it, then.”
“I already have,” he says, but he’s lying. His eyes are wide and angry, but he shifts in his seat and crosses his legs, and I know. I just know.
“You want him. I know you do.”
“Not like that, I don’t.”
“But you do, don’t you? You can’t stop thinking about him either.”
“That’s bullshit!” he snaps, but it’s not.
I remember his face when I told him all the gory details. The way he swallowed when I told him how Alexander chokes me to the brink. How it made me feel. How Alexander makes me feel…