Page 65 of Kissing Games
She sat next to him. ‘So it’s really a present for me because I want to hear you play.’
His head turned slowly towards hers. He felt dizzy. She looked so excited. So expectant.
‘I can’t,’ he said hoarsely.
She frowned. ‘You don’t know how to play?’
‘No, I can play.’ His throat was closing. ‘I could play. Once.’ He looked down. ‘I haven’t played for fourteen years.’
‘Charlie?’ Her voice was soft. Her hand covered his and he flinched. He couldn’t go there. He just couldn’t. She squeezed. Emotion strangled him. Pain stretched up into his face, his eyes pricking. Hers were full of compassion he didn’t deserve.
‘What happened, Charlie?’
He shook his head.
She held his gaze. ‘I haven’t talked to anyone outside my family about Alejandro. I thought it was impossible. That if I did, my heart would break open and I would die from the pain. But I felt safe with you. I could do it.’ She smiled at him. ‘And I didn’t break. I want you to feel safe with me. I’m not going to judge you.’
His heart stretched inside him. To move on from the past, he had to acknowledge it. Valentina was his Samaritan. A passing stranger on his journey through life. Someone he could unburden himself on, then never see again. If she could tell him about her brother, then he could tell her this. He turned his palm up and clasped her hand, looking down at their fingers entwined.
He took a deep breath. ‘We moved a lot when I was growing up because of my dad’s different army postings. Whenever we moved, the piano came with us. My mum doesn’t play much herself, but she loves classical music and wanted me and my sister to learn. My sister was more like my father, into sports. She was Daddy’s girl and I was Mummy’s boy. Playing the piano made Mum happy, so I kept doing it. When I was twelve and Tab was fifteen, my dad got a more permanent posting and we moved to Chumleigh. My hormones were raging and I was fed up with Dad telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I was growing so fast and it was really hard on my mum. It was like I went through puberty in a couple of months and her little boy had been stolen and replaced by a grumpy man.’
He brought his other hand to stroke Valentina’s fingers. Using them as a distraction whilst he opened the oldest box in his mind.
‘I was angry,’ he continued. ‘And resistant to the life I thought my parents had chosen for me. My dad became stricter, my mum confused, hurt and distant. I’d won a music scholarship to an exclusive local school but intended to stop playing as soon as I got there. It was going to be another form of rebellion, a way of punishing my mother for always siding with my father. But then I met my new piano teacher.’
Charlie paused.
‘Her name was Jennifer,’ he said with a thin smile. ‘She was twenty-one, just out of music college and working as a piano teacher until she worked out what she wanted to do with her life. I fell in love during our first lesson. I didn’t say anything to anyone, but from that moment on I practised every day. I wanted to please her, impress her. And the more I practised, the more time there was in the lesson to talk. For one hour a week I would play a bit, to show I’d done whatever she’d asked me to, then we would talk. At home I was just as difficult as before; a typical teenage arsehole. But with her it was different. I was happy.’
Valentina waited as his mind slipped backwards in time.
‘She was my teacher for five years. She thought I was a prodigy.’ He let out a short laugh and shook his head. ‘She was so proud of me. I even applied to music college, partly for her, but mostly to piss off my dad. I never intended to go. I didn’t want to leave her. In my final year of school, when I was seventeen, I made my move. I’d been in love with her for years and wanted her to fall in love with me. I was the same height I am now, almost the same weight and had been shaving every day since I was fourteen. I knew almost everything about her and was overflowing with confidence and testosterone. Seducing her was easy. I took her to bed without any thought of what I was doing to her life.’
‘Charlie,’ Valentina said gently. ‘She was what, twenty-six? A grown woman. In a position of trust. She took advantage—’
‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘No fucking way. Absolutely not. She was innocent and clueless. She lived at home with her elderly parents and was a fucking virgin, for Christ’s sake. I was the bad guy. I took advantage of her. I was thoughtless and selfish, and when it all went wrong, it was her who paid the price.’ He felt like his chest was being crushed. He couldn’t breathe.
Valentina moved closer and held onto his arms. ‘It’s okay, Charlie.’
His breathing was laboured and he fought to get it under control. He wasn’t going to shy away from showing her just what kind of a person he was. Let the scales drop from her eyes.
He held her gaze. ‘It was a fucking miracle we got away with it for so long. I think mostly because her parents were deaf as posts and went to bed at eight o’clock. But two weeks after my eighteenth birthday, the exam results came out. I got straight A’s. We went out in Chumleigh and got wasted. I persuaded her to climb on top of the bus shelter at three in the morning. We had sex, too drunk to notice the noise we were making. The police were called and we were arrested. Then it all went to shit. We were charged with public indecency, and during the interview it came out we’d been having an affair. Jennifer was then charged with sexual offences against a minor. She was sacked, banned from teaching for life and demonised by the press.
‘My parents went ballistic. I told them I was never going to give her up. My dad and I fought in front of my mum as she screamed at us to stop. After beating the living shit out of me, Dad gave me a deal. He’d back my claim that I only ever had sex with her once, when I wasn’t legally a child, if I joined the army and never saw her again. I went along with it. It was the only way I could attempt to salvage the mess I’d made.
That night I climbed out the window and cycled to her parents’ house. I told her what we should do. She couldn’t stop crying. She kept apologising, over and over, as if it was her fault and it was my life being screwed over, not hers. It felt like my heart was being ripped to shreds. I made her promise to go along with my dad’s plan, then left. I joined the army and didn’t see her again. I haven’t played the piano since.’
Charlie bowed his head, exhausted and empty.
‘Do you know what happened to her?’
He nodded. ‘I asked my friend Mack to check up on her. He found her on Facebook. She’s living in Kent. Married with four kids. He said she looked happy.’
‘Charlie, look at me.’ Valentina lifted his head. ‘If she can move on and be happy, maybe you could too?’
The sound of her tablet ringing jolted them both. She lifted it from her bag. ‘It’s Isabella.’ She seemed to hesitate.
He stood. ‘Answer it. It’s important. I’ve got to go and find Rory anyway.’
