Page 70 of Last Chance

“Did someone?”

“No. Nothing like that. it’s not what you’re thinking, Angel. Sorry I didn’t want your mind to go there,” he says quietly, knowing exactly what I was thinking. It’s sad that thatiswhere my mind went. Is the world really that vile a place?

“We were in a home near Bethnal Green. Nice enough, about seventeen kids plus me and Cassy. I used to put her to bed myself. Always. I was never too busy. Because I grew up with no one wanting to put me to bed apart from care workers and foster families who I knew didn’t love me. I couldn’t let her think that nobody loved her. Whatever I was doing I was always there to tuck in my baby sister. I used to sing her to sleep most nights. Some places we stayed it was really fucking cold and it was often a distraction from the chattering of her teeth.” I hold his hand in mine, trying not to let the tears in my eyes seep out at how much I want to take that painful memory away from him.

“When I knew she was safely tucked in. That’s when I used to sneak out. We never went far as I wouldn’t leave her. But we often ended up on the flat roof of the building or the one next door.”

“They were older than me and I kind of wore it like a badge of honour or something that they let me hang out with them. We thought we were really cool. Smoking stolen cigarettes and drinking cheap whiskey or warm cider. You can imagine.” He shuffles in his seat on the couch, tracing the line of my fingers with his own.

“This one time. I’d put Cassy to bed and somehow it ended up just two of us up there. Nicole Saunders her name was. Pretty girl, parents died when she was ten. Drugs, I think. Bit of a mess but then we all were, so I suppose nobody noticed that much.” He shrugs.

“We’d fooled around a little before. Kissing, hand jobs, I’d fingered her rather unskilfully a couple of times too.”

“Max, you were thirteen!”

“I know. It’s pretty sick when you think about it but when you grow up in care you grow up a lot faster. Or at least you think you do.” His whole body sighs as I grasp his hand a little tighter.

“So, it was just the two of us and we’d drunk some cheap arse vodka she’d pinched from the corner shop her friend worked in.”

“Was she older than you?”

“Only by a month or two I think,” he says.

“And we drank a little and we talked, and I don’t remember what about, but I remember she had some condoms. She told me she’d already done it with two other guys.”

My heart’s breaking a little at the story. For little Nicole as well as Max.

“Did she make you?”

“No. No, she didn’t make me, she told me it’d be a good idea if we did it too and my hormonal teenage body agreed.”

“I don’t remember much of the actual act. Just the shame I felt afterwards. Dirty. Like I knew how wrong it was, like I know we shouldn’t have done it. I changed my clothes, I changed my bed, even though it hadn’t been in there, I tried to cut my hair. I just felt guilty.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong? You were both just kids, but you knew what you were doing.”

“Uh-huh, we did. I just felt disgusting after.”

“Did you never do it again?” I ask him quietly.

“No. I never so much as said another word to her. None of our care workers found out, well not that I’m aware of anyway, but for some reason me and her just didn’t really cross paths even though we lived under the same roof. Six months later Sarah officially adopted me and Cass and we moved back to South London with her.”

He lets out a sigh.

“Is South London home?” I whisper.

“It’s the first place I ever felt at home, yeah.”

I squeeze his hand again, letting the story settle in my head. Hoping my hand in his is soothing him somehow.

“Did you ever tell your mum, after you were adopted?”

He shakes his head.

“No, not at first anyway, I was so scared of getting it wrong. You know, being a son. That I didn’t dare really open up. In case I broke the spell. In case I got something wrong, and she decided I was too much hard work, too much of a burden and sent us back.”

“But you were wrong there weren’t you? Sarah, she adored you, both of you. She loved you like nobody has ever loved their children before, with such courage, such pride and pure abandon.”

“She did yeah, and when I eventually told her about Nicole, it kind of didn’t feel so bad after that. I wasn’t a bad person because that had happened.”

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