“I want to help him do it,” I confess.
“And maybe you’ll succeed,” she says, squeezing me tightly around the shoulders.
I need to change the subject, because I can’t think about Robert anymore tonight. I have so many images of him with his mouth between my legs swirling in my mind that I feel like I might pass out if I let a single other thought of him play through my brain.
“Okay, enough about me. Let’s talk about you. There’s a whole section of your life I don’t know about, and I want you to tell me everything. Start from the very beginning and leave nothing out.”
Sasha rolls her eyes but seems pleased in a small way. “Well,” she begins tentatively, “the first time I figured out I liked girls was during a P.E. lesson when I was eleven years old…”
We spend the next several hours talking about her hidden life, how she had to live a lie for so long. The bits where I come into the picture make me feel slightly uneasy, but at the same time flattered. The way Sasha describes me as a teenager is the complete opposite of how I imagined myself. She saw me as this pure, beautiful, fragile girl, when at the time I’d felt like a walking mistake marring the face of the planet.
Then she tells me about how she’d try to be with boys and that kissing them felt so wrong it would make her stomach twist. That she lost her virginity to a boy here in London when she was sixteen, and not only did she feel the customary pain of losing it, but she also felt, and I quote, like her vagina was constipated. I screw my face at her use of words, and she bursts out laughing. Then she tells me about how she finally built up the courage to kiss a girl during a holiday in Spain, and how it felt like she was a jigsaw puzzle that someone had finally found the last piece to.
We spend a lot of time crying and hugging one another, and then Sasha leaves to go to her own room, too exhausted to speak any longer. I’m so tired that I fall asleep without even realising that Robert never came home.
My eyes shoot open at eight o’clock the next morning when my alarm starts ringing. I forgot to turn it off before I went to bed last night. The sun shines through my window invitingly, so although I feel a whole lot worse for wear after a day and night that involved a tad too much alcohol and definitely too many revelations, I get up and get dressed. I saw a sign for a free yoga class on Sunday mornings in a holistic centre nearby the other day. It starts at nine-thirty so I hurry through my morning insulin and breakfast routine.
I make it there just in the nick of time, and the opportunity to clear my head and relax benefits me no end. Once it’s over I don’t feel much like going home, because Robert could be there, fuming after my disappearing act from the party. I hop on a tube and go to what’s becoming my regular haunt: Speaker’s Corner. It’s more crowded than usual this morning, but I can’t spot Fareed anywhere. Instead, I stand and listen to the chatter around me until I can’t absorb any more opinions. I wonder if there’ll ever come a day when I’m brave enough to express my own.
Making my way home, I drop into a newsagent’s to pick up a few things. On the magazine stand I spy a front cover proclaiming Molly Willis as the number-one most beautiful woman in Britain. I imagine the very same magazine probably featured a gossipy article only last week about her false pregnancy rumours.
Back at the house, I find Sasha’s car missing from the driveway. Robert’s is still here, but he could be out with Sasha, since they sometimes go to their dad’s on Sundays. It’s like they feel obligated or something.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I step in the front door and find the house soothingly quiet. At least I’ve got another few hours before I have to face Robert. Making my way upstairs and into my bedroom, I open the door and stop in my tracks.
Sitting on the floor by the window where I’ve set my books up on a small shelf is Robert. He looks like he just showered because his hair is a bit damp and he’s wearing a navy T-shirt with black jeans, no shoes or socks. He looks stunning stripped down like that. He’s also got one of my books open on his lap and appears to be reading it.
He purposefully doesn’t raise his head when I enter; instead, he ignores me and continues reading. I drop my bag down, slip off my sandals, and walk towards him, falling down to sit beside him on the floor. His eyes are actually moving back and forth, so he’s not just pretending to read, either. He still doesn’t acknowledge my presence, so I rest my head affectionately on his shoulder and reach forward to turn the book over and see what it is. His lips twitch infinitesimally.
The book is Homer’s Odyssey. I read it twice back in my first year of college; it was basically the first ancient Greek text I ever studied. Sometimes I need to go back to it when I want to reference things if I’m writing a paper or doing research.
“How are you enjoying it?” I ask him softly.
“It’s written kind of weird,” he says, furrowing his brow. He still isn’t looking at me.
“That’s because it’s a poem,” I reply.
He thumbs the thick pages. “It’s a touch long for a poem, Lana.”
“It’s an epic poem. They’re notoriously long.”
“Ah, I see.”
“So,” I begin, fiddling with the hem of my skirt, “you never came home last night…” I let the statement trail off.
Again, his lip twitches. “Yeah I…it’s actually kind of embarrassing.”