Still Me
Page 26He frowned.
‘It’s something that happened a long time ago. But you told me a thing. So I’m going to do the same.’ I took a breath then and told him. I told him the story I had only ever told Will, a man who had listened and then released me from the hold it had had over me. I told Sam the story of a girl who, ten years previously, had drunk too much and smoked too much and found to her cost that just because a gang of boys came from good families it didn’t make them good. I told it in a calm voice, a little detached. These days it didn’t really feel like it had happened to me, after all. Sam listened in the near dark, his eyes on mine, saying nothing.
‘It’s one of the reasons coming to New York and doing this was so important to me. I boxed myself in for years, Sam. I told myself that was what I needed to feel safe. And now … well, now I guess I need to push myself. I need to know what I’m capable of if I stop looking down.’
When I had finished he was silent for a long time, long enough that I had a momentary doubt as to whether I should have told him at all. But he reached out a hand and stroked my hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d been there to protect you. I wish –’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘It’s not fine.’ He pulled me to him. I rested my head against his chest, absorbing the steady beat of his heart.
‘Just, you know, don’t look at me differently,’ I whispered.
‘I can’t help looking at you differently.’
I tilted my head so that I could see him.
‘Only in that I think you’re even more amazing,’ he said, and his arms closed around me. ‘On top of all the other reasons to love you, you’re brave, and strong, and you just reminded me … we all have our hurdles. I’ll get over mine. But I promise you, Louisa Clark.’ His voice, when it came, was low and tender. ‘Nobody is ever going to hurt you again.’
9
Hey, Lily!
In haste as I’m tapping this out on the subway (I’m always in haste these days) but lovely to hear from you. Glad school is going so well, though it sounds like you were quite lucky with the smoking thing. Mrs Traynor is right – it would be a shame if you got expelled before you’d even taken your exams.
But I’m not going to lecture you. New York is amazing. I’m enjoying every moment. And, yes, it would be lovely if you came out here but I think you’d have to stay in a hotel so you might want to speak to your parents first. Also, I’m quite busy as my hours with the Gopniks are long so I wouldn’t have much time to hang out just now.
Sam is fine, thanks. No, he hasn’t dumped me yet. In fact he’s here right now. He heads home later today. You can talk to him about borrowing his motorbike when he’s back. I think that may be one for the two of you to sort out between you.
Okay – my stop is coming up. Give Mrs T my love. Tell her I’ve been doing the things your dad did in his letters (not all of them: I haven’t been on any dates with leggy blonde PR girls).
Lou xxx
My alarm went off at six thirty a.m., a brittle micro-siren breaking the silence. I had to be back at the Gopniks’ for seven thirty. I let out a soft groan as I reached across to the bedside table and fumbled to turn it off. I had figured it would take me fifteen minutes to walk back to Central Park. I mentally ran through a rapid to-do list, wondering if there was any shampoo left in the bathroom and whether I would need to iron my top.
Sam’s arm reached across and pulled me towards him. ‘Don’t go,’ he said sleepily.
‘I have to.’ His arm was pinning me.
‘Be late.’ He opened one eye. He smelt warm and sweet and he kept his gaze on mine as he slowly slid a heavy, muscular leg over me.
It was impossible to refuse him. Sam was feeling better. Quite a lot better, apparently.
He was kissing my collarbone, feathery kisses that made me shiver. His mouth, light and focused, began to trace a pattern downwards. He looked up at me from under the cover, one eyebrow raised. ‘I’d forgotten these scars. I really love these scars here.’ He lowered his head and kissed the silvery ridges on my hip that marked my surgery, making me squirm, then disappeared.
‘Sam, I need to go. Really.’ My fingers closed around the bedspread. ‘Sam … Sam … I really … oh.’
Some time later, my skin prickling with drying sweat, breathing hard, I lay on my stomach wearing a stupid smile, my muscles aching in unexpected places. My hair was over my face but I couldn’t summon the energy to push it away. A strand rose and fell with my breath. Sam lay beside me. His hand felt its way across the sheet to mine. ‘I missed you,’ he said. He shifted and rolled over so that he was on top of me, holding me in place. ‘Louisa Clark,’ he murmured, and his voice, impossibly deep, resonated somewhere inside me. ‘You do something to me.’
‘I think it was you who did something to me, if we’re going to get technical about it.’
His face was filled with tenderness. I lifted my own so that I could kiss him. It was as if the last forty-eight hours had fallen away. I was in the right place, with the right man, and his arms were around me and his body was beautiful and familiar. I ran a finger down his cheek, then leant in and kissed him slowly.
‘Don’t do that again,’ he said, his eyes on mine.
‘Why?’
‘Because then I won’t be able to help myself and you’re already late and I don’t want to be responsible for you losing your job.’
I turned my head to see the alarm. I blinked. ‘Quarter to eight? Are you kidding? How the hell is it a quarter to eight?’ I wriggled out from under him, my arms flapping, and hopped to the bathroom. ‘Oh, my God. I am so late. Oh, no – oh, no no no no no.’
I threw myself under a shower so rapid it’s possible the droplets didn’t make contact with my body, and when I emerged he stood and held out items of clothing for me so that I could slide into them.
‘Shoes. Where are my shoes?’
‘What?’
‘Matted. Sexy. Just-had-sex hair. I’ll pack your things,’ he said. As I ran for the door he caught me by the arm and pulled me to him. ‘Or you could, you know, just be a tiny bit later.’
‘I am later. So later.’
‘It’s just once. She’s your new best mate. They’re hardly going to fire you.’ He put his arms around me and kissed me and ran his lips down the side of my neck so that I shivered. ‘And this is my last morning here …’
‘Sam …’
‘Five minutes.’
‘It’s never five minutes. Oh, man – I can’t believe I’m saying that like it’s a bad thing.’
He growled with frustration. ‘Dammit. I feel okay today. Like really okay.’
‘Believe me, I can tell.’
‘Sorry,’ he said. And then: ‘No, I’m not. Not remotely.’
I grinned at him, closed my eyes and kissed him back, feeling even then how easy it would be just to topple back onto the Burgundy Bedspread of Doom and lose myself again. ‘Me either. I’ll see you later, though.’ I wriggled out of his arms and ran out of the room and along the corridor, listening to his yelled ‘I love you!’ And thinking that despite potential bedbugs, unsanitary bedspreads and inadequate bathroom soundproofing, actually, this was a very nice hotel indeed.