Chapter Twenty Five
She turned the shower on, glad of the noise that seemed to fill her head, taking the place of her other thoughts. It wasn’t even 7 in the morning, but she was already wide awake, the thought of having to talk to Cheryl later was enough to knock the sleep right out of her.
“you owe it to her”
Sarah’s words were resounding in her head as she kicked her slippers off and wiggled her hand under the running water to make sure it wasn’t cold.
Every time she thought about it she felt guilty. Of course she owed it to Cheryl, after everything that they had been through; she knew that she should really be able to talk to her about anything, about everything that was on her mind.
Talking about it made it real. She only told Sarah because she was the only one there at the time, when she was so desperately sad and lonely that she would probably have told the milk man if she had one.
She didn’t regret telling Sarah, she had to tell someone or there was a possibility that she might have actually gone mad, and of course, she couldn’t tell Cheryl because she had walked out and left, determined not to look back or cause the girl any more pain.
She slipped her pyjama bottoms off and threw them in to the washing basket. She discarded the top half of her pyjamas and hesitated before taking her bra off.
The mirror loomed on the wall next to her, and she pulled a face as she seen her reflection. She unclasped her bra and let it fall to the floor before having a quick look at herself.
She had gone through a lot of body hang ups over the last seven years. Being a normal girl was hard enough, but living life in the media meant that she was constantly photographed and judged on her looks. On more than one occasion she had wished she had slimmer thighs and a smaller bum, she even used to compare herself to the other girl and wish she was like them.
Now she wished the reason she didn’t want to look in the mirror was as simple as that. In fact, she wished it was anything other than what it was.
She thought about Cheryl which seemed to halt the tears in their tracks. She thought about her eyes, and the way staring in to them solved all of her problems. It was her eyes that she loved the most, a window to the soul, and when she looked in them, it didn’t matter what was happening, because nothing seemed to matter when she was with Cheryl.
She stepped in to the hot running water and felt her hair getting wet and sticking to her face. It felt good, as though if she was in there long enough she might actually be able to wash it away.
As if something was compelling her, she dropped her hand and felt around, although she didn’t know why, she had been checking it on the hour every hour, and it was definitely getting bigger.
-
“hey”
It was Cheryl’s voice which made Kimberley jump. She had had the music on and didn’t here the girl coming in the front room.
“hey you” She smiled back, sitting up on the couch even though she wanted to go to sleep, it was beginning to take its toll on her, getting up at the crack of dawn to see Cheryl off and waiting for her to get back in the early hours.
“did I scare you babe” Cheryl asked, dumping her coat and bag on the chair as she passed it. The lights were out and only a few candles offered any light, somehow Cheryl managed to trip over one of Kimberley’s shoes before landing without much dignity on the couch.
Kimberley patted the sofa next to her to indicate she wanted Cheryl to move up, which the girl did willingly. Kimberley put her arm around the girls waist before they reclined back on the couch together.
“I was dreading coming home before” Cheryl said, with a little nervous laugh. They met each others gaze for a few seconds before Kimberley broke the contact and settled on a piece of paper that was on the floor.
Kimberley dropped her head on to Cheryl’s shoulder and took a deep breath. She had had all night to formulate some kind of a conversation, but as soon as Cheryl had brought the subject up, it seemed to have abandoned her.
She felt a little bit sick, but knew that she had to say something. It was only fair, and judging by the look on Cheryl’s face, the younger girl had been worrying all day.
“I never meant to be distant with you” Kimberley started, realised that in the grand scheme of her planned conversation she had started in the middle and abandoned it.
“there’s this problem Cheryl” Kimberley said, taking a deep breath and swallowing hard.
“what kind of a problem?” Cheryl asked quickly, the worry clear to see in the way she looked at Kimberley.
“a big one” Kimberley replied sadly as she struggled to lift her eyes to meet Cheryl’s. Cheryl noticed and brought her hand up to Kimberley’s face, using it to lift the girls chin up.
“Kimberley…whatever it is, we can sort it out” Cheryl told her, with as much conviction as she could muster without actually knowing what the girl was talking about.
Kimberley laughed sadly before shaking her head. She used her free hand to pick up Cheryl’s hand and intertwined her fingers with Cheryl’s.
“you can’t fix it Cheryl”
“what is it?” Cheryl asked with a frown, she could feel her heart beginning to pound in her ears and knew that she was nervous of what Kimberley had to say.
She forced herself to look up and in to Cheryl’s eyes, knowing that usually they were just the remedy that she needed to fix even the worst situation. They looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity before Kimberley let Cheryl go out of the embrace and used her hand to pull her top down a little.
From the corner of her eye she could see Cheryl frowning but carried on, in case she bottled out at the last minute.
She took Cheryl’s hand and lifted it to her top, before guiding it underneath her bra. Cheryl’s face was a picture of confusion as she let Kimberley manoeuvre her hand.
Their eyes met again, but this time it wasn’t confusion that she could see in the girl’s eyes. It was the same look that she had seen in her own eyes, the same look she had seen in Sarah’s eyes. It was a look that she would never forget.
It was fear.
