And suddenly it changes.
Madrid is too far away.
I walk away.
Not for the first time.
July
July, that lovely hell, all velvet dresses and drapes
stuffed into a hot little hole. –Laura Kasischke
Chapter Six
Twelve Years Earlier
Ihaven’t seen him for two days and I don’t know why. The summer feels like it hasn’t even started and we haven’t had enough time together. There’s never enough time together. Stolen moments and whispered words in the shroud of shadows are all we can manage without anyone becoming suspicious
What would it matter?I’ve asked him this. Lennox is allowed to go out with whoever he chooses and in public; only the media care and try to label him as another ‘playboy’ prince. But Ben wants us to stay hidden. Away from prying eyes and people’s judgements.
I sit down at the oak tree with my book, unsure if he’ll be there today. Every holiday since last summer we’ve found time to be together, in the stables or the maze, or the barn when it was winter. Never where we’d be found, or questioned.
The words on the page blur and become useless. I look at the sky, cotton puffs of clouds rolling across the pale blue and the same tightness in my chest that’s always there when I’m waiting for Ben.
Footsteps echo through the maze just as I’m debating heading back inside to find something else to do. My father has told me to make the most of the summers as at some point my time will no longer be free and I’ll have to carry out more engagements. What he doesn’t understand is that I’m happy to do that, to have a purpose.
To be more than just the girl who waits. Like now.
“I didn’t know you’d still be here.”
Ben doesn’t apologise. He’s wearing army fatigues and a black tight T-shirt, his skin golden and hair the fairest I've ever seen it.
“I was reading.” I wasn’t. I was thinking about him and what he was doing and who he was with. Never have we said we were only seeing each other. Never have we made any promises. Since that first kiss we’ve stayed friends, friends who sometimes kiss and touch and make each other come, but never fuck.
I still have my virginity and he won’t take it from me.
“I’m glad you’re here.” He sits down next to me, smelling of musk and man, not boy, his arm going round my shoulders.
I don’t want to fall into him but I do anyway, because each time I don’t I might be wasting our last time.
“Where’ve you been?” When I’m at school or he’s away we communicate infrequently, brief messages, never a phone call. It’s as if we only exist in this maze.
“Long story.”
“Try me.”
His hand settles on my waist, just under my top. In around twenty minutes he’ll have his face between my legs and then he’ll come on my tits. Never any further.
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“What do you mean? Leaving tomorrow?” I’ve gone straight into a world of red, panic, fear.
“I’ve signed up to the army and I head out for training tomorrow.”
He’s moving me onto his knee, pushing his hands under my top, towards my breasts because this is how he makes things better.
But orgasms don’t heal broken hearts.
