I hear the familiar sound of Ian taking out his stick of lip balm, running it along his lips, then clicking it shut. “Right, so you say they hate you. But I’m sure you told me you used to hate your stepmum.”
“I did. Funnily enough, I’ve been thinking about that.”
“And?”
“This is different. My mum had died, remember. My dad had dumped me.”
Ian pauses, then says, “Had he? I thought he wanted you to live with him and Debbie?”
“Yeah, but that wasafterhe’d dumped me on Auntie Julie for a year.”
Just saying the words, the pain rushes back, cutting through me. The pain of being abandoned, of Dad not wanting to see me. Just after Mum hadn’t wanted to see me.
“OK, so it’s not exactly the same,” Ian concedes, “but imagine Theo’s kids enjoying their nice, happy life. Imagine Mabel being a daddy’s girl and thinking she and Theo have their own special bond. Imagine Callum going through puberty and worrying about being a man and wanting to talk to his dad about it. And then as far as they see it Theo basically upends their lives and their happiness is shattered. And not just that but for something theother kids make fun of. Of course Mabel’s going to feel betrayed and Callum’s going to feel like less of a man.”
I bump my fist against the wall. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Why do you think I’m still here?”
“Well, try not to lose sight of that. Try and hold onto how you felt in similar circumstances.”
I pick up a twig and start turning it around in my hand. “I have tried but that wasn’t exactly the happiest time of my life. I don’t really like going back there.”
“No, but it could be the key. Maybe you need to dig a little deeper.”
I’m not sure I do need to dig deeper. I’m not sure my feelings are buried very deep at all. I can remember very clearly being insanely jealous of my stepmum: I thought my dad loved her more than he loved me. I was jealous of my stepbrothers, too. They were younger than me but I was convinced Dad preferred them, that he saw them as a chance to have another stab at molding boys into men and this time get it right.
“When you say your dad dumped you,” Ian continues, “would it be fair to say part of you thought this was because you were gay?”
I stop flipping the twig and wrap my fist around it. “I did think that, yeah.”
Just like I thought that was the reason my mum didn’t love me enough to bother staying alive.
“Which brings me onto your second sentence,” says Ian. “I’ve talked to you before about low self-esteem, about your need to make people like you, to prove to everyone that you’re good enough.”
I wriggle, awkwardly. “I’m not sure I like where this is going, but yeah …”
“And we’ve talked lots about Theo having to get over his gay shame.”
“Yeah …”
“Well, are you sure you’re not still hanging onto some?”
My insides give a lurch. But I remember how instantly the childhood taunts came back to me when I saw the insults on Callum’sphone. I remember how quickly the game of football transported me back to PE lessons at school.
Then another thought occurs to me: could this be the reason I don’t want to have sex with Theo?
But it’s too much.
I snap the twig in half and toss it over the side of the hill. “I don’t know,” I say, “I think I’m probably just finding it difficult because I haven’t really been around teenagers—not since I was one myself. And it’s so hot here I haven’t been sleeping well.AndI keep getting bitten by mosquitoes.”
Ian sounds like he’s repositioning himself and sitting up. “OK, so you need to focus on self-care. Make sure you go to bed early and stay fit and healthy.”
“I actually saw a cheap exercise bike in a sports shop the other day.”
“What about a normal bike?”
“You haven’t seen the hills around here. And you haven’t seen the Italian drivers.” I remember how bad my own driving has been. “Not to mention the tourists.”
“Alright, point taken. An exercise bike sounds like a great idea.”
