Forbidden

‘Lochie?’

Stop. Don’t speak. I can’t bear it, Maya. I can’t. Please understand.

She turns her face towards me. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, Lochie. It wasn’t your fault,’ she whispers against my shoulder.

Maya goes into the kitchen while I hang back, pretending to sort through the post, trying to pull myself together. And then, suddenly, I’m aware of her silhouette in the doorway. She looks battered, with her tangled hair and crumpled clothes and bandaged knee. A burgundy stain is spreading beneath the skin of her cheekbone: in a couple of days it will have bloomed into a large bruise right across her cheek. Maya, I’m so sorry, I want to say. I never ever meant to hurt you.

‘Would you mind making me a cup of coffee?’ she asks with a tentative smile.

‘Course . . .’ I glance down unseeingly at the envelopes in my hand. ‘Of c-course . . .’

She smiles at me properly this time. ‘I think I might curl up on the couch in front of some crappy daytime TV.’

There is a silence. I flick through some junk mail and take a moment to reply as a pain, like a sliver of glass, slowly pierces the back of my throat.

‘Come and keep me company?’ She is hesitating now, still waiting for my reply.

An invisible noose tightens round my neck. I ca

‘Lochie?’

I don’t move. If I do, I lose. ‘Hey . . .’ She takes a sudden step towards me and I immediately back up, banging my elbow against the front door.

‘Lochie, I’m all right.’ Slowly she holds up her hands. ‘Look at me, I’m fine. You can see that, can’t you? I just slipped, that’s all. I was tired. Everything’s all right.’

But it’s not, it’s not, because I’m slowly being torn in two. You stand there, covered in cuts and bruises that I might as well have inflicted on you with my own hands. And I love you, so much that it’s killing me, yet all I can do is push you away and hurt you until eventually your love will turn to hate.

The pain wells up in my chest, my breathing starts to fragment and scalding tears force their way into my eyes. Abruptly I crumple up the glossy ads in my hands and lean heavily against the wall, pressing the shiny paper against my face.

There is a moment of shocked silence before I feel Maya by my side, gently pulling at my hands. ‘Don’t, Lochie, it’s all right. Look at me. I’m fine!’

I take an uneven breath. ‘I’m sorry – I’m just so sorry!’

‘Sorry about what, Lochie? I don’t understand!’

‘The idea – last night – it was so awful, it was so stupid—’

‘It doesn’t matter about that now. It’s finished, OK? We know we can’t do it so we’re never going to think about doing anything like that again.’ Her voice is firm, reassuring.

I throw down the paper and bang my head back against the wall, rubbing my arm savagely across my eyes. ‘I didn’t know what else to do! I was desperate – I’m still desperate! I can’t stop feeling like this!’ I am shouting now, frantic. I feel like I’m losing my mind.

‘Listen . . .’ She takes my hands and rubs them in an effort to calm me. ‘I never wanted Nico or anyone else. Just you.’

I look at her, the sound of my breath rough and uneven in the sudden silence. ‘You can have me,’ I whisper shakily. ‘I’m here. I’ll always be here.’

Her face floods with relief as her hands reach for my face. ‘We were stupid – we thought they could stop us.’ She strokes my hair, kisses my forehead, my cheeks, the edge of my lip. ‘They’ll never stop us. Not as long as this is what we both want. But you’ve got to stop thinking it’s wrong, Lochie. That’s just what other people think; it’s their problem, their stupid rules, their prejudices. They’re the ones who are wrong, narrow-minded, cruel . . .’ She kisses my ear, my neck, my mouth.

‘They’re the ones who are wrong,’ she repeats. ‘Because they don’t understand. I don’t care if you happen biologically to be my brother. You’ve never just felt like a brother to me. You’ve always been my best friend, my soul mate, and now I’ve fallen in love with you too. Why is that such a crime? I want to be able to hold you and kiss you and – and do all the things that people in love are allowed to do.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

I close my eyes and press my hot face against her cheek. ‘We will. We’ll find a way. Maya, we have to . . .’

When I push open her bedroom door with my elbow, a glass of juice in one hand, a sandwich in the other, I find her fast asleep, sprawled out face down on the bed, the duvet kicked back, arms circling her head on the pillow. She looks so vulnerable, so fragile. The bright midday light illuminates the side of her sleeping face, a strip of her crumpled, oversized school shirt, the edge of her white knickers, the top of her thigh. Navigating the discarded skirt, socks and shoes strewn across the carpet, I place the plate and glass beside a stack of papers on her desk and straighten up slowly. I watch her for a long time. After a while my legs begin to ache and I slide down into a sitting position against the wall, arms resting on my knees. I’m afraid that if I leave, even for a moment, something might happen to her again; I’m afraid that if I leave, the black wall of fear will return. But here beside her, the sight of her sleeping face reminds me that nothing else matters, that in this I’m not alone. This is what Maya wants, this is what I want – fighting it is no use, can only hurt us both. The human body needs a constant flow of nourishment, air and love to survive. Without Maya I lose all three; apart we will slowly die.

I must have drifted off, for the sound of her voice sends a jolt through my body and I straighten up, rubbing my neck. She blinks at me sleepily, her cheek resting on the edge of the mattress, russet hair brushing the floor. I don’t know what she said to wake me, but now her arm is outstretched, her palm turned towards me. I take her hand and she smiles.

‘I made you a sandwich,’ I tell her, glancing up at the desk. ‘How are you feeling?’

She doesn’t reply, her eyes drawing me in. The warmth of her hand seeps into mine and her fingers tighten as she pulls me gently towards her. ‘Come here,’ she says in a voice still scratchy with sleep.

I stare back at her, feeling my pulse quicken. She releases my hand and moves back to the far side of the bed, leaving a space for me. I pull off my shoes and socks and stand up unsteadily as she holds out her arms.

As I lower my body onto the mattress beside her, I inhale her smell and feel her legs entwine with mine. She kisses me gently – soft, whispery kisses that make my face tingle and send tremors ru

‘It’s all right,’ she says with a smile in her voice. ‘I love you.’

I open my eyes and lift my head off the pillow and start kissing her back, gently at first, but then she puts her arm round my neck and pulls me closer, and our kisses begin to quicken, growing deeper and more urgent until it’s difficult to find time to breathe. I cradle her head with one arm, clasping her hand with the other. Every kiss is becoming fiercer than the one before until I’m frightened I’m hurting her. I don’t know where to go from here, I don’t know what to do. I press my face into the hot curve of her neck with a strange sound and find myself stroking her breasts, the cotton shirt rough beneath my fingers. I feel her fingertips ru