Forbidden

Maya rolls onto her side to face me and strokes the hair away from my face, looking startled, a touch of amusement on her lips. As her laughing eyes meet mine, I take a sharp breath and feel a strong wave of embarrassment wash over me.

‘I got – I got a bit carried away.’ I pull a face to try and disguise my acute discomfort. Does she actually know what happened? Is she disgusted?

She raises her eyebrows and bites back a smile. ‘No kidding!’

She does. Fucking hell.

‘Well, that’s what happens when you – when you do stuff like that.’ My voice comes out louder than I intended: defensive, shaky, uneven.

‘I know.’ She says quietly. ‘Wow.’

‘I couldn’t – I couldn’t stop.’ My heart is pounding. I feel frantic with embarrassment.

She kisses my cheek. ‘Lochie, it’s OK – I didn’t want you to stop!’

Relief floods through me and I pull her closer so that her hair is in my face. ‘Really?’

‘Really!’

I close my eyes with relief. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

A long moment passes, then hot spasmodic breaths blow against my cheek: silent laughter. ‘You’ve gone all sleepy!’

I force my eyes open and give an embarrassed laugh. It’s true. I’m wiped out. My eyelids are dragged down by invisible weights and every ounce of energy has evaporated from my body. I have just experienced the most intense few minutes of my life and my whole body feels weak. I shift uncomfortably against the bed and pull an embarrassed face. ‘I think I need a shower . . .’

I can’t stop thinking about it – at night, but during the daytime too. What have we done? What have we done? Even though we never took our clothes off, even though what we did isn’t technically against the law, I know we have started on a dangerous slippery slope. Where it could eventually land us is both too terrifying and too fantastic to even think about. I try telling myself that it was nothing, that I was just trying to comfort her – but even I’m not self-deluded enough to believe my own ridiculous excuse. And now it’s like a drug, and I ca

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Maya

At the end of the day, it’s all about how much you can bear, how much you can endure. Being together, we harm nobody; being apart, we extinguish ourselves. I wanted to be strong – wanted to show Lochan that if he could walk away after that first night, then so could I; that if he could distract himself by going out with a girl, then I could do the same with a guy. My mind was set on the idea but the rest of me wouldn’t obey. Rather than go through with our deal, my body chose to take a dangerous tumble down a flight of stairs.

Lochan is still Lochan, except he’s not. When I look at him, he seems different to me now. My mind keeps flashing back to that afternoon on the bed: the taste of his hot mouth, the brush of his fingertips against my skin. I want to be with him all the time. I follow him from room to room, finding any excuse to be near him, to look at him, to touch him. I want to hold him, stroke him, kiss him, but of course, with the others always around, I can’t. Loving him like this has become a deep physical ache. I am overcome by a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions: on the one hand fizzing with so much adrenaline and excitement I find it difficult to eat, on the other, consumed with terror that Lochan is suddenly going to say we ca

Lochan too seems more alive. The strained look of exhaustion and false cheer is erased from his face. He cracks up at Tiffin’s jokes, tickles Willa and swings her round and round until I beg him to stop. He humours Kit and lets the usual inflammatory remarks go; he has even stopped chewing his lip. And every time his eyes meet mine, his face ignites with a smile.

On Friday morning, two whole weeks after we last held each other on the bed, I come up behind him as he stands alone at the sink with his back to the door, sipping his morning coffee and staring out of the window. His raven hair is still tousled from the night, his white shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows as usual. The skin on his arms looks so smooth, I long to stroke them. Unable to hold back, I slip my hand into his loose one. He turns to me with a smile of surprise but I recognize a hint of alarm in his eyes, accompanied by another emotion: a longing ache, a painful desperation.

‘The others will be down in a minute,’ Lochan warns me softly.

I glance at the closed kitchen door, wishing it had a lock. Turning back, I stroke the inside of his palm with my fingertips. ‘I miss you,’ I whisper.

He smiles slightly but his eyes are sad. ‘We just have to – to wait for the right moment, Maya.’

‘There never is a right moment,’ I reply. ‘Between the kids and school and Kit up half the night, we’re never alone.’

He starts on his lip again, turning to stare out of the window. I rest my head against the top of his arm.

‘Don’t!’ he says hoarsely.

‘But I was just—’

‘Don’t you get it? It makes it even harder. It makes it even worse.’ He takes an unsteady breath. ‘I can’t – I can’t bear it when you . . .’

‘When I what?’

He doesn’t reply.

‘Why are you tuning me out?’

‘You don’t understand.’ He turns to me almost angrily, his voice begi

‘OK. I know. I’m sorry.’ I try to disengage my hand but his fingers tighten round mine.

‘Don’t—’

I lean towards him and hold him tight as he wraps his arms around me. The warmth of his body flows into mine like an electric current. His hot cheek brushes against my face, his lips touch mine then pull away again; his breath is moist and urgent against my neck. I want him to kiss me so much, it hurts.

The door crashes open like the sound of a gunshot. We reel apart. Tiffin stands there, trailing his tie, his shirt untucked. His eyes are wide, flicking from my face to Lochan’s.

‘Wow, first one to be ready!’ My voice comes out shrill with false cheer. ‘Come here and I’ll do your tie. What d’you fancy for breakfast?’

He still doesn’t move. ‘What happened?’ he asks at length, his face worried.

‘Nothing!’ Lochan turns from making the coffee and gives him a reassuring smile. ‘Everything’s fine. Now, muesli, toast or both?’

Tiffin ignores Lochan’s attempts at distraction. ‘Why were you cuddling Maya?’ he asks instead.

‘Because – because – Maya was feeling a bit upset about this test she’s got today,’ Lochan replies raggedly. ‘She’s feeling very nervous.’

I nod in agreement, quickly erasing my false smile.

Unconvinced, Tiffin walks slowly over to his chair, forgetting his usual complaints as Lochan fills his bowl with muesli.

My heart is hammering. We only heard the door after it had swung open all the way and hit the corner of the sideboard. Did Tiffin see Lochan kiss my neck – notice my lips brush against his? Tiffin starts eating his muesli without further comment and I know he doesn’t believe our story. I know he senses something isn’t right. It’s almost a relief when Kit and Willa arrive, loud and complaining, one protesting about the breakfast menu, the other about the loss of her sticker album. I glance nervously at Tiffin but he stays unusually silent.