The Gay Delusion

21: The Getaway Delusion

21: The Getaway Delusion

How hilarious – and horrible – was it that things which you thought you weren't fully part of could have such a huge impact on your later life? Everything was connected. I had primarily been shaped by my parents' divorce, which at the time I hadn't thought was the end of the world: it had impacted the kind of girl I was four years ago, the person that I was then having the knock-on effect of moulding the person who I was today.

I wouldn't be sat here right now, heart more than a little bruised, sat across the kitchen table from my mum, as I thought of Griffin and how much he hated me now, as I thought of Nathan Baxter and where he was now. If my parents hadn't gotten divorced – if my dad hadn't walked out on us, and I had never walked in on him sleeping with another woman - I wouldn't have stayed in a relationship with Nathan. I wouldn't have ended up so damaged that I had to push Griffin – the best thing to have walked into my life since sliced bread - so far away that I was the one who stumbled backwards and fell off the edge, drowning in the depths of the dark sea.

*

I understood, now, the reasons behind why people ran away. It was easy. And it worked. The roaring of whatever or whoever you were running away from wasn't necessarily silenced, but at least the noise was muffled. Even though the problems and the sound still existed in the distant real world, that still counted for something.

Besides, I wasn't technically running away, I tried to convince myself as I clutched the steering wheel of my little car tightly, staring determinedly ahead as the city fell behind me and I drove into a world of rolling hills and greenery which exploded all around me. I was driving towards a specific destination.

This – making a getaway for my mum and stepdad's house - had the potential to be an absolutely awful idea, but something in me had a feeling that it was the right decision. I was going to the one person in the world who I could be almost certain would somewhat understand what had made me make all these crazy decisions.

'Laina? What are you doing here?' Mum's mouth parted in surprise, the wrinkles on her forehead showing as her eyebrows rose. As soon as my adorably ugly purple car had pulled up in the driveway, the front door had opened and my mother stood just outside it, watching as I stepped out of the car on shaky legs and stumbled towards her, a little exhausted from driving for three hours straight.

'I er, I just really needed a break,' I said weakly once I reached the porch, clutching the strap of my bag with both hands as I shifted my weight from foot to foot and tried to meet her green gaze. She hesitated for just a second before she leant forward and pressed a kiss to the side of my head in greeting, her hand bunching briefly in my hair as she pulled me close. Mum smelt the same as she always did – the scent of her Chanel perfume mixed with a faint undercurrent of rosewater resting on her skin.

Closing my eyes, it wasn't until I tried to speak that I realised how much a simple kiss hello from her had thrown me. 'I've, um, taken a couple of days off sick from work because - well, you were right - sometimes you just need a break from all the pollution in the city. I hope you don't mind me just turning up like this, but I er, you know. I figured this was a better place than any.' Biting my lip, I knew that I couldn't have sounded more awkward if I tried.

Mum stopped and stared at me, giving me the look which had been given to me for all twenty-four years of my existence. Her lips were nearly pursed, on the cusp of being disapproving but still not quite there, only just bordering on the side of simply curious. It was a look of vague wonder, as if she was wondering how on earth her offspring had ended up with the kind of temperament I possessed.

Oh bollocks, I thought panickedly when she didn't say anything for a full minute. Maybe this had been yet another bad idea. Maybe my full name should have been Laina Grace "Queen-of-Bloody-Bad-Ideas" Carter.