My Love, My Drug, My Release

Chapter 29: Satan's Mirror

"What is this place?" I asked.

"My mum used to take me and the girls here in the summer. She doesn't anymore because she works all hours doing odd jobs since she got sacked, and also she's always got some affliction, but I still like to come from time to time. It's best in the early autumn, before it's cold when the leaves are just starting to turn-" He stopped, either deciding he was rambling or getting too personal (even though I was enjoying hearing his thoughts) and just smiled at me. "But it's still lovely now, don't you think?'

"I do," I whispered, my shoes shifting slightly as the ground got damper and looser. 

"It's called Satan's Mirror," Gallagher said when we reached the edge of what was either a small lake or a large pond. "Young people would come here during the Great War with their sweethearts, and the old folks said Satan would reflect himself onto them." When he saw my confusion, he added, "It means they came here to shag."

I giggled, looking down at my flats, which were now heavily spotted with dirt. "Well, that's hardly the Satanic worship I was hoping for."

"Sorry to disappoint." He gazed out at the water, blue eyes glinting with the light from the clementine-colored sun. "Would you go for a swim with me, Lo?"

"A- a swim?" My mouth gaped like a koi fish. "In our uniforms?"

"Of course not." He tossed his blazer to the ground and started unbuttoning his shirt. I averted my eyes even though he was wearing an undershirt. As though I hadn't seen plenty of barechested men before. "It'll be cold, but, at this time of day, this time of year, we most likely won't get hypothermia."

"That's comforting."

"What, are you scared for me to see you?"

His words had the sharp edges of a challenge, though his face remained jovial. I was sick of play-acting as the innocent virgin in a tantalizingly short skirt. I hated this uniform, and I hated how men looked at me in it. Like I was rigid pistachio shell; a bit of extra pressure and I'd crack right open. The next time someone got access to my body, it would be of my own willful engineering; not out of shame or revenge or bowing to their entitlement.

"I'm not afraid of you," I said carefully. "But I don't know if I want to be so... vulnerable with you. I hardly know you at all. Maybe if you were to tell me something about yourself, something personal, I might have an easier time trusting you. Give and take."

"What do you want to know?"

That was the question indeed. The thing I most wanted was to climb into his brain and crawl around in there for a few hours, but that wasn't an option. "Why don't you like being called Adam?"

It was a risky choice, I knew that. But if he closed himself off to me, we weren't meant to be. He took a few long deep breaths, and I reached out to place a hand on his arm, feeling the curve of what was either a bicep or a tricep, the muscle twitching beneath my touch. "I'm named for my Da. He left after I was born, and I didn't know him for most of my life. Then he came back. Mum just let him into our home, gave him a key. They had my sisters, Francais and Jane, and I love those girls to death, but they should never have been born. Da's gone again, left before Jane turned two. If he comes back again, Mum'll probably do the same thing all over again. He won't come back though; Mum's too old for him now." He blinked a few times, like he was holding back tears, but then he smiled. "I don't look a speck like him though, I'm all Mum. Well, I'm all my mum's pa is more accurate. Spitting image of him."

"Wow I'm- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have even-"

"No, I'm glad you did." He reached out and took my hand. "It was good getting it off my chest. The only other at school who knows is Thelma, and we barely talk anymore."