Lewis drops me home an hour later, walking to our front porch and kissing me goodbye. Usually, I'd be more alert, pushing him away in case Jake is home already, but I'm still flustered by our conversation, and instead, I pull him closer, comforted by the nearness of him.
But eventually, he leaves, and I fill with a growing sense of panic, with a chaotic energy I don't have an outlet for.
And then I walk inside and see Jake.
He's standing by Sylvia's piano with a view directly onto the porch, and I know he's seen everything. If his expression isn't enough to go by, the overturned piano seat at his feet is.
"Jake." My thoughts are haywire, and when I close the door, I slam it accidentally. "Don't—"
"What the hell, Claude?"
The words come out as whiplash and I flinch away from them.
"I asked if anything was going on with Lewis and you said no. That didn't look like—"
"Matt D'Cruz is in Sydney."
My voice is wheezy, caught somewhere between a sob and a scream, and Jake blinks at me.
"What?"
"Lewis met him. He said Matt remembered us and told him our last name was Smith."
Jake has gone green, and he takes two steps forward and the stops, unsure what to do.
"What did you say to him?"
"I said the fire was too distressing and when we got a chance to move away, we took it."
"Shit. Do you think he believed you?"
"Does that matter? If Muhammad or Sanduni find out, we're screwed. We'll have to move again."
Jake starts shaking, and he rights the piano stool, sits down, and leans over. For a second, I'm unsure what he's doing, but then I realise he's trying to get more blood to his head.
"Should we talk to him?" Jake asks from between his legs. "Matt, I mean. Ask him not to come near us?"
"No, we can't. If he isn't suspicious already, he would be after that."
I drop my schoolbag to the floor and run a hand through my hair, trying to breathe through the panic.
If people found out about Matt, we we're done. Gone. But if they didn't...
"We have to cut him off," I say. "We can't let anyone else we know hear about him. Particularly Muhammad and Sanduni."
"Okay," Jake says, nodding vigorously. "How do we do that?"
"I don't know."
We stay there in miserable silence, both caught in our own thoughts, and I want to cry. Mostly because I've approached this the wrong way. These last few weeks I've been doing everything I can to keep problems away from Jake's shoulders, and now I've gone and dumped two bucket loads on him in very close succession.
"Sorry, Jake. I'm panicking for no reason. I think it'll be fine. Matt doesn't go to our school and Sydney's a big place. We probably won't even hear about him again."
"Yeah, okay."
Jake isn't convinced, but he isn't growing more panicked either, and I count that as a positive. I move to his side and sit, trying to think of a more positive subject.
"How was your day?" I ask. "Did therapy go well?"
"Yeah, my day was fine until I saw Lewis groping you on our front porch."
His voice is bitter and I grimace. "Sorry."
Jake stays quiet and I shift in my seat.
"I really like him, Jakey."
"Right."
I hesitate for a moment, unsure if mentioning the Melbourne thing is a good idea or not, but then I figure he's going to find out anyway.
"He's asked me to go to Melbourne with him this weekend."
Jake raises his hands to his face, pressing his palms into his eyes.
"And I'm supposed to be okay with that?"
"Well, yeah, I was hoping so."
"Why didn't you tell me about any of this?"
His voice is quiet and I realise he's more hurt than anything else — that while he's been opening up to me, I've been keeping things from him.
"I'm sorry," I say softly. "I should've. I just knew you'd get upset, so I wasn't sure how."
"I'm not upset, I just want to punch Lewis is the face."
I give Jake a pointed look and he peaks at me from between his hands and sighs.
"Obviously, I'll try not to," he mutters.
"Thank you."
I grab Jake's hand, squeezing it tight.
"This will be fine, Jakey," I say. "Really, it will. Lewis won't tell anyone about Matt if we ask him not too. And we can find out which school he's at and avoid it."
"Yeah, okay," Jake says, and he stands up, running a hand down his face.
He looks exhausted and guilt threads through me again.
"I should do some homework," he says.
"Okay."
I watch him walk out of the room, trying to stay positive even as my stomach drops further and further down.
...
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- Skylar xx