I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,20

it away. I can’t bear the physical contact.

She’s silent, waiting for me to tell her more.

‘It was so long ago now…’ I say.

She hands me a tissue. I hadn’t realised I was crying. I think of my parents, their unhappy marriage. What would things be like if they were both still alive? Would I feel differently about myself? Would I be happier?

I try not to think about it too much. But sometimes when I’m alone, I imagine speaking to my father, imagine trying to put things right between us, apologising for my teenage mistakes. I miss him so much sometimes, it’s like a physical pain.

‘What happened?’

‘It was an accident…’ I say quickly. ‘A car crash.’ I look away so I don’t have to meet her eyes. If she looks at me she might see right through me, see that everything was my fault. Suddenly the sofa feels uncomfortably hard and I shift in my seat.

‘That must have been so difficult for you. Especially when you were so young.’

I feel my defences coming up, the defences that got me through a series of foster homes, that stopped me from talking about what had happened. ‘Yeah.’

She swallows and I can see she feels sorry for me. Seeing my own grief reflected in her eyes cuts me to the bone. Tears flow freely down my face.

‘What was it like afterwards?’ Beth asks softly. ‘After they died?’

‘Pretty awful. But I tried not to think about it. I threw myself into my schoolwork instead. Even though they were gone, I still wanted to make them proud. Especially my mother.’

Beth nods.

‘We were always at loggerheads before. She wanted me to study harder, but I was too focused on impressing my friends – you know what teenagers are like. It was only after she died that I focused at school.’

‘It sounds like you dealt with your grief by distracting yourself with schoolwork.’

‘There was no choice. I had to get on with things when I was in foster care.’

‘You went straight into care after your parents’ deaths?’ I can hear the surprise behind the question, the thought that no one else loved me enough to look after me, not aunts or uncles or grandparents or friends. No one wanted to take me in.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘My relatives came to see me, but they didn’t want me living with them. None of my aunts and uncles had children, and they didn’t want a teenager messing up their lives.’

‘That must have been hard.’

I shrug, a forced nonchalance that I’ve perfected over the years. ‘I survived.’ There were people who could have helped, people I had trusted. But they’d let me down.

‘You seem angry.’ Beth stares at my hands, which have clenched into fists of their own accord.

‘I am,’ I say simply.

She nods, waiting for me to continue.

‘There was something else. I found out a lot after they died.’ I look at her directly now. ‘Secrets they’d rather have kept hidden.’

‘Secrets?’

‘I suppose everyone must have them. Things they’d prefer other people not to know. Maybe I was naive to think otherwise.’

‘It’s fair to say that a lot of people have things they hide,’ Beth says softly. ‘It’s a normal part of being human to want to keep some things private.’

I stare at her, struck by what she’s said. She has her own life, her own problems. I’m sure there are things she hides too. I realise I don’t know enough about her. I’ve shared so much of my own life without her sharing anything in return.

‘Do you have secrets?’ I ask.

‘This isn’t about me.’ She shifts in her seat. I know there’s something underneath. I wonder if it keeps her awake at night, the way the past stops me from sleeping.

‘What did you find out?’ she asks.

I hesitate, wondering if I can truly trust her. She waits.

‘My father had been having an affair,’ I say finally. ‘He was planning to leave my mother.’

‘How did that make you feel?’

‘Angry, I suppose. But there was so much going on. I was grieving at the same time. And I was trying to adapt to a new life in foster care. Different people, in a different place. Everything had changed in an instant. It was like I couldn’t really feel much at all. I just had to get on with things.’

‘You blocked it out?’

‘Yeah. But it’s coming back to me now and I feel angry all over again. And sad.’ I look up at her. Her kindly eyes meet mine and I feel the emotions