The Quiet Game

Chapter 15- Then

Then:

Georgina sat at his desk, spinning her chair in circles as Connor lay on his bed, counting dents in his ceiling. He hadn’t been to school in several days, his books in his locker, class dismissed. Georgina came over most days and it struck Connor as strange that she didn’t have someplace else to be. It was nice to have company though, Miles had been absent since he started dating Blaire.

Georgina stood up and paced to his closet, flinging it open before getting bored and pacing over to perch on the edge of his bed. Connor watched her with a vague sensation that he was missing something. She fiddled with his bedspread until he sat up, lacing his fingers through her hand instead, stilling their motion. She glanced up at him and Connor was surprised to see she looked almost afraid.

He pulled her towards him, tucking her legs around his body as they kissed. It was strange how silent it was, he thought, when it was so loud inside his head. Kissing her didn’t have the effect it had had when he had first tried it. There was no quiet oblivion in this intimacy. Georgina placed her hands on his chest and pushed him away.

He raised his eyebrows as if to say what? She sighed, and spread her fingers wide against the cotton of his shirt. She looked very serious and Connor wondered if he should be worried. She’d been less annoying recently, and he wondered if there was something happening with her family. She had a cousin in the army didn’t she, and a brother in the peace corp. What if-

“Are we going to have sex?” No family tragedy. She spoke in the same bossy tone that always tinged her words made him smile slightly. Oh. He shrugged. She rolled her eyes.

“Get a piece of paper, this,” she imitated his shrug with exaggerated ambiguity, “is not good enough.” He stood up, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from his desk and sat back down.

She looked at him expectantly.

            He clicked his pen dramatically, but she didn’t laugh. I guess I just thought it would happen when it happened. She couldn’t seem to wait to read what he was writing so she snatched the paper out of his hand and read it.

            “That’s a ridiculous answer and you know it,” she said. “It’s just that Chuck always wanted to have sex, and you don’t.” He didn’t want to know that. Georgina raised her chin, pouting her lips a little. “Don’t you want me?” Her shirt inched down. Connor was transfixed. Her fingers slid under his t-shirt.

            He swallowed. Nod. She smiled and her hair fell around them like a curtain to the sun.

            “I love you,” she whispered as her lips trailed down his neck. Connor could almost believe that was true.

            Connor walked through school like a ghost. A ghost who got yanked aside by his psychology teacher and told he needed to start coming to class or he would fail. He sat at the back of the class and avoided the charcoal-rimmed eyes of the blonde girl next to him.

            Mr Poole had dark shadows under his eyes and looked in desperate need of psychological attention. He sat at the front of the classroom in a t-shirt under his suit coat that tried to persuade the students he was relatable.

            “Today we are talking about shame.” There were only eight kids in the class. One of them was Blaire. How had he not noticed that before? “What is shame? What makes you feel ashamed? These are the questions we will answer this week.” Connor couldn’t remember signing up for this class.

            Before class the psych teacher had told him that the guidance counsellor had informed all of Connor’s teachers about his verbal handicap, and that he wouldn’t make him speak in class. Connor had a horrible feeling he would be participating in a different way.