Talent...and what to do with it

Chapter 10: Jess

I had spent a whole day feeling sad that I had given up on Jonah without an explanation. I sat at my desk and didn't work. Instead I looked up his Facebook page, and wondered about messaging him. Maybe I should have asked him about Lauren. Maybe I had been hasty.
I was still staring at his image on my laptop when Dad got back from his governor's meeting. Before long Mum called up the stairs to ask me to come down and talk to them. It was always the same after governor meetings. Dad would have cooked up some scheme to get me extra privileges.
"Now, Jessica. I know it's been a difficult few days for you, and I really don't want to upset you any further but I am afraid we need to talk about this. I wouldn't usually breech confidentiality, but I feel in these circumstances I must," Dad began. "It seems that there's a lot more to Jonah Taylor than we first realised."
What had Jonah got to do with a governor's meeting? I really started listening then.
"The Headteacher always has to ratify any exclusions, and it seems that the person who has just been excluded fits the profile of Jonah."
"Jonah hasn't been excluded. I just saw him this morning."
Dad glanced at Mum with a frown. "That's what worries us. He has only been temporarily suspended. You will still see him at school. We need to know if there is any action that needs to be taken after Saturday night. It's clear that this boy is trouble and we want to make sure he isn't allowed to get away with anything."
"Look, I told you Saturday night was just a misunderstanding." I knew I was going red. "It was just embarrassing, that's all. He didn't really do anything wrong. I just thought...I just thought there was more to it than there was, that's all."
Mum peered at me. "Are you sure, Jess? Because what we've heard about him is really quite alarming."
"What do you mean? What have you heard about him? Why was he excluded?"
Dad coughed. "Well, it seems Jonah is violent and has a dreadful temper. He was seen fighting. A younger child. To be frank I am surprised the Headteacher didn't permanently exclude him."
"What?" I couldn't imagine Jonah fighting. He was always laughing and relaxed, he didn't fight younger kids.
"It's true. Shocking behaviour. That's why I want to be sure you keep well away from him. I'm glad I asked now, given that you say you saw him today."
"I already told you, I've quit the training, and I just saw him to give him back his homework book."
"Why did you have his homework book, Jessica?" Mum's tone was softer than Dad's.
"I've been helping him a bit, at lunchtimes."
Dad looked at the ceiling. "He's weaselled his way into your life, taken advantage of your good nature, and who knows what he had planned next?"
"What are you talking about? You are acting like he's a criminal mastermind. You've met him. You were the one who encouraged me to go training with him. He's even been round for dinner. Surely you can see that he's not as bad as you think."
"And I can't believe you're defending him! Jessica, you have to trust me. The fighting is the tip of the iceberg. He has a very troubling past."
"I know."
"What do you mean – you know?"
"He's told me what he used to be like. He's changed."
"Well clearly he hasn't after today's incidents. And frankly I am surprised that you chose to continue to associate with him if you really knew what he was like."
I was fed up with hearing half a story. I sighed and sat down. "Go on then, just tell me what you know."
Dad folded his arms across his chest. "Fine, Jessica. If you really want to know he was heavily involved in a gang in Manchester. He was excluded from his old school for bringing a knife into class, and I believe drugs were involved, too."
"I don't believe you. Jonah isn't like that."
Mum put her arm round my shoulder. "I'm sorry love, he had us all fooled."
I went quiet. Then I spoke, but even to my ears I sounded feeble. "He must have been confused with someone else, I can't believe he'd be into drugs, he's practically a fitness freak." But as I said it I started to doubt my conviction. I remembered he'd told me that he was the ringleader of the trouble. It was just that the trouble he'd alluded too was far worse than I'd imagined.
"That's why, Jess, we need to be sure about Saturday night. We need to know you're safe."
I stood up, trying to hold back tears. "Listen. All that happened was that it turned out he has a girlfriend. I thought he liked me, but I got it wrong. It was just a stupid teenage crush, and I really, really don't want to talk about it ever again."
I pushed past them, desperate to get away before the tears fell. I left them in the kitchen before I could hear any more and went to bed. I thought about what I knew about Jonah. He'd told me he had missed school and that he'd been in trouble, but I thought that meant winding teachers up and playing truant, not knives and drugs. I knew him, didn't I? But at the same time I was sure Dad wouldn't just make it up.
At school the next day I listened to the gossip for once, and heard that Jonah had indeed been excluded for attacking someone. I wondered how many more facts I needed laid in front of me before I accepted that I was even more misguided than I first thought. I had indulged an unreciprocated crush on someone I couldn't even respect.
I didn't realise I was cross with him until I saw him on the bus a few days later. But when he tried to speak to me, I was suddenly furious. How could he have fooled me so well? I could no longer even see him as the Jonah I had known. How could he have wrecked any chance we'd had with some dumb fight? Because even if everyone had got it wrong about him, my parents would never change their minds about him now. When he confidently swung into the seat next to me, I wanted to push him away. He was with Lauren. He was violent. I wasn't supposed to notice that he still smelt good, and that he still made me feel like smiling. Yet again I wished I had never met him.
I didn't look round at first.
"Aren't you even going to say hello?" he asked cockily.
"Hello Jonah." I kept my voice cold.
"Is that it?"
"OK. Jonah, I think you are sitting in the wrong place. You normally sit at the back of the bus with the popular kids."
"I sit where I want."
"Do you?"
He paused for a beat, and I was pleased my barb had hit home. He did care more about being popular than anything else and I had spotted his weakness. "Yeah, well I still don't get what's going on between us."
I flinched. "Us?"
"You leave the gig, and go all quiet, for no apparent reason. Then you suddenly drop the training and homework sessions. I don't get it."
"Like I said, I was ill on Thursday night."
"Yep. Ill a lot aren't you?"
I flushed then. So he didn't believe me about my Cambridge anxiety attacks. For all I knew he had been laughing about it with the others. I turned away so he couldn't see how he'd hurt me.
"Listen, I didn't mean that I didn't..."
"No Jonah, you listen. I don't want to know what you think of me, I don't care if you and the others are all laughing about me. I just want you to leave me alone."
"What do you mean laughing at you?"
I sighed. "Jonah, what do you want from me?"
He was silent. I thought about the moment in my room when we'd almost kissed and it felt like the promise of something amazing. But I was wrong about that, too. He clearly had never even liked me as anything more than a friend. He spoke hesitantly. "I just want to go back to how things were, when we used to just hang out."
"That's not going to happen."
I sounded convincing, and luckily the bus had pulled up at school. I stood up and waited pointedly for him to move. He sighed and stood up. I imagined that he sounded sad when he quietly said, "Bye Jess."
From then on I set my heart to stone. At school I made eye contact with no one. I spoke to no one. I spent break and lunchtimes in the library doing extra study for the exams that were coming up way too fast. I should have been flying with the work. But I kept making mistakes. Every calculation that had once been way too easy now seemed unrecognizable and took all my effort.
And I silently observed Jonah's rise from a popular Year 11 kid to local celebrity. From the library window I could see the track and saw more kids going to hang out to watch him train. Even from the distance I could see how good he looked, and see how popular he had become. Every girl fancied him, every boy wanted to be his mate. And I was ignored again.