Another time perhaps 28.
Kate lay in Caroline's folded lap, on her childhood bed, a record played softly in the background and each of them held a book in their hands, though neither had turned the page in a while.
Caroline was busy dealing with the feeling that she would have to leave soon and get back to her Mother's disapproving gaze and recriminating questions. Since Caroline had taken Kate home on boxing day and Celia had managed, for Muriel's benefit, to present herself as hospitable, Caroline had been working on a kind of give and take principal with her mum, in that, if her Mum gave her a hard time, she would take herself off to Kate's. The more that Celia complained, the longer her Daughter would stay away and so it had quickly reached the point where Celia gave hardly a grumble when Caroline informed her of her plans to go for a drink with Kate or when both girls arrived on the doorstep after tea.
Celia had been quiet today and only a slight curl of the lips, flaring of the nostrils and a look behind the eyes betrayed her real disdain for Caroline's plans, she supposed she should look at this as a kind of progress? Caroline had to leave soon, alone tonight, perhaps watch a film with Celia before bed. She ran her hand over Kate's hair, leaving it to settle at the base of her neck, her plan to leave setting off an instant need for contact. She sighed and Kate looked up at her, abandoning her book completely.
"Okay?" Kate smiled.
Caroline nodded. "I need to get home, see Mum..."
"Alright." Kate agreed, coming up on to her knees and slipping both her arms around Caroline's neck before kissing her lips lightly.
"You still haven't told me what you have planned...for tomorrow night..." Caroline said, as the thought occurred to her.
A grin snuck onto Kate's face and she looked away guiltily.
"Kaaaaate?!" Caroline pushed the question, holding Kate around her small waist.
Kate brought her eyes back to Caroline's and her face turned serious, even firm, for a moment.
"I thought we could go out, I have tickets for a disco, it's in Manchester, a friend told me about it..." Kate explained.
"Steph?" Caroline asked bluntly, already wary.
"Yes, Steph. It's a New Years Eve party, women only, nothing big or fancy, we can wear jeans, whatever you like really..." Kate shrugged.
"I don't think..." Caroline began, then stopped herself, she fell back a little from Kate and released her girlfriends waist. "What kind of place is it exactly? Why women only?" She went on.
"It's a party with women who go out with other women, like us." Kate explained easily.
Caroline frowned. "Why would you want to go all that way..."
"It's hardly the other side of the world..." Kate cut in impatiently.
"On New Years Eve...I suppose I'll have to drive, they'll be no trains..." Caroline complained.
"There's a bus, I thought you'd probably want to drink..." Kate said, her hands rubbing stiffly against one another as she watched Caroline carefully.
"I don't know..." Caroline said, her head cocked to one side as she took in Kate, shoulders tense, still up on her knees.
"Caroline, it would be nice, for once we could dance together, I could hold your hand," She took the blondes hand to illustrate and placed her thumb in the centre of the palm. "You could hold me, we wouldn't have to spend the night looking over our shoulders or dodging the overexuberant advances of the drunken young men of Harrogate."
"Couldn't we just stay here? I could make us dinner, you said that everyone else had plans to go to your cousins...We could dance here, I could hold you here!" Caroline used Kate's own words against her.
"I want to go out." Kate stated simply. "I really want to go Caroline. I think if you gave it a chance you might enjoy it. And if you hate it we can leave, go somewhere else..." Kate reasoned. She didn't think she was asking too much and she was willing to stand firm this time.
"I can't. I can't do it..." Caroline said, softly shaking her head with a sigh. "I can't do it anymore." Almost to herself.
"What are you talking about?" Kate asked, but Caroline's tone, the look in her eye had stopped her in her tracks. "I have the tickets now...it's just a bar with a dance floor and if you hate it so much, we can come back here, just the two of us... It's not a big deal..."
"I shouldn't care what she thinks, I know that...I shouldn't care what anyone else thinks...but I do...I've tried not to Kate, I really have. I can't. I can't switch it off." Caroline was working herself up now, her thoughts racing against her pulse.
"It's okay to be scared..." Kate soothed gently.
"I'm terrified. I am, all the time. Afraid I'll let it slip. I can't go on like that and neither can you...I know you want to tell your mum about us, I'm surprised you haven't already...and I know you think she'll be okay with it, but you don't know how she'll react Kate and it's not just her, she'll tell your Dad and I don't think I could look either one of them in the eye after that..." Caroline admitted.
"I'm alright Caroline..." Kate interrupted, trying to remain calm.
"No. No you're not. You try and tell yourself that, but you're not. You used to be so carefree. Now you spend all your time trying to come and see me. You have hardly spent any time with your mates this term. You hardly talk about them anymore. You spend all your time with this Steph. You are missing out..."
"I don't care about that..." Kate protested.
"You should...you used to."
"It's up to me who I choose to spend my time with ... I like Steph...and Emma is a mate now too...I still have friends, the ones that count."
"It's too much Kate. I'll let you down. I know I will. I'm not...what you think I am...I am not brave, you're hanging around for me to make a stand, to catch up to you... But it's never going to happen..." Caroline said with certainty.
"Don't say that..." Kate pleaded.
"But it's true. And I'm afraid that you are going to commit yourself to this...to this life...style.. ...to being something...because of me...and they'll be no going back..." Caroline warned.
"Caroline. I don't want to go back. I'm not some impressionable child. I know how I feel about you and I know the way that... you feel about me... That's what matters, that's the only thing that matters!"
"Not to me." Caroline said firmly.
Kate was silenced, as she swallowed the poison. "I don't understand? We have had a lovely few days together...last night was..."
A flash of last night hung between them now, an accusation, a piece of evidence in the case against Caroline. She pushed the memory away.
"It was." Caroline assured. "It was amazing Kate...I've never felt anything so ... Before." It was true. They had been together almost every night since Christmas day and each time it got better, each time Caroline became a little more aware both of how to please Kate and herself. But somehow that was even more cause for her to end this now. The more immersed in Kate she became, the smaller the chance that she could ever get out, like sinking sand.
"Then how can you be talking like this, what can have changed since last night?" Kate said, a touch of hope returning to her.
"I was thinking like this before last night." Caroline admitted heavily. "I have been thinking like this for weeks."
Kate's chest sank now, she noticed the hole in it for the first time. "Weeks? But you haven't said anything..." Kate dragged both her hands through her hair. " I know that things have been difficult with your mum and I know you coming over to York was a bit of a disaster... But we don't have to do that again, for a bit, if you don't want to... I like coming to Oxford..."
"Kate, please listen to me..." Caroline begged.
"Caroline, you can't do this, you said...you wanted to be with me...you said you loved me..."
"I did...I do...I...It's not enough..." She admitted sadly, shaking her head.
"Kate, there is someone else..." Caroline said it. It was the only way. "I mean, we haven't...we're just friends...
"Someone else?" Kate echoed as if the words as much as the idea were unfathomable.
"Just a friend...for now, but I think it could be more... If I tried..." Caroline confessed.
"What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?" Kate asked, flabbergasted.
"It's John, you met him. You remember..."
"John? That ...idiot...that...You said you wouldn't see him again. You told me. You haven't mentioned him since..." Kate argued doubtfully.
"I know, I didn't see him, for ages and then he just turned up and asked me to read his book and I said yes and... " Caroline shrugged. "I like him, he's nice, he's funny, he's uncomplicated...easy...and he likes me...a lot."
Kate held a hand to her creased forehead and tried to replay what was being said but it was like a bee sting, sharp, unexpected and then a growing numbness, a swelling. Somewhere during their discussion Kate had gotten up off the bed and now she planted herself down onto it, a stable place, she gripped the edge, the cold metal of the bed frame in her hand.
"Kate..." Caroline had stood too, now she moved in front of Kate. "I didn't mean to, I didn't want to hurt you..."
Kate looked blankly up at Caroline, the darker womans elbows perched on her knees now as she held her head in both her hands and considered all of it again. Every moment from the first, played over, the first kiss, the night Caroline had taken Kate upstairs and they had just slept together, the way that Kate felt that night, knowing that something was starting, something that was going to change her forever. The first visit to Oxford, every word, every look that Caroline had given her since then...had any of it warned her, had any of it prepared her for this? What had she ignored? Where had it gone wrong? Could she make it right? If she just fixed whatever had caused this...perhaps she still could. Maybe she could erase this evening and they could carry on.
"Caroline, I understand...I know, things are difficult with your Mum, with everything going on between her and your Dad. It's no wonder you're stressed out...and I probably haven't helped...pushing you..." Kate said gently.
"No Kate, it's not your fault, really. It's not even Mums fault." Caroline wasn't sure how much she believed that, but she had to now. "It's me. It's just me. I am not...like you..." Caroline threw a hand up in Kate's direction. "I wish I was."
The last song on this side of the record had ended and the turntable continued to turn, playing the sound of a crackly silence, loudly filling the space between them.
Tears sprang to Kate's eyes as she was finally hit with the reality of what was happening, .
"We can't just..." Kate's words caught behind the pain filled lump in her throat, forcing their way up and around it. "Not see each other again." She stood. "This can't be it..."
Caroline wanted so much to hold her, tightly, feel the wet cheek against her own. "It's not as if...we'll never see each other again..." She promised. "I couldn't bare that Kate, not with you..." A tear appeared in the corner of each of her eyes and held shakily in place, she didn't deserve to shed her own. "We can still be friends, you know me better than anyone else..." Caroline assured, putting one hand to the back of Kate's neck as Kate stepped clumsily forward and put her head to Caroline's shoulder.
Kate wanted to be angry with her, she wanted to scream. How could she do this to her? To them?
Caroline pressed a chaste but tender kiss to Kate's temple and Kate pushed her tear stained face into Caroline's neck, hiding there.
"It's for the best Kate, next year you're going abroad! I don't want to be holding you back. You're so young, you should be having fun..." Caroline urged with a wide false smile.
Kate put both arms around Caroline's shoulders and her eyes searched the blonde's.
"Don't leave ..." She whispered as a fresh round of tears made their hasty escape.
"Kate." Caroline felt her own face grow damp as she failed to keep her emotions in check for just a fraction of a second. "Oh Kate." Caroline pulled Kate to her, wrapped herself in her. What was she doing? Why?
"Stay." Kate requested more loudly now, yet muffled against Caroline's shoulder. "Stay tonight. We have to talk about things. You can't just go..."
Caroline gave in and sought out Kate's lips, kissing her she tasted the salt of her tears against the sweetness of the balm on her lips. Caroline was going to break. She could feel it, she was cracking, tearing, she had to get out. She pulled back.
"I can't...Kate, I have to go home." She stepped back and put her hands together, out of reach, stilling, restraining one another. She wasn't being fair. She was making everything worse.
"Caroline..." Kate moaned, her hand coming up to cover her mouth even as she said it.
"I'll come back tomorrow, I'll come and see you in the morning, We can talk about things then." Caroline had taken another step away and then another, feeling slightly stronger with each.
As she reached her hand for the door handle she used the other hand to pull at the bottom of her sleeve and use her jumper like a tissue to dab at the corners of her eyes. She took a long deep breath and sent back the fresh tears that were on their way. to the surface She turned to look at Kate.
"I'm sorry Kate, I'm so sorry." She said as she channeled all of her will to pull open the door and flea, almost tripping over her own feet in her rush to get away. Caroline hurtled down the stairs, passing Leon at the foot and brushing wordlessly past him as she burst out of the front door into the street.
Xxxx
AN: Sorry guys. It just had to be done. xx
