Chapter 18: Cool and Collected

By Star

Taz's POV

I follow Maya out of the rink desperately trying to keep up. "Maya!" I call.

She pauses and throws a look of annoyance over her shoulder. "I don't have anything to say to you."

I run to catch up with her, grateful that she stopped, albeit momentarily. "I do."

"Nice. Thanks. It's only taken you six days to hold a conversation with me. I'm honoured. Do I bow, or do I curtsy?"

"Um, either." I feel like slapping myself. Sometimes I just don't know when to shut up.

She glares at me in irritation and storms off again.

"Maya, I'm sorry." I take off after her and grab her arm. "I really am."

She stands still, so I take this as a sign to continue.

"I don't know why I've been avoiding you. And I don't know why I lied about those bruises." I shrug, it's true. I don't really have a concrete reason, however, I'm going to try and explain to her the little things that set me off.

"I just walked into our room and everyone was there, so I couldn't tell you."

"You could have told me after they left." She points out.

"No, but I wanted to talk to you about it. Just you. And then someone asked me, and I looked around and half the room was bruised. I felt like I'd walked into a battered queers meeting or something. Everyone looked so depressed, and I didn't want to make it worse." I take a deep breath. She's still here.

"And then when they left, I knew that you'd caught me. I can't lie to you. I meant to tell you, but by that point I'd almost convinced myself that I had fallen down the stairs."

"Oh, Taz." She sighs softly. "Why didn't you just wait around the next morning? We could have talked."

"I don't know. Once I had said that I'd fallen down the stairs I couldn't take it back." I look her in the eyes. "I didn't mean to start lying to you. It's just… things were bad enough already. Adam and Fulton looked worse than I did."

"Your bruises looked newer." She says, her voice is neither hard nor soft. "And there were some on your legs that looked days older than the others."

Time for the truth. All of it. "My Dad." I tell her. "He did it. I didn't fall down the stairs. Every day of break he asked me if I was gay. Every time I said yes I got a new batch of bruises."

Her eyes fill with tears. "Why didn't you lie? You could lie to me quick enough." She claps her hand over her mouth. If the conversation wasn't so serious I would laugh. Sometimes Maya can't shut up either.

"I lied to protect you. I couldn't lie about you." I take her hand and she lets me. "Maya, I love you. I'm crazy about you. Do you really think I could lie about that?"

She sighs, it's a sigh I know well, it's part amusement at my logic and part irritation. "Taz, you lie about all the wrong things!"

I take a step back. I think she's channelling me for that comment.

"If you had to lie, you should have told your Dad it was a wind up, then told me the truth."

"It's done now." I tell her.

"If you lie to me again, my dear Tasmanian Devil, I will hang you from the flagpole by your gaudily coloured hair. Is that understood?"

I nod.

"That's not enough, Taz. I want you to promise on our relationship that you'll tell me the truth at all times." She says firmly.

I blink, I'm not a liar by nature, but this seems like a huge commitment. "What if someone tells me something in confidence?"

"Then you tell me that you can't tell. You don't lie about it." She squeezes my hand. "I'm serious, no lies in our relationship."

"I promise." I say, and I mean it. Nothing is worth losing Maya over. "I promise on our relationship that there will be no more lies."

"Good." She gives me an impish grin. "Now, let's go back to our room and make up!"

I follow her eagerly. She gives me another grin. "And don't for one moment think you're going back to your Dad's over Christmas. You're coming home with me."

"How are your parents going to feel about that?" I ask as she unlocks our door.

She gives me a gentle look. "They'll be more welcoming than your Dad."

All of a sudden I'm crying. I've not been holding it in, I was just kind of numb, but her kind look, paired with the word Dad and I feel my world crumple.

"Tazzie." She takes me in her arms and quickly shuts the door behind us.

"I'm not upset." I tell her. "I'm angry. He lied to me."

"What did he say?"

"When Mum died he promised that he'd never let me down, and he has."

We lay down on her bed and she holds me while I cry.

"He told me if I stopped being gay things would be ok."

"People like that make me sick." She says venomously. "They're wrong."

"I know. If this felt even slightly wrong I wouldn't have told him."

"I love you, Taz."

"I love you too, Maya. Even if you do have the most resonating snore in the building!"

She grins at me, seeing my humour return.

Now, some people think I call her Minx because of something sexy. Which isn't entirely wrong. But really it's mostly because of how cat-like she looks when she pounces on me and tickles me.

The look that she has right now.

Depression! Come back!