Warning: Graphic-ish/depressing-ish references to child abuse in this chapter. Please don't read if you'll be easily offended by this. Otherwise, enjoy...
As the light from her torch finally found what she had been looking for, Kit turned it off with a click – the moon giving enough light. She took a deep breath, pushed the nerves to the back of her mind, and began walking over to him. Noah. Sitting in a cluster of rocks and looking out to sea, his elbows rested on his knees and his hands held together in front of him.
She wrapped her arms around her body as the cool sea breeze touched her skin, tucking them up into the folds of one of his hooded jackets. After sitting and crying for just under an hour, she'd realised that she wasn't willing to throw away what they had. So, after casting off the nightgown and chucking on a pair of her jeans and one of Noah's way-too-big-for-her tops, and looking a lot more Kit-like, she had set out, torch in hand, to find him and to sort things out.
When she was about five metres away, close enough for him to hear her, she stopped. She noticed him realise she was there, and felt the threatening lump in her throat rise as she saw him wipe a bit of his shirt over his eyes furiously.
"Just… go away Kit." She heard the emotion in his voice as it cracked. He didn't sound angry with her, as he had done before, he sounded flat, defeated almost.
Slowly, she moved to sit down next to him, keeping her arms tightly folded. He turned his head away from her so she could only see the very side of his face, his eyes still fixed on the horizon. "I can't do that," she told him quietly but firmly.
She noticed him swallow hard and fixed her eyes on a bit of rough rock in front of her, not being able to stand the silence. "I've been looking for you everywhere… I should have guessed you'd be here really shouldn't I…" He shook his head bitterly as her poor attempt to ramble through the situation trickled out.
Feeling the tears begin to well up inside her again, Kit blinked firmly and looked towards her boyfriend. "Noah, I… I don't understand… I don't know what I've done wrong, I don't know why you're being like this, I…" The steely determination in her voice faltered slightly as she moved to touch his arm and he shook her off roughly.
"Please don't be like this…" she was failing to hide the hurt from her quiet voice, "…I never meant to hurt you, I don't know how I did, I…" As Noah slowly turned to look at her, Kit could see that he'd been crying. The tension drained from his face as he looked into her eyes, finding only honesty, pain and confusion. "You have to believe me," she looked deep into his tear stained blue eyes, willing him to realise, "I never meant to hurt you."
After studying her face carefully and taking a deep breath, he shakily replied. "I know."
A small warm smile spread over Kit's lips, the unshed tears in her eyes shining in the moonlight. "It's just… It…" Noah sighed, searching his girlfriends face for any sign that she understood already so he wouldn't need to actually say it. "Is it to do with your mum?" she asked him cautiously, they had never really mentioned those nights at the hospital again. He looked down, confirming her answer. She placed her hand over the top of his tenderly. "You don't have to tell me," she reassured him.
Noah looked up at her again, in her eyes he could see that she was trying desperately to understand. "I think I do," he replied, "I need to explain." Kit nodded encouragingly, wincing inside as he struggled to find the words to start.
After a long pause, he swallowed the steadily rising lump in his throat and tried to form a sentence. "It was the fire." Kit squeezed his hand gently, acknowledging that she knew how hard this was for him – even if she didn't know why. "It… it brought…" He sighed; he'd never actually tried to put this into words before, just a loose feeling inside his own head.
He took yet another deep breath and started again, noting Kit becoming more confused. "Remember at the hospital?" he asked her, "…when I had those… nightmares?" Kit nodded, giving him her full support. "Well, it was because of the fire. Well not because of it, it was more that it… it brought back some memories."
Kit squeezed his hand again, glad that he was finally opening up to her. "Of your mum?"
"Yeah," he replied, in a small and wavering voice, "I've told you about her, with the religious stuff and everything?" At the end of his sentence he lost all confidence and hoped that that would suffice Kit's questions.
She looked into his eyes again, trying to show him that she didn't care what had happened, it wouldn't change her feelings for him. "It's more than that though, isn't it?" She spoke gently, not wanting to rush him, he had obviously kept these things locked up for a long time and she couldn't expect him to be able to talk freely and calmly about it just for her sake. He looked down at his hands again, giving her the answer she already knew.
He nodded slowly and uncertainly, before looking up and into her eyes again, showing her fear, hope, pain and unshed tears. "I can trust you, can't I?" He asked her, his voice small and desperately needing an honest answer. She nodded, noticing how pale he was looking. "No, I mean really trust you?" She nodded again, searching his eyes for a sign that he believed her; she needed him to trust her. Finally finding his answer in her face, Noah blinked hard, and prepared to tell her what he had vowed he would never tell anyone.
Kit shuffled up closer to him so that their bodies were touching, she linked her fingers with his and tried to give him the most encouraging look she could manage. She knew how much this was killing him, and as he turned his face out to sea again and the moon cast a slightly warmer glow over it; glistening into the tears in his eyes, a fear began to rise inside her. She was scared. Scared of what he might tell her, scared of saying the wrong thing, scared that she wouldn't be able to give him the strength he needed, scared that she'd hurt him even more.
After a few minutes silence, and Noah trying to find the words to start with, he decided that the only possible place would be the beginning; it was all or nothing. Out of the stillness, his determined voice began…
"When dad left," Kit nodded, glad that the silence was over, "my mum she… she changed. She couldn't cope anymore, just stayed in her room all day and cried. I think it was that that made her like she was. And I don't know why either. I mean, from what I can remember of him anyway, he was just always drunk… and he hit her, and us. You'd think that she'd be glad he was gone."
"Maybe she loved him?" Kit suggested softly, again not wanting to rush him and trying to be actively helpful instead of just listening. She knew it wasn't enough though, she wished she could be more like Noah. He'd always known exactly the right thing to say to her to help, but whatever she said, Kit was sure, only made him feel worse.
"Maybe," Noah conceded, "but I hate him for it; I hate him for leaving …I hate him for making her hate me." His voice wasn't angry, it was defeated – after ignoring this for so long he hadn't any fight left in him.
Kit just held his hand and stayed silent, she wasn't quite sure how best to respond to that, but before she had the chance to he started speaking again.
"After a few months things seemed to get back to normal. But… but then about, I dunno, a year later, she started getting more and more into religion. At first we didn't think much of it, it was just little things, like having to go to church every Sunday and not being allowed to watch what we wanted on TV (which I think is why I got into reading) – nothing really to be suspicious about."
"Then one day, I remember, it was my birthday and she'd bought a computer – not really a birthday present for me (I was only six) but I thought it was for me anyway." Kit smiled slightly as Noah gave a small laugh, she realised that this was probably the first good thing about his past with his mother that he'd ever told her. "We went to this theme park in the afternoon, and it was just the three of us. I remember Jude putting me on his shoulders so I could throw a ball at one of the clowns' heads on one of the stalls. I won this goldfish, but cut air holes into the bag so it could breathe and all the water ran out. Jude tried to save me the guilt of killing an animal at six years old by walking round with his hands covering the holes, and getting soaked in the process." Kit chuckled and he smiled, with his lips not his eyes.
"It died in the end anyway, but Jude made it into something funny so I wouldn't be upset. Then, when we were about to have dinner and were saying grace – that was another of the little things we'd got used to – Jude made this face like a fish… and I laughed."
He paused; it was time for the storm. "She grabbed my arm and pulled me up to my room without saying a word. Then brought the computer and all my books downstairs and into a big pile in the garden. She lit a match, told me it was my fault for disrespecting God, set fire to the pile, and went back to her dinner. Jude came out and tried to put the fire out, he didn't make it into something funny. I sat down on the floor and cried." He paused. "I never laughed during one of her prayers again."
Kit stroked her hand over his upper arm, waiting for him to compose himself and speak again. She had no idea what to say to him to make it all better, and felt the anger towards his mother rising inside her. Not able to understand why anyone would want to hurt their own child. What was worse though, was that she knew that was only the beginning.
Noah's bitter voice began again… "After that, she started getting into the religious stuff more, she went to church every other day and started praying all the time. And if we'd do something wrong she always used to say that God would punish us for it, I guess after a while she decided it would be better for her to do the job for him." He paused and shook his head.
"Then one day I got into trouble at school, for fighting or something, I can't remember. But anyway, when I got home and told her, she… she locked me in the basement until the next morning. I just remember it being really… cold."
"Why did she…" Kit was beginning to realise that Noah's mum hadn't ever really needed a reason to do anything.
"Apparently 'the Devil wouldn't find me there'." For once Kit didn't laugh or comment at the sarcasm in her boyfriend's voice.
"What about Jude, didn't he say…?"
Noah cut her off again, knowing what she was going to ask. He chuckled hollowly. "He was staying at his friends house – and she made me promise not to tell him, apparently if I told him it wouldn't have worked and she'd have to do it again, y'know 'our little secret' stuff. This kinda became a pattern after a while, if she had one of her punishments to dish out, then she'd always wait until Jude was out."
"Did she only…"
Noah started speaking before she could finish her question, Kit didn't stop him and ask it again, she just let him speak when he needed to and held his hand. What more could she do?
"I think that was like a turning point for her, she knew that I wouldn't say anything to anyone, so she could do whatever she wanted… so she did."
Kit braced herself for the stories that she didn't want to hear, but knew he had to tell her.
"When I was about seven, I came in from playing outside with my friends, we were climbing trees and pretending to be Tarzan. There was a girl called Jane you see, she lived on the next street and…" Kit waited for him to run out of insignificant details to tell her. "And anyway, when I got home my mum gave me a drink… but it wasn't lemonade, like she said it was, it… it was bleach."
Noah flinched inwardly as he heard Kit fail to suppress a small gasp. "Please don't hate me…" he pleaded, "I shouldn't be telling you all this, I'm sorry, I…"
"Noah…" Kit struggled with the words and eventually found there was nothing else she could say but, "It's okay," and kissed his forehead. She nodded for him to continue.
"Apparently it was to clean out my soul, from the Devil or something like that. It hurt Kit, it really hurt."
As the memory began to grind it's way into him, Noah took a sharp breath in and switched to the next incident, random and unordered.
"Another time, I remember, I came home from school. Jude was staying at one of his friend's houses again and I'd got into trouble with one of the neighbours – they said I'd been 'tormenting' their cat and had stressed it out, when actually I'd rescued it from a tree and was just playing with it – I hadn't been punished for it yet. I so wanted to walk in a different direction when my friend's mum dropped me off; I stood on the doorstep for fifteen minutes before finally going inside. Maybe if I'd have had the courage to run the other way, then everything might have been okay. But I didn't, I was only a kid Kit, I didn't know what else to do." Kit placed both of her hands gently over his.
"…She made me sit in a bath full of boiling water for an hour. My skin went like it does when you get sunburnt, and I couldn't move without it hurting for weeks."
"Didn't Jude know?" Kit asked, finding it hard to accept that no one had noticed, or if they had, that no one had done anything about it.
"Not really, she made me swear not to tell him. He knew some things of course but only things that weren't really that abnormal, like her shouting at me and stuff. But he didn't know anything else, she'd stop anything she was doing when he came in and she was good at hiding any marks. She… she was different with him… she never gave him any of her punishments, I guess it was 'cause she knew he could fight back."
Kit felt her insides crumbling as Noah had to try to stop himself from crying, no longer able to drain the emotion from his voice. "When she hit me… I couldn't fight back… I couldn't stop her Kit… how pathetic is that!"
Kit put her hand up to his face to sooth him "Shhh… No, it's not pathetic at all, you were just a kid Noah, none of this is your fault, yeah." He slowly lifted his head up and managed to keep the tears in his eyes, blinking them away furiously.
His breathing shaky, he continued… "Another time, Jude was out again, and I don't even remember what I'd done, or if I'd even done anything at all. Anything seemed to be a punishable offence after a while. She shut us both in the kitchen, me and her, and rolled my sleeve up. Then she turned the cooker on – we had one of those gas hob things, one that you had to light with a match. And she grabbed my arm and put it over it… over the flame. And she just watched as my arm burnt. I tried to fight back, I tried to pull my arm away, but she was too strong. And I cried, I couldn't stop crying, I really tried to stop – it was like giving in to her, like she'd won… again."
Kit felt hot tears prick at her eyes. Noah carried on, his voice on autopilot. "I begged her to let me go to hospital, but she wouldn't. She said that faith in God was the only medicine I needed. All she did was run my arm under the tap and make me wear a long sleeved top so that Jude wouldn't notice. My skin stuck to it. …I told her I hated her." He wasn't even thinking about the words anymore, just letting them spill out, it was all his mind allowed him to do.
"She totally lost it, hitting me and everything… not just with her hands and feet. When she'd finally finished she sent me to bed. I never went to sleep. After a few hours she burst in and literally dragged me by the arm downstairs, I don't know how many ribs I must've broken. She ripped my pyjamas off and made me stand naked in the middle of the room, before turning all the flames of the cooker on and demanding that I lie on it." Kit couldn't stop a tear and a sob from escaping.
"I don't know whether it was supposed to be some kind of fucked up sacrifice or whether she thought that she hadn't gone far enough earlier. But I know it was because I told her I hated her."
"I didn't move; I just stood there pathetically crying. When she tried to drag me there I fought back as best as I could, it was no use though, she was stronger… in every way. I was seconds away from giving in, and letting her do whatever she wanted, letting her win… again. But then I heard the door opening… Jude came home, I don't know why, it was really late and he was supposed to be at his friend's house, but if he hadn't then… She freaked, threw my clothes at me and told me to get dressed and stop crying while she distracted him and planned her next excuse."
He stopped, the words sinking in all at once. Kit watched in horror as the realisation finally hit home after so many years. He let out a painful breathless sob, as if he'd been shot. Kit couldn't stop her tears as she threw her arms around him, hugging him to her. As the tears began to trace their way down his face, Noah looked up at Kit, killing her with the pain in his eyes. His voice cracked through the darkness. "Why doesn't she love me Kit? …What did I do that was so wrong?"
Kit did nothing but hold him to her as he put his head in his hands and completely broke down into her arms. "No, you didn't do anything…" she sobbed, "none of this is your fault. It's going to be okay… I promise… shhhhhh…"
After a while, as Noah's strangled sobs gradually began to fade and Kit stopped the tears from cascading down her face, Noah sat back up properly, nursing his head in his hands and shaking. "You don't have to tell me anything else," Kit told him, "It's okay, let's just go back home."
Noah shook his head slowly, finally managing to grab hold of his emotions. "I need to tell you this Kit."
Her heart nodded that she could do that, but her mind told her that any more just might break him.
After another couple of silent minutes, Noah spoke, his voice a little stronger than it had been previously. "I know she was ill," he admitted, "but it doesn't make it any easier, y'know."
Kit nodded again, cursing herself for not being able to think of anything helpful to say, but contenting herself with squeezing his hand.
"Didn't anyone ever realise what she was doing to you?" Kit asked, hate for the woman boiling inside her.
"I think they must've had an idea at school, but where I grew up it was pretty, erm… I'll say rough – so kids covered in bruises weren't exactly uncommon. But social services came round a few times."
"Didn't they do anything?"
Noah laughed. "She was good at hiding the psychotic pyromaniac and pretending to be the struggling but dutiful and loving mother with two boys who had a knack for getting up to mischief. They fell for the act every time. I guess that's part of the reason I wanted to become a counsellor, so that maybe I'd know if the same sort of thing was happening… and I could stop it."
Kit's heart swelled with pride for her boyfriend and she let him know this in her eyes.
"Why didn't you tell Jude, I thought you were really close?"
"We were… we are. I just, I dunno, I couldn't… I just… I was scared." Kit gave him an encouraging look, trying to withhold as much pity as she could.
"Kit…" he started, "Why I lost it before…" Kit half smiled, letting him know that she understood, "there was another… incident… it…"
Noah took another deep breath. "I was older, about 14 or 15, and I woke up in my room. I felt the heat straight away but it took a while to realise that my room was actually on fire. See, she'd put all these candles around my bed – to keep the Devil away – and they'd fell over and set my sheets on fire in the night." Kit cringed inside, hating herself, she had made him feel like this, she had brought all these things back up; she had really really hurt him.
Noah cut her off before she could apologise; it wasn't Kit fault. "I managed to get out of my room and get downstairs. She was watching TV, some bad American soap opera. I told her what was happening, I was choking from the smoke by now, and she just looked at me, and then closed the door to the living room and said we were just going to stay there. I tried to make her call the fire brigade, but she wouldn't. I was so scared."
"And… and you know what she said?" Kit shook her head. "She said it wouldn't matter if I died, because of all her prayers I'd go to heaven. She… she didn't care if I died. She's my mum Kit, she's supposed to look after me and love me… I…" He had to stop again. He swallowed hard, suppressing the emotion rising in him.
"Eventually one of the neighbours must've called the fire brigade, but we'd passed out 'cause of the smoke before they got there. We were in hospital for a few days for smoke inhalation. She explained it away, and no one ever questioned her. And I'm sorry Kit, there's no way you could've known, but I just… I'm sorry."
Kit didn't speak, but instead reached forward and planted a gentle, loving kiss on his lips as an answer. It was okay. Noah smiled slightly, he was so emotionally drained that that was all he was able to do in response.
"I think that's when Jude started to realise that there was something seriously wrong. He made me tell him everything. I didn't though… it's easier not to think about it. …You're the only person I've ever told everything to, Kit." She couldn't stop a warm smile from spreading across her face at this. After him trusting her so much, she felt an amazingly strong connection to him, something she'd never felt with anyone else.
She watched as the tension from his face drained and he looked at her, with a look that she couldn't quite distinguish. "I told you…" he said to her, softly and honestly, "I told you because I love you." This was the only emotion he had left to feel, but it was enough.
Kit looked deep into his eyes and put her hand to his face. Hearing him say the words that she had longed for so much and that she'd thought she would only ever hear in her dreams, she couldn't describe the feeling that enveloped her, made her warm in the night sea breeze.
Love.
Leaning in for a kiss, slowly, and slightly cheekily, she replied, "Well that's lucky then, isn't it? 'Cause I just happen to love you too, surfer boy."
Authors note: I really strugged with this chapter, so I can only appologise for quality/lateness etc... Also, I'm thinking of not carrying on with the story from here. It's becoming more of a chore to write it, when it should be fun. Sorry, I'll see how I feel in a few days. ThanksJess and Stacy forthe great reviews though, they always make me smile :)
