Part Six: Secret No Longer

Chapter Five: There's no way out of here

The index finger of Tai's left hand continually traced the embossed pattern of his crest on the leather wrist cuff his girlfriend had given him for Christmas. Stuck in class, there was little else he could do to either help her or steady his own nerves. While he had made the message he had sent Kari sound like he was calm, he was anything but. A cold sweat clung to his skin and he felt sick to his stomach. At this very moment, his mom could be sitting in an office with his sister and discovering the truth about their incestuous relationship. And he would be none the wiser until he got home unless Kari managed to send him another message.

At the front of the class, the teacher continued to talk, but Tai had tuned out long ago. What were he and Kari going to do if his mom now knew their secret? Their parents would almost certainly try to put a stop to it. Unfortunately, he could only guess at how far they might go to try and ensure it came to an end. He was eighteen. Would they try to kick him out? Or perhaps send Kari away to some boarding school? He did not know and did not relish finding out. While he'd known this day would come, he'd hoped to have a little more control over it than this. Perhaps it had been too much to hope for that they would have managed to keep their relationship a secret until he had moved out.

In his pocket, Tai felt his phone vibrate and his spine stiffened. Please be Kari and not Mom, he thought as he waited for the teacher to turn around so he could sneak his phone out of his pocket and reads the message. Come one, come on, he cursed under his breath as the man continued to stare at the class and talk. He was almost at the point of risking getting his phone confiscated when the teacher finally turned to draw a diagram on the blackboard. Wasting no time, Tai slipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out his phone and flipped it open. It was from Kari. He breathed a partial sigh of relief, but it soon caught in his throat when he read, "Tai, we're safe for the moment, but need to talk asap. The counsellor has let me leave school early, so I'm going to head for that nice coffee shop near your school. Meet me there as soon as you can. Love, Kari."

Shit, Tai thought. Even though they seemed to have dodged a bullet, it sounded like the gun still had plenty of shots left. His eyes glanced at the time at the top of the screen before he quickly typed, "ok," then pocketed his phone. He still had another ninety minutes of school before he could leave to go and meet her; fuck! For a moment, he thought about just picking up his stuff and leaving. However, he quickly decided against it. Another phone call home to say he had cut class would only add to their problems. He would just have to wait it out.

The seconds felt like minutes and the minutes like hours as Tai was forced to endure the remainder of his school day. So focused on Kari and the situation that they now faced, he didn't even notice when one teacher left and another entered. Indeed, it was only when the end of day chime sounded, that his mind snapped back to the here and now. Like a bat out of hell, he shoved his books inside his bag and ran from the classroom. Dodging and weaving his way through the steadily filling hallways, Tai made his way to the main entrance, burst out of the double doors and sprinted to the bike racks. He yelled out a curse as his frantic fingers struggled with the lock on his bicycle. When it eventually sprang free, he wrenched the bike out of the rack, hopped on and hit the pedals with furious feet.

Taking risks he normally never would, like wagering the speed of his legs against that of a small car, Tai hurried along the slushy roads until he soon came to the coffee shop. While he had visited a few with his girlfriend recently, he suspected Kari had chosen this one purely for its proximity to his school. He dismounted and found a place to lock his bike and then headed inside. At a table in the far corner, he caught sight of Kari's lit-match hair and headed straight for it.

"Hi," she greeted when he reached the table. Though she had tried to sound cheerful, he could hear the undertones of fear and worry. "I got you a hot chocolate," she indicated a steaming mug in front of the empty chair.

"Thanks," Tai replied as he sat down. "Are you ok?" he asked, reaching out a hand to take one of hers; somehow it was still cold.

Kari gave him a smile he knew to be fake, "I'm fine."

He chose to accept it for what it was and cut to the chase. "What happened?" he asked, unable to keep the concern from his tone.

Kari took a deep breath, before she answered, "there was an altercation in the corridors at lunchtime. Several people banded together and blocked me and the members of S.P.E.T. from getting into the lunchroom. They started arguing and eventually it devolved into a fight. When a teacher broke it up and demanded to know what it was about, Hitana was kind enough to say it was because I was fucking my brother." She paused to take a drink of her hot chocolate and Tai gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "As soon as she said that, I was taken aside and sent to the counsellor's office; that's when I text you." Kari shook her head and he could see her fight to hold back tears. "She tried to suggest that you had assaulted or raped me." The tears began to flow. "I got angry... I yelled at her that you were the most caring, compassionate and honourable person I know... and that I loved you... She bated me Tai and I fell for it. I've ruined everything."

Tai immediately shifted his chair around and pulled her into a hug. This was bad, but he could not allow Kari to think she had ruined things for them. This could not be helped. Once their secret became public knowledge, it surely would only have been a matter of time before something like this happened. "It's not your fault, Kari. This was bound to happen sooner or later. The important thing is that you are ok. Now, tell me what happened after that. Given that we're sitting here and not in front of mom and dad, I take it that the school didn't call home."

"No, she didn't," Kari said shakily in agreement. "But she got me to sit and tell her everything about our relationship... then gave me a choice."

"A choice?" Tai asked, sensing that this was where the 'for now' part of his girlfriend's message came in.

"Yeah... She said that if there is another incident like the one today, she will be forced to call mom and tell her everything she knows. However, if I promise her that our relationship is over, she's agreed to keep it a secret and tell mom and the principal that it is just a vicious rumour that is circulating. Otherwise, we can choose to tell mom and dad ourselves or run the risk of there being another incident."

Tai's features formed into a grimace, was there even an actual choice available to them? They'd been down the breakup road and knew exactly what dark place that ended in. He thought for a moment before saying, "what if you lied to the counsellor?"

Kari stared into her mug. "I have a feeling she'd see through that. Besides what will it buy us? A few months in which mom is watching our every move because she's been told about this rumour? Not to mention that it would only make things worse if we lie to mom and dad now, only to tell them in a few months' time that it's actually true. How will that make us look?"

He stared into the dark depths of his own mug; the contents looked bleak. As always, his girlfriend had already thought the scenario through and come up with the only answer. They had to tell their parents before another incident occurred at her school. "How long do you think we have?"

"…I don't know… probably until sometime next week, maybe?"

"You think the kids at school won't do anything else tomorrow of Friday?" he asked nervously.

Kari shook her head, "no. By the sounds of it, they will all have got in trouble today and won't want to risk any further incident this week."

"Doesn't sound like we have much choice then," Tai said in resignation.

"No we need to…" she paused mid-sentence and turned her head away. When she turned back, she failed to meet his gaze as she finished, "…tell mom and dad by the end of the weekend…"

Tai met his girlfriend's gaze, "Kari, are you feeling ok?"

"Yeah… my stomach just feels a little upset," his girlfriend replied. She'd visibly paled and looked like she might throw up. "I guess it's just the thought of actually going through with this."

"I suppose so," Tai agreed. To be fair, he could feel the butterflies in his own stomach. The fingers on his left hand found their way inside the cuff of his shirt and began absentmindedly tracing the embossed pattern of his crest on the black leather cuff. "My exam result should be here by Saturday, why don't we tell them once I know what I'll be doing next year."

Kari opened her mouth to respond but quickly covered it with a hand. Instead, she gave him a nod, before hurriedly standing up.

"Are you ok?" Tai asked, but his girlfriend was out of earshot before he had finished asking the question. He waited, a look of concern deepening on his face as the minutes ticked by. Kari had seemingly avoided getting sick after sitting in the park the previous week, maybe this was fate catching up with her in the form of a stomach bug. Or perhaps she was simply having a physiological reaction to mounting stress that had been piling on her since TK confronted her.

When Kari eventually emerged from the bathroom, Tai could see that she looked ill, as she walked back towards him. A quick whiff of her breath told him that she'd thrown up. "Do you want to go home?" he asked before she sat down.

She gave him a brief nod. Tai immediately stood up, took her coat from the back of her chair and held it open for her to slip on. She did so and while she zipped it up, pulled on his own. Taking her by the hand, he led his girlfriend out of the coffee shop. They were halfway down the road before Kari spoke.

"Ok, so I lied," she said in a low voice.

Tai turned his head and met her gaze.

"I feel horrible," she finished.

"Then let's get you home so you can go to bed."

His girlfriend gave him a weak smile as she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulder. She said nothing more as they made the journey home and Tai suspected her silence was due to a fear of vomiting again. Unfortunately, if by day's end he started being sick too, it would not confirm it to be a stomach bug. For he could feel his stomach churning at the thought of what they were going to do before the week was done. The next few days may well just be the hardest of his life.