I'll Never Say I Love You

I was busy for the rest of the day, as people just seemed to keep streaming in. A few times I had to pop back out front so that things could keep moving out there, then attack a mountain-sized pile of dishes when I got back in the kitchen. When Mum and I left at four, there was a chilly breeze rolling in from the ocean. We both shivered as we walked home.

“It’s a pity it’s cold, I was hoping we could all go down to the beach for a barbecue dinner,” Mum lamented.

‘Maybe we could some other time,’ I signed, feeling hopeful. ‘Invite Alex’s family, as well.’

“That was my intention in the first place,” Mum said, smiling. “Our family, their family, the adults sitting around talking while the twins frolicked in the water with you and Alex keeping an eye on them.”

‘Hey, how did we get stuck with babysitting duty?’

“I delegated.”

When we got home, Dad was sitting in front of the television. He looked up at us as we walked in, smiling.

“Amanda, darling,” he said, standing up and hugging Mum. Mum hugged him back, kissing him on the cheek. I made a sick face, which Dad noticed over Mum’s shoulder.

‘Sorry,’ I signed, looking apologetic.

Dad nodded. “Tahara, your hair is red,” he noted, releasing Mum. She stood next to him.

‘Not just red,’ I signed, pulling out the hair tie. ‘Curly as well.’ I shook my hair out to demonstrate the point.

“You look like a girl,” Dad remarked. I glared at him. “Okay, I worded that badly. You look like a girly girl.” I nodded my approval and walked to my room.

“She looks pretty, doesn’t she?” I heard Mum ask Dad. “They annoy her, though.”

It’s amazing how perceptive Mum is; just like me. Unlike most teenagers (once again), it didn’t bother me that I was turning into my mother. It was a compliment for me, because Mum was an awesome person who everyone loved.

I dumped my bag on my bed and wandered down to the bathroom to have a shower. In the shower, I discovered another good thing about the curls – my new shampoo and conditioner set smelt fantastic, like strawberries mixed with banana. I got out and dried my hair very gently, unlike the harsh scrub I had given my old hair. I wondered if putting it up in a turban would be any better, and made a mental note to ask Bec about that as well.

In my house, Sunday nights are very traditional. We have roast and vegetables for dinner, sitting at the kitchen counter because we don’t have a dining table. Then we set ourselves up in the lounge room and play a game, eating dessert at some point, and we’re all in bed by ten. Dinner that night was roast chicken with roasted potatoes seasoned with God-knows-what (you never do know with a chef for a mother), and boiled corn on the cob dipped in melted butter. After dinner we sat down and played Pachisi while eating white chocolate brownies. I honestly don’t know how my mother finds the time to cook all these things.

“Meanie!” Mum exclaimed as I bumped one of her pieces from the board.

I poked my tongue out at her.

“Tahara, we have something we need to discuss with you,” Dad said suddenly.

“Frederick, is now really the right time?” Mum murmured. “I thought we were going to wait until everything was booked?”

“I booked it all today, dear,” Dad said conversationally.

I wondered what they were talking about. Booking things...were they sending me to a special school for deaf people? They had considered such a thing at one time, but I had convinced them not to send me. Had they changed their minds?

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Mum asked, sounding unhappy.

“I just did,” Dad said smartly.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, nervous.

“Your dad and I are celebrating our twentieth wedding anniversary this year,” Mum began. I saw her taking Dad’s hand in hers. “We’ve been thinking about it for a while, and we’ve decided to take a second honeymoon for a week in June.”

‘That’s fantastic!’ I signed, beaming. ‘I’m happy for you guys. You deserve a holiday together.’

“That’s just the thing, Tahara,” Dad said. “Together. Just the two of us. What will you do while we’re gone?”

I thought about it. ‘I’d just stay here, wouldn’t I?’ I asked, looking back and forth between them.

“We don’t feel comfortable with that,” Mum answered.

I rolled my eyes. ‘Mum, I’m fifteen, not five. I can handle living by myself.’

“Yes, but-“

‘If it bothers you that much, I’ll get Alex to stay with me,’ I signed, excited at the prospect of spending a week alone with Alex.

Mum and Dad exchanged a glance. “I hadn’t considered that,” Dad admitted. “Amanda, what do you think?”

“I think that the two of them can take care of one another,” Mum answered thoughtfully.
‘We’ll be fine. I’ll talk to him about it at school,’ I signed.

“Okay then,” Dad conceded. “If Alex and his parents agree, the two of you can stay here for a week. If not, you can stay with them. If that can’t happen, you’ll have to go stay with Aunt Gloria.”

I shuddered. Aunt Gloria, Dad’s sister, treated me like I was three and I hated it. If I had to spend a week with her, I would end up screaming so loudly that her glass and walls would shatter.

“That’s settled then,” Mum said proudly. She handed Dad the dice. “Your move.”

***

Like the vast majority of humanity, I hate Monday mornings. I have the worst classes. Science and then double Social Studies, by two most hated classes. Thankfully, Melissa and I have all of our classes together, and Kate and Janice have all their classes together.
The four of us are together for English and Social Studies, which makes Social Studies slightly less unbearable. I still hate it, though.

After Social Studies the four of us went to our lockers to change our books and get food, and then walked to the table we always sat down. We were grateful to be free, if only for a half hour. Thankfully, none of the teachers had commented on my hair yet.

“So, Tahara, have you seen Kyle today?” Janice asked.

I was shocked. Conversation was rarely about me, let alone the first item on the agenda. I shook my head.

“You should seek him out,” Melissa advised. “If a boy that cute was after me, I would do whatever it took.”

Janice nodded her agreement. She tossed her hair, straightened and dyed blonde, over her shoulder. “He was hanging out with the jocks, right? He might be out there somewhere.” She pointed her head in the direction of the oval.

Kate let out a short laugh. “Janice, we’d have better luck finding a needle in a haystack,” she said. “Look, we just have to keep our eyes peeled. Maybe one of us has a class with him and doesn’t know.”

“But when you do see him, Tahara, flirt a little,” Melissa encouraged. “The guy is hot. You felt an attraction, right?”

I nodded.

“Flirting can be hard when you have to write everything, it’s not impossible,” she continued. “You’ve got great body language. Use that.”

“The hair makes you look like a vixen, you’ll totally pull it off,” Janice encouraged.

‘I’ll try,’ I signed.

“That’s all we ask, Tahara,” Kate said warmly.

The rest of the break was spent gushing about Ray’s party and how much some of the boys in our year had changed over the summer. Melissa, who went through guys like my mother went through flour, had three new crushes. Janice, like me, wasn’t interested in dating, but did think that some of the guys had changed nicely over the summer. Kate wasn’t interested in the guys at our school, preferring to ‘separate business from pleasure’. She said she wanted to date guys from nearby towns who she didn’t go to school with.

When the bell rang to signify the end of recess, we split up and went our separate ways. Kate and Janice had Music while Melissa and I had double Home Economics, and were cooking a chicken and bacon casserole together. Thanks to Mum, I’m a natural chef, and Melissa and I work well together when we cook. We walked into the kitchen and put our bags at our desks before grabbing an apron each from the laundry. While in there, we ran into Alex, who was in the same class as us.

“Hey, Tarie, Melissa,” he said, smiling.

“Hi, Alex,” Melissa said awkwardly. Alex didn’t get along with my girlfriends.

Alex turned around in front of me. I tied the strings of his apron, and then tied my own. “I know, I know, you’re so much better at me than everything,” he said sarcastically. I swatted him with the dishtowel I had just picked up.

When I walked out of the laundry, I spotted Kyle. He already had his apron on and was standing in front of the teacher’s kitchen, awaiting the demonstration. Melissa seemed to have spotted him as well. “Damn, he makes an apron look good,” she whispered.

I elbowed her; embarrassed that she was talking that way about someone I liked. I guess I did like him, after all. He was absolutely gorgeous, and I had felt an instantaneous connection when I had been talking to him. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to talk to him until after class. Melissa and I finished well ahead of the rest of the class, and used our leftover time to eat our food. I watched Kyle carefully as he cooked. He seemed to be uncertain about what he was doing, and not enjoying it very much. That was a problem – cooking was in my blood, and a hobby of mine. I needed someone who shared my interests.

When the bell rang, he headed straight to the desk with his bag. I followed him and tapped him on the shoulder with one hand, holding my notepad and pen in the other hand. He turned around, confused, but smiled when he saw me.

“Tahara, hi!” he said happily. “I didn’t know you were in this class!”

I shrugged and held my hands out, as if to say, ‘Well, here I am’.

Thankfully, he understood. “Hey, are you doing anything right now? Wanna hang out?”

I looked at Melissa, but she was chatting to one of her crushes. Gosh darn it. I wanted to ask her if it was okay that I caught up with her in Math, after lunch.

“Is there a problem?” Kyle asked. “It’s okay; we could always catch up later in the week.”

I shook my head furiously. I turned my hand into a stop sign and then held up two fingers, my intended message ‘Wait here for two seconds’. I tapped Melissa on the shoulder. I heard her groan slightly as she turned to face me, and felt sorry that I was interrupting her. She smiled slightly when she saw it was me. I started writing, anticipating her question.

“What’s up, Tahara?” she asked. She glanced behind me and saw Kyle, then smiled. “I reckon I know what’s up,” she murmured.

Lunch w/ Kyle. C U @ Math, I scrawled, not even bothering to use proper grammar. That showed I was in a rush.

“Not a problem,” she said, winking. “I’ll see you then.”

I turned back to Kyle, giving him the thumbs up. He smiled. “Where do you want to go?”

I shrugged, not really caring where we went so long as I was with him.

“Well, I think we should go to the library,” Kyle said, as we walked out the door together. “I normally don’t go into libraries for conversations, but seeing as only one of us is going to be talking, we shouldn’t get into that much trouble.”

As we were walking out, I caught Alex’s eye. ‘What’s going on with him?’ he signed, winking.

I poked my tongue out at him and, smiling, gave him a hand signal that you don’t need to know any form of sign language to interpret.

“Is he bothering you?” Kyle asked suddenly, staring at Alex.

I shook my head. Friends, I wrote.

I waved goodbye to Alex, smiling at him. He smiled and walked away with his friends. I followed Kyle to the library, and instead of sitting at one of the tables, we sat down the back of one of the aisles, on the ground.

“You fascinate me, Tahara,” he admitted. “I want to know everything about you.”

He smiled at me again and my heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t as cute as Alex, but I could definitely get to know this guy a little better.