The Penn Friends Series Books 1-4: Penn Friends Boxset Page 16

  What was most pressing were the questions about why nothing ever worked on Jack to make him forget, to make his abilities return to what they had been? Yes, I’d agreed when I gave him invisibility to allow him to control it. It’s as if, however, my gift treated that as if it was a legally binding document, writing its own small-print that would stop me finding a way out. It had cheated me out of my gift.

  Then I started reflecting on the fact someone knew about me––really knew. Maybe Jack couldn’t forget because I didn't want him to, deep down? Perhaps we were meant to share this load together? Suddenly, as if waking up, and while midway through my GCSE year, I saw things differently.

  Maybe I should give Jack a chance?

  Jack wasn’t Penny’s first boyfriend, and he wouldn’t be her last, either, but he was the first person she’d get close to whom knew a little more about who she was. Jack didn’t know the whole truth, however. Penny––and she didn’t know why––had picked up that while Jack knew, and seemed okay with the fact that Penny could make people invisible, he didn’t think she could do anything else. He had no idea Penny had powers––plural––as opposed to the singular. She hadn’t raised it, either.

  As the spring holidays came around, Penny was ready to take the next step with Jack. She wanted to ask him out on an official date. The truth was, Penny wanted him to ask her, though Penny had been so straight with him––her loathing often so tangible, so real in fact––that she doubted he ever would. Yes, they’d indeed grown closer since she’d shown him part of what she could do––of who Penny was––but still, she’d not given him any more signs than that.

  She knew they shared a passion for the cinema––he had in the past anyway, at least, though she could have had no idea it’d become dull for him since––so had planned to ask him that weekend.

  “Hey, Jack,” she said, pushing a few strands of hair behind her ear as she eased over to his table now it was just the two of them in the classroom at the end of the day.

  “What’s up, Black?”

  “You up for catching a film this weekend at the cinema?”

  Jack hadn’t been for months. He’d had far more enjoyable things to do than sit in a dark room as pictures flashed across a screen. He was watching that all in real life. She had no idea.

  “Maybe. Who’s going?” Jack said though it was clear it offered little interest. He apparently wanted to ascertain the group––maybe, given the right personnel, he would be interested. But they both knew she didn't know such personage well enough to be going anywhere with them.

  “Just us,” she said, trying to be as playful as she could. It didn’t come naturally.

  “Oh,” he said immediately, his demeanour changing instantly. “A date, you mean?”

  “If you want to call it that.”

  “Sure,” he said, smiling now.

  “What?” Penny said, frustrated that she’d never been able to read his mind as quickly as anyone else.

  “I just thought you’d never actually ask, that’s all.”

  “Why?” Penny didn’t like the connotation from the moment he’d spoken those words.

  “Just, it’s you, isn’t it. You aren’t exactly like all the other girls.”

  “Meaning?”

  “No, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you’ve asked me,” he said, smiling and trying to take her hand, which she was refusing him at that moment. “It’s just; you do things your own way. You know your own mind. I just thought you would never be into dating, that’s all. I’m happy I was wrong.”

  “It’s just a film,” she said, wondering if she should have even asked him at all now.

  “That’s what they all say, at first,” he laughed, getting up and leaving the room. “I’ll call you,” he shouted through the door before disappearing from view. Penny wasn’t even aware he had her number.

  He had called later that night––clearly, somehow, he had her number––and they were heading out together on their first date that coming Saturday. Penny hadn’t told her mother, who was no doubt sleeping off yet another heavy night’s drinking, so that Penny was up, dressed and out that Saturday morning before she’d had the chance to see her. It was easier that way. Penny didn’t get dressed up that often, and it would have raised too many questions with her mother if she had spotted her before leaving.

  “Oh. My.” Jack stood there speechless as he first spotted Penny standing outside of the cinema, at the place where they’d agreed to meet. “Don’t you scrub up well.” He was impressed. Penny blushed. Jack was wearing some denim jeans and a skinny fit black polo neck t-shirt––smart looking, gelled hair––but nowhere near as eye-catching as Penny now was. She looked beautiful. She’d not had reason to dress up like that for anyone, besides when she’d gone to the school dance, though hadn’t made such an effort even then. The recollection of the dance jarred with the moment. Jack had raped Abbey that night, she’d seen it. Jack had got away with it. As far as he knew, the only other person who was aware of it––Abbey, his girlfriend at the time and the victim––wasn’t saying anything to anyone. Jack had got away with it if Jack even still remembered it. Penny had long wondered what recollection he had. She was sure the memory was there, somewhere, though doubted, given his actions, it had dogged him as much as it had her. A cold shiver went down her spine. What was she doing?

  “Thanks,” she said, Jack still standing there, silent for a few seconds, waiting for her response.

  “Have you eaten?” It was not quite lunchtime, but then again, early enough to not need to go straight to watch a film.

  “No,” Penny said, looking at her watch.

  “Come on then, let’s grab something to eat and we’ll come on here after, okay?” he said, taking her by the hand as he started to lead her down the street. She went with him, giving him the unvoiced answer he needed, holding his hand in return this time, too. And it felt good. Why was it feeling good? Why did she like holding hands with Jack, who with these same hands had…had done that to Abbey? She felt torn.

  They ate at McDonald's as only two teens might. They had a lot to learn about life.

  “Tell me about yourself,” Jack had probed as they placed their trays down on the table, order already made. Jack knew the rumours about Penny’s mother––everyone knew she was a drunk––but also, Jack knew, there was so much he didn’t know about her; so much he wanted to know.

  “I’m not sure what to say. We’ve been in the same class for nearly four years, Jack, don’t you know me well enough already?” Penny was being obviously defensive. Jack laughed out loud.

  “Penn,” he said, a change from his usual reference to her by only her surname, the first indication they’d moved from classmates to friends––boyfriend and girlfriend, even. “We both know the sides of ourselves we choose to reveal at school are far from the whole story. You, especially, would understand that.” Once more, that reference to her gift. He didn’t know the half of it.

  “Well,” she started, reluctantly talking about herself, probably her least favourite topic, “you know about my mother.” She left it at that. Penny wasn’t under any illusions Jack wasn’t aware that her mother was a drunk, and his reaction confirmed it, as he broke eye contact with her briefly, looking down at his feet, as if sorry that they all knew. Maybe he’d been part of the gossip?

  “How bad is it?” Jack was looking up again now at her, his eyes soft and full of care, Penny unable to hold his gaze, scared that she’d give too much away, that she’d get sucked in by those bright eyes and cease to exist anymore.

  “It’s terrible, to be honest. Worse than that. We don’t speak.” There was silence for a moment. Penny had never spoken to anyone about any of this before. It felt such unchartered territory.

  “Has she always been that way?” Jack said after those few seconds of silence.

  “No, it’s been more over the last ten years. It got worse when my father left home.”

  “Your dad walked out on you both?” Jack
had never known about Penny’s father, and the fact he’d used the word dad also didn’t sit right with Penny. Her father had been a million miles from ever being her dad.

  “Yes, just the other year. He’d been cheating on mum since I was five, however. That’s when the drinking started.”

  “Penn,” he said, reaching across and touching her hands which rested on the edge of the table, wanting to make contact. He noticed there were no tears, nothing showing in her passionate face that suggested talking about it was causing her any emotional pain. If anything, she looked cold to it all, very matter of fact about how she was discussing her past.

  “It’s how it is, really, nothing more I can do about it,” she said, brushing off his concern in much the same way she had just brushed off his hands from hers. She wasn’t ready for physical comfort, not while she was talking about it all.

  “It can’t be easy,” he said. Easy, Penny thought, no it was far from that. It had never been comfortable from the moment my parents conceived me. She wasn’t ready to talk about any of that, however.

  “I’m an only child, so I do have quite a lot of freedom, and I do a paper round,” she ended, as if that summed up the whole of who she was. She just needed to move the conversation on, switch the topic from the train wreck of an upbringing she’d gone through so that they could talk about something else. “What about you? Brothers, sisters?” she said before he could have responded to anything she’d just said. She knew Jack had a sister.

  “I have an older sister, Lucy. She’s in year eleven. There are twenty months between us, however. We get on okay, better now than we used to, but have our own lives. Mum died a few years ago. It’s just my dad now.” Penny had not known about Jack losing his mother, which if it had been within the last four years, would have happened while they were classmates. She thought for a moment if there had been a time when Jack was not in school, but nothing sprang to mind.

  “So we aren’t too different, parent-wise.” Penny didn’t know what else to say.

  “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her,” Jack said, tears almost already in both eyes. Penny had never seen this side to Jack, this tenderness, this emotional edge to him. It was powerful and endearing, though she would repress that feeling as much as she could. It was Jack about whom she was talking.

  “You sound like you were all happy together,” Penny said, having given Jack a little time to compose himself.

  “We had our moments. Luce used to argue a lot with my parents, mum especially. I was always the peacemaker.” That surprised Penny; Jack didn’t seem much of a peacemaker at school. Though the fact mother and daughter might fight was nothing new to Penny––how little Jack knew how that felt. “But yes, now we all get along well. It’s as if mum’s death brought us all closer. Luce took over the role of mum to me. She’s always watching out for me. Dad’s just in his own little world. Her death hit him hard.” Penny wanted to ask what had happened, but knew she didn’t have the words to do that, nor was it the time. She would probably find out before too long.

  They sucked on their straws for a while, drinking in silence, their conversation hanging around the table like smoke in an old English pub, thick and heavy.

  By the end of the film later that afternoon their moods were somewhat brighter. Jack had put his arm around Penny barely seconds into the film's start, and she had let it remain. The longer it continued, the more natural, more enjoyable it felt. They’d kissed when the film had finished, nothing over the top, but firm and on the lips nonetheless. Their second, first kiss. This time it was for the right reason.

  Penny walked home, having said goodbye to Jack on the edge of the park, caught between two emotions. She was falling for Jack, and she was despising herself for that very same reason. Penny felt compromised. How could she have allowed herself to get involved with someone like Jack? Would he ever tell her about that side of him? She knew the answer as quickly as she’d thought it. Of course, he wouldn’t. He would have buried that, along with who knew how much other baggage. Jack had dated many girls––he thought himself quite the catch. Was Penny just another one, another girl to fill in some time with, until Jack had his fix and was ready to move on to the next willing participant? And as much as Penny now despised Abbey, she still felt she was betraying the memory of their friendship by dating Jack, who’d done something so unspeakable to her former friend. Yes, Penny was plotting against Abbey and was just weeks away from outworking that. But part of her felt sad that she was now even in such a place with Jack.

  Penny didn’t have anyone else to talk to, however. Jack, for the time being, would have to do.

  8

  It’s amazing how quickly one’s resolve can change, like a high stone wall one minute, gone the next. An earthquake had shaken my world, crumbling all that I had thought immovable. It had so suddenly come crashing down, and at times I felt caught in the middle of it, trapped inside a falling building, lost inside something already doomed.

  It’s amazing how quickly a fifteen-year-old can think they’ve fallen in love.

  I felt so confused back then. One day I was thinking one thing, the next the total opposite. I had no father to turn to, no mother available, no friend to lean on. I felt vulnerable and exposed, yet as much as I’d let him in, I hadn’t told him everything. I daren’t. He’d somehow believed that what I had was limited to just invisibility, and I hadn’t corrected him.

  Did I love him, then, even then, even in those early days of teenage bliss? When I finally felt like everyone else, when I could put all the turmoil of my recent years to one side––never behind me, it was always present––but to one side, nonetheless? But, he knew so little about me; no one could know everything about me and still love me.

  Of course, he’d never said those words, and he’d never actually get to the point when he’d utter those three empty, pointless, untrue words: I love you. Will I ever hear those words, just once even? Will I ever be told for the first time, that I, Penny Black, am loved?

  As year ten came to a close, what had started with Penny arriving to her first Music lesson of the year, when she had been the first waiting there for her teacher, Mr Hanson, had ended with her not even thinking about him anymore. She was well over her crush. Penny needed to be over it, she knew––it wasn’t healthy. Besides, she had a boyfriend.

  By that point, it was clear to all that Penny and Jack were an item. Abbey hadn’t spoken to either of them for weeks, despite the fact they shared half their classes with one another. Abbey would always be sitting in the furthermost possible spot from either of the other two––who usually sat together, anyway. Everybody could understand why. Nobody bothered to mention it. These things happened. Jack was a player––it was Penny this term. They all assumed he would move onto another flavour the following year.

  Except he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be starting year eleven at all, in fact.

  The second time Penny was to knowingly and openly break the law with Jack was one weekend at the end of May. It was a bank holiday weekend, three days off school. Jack had arranged to meet Penny in town, so she’d set out just after eleven––her mother up, for a change, and asking where she was going, to which Penny just said out. The meeting point was at the end of the high street, just around the corner from a large but independent newsagents store, which sold everything from magazines to DVDs. An off-licence was next door.

  “What’s your favourite magazine?” Jack asked. He was wearing a large rain jacket, not unlike the one Penny’s flasher had been wearing, its pockets deep and spacious.

  “Why?” she asked, suspiciously––she didn’t know why, as Jack could have been intending to buy her something, but Penny already felt she knew otherwise. It had been clear that Jack had been continuing to steal the odd thing, though Penny felt confident it was more regular than even he was saying.

  “‘Cause I’m going in there and I’ll get you whatever you want, okay?” He motioned with his head to the shop they were s
tanding beside. The fact they were even standing in the alley, thereby hidden from the passing foot traffic there might have been at that time of day, already told Penny he intended to disappear once more. This time he wanted her help again. She was sure he didn’t need it.

  “I don’t want you to take anything, Jack.”

  “Penn, relax. No one will catch me. They never even know.” So he had done it many times, she knew it without needing to ask him again. What had she created?

  “But it’s stealing.”

  “Not if we put it back when done. Okay?” Penny looked at him.

  “Put it back again after, you mean?”

  “Yes, why not?” He had no intention of putting anything back, but if it made her feel better about it all, that’s what he would say.

  “Okay,” she said, and with barely a glance back over his shoulder, and without either of them saying another word, he vanished, there one moment, gone the next. He reached out his hand, brushing Penny on the cheek.

  “It’ll be okay. I’ll be right behind you. Just walk in, go over to the magazine aisle, and I’ll be close to you the whole time. Pick up the one you want, then put it down. Count to ten, then turn slowly and walk out. I’ll follow you.”

  She didn’t like any of this. It should be her giving the orders, her in control––this seemed as out of control as she’d ever felt––and yet, with Jack, there was something familiar. Something safe, even, if she allowed herself that thought. She wouldn’t. Jack was not right for her, she sensed it more and more.

  She turned, feeling Jack’s hand pat her on her backside, which she tried to ignore. Moments later, she was around the corner, walking in through the automatic doors, which shut themselves a couple of seconds after. She had no way of knowing if Jack was there––she couldn’t see anything––but was sure he was. She went to the magazines. There were a lot on offer; Penny knew this could take a while, though she couldn’t stand it to be that long. She paused at the mags aimed at her age group. Something caught her eye to the left––the bottom magazine had moved just a fraction as if someone had trodden on it as if Jack was standing there. Maybe Jack was, though it was an odd place from where to watch her? He could just as quickly see if standing beside her. Perhaps he’s reaching for something, she thought, glancing up to see a top shelf full of adult magazines, most covered in a sheet of card and wrapped in clear plastic, but all showing enough to hint at the temptations within. The front-most copy of Playboy then suddenly disappeared, followed by Penthouse. The magazine on the bottom shelf, which formed the base and which she’d seen move slightly seconds before, now slid to one side more forcefully. She heard the sound of two feet landing heavily in the aisle next to her. Jack must have slipped. Thankfully no one was around them.