Some of the best kisses in films are unexpected. Believe me, I’ve watched enough of them to know. I’ve seen kisses that caused fireworks to go off, the heavens to open or flowers to bloom as lips met.
But there was no romantic moment when Mr Hobson decided to kiss me, even though I’d daydreamed for weeks about how it might feel. After all, he was the person who finally understood me, the one I could trust to lay it on the line to.
For a split second I felt warmth, a relief that maybe I was worthy of someone’s affections, but that was quickly replaced by the bizarrest of thoughts.
His name.
I had no idea what it was. Only that it started with T.
So he was Mr Hobson. Or sir.
And this realization shocked me back to reality.
All the other lads that I’d kissed, I didn’t just know their names, but who they’d got off with before me. I knew their sisters or brothers. Some of them I’d known since I was five, had got changed in front of them before PE classes at primary school.
But with him? All I knew was that he was my teacher, that he was at least ten years older than me, that he liked films and that his mum was dead.
Other than that, nothing.
It wasn’t bothering him, though. His hands were wrapped around my back and neck, pulling me even closer into him.
He felt too close.
Which was ridiculous, as that’s generally the idea when you’re kissing someone.
But his lips weren’t soft any more and his hands weren’t gentle.
I could feel the stubble around his mouth rubbing on my chin, a million miles away from the bum-fluff lads my age sported, and it felt alien, uncomfortable, wrong.
I tried to ease my mouth away from his, to force a word out, although what that word was going to be, I had no idea, but his grasp remained strong, his right hand sliding underneath my hair to the nape of my neck.
Squeezing my hands against his chest, I levered the tiniest of spaces between us, pulling my head back until I could smell his breath, growing staler by the second.
He opened his eyes as my lips left his.
‘What’s the matter?’ he whispered, a look of bemusement on his face, which confused me right back, making me wonder for a second whether anything was wrong after all. But as soon as his lips forced themselves back on to mine, it was wrong all over again.
‘Don’t, sir.’ The words escaped to the side of his lips, and he gulped, trying to swallow them before he had to listen to what they said.
I prised my head away still further as he advanced, offering him my cheek, my neck, anything but my lips.
‘Please, don’t.’
‘What’s the matter?’ he mouthed, a trace of irritation in my ear.
‘I don’t know. Nothing, maybe.’ Why I said that I had no idea, as there was plenty wrong, but all I could think of was his first name.
‘Then it’s OK. There’s no one about. Let me look after you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here.’
He was right. That was exactly what I wanted.
But not like this, or here, or from him.
The only arms I wanted round me were Dad’s, and I’d pushed them so far away lately that he was nowhere in sight.
I felt my weight falling backwards as he guided me towards the bench and started to panic as the force of his grip strengthened.
His calmness seemed to have been replaced by a frantic look as his eyes danced up and down the river, assessing who might be watching.
His right hand traced its way from my shoulder and down my arm as he tried to steer me around, but as it made contact with my cuts, I felt a strange sensation.
Instead of recoiling in pain it seemed to galvanize me, shock me into seeing that I had to get him off me, and quick. Again, I squeezed my arms between our bodies, but his will was stronger than mine, his breathing too.
I started to panic as I realized what I had got myself into, and my initial reaction was to shout at myself, to ask how I could have found myself here, with him.
But all my mind did was shout right back –
This is what you wanted, isn’t it? It’s no good wishing for something then complaining when it happens! Suck it up. You’re the one to blame.
It was right, this was happening because I’d allowed it to.
I could’ve not waited outside school, or told him I wanted to be on my own when I walked down the path that first time. He was here because I asked him to be. It was no one’s fault but mine.
But all the laying of blame didn’t get me away from him or home safely. And if I was to manage that I had to get myself straight.
I bent my head to the left, craning to see down the path, desperate for a dog-walker, jogger, anyone to come into view, but there was nothing, no one.
I wanted to scream in frustration, but then I realized that he didn’t know we were on our own still. He was so intent on devouring my neck that he couldn’t possibly have been keeping watch as well.
It was all the encouragement I needed and I took a gulping lungful of air before bellowing straight into his ear, ‘There’s someone watching us, over there on a bike!’
Mr Hobson jumped back, his body spinning as he searched for who I’d seen.
In the time it took him to establish there was no one there and to shake the ringing from his ears, I stumbled away from him in the direction of home.
At first, for a glorious moment, I thought that was it: that I’d scared him enough to turn and sprint in the opposite direction. But the slapping of my footsteps were soon matched by his as he bounded up beside me.
‘Daisy,’ he yelled, his voice a mixture of desperation and surprise. ‘Daisy! What’s wrong? Where are you going?’
I couldn’t work out why he was confused. Didn’t he know what had just happened was wrong?
‘Please, sir. I need to go. I need to get home.’
‘You need to stop and steady down, that’s what you need to do.’
‘What do you mean “steady down”? I can’t steady down, not after that. Not after what just happened.’
He lifted his arms in surrender, his gaze rock solid, unblinking.
‘I know it’s taken you by surprise. I was hardly planning it myself, was I? It’s not like I go around making a habit of it, you know.’
His words threw a new scarier doubt in my head. Until he said it, I’d never have thought it could have happened before with someone else. But now the seed was there and was taking root.
How many times had it happened before?
How many schools did he say he’d temped in?
Had it happened in every school he’d been to?
Fear must have been scratched into my eyes, as instantly he saw it, his face every inch the wounded party.
‘Daisy, please. PLEASE! It’s me, the same person you’ve been talking to these last few weeks. The one person, I think, that you’ve felt able to talk to lately.’
His eyes were imploring, although he’d finally stopped stepping towards me.
‘I’m sorry if the kiss freaked you out. I don’t know why I did it. It just happened. I felt like it was what you wanted, that you wanted me to do it. You did want me to do it, didn’t you? I didn’t get it wrong, did I?’
Thoughts swarmed round my head, scattering any sense that tried to form. He was the one person I’d talked to lately, and I had thought about him doing it, but now it had happened it felt wrong.
I tried to remember what I’d said before he’d leaned in, what exact words had fallen out of my mouth, but there was nothing except a fear that I must have told him to do it.
‘What is it, Daisy? What are you thinking about? You can tell me.’
A snort of nervous, confused laughter erupted from my mouth, followed by the words, ‘I don’t even know your name.’
It sounded lame and juvenile, like some underage kid in a club who’d just copped off with a stranger for the first time.
He cast a glance over his shoulder, as if telling me was more dangerous than what he’d already done.
‘It’s Tom,’ he said. ‘Well, Thomas, but Tom, you know.’
There was a Tommy in our English class. The class he taught. He was three months to the day younger than me. I knew that because I’d got off with him last year on his birthday.
This memory shocked me. Reminded me of how wrong all this was. I should still have been thinking about lads like Tommy Grant or Rob Stearn, scheming about how to get together with them, not leading one of my teachers down some shady footpath. What sort of person was I to find myself here, to have made someone think this is what I wanted?
Peering past Mr Hobson, I could see the left turn that led me back to the road, towards our house and Dad, and all I could think about was getting there, closing the door and hiding behind Mum’s sunburst until all this went away.
‘Did you hear me? I said it’s Tom.’ His smile was still in place, but it was fading at the corners. ‘Daisy? Are you all right? I’m losing you again …’
‘No, it’s fine, I’m fine. It’s just … the time. It’s getting on. Dad will be expecting me and that.’
The mention of Dad wiped the curve of his smile away, and as I tried to move a step closer to home, his hand instantly grabbed at mine.
‘No, don’t go yet.’ It was an order, not a request, and the tone seemed to shock him a touch as he tried to grin once more. ‘Not till we’ve sorted this out.’
‘Sorted what out? There’s nothing to sort out. It’s fine, sir, really. It’s my fault. I should just keep my mouth shut.’
‘That’s just it, though, isn’t it?’ There was a touch of panic in his voice, a new strength to his grip. ‘What just happened back there … well, it needs to remain between us. If anyone finds out about it, well … I’ll be in real trouble.’
I felt tears bubble at the corners of my eyes, at the depth of the situation I found myself in.
‘I won’t tell anyone, sir,’ I sobbed. ‘I promise. Why would I tell anyone? You were only here because of me, weren’t you?’
‘I know that, of course I do.’ His free hand was tugging at his hair with a desperation matched by the strength of his grip. ‘But look at you. You’re upset. Who knows what you might say to your dad when you’re upset like this. It’s risky, Daisy, it’s just too risky. For you as well as me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tears were escaping down my cheeks. I was desperate now, scared by the threat in his words.
‘Come on, Daisy. You must know what I mean. If you were to tell anyone about what went on here, the police would come after me. And they’d want to know all about you, about why you were spending so much time with me on your own. They’d start digging, they’d find out about you skipping school, because I’d have to tell them, and then they’d be asking a lot of questions about your dad too. You do realize parents can find themselves in court, in prison even, if their kids are caught absconding. You don’t want that, do you? Neither of us does.’
A long raking sob left my mouth as I tried to rip my arm from his.
‘You wouldn’t tell them, would you? About the wagging off?’ Horrific thoughts ran rampage. ‘They’d get social services in. They’d take me away from him!’
He leaned in closer. ‘And that’s why we HAVE to keep this quiet, Daisy.’ His voice dipped in volume, but the intensity was just as strong. ‘If we keep this quiet, then we’ll both be safe. Neither of us will be under pressure and neither of us will let things slip. Do you understand?’
I nodded, too terrified and out of my depth to do anything else. I felt his grip slacken slightly, but I daren’t try and pull away, not yet.
‘It will be fine, Daisy, really it will. Everything that’s going on, it will pass in time.’
I nodded again, wiping a tear away as if I was pulling myself together, hoping he’d see it as time to finally let go.
‘And if it doesn’t, you can still talk to me. Knowing what I know now, I can help, can’t I?’
With that he took out his handkerchief and pushed it into my hand, the one he was still holding tightly. With a smile and a final squeeze of his fingers, he let go, leaving me to stagger on, desperately trying to figure out just what had happened and what I could possibly do about it.