He She It

sixteen: sorry this, sorry that

"Mr Hades saw you in a bodycon?" Lilly asked, trying her very hardest not to snort at Eve's misfortune - which was difficult, because she was picturing Eve in a skintight, neon pink dress in front of their very conservative headteacher, who found gospel choirs a little too alternative for his taste. "I'm sorry, Eve, but bloody hell. I bet his face was priceless!"

"Mmm," Eve hummed, and Lilly pushed herself up into a sitting position to see her Mum pulling into their driveway, a man she didn't recognise sat in the passenger seat. "It's weird, his wife is actually really nice. Have you ever seen her?"

Lilly wasn't currently interested in Mr Hades marital affairs, though, because there was currently a slightly more pressing issue at hand - that was, her Mum was getting out of the car and taking this man by the hand, doing her stupid please-fall-in-love-with-me giggle and pressing herself into his side. She watched, somewhere between disgusted and horrified, until they opened the door and she could hear every painful pick-up line.

(The most disturbing one of which went a little something like: "do you live on a chicken farm? Because you sure know how to raise a cock").

(For the first time in her life, Lilly was regretting eating so much ice-cream, because right now she felt dangerously on the verge of throwing it all back up).

"Lilly?" Eve said, as she lingered at the top of the stairs and watched them go into the kitchen - the man leading the way. Lilly wondered how many times he'd been in her house before today and her stomach turned again. "Are you there?"

"Um, yeah," she muttered, as her Mum's giggles faded to some kind of seductive chuckle (or at least, Lilly assumed it was meant to be seductive. It actually sounded a lot like she was trying to cough something up). "Look, I have to go. I'll see you at school, yeah?"

"Sure. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Lilly said. "But my Mum has apparently lost the fucking plot."

"Ah. Good luck with that."

It looked as though she was going to need it, as well, because as soon as she'd hung the phone back up, her Mum called her downstairs to meet 'the lovely Richard,' and assured her with another one of those bloody giggles that he was a 'real charmer, Lil.'

As it turned out, Richard was neither lovely nor a 'real charmer.' In fact, he was a real dickhead, and Lilly wasted no time in making her disapproval known.

"Mum," she hissed when the real charmer excused himself to use their toilet. (That was, if you considered 'well, I have to take a shit' excusing yourself). "Please tell me you do not like him. Please."

"Give him a chance, Lil," she said, a slightly dopey grin plastered across her face. "He's actually a nice guy. And he doesn't like guys, which is a step up from my last man."

"Jesus, Mum. Is your only requirement now 'must be straight?'" Lilly asked as the sound of the toilet flushing and a loud 'oh fuck, it's not gone' came from the adjacent bathroom. She stared at the wall, her eyebrows raised. "I mean, come on. You don't have to lower your standards that much."

"Richard is the only man to have asked me out since your Dad left me for Manuel," her Mum said, cringing a little as Richard poked his head around the door to reassure them that he could 'poke it down, or something.' "I'd appreciate it if you at least tried to be civil to him."

"Oh, because his manners are absolutely impeccable," Lilly snorted, rolling her eyes. "Don't worry about me putting him off, anyway. I'm going out."

"Where to?"

"Dad's," Lilly said, taking her jacket from the stair banister and shrugging it on. "At least his boyfriend doesn't have to poke his shit down the toilet."