Thirty

Dearest potential reader,

Thanks for clicking on this. There's a long build up before any sexy scenes, so might not be for you if you're looking for something immediate. If you do stick with it, see if you can spot which Literotica stories inspired me to write this.

Trigger warning: Eating disorders and self-harm feature.

Many thanks to Mykymyk2, and to Nellymcboatface for her feedback and suggestions (go and read her stories). All remaining flaws and errors are entirely my own fault.

All characters involved in sex scenes are over 18.

Happy reading.

T x

____________________________________________________

April 2008

Memory is tricky.

Scrabbling back in my mind, I cannot find a time when she wasn't there. But there must have been a first time we met. There must have. Was it the first day of primary school? Or did we already know each other from some playgroup, or the park?

There's nobody I can ask. My father wouldn't have a clue. My mother would have known, probably, but although I speak to her occasionally, she never replies. My memories of her are even less trustworthy anyhow.

But in the fading photographs of my memory María is always there. Not Maria, but María.

"No," she said (When did she say this? Was it even to me?), "not Mah-reah. Mah-REE-ah."

"Mah-REE-ah."

"Sí, yes, así."

She was bold. She was old. September 2nd, to my August 29th. Nearly a whole year older than me.

Did we always sit next to each other? Did the teacher - Miss Woods? Or was it Miss Price? - engineer it: oldest and youngest, tallest and shortest, black and blonde, native speaker and non-native speaker? Or was it an accident? Or did we not always sit next to each other until much later?

Regardless of their motives, in my memory she was always there. Always. Until she wasn't.

María. My dusky-skinned negative. My best friend. My sister.

She was there in the playground, singing "children of the sun, know your time has just begun", playing at being Esteban and his companions, mangling and inventing the half-heard lyrics. She was there throughout the hideous hatefulness of Tamsin Green, all spit and spite, María my shield and defender. She was there at break times, sharing the delicious food her mother made for her merienda.

She was there for me when my mother was sick. Her mother picking us both up and taking us to my house, where her mother would cook and clean, both my parents at the hospital. Sleepovers at her tiny flat, dinner always served so decadently late, the two of us cramming into her bed afterwards.

She was there at the wedding and there at the graveside, holding my hand both times.

(I know I'm wrong, I know it can't have been this way around, but in my head the wedding always comes before the funeral, chronologically speaking. Like me, my memory is messed up.

But it wasn't that way round. The cancer took my mother 14 months before my father married María's mother. I finally found those records: my mother Jude Michaels died on April 21st 1986. That was the year she was thirty. On Saturday 20th June, 1987, the year he was thirty-one, Richard Smith married María Teresa Matero Ortíz.

That was a shock, finding that. I'd only ever heard my father call my stepmum Maite, and my stepsister María's name at school was María García. All those years I'd been searching for María García and Maite García. It turns out my stepmother had never been called that at all: it never dawned on me that Maite was a contraction of María Teresa. How little we truly know about those closest to us.)

She was there in the other bed in the room us girls shared, even as teens, or sometimes my bed when the nightmares came, or just because we felt like sharing. She was there, tussling in the waves on family holidays at Camber Sands. She was there by my side on our two trips to Madrid, clutching my hand with glee as the aeroplane landed, gawping, mouths open wide as the Chulapas danced at San Isidro, giggling as we smeared our fingers and faces with the thick chocolate we dunked our churros in.

She was there to brush the tangles out of my hair. She was there every Christmas, smiling alongside me as we ripped open presents from Father Christmas and Los Reyes Magos, nibbling on crumbly polvorones and home-made mince pies. She was there every Easter, searching for eggs in the garden and cramming our mouths with rosquillas.

She was there on that first day at secondary school, standing straight and letting me clutch her arm. She was there, bored, whispering the answers to me in Spanish lessons. She was there to help me fight my way through the maze of Maths, with fractions my most implacable foe.

(And was I there for her? Did I ever help her in the same way? When I started searching for her in earnest it gnawed at me that maybe I wasn't, that I wasn't as giving, wasn't as generous with my time, my affection. My therapists have always told me to be kinder to myself, but if María is my yardstick, I've never measured up well. Measuring up has always been a problem for me.)

She was there, looking on with fierce disapproval, when Jamie Bradfield asked me out. She was there to wrap her arms around me as I sobbed when he dumped me three weeks later for being frigid. He swapped me for Jenny Owens, who rumour had it has already lost her virginity by twelve.

She was there in the mornings. She was there in the evenings. She was my kind constant.

And she was there the time in 1992 she shouldn't have been.

With the shock of it all, I can't remember why she was there at my dad's office that afternoon. Did I ever know? Did she ever tell me?

Regardless, she was there. She caught my dad in flagrante delicto, as they say, with his secretary. Oh the cliché.

I wonder now if she'd thought it through, what happened next. Had she considered the consequences? Had she weighed up what it would mean for me, for her, for us? She was always impulsive, always going too quickly on her bike, always sporting some graze or bruise, her words as fast as her feet.

I begged her not to tell her mum. Then I begged her mum not to leave. Then I begged to go with them.

But Maite's mother was ill. So they moved to Madrid and I was marooned in Marylebone, the heart of me ripped out.

My memory is fuzzy, but not where I'd welcome it. Not where softened edges and uncertainty would be a blessing. I remember every word rage ripped from me as they left, every name I called them, every false accusation of not-loving me, not-caring about me, of selfishness, thoughtlessness that I levelled at them.

"I hate you! You bitch! ¡Puta! You ruined everything!" I can remember screaming that, at both of them. But my eyes were on María. I remember knowing it to be false, unfair, untrue, but screaming it nonetheless. When I am feeling kinder towards myself, I tell myself that the red-face I saw in the front hall mirror that day was due to shame rather than anger.

Of course the true target of my anger wasn't there. Coward that he was, my father was out when they left. So he wasn't there to pick me up and comfort me when my wild wrath turned to grief as keen as a knife. He wasn't there, and neither were they, when I pleaded for them to come back, when I pleaded for them to forgive me, when I pleaded for her to make me whole again.

He never heard. They never heard. She never heard.

I tore up all her photos. Didn't feel too clever. Spent the whole of the following Sunday sticking them together.

I had an address for her, a phone number even, but I was too angry, too ashamed, too hurt to use it.

Without María there, I became a shell, a ghost, my core hollowed out. My new step-mother, that same slutty-secretary, never really tried. I was packed off to boarding school to make room for my new half-siblings that could never and would never take María's place.

I sharpened the blade of my pain against my soul, and, naturally, I ended up cutting myself.

Without my stronger, older, better half, I fell prey to any who would show me fleeting affection. I opened my mouth, opened my legs and welcomed the pain the brief fucks brought: anything to fill the gaping chasm inside me. Anything to just feel something. Being the school bike was marginally more socially acceptable than self-harm.

Seeking a salve for my splintered soul, I enslaved myself to Tabitha Warrington and her acolytes. In their toxic pursuit of heroin chic they taught me the purest way of self-harming. I was their guinea pig, their test balloon. At their urging, I tried all the tricks for avoiding and voiding meals, tried every emetic, every laxative, learned how to sew weights into my pyjamas and drink pints of water when the matron weighed me.

Anything that seemed to work, they adopted: anything that damaged me too much, they skipped, like so many meals. We complimented our xylophone rib cages, and helped fake each other's periods when they stopped coming completely.

Only when listening to music could I find some escape, some semblance of feeling. I Played Dead. I was Doll Parts. I Stretched On Your Grave. I was a very, very Stupid Girl.

My dad divorced and moved to the Gulf. I never even met stepmother number three.

It was my grandmother, my mother's mother, who finally spotted my spiralling weight and intervened. I was living with her at half-terms at that point, rather than just visiting occasionally. She saw, she realised, she acted.

It was my first therapist, Grace, that found the jagged edges of the hole María's loss had torn in me hiding beneath the layers of self-harm and self-loathing. It was Grace who first encouraged me to try to find her.

"But what if she doesn't want to see me?" I'd sobbed during our fifth session.

"With everything you've told me about her, I doubt that's the case." Grace had been kind, patient, but hadn't been able to quell my fears. "Besides, I bet she's missed you."

"Then why has she never tried to contact me?"

"Maybe, she's worried about the same thing? Maybe she's worried you're still angry?"

And I was. I was still furious. But that didn't mean Grace wasn't right.

So I tried.

Lo siento, este número no existe.

There was no reply to my letters either.

As a fragile, anorexic seventeen year old, there wasn't a lot I could do. My dad was no help. He couldn't find or remember the address of María's grandparents, whom we'd visited twice. García is the most popular surname in Spain. The solicitor who'd handled their divorce had retired and moved to, of all places, Spain, and couldn't be contacted. It was 1996: the internet was in its infancy.

As the years went on, and I got stronger, I tried harder.

Spanish had been one of the few subjects I'd done well in, and I managed to get onto a History with Spanish course at University. I made sure my study abroad year was in the capital. I examined every female face I saw. I wandered the streets and put up posters:

"Jane Smith está buscando a María García, su hermanastra, fecha de nacimiento 02/09/1977. Ayúdame, por favor. jane.smith98@hull.ac.uk"

I placed adverts in local papers. I even managed to get on local radio. Nada. Not a whisper.

I scoured the districts that I thought might have been where her grandparents lived, but, as I discovered later, I was asking for the wrong names.

Back in the UK, in my final year at Hull Uni, I started volunteering with the Eating Disorder Support Group, giving talks about my experience. After graduation I stayed on, still as a volunteer and supporting myself through a range of admin and retail jobs. I helped them get their charitable status in 2004, at which point they were able to start employing me. It gave me a second purpose, a second reason to live.

Helping others was great, helped me feel more worthy, helped me feel like I could face María, she who had always stuck up for others, should I ever find her. But it wasn't enough. I needed to find her. To apologise for all the hurtful things I'd said. To apologise for not staying in touch. To apologise for not looking for her sooner.

I scrimped and saved and took full advantage of the boom in low cost airlines. Flights to Madrid were bookmarked in my browsers. I once snagged them for four quid each way. I saw Madrid in all its seasons. I lost more than one boyfriend to this addiction, as they grew frustrated with my constant weekends away.

Travelling for work, visiting schools, and tramping round Madrid on every weekend I could, began to take its toll on my health. My social life was non-existent: what few friends I'd made at Uni had long since given up asking me to meet up at weekends. Eventually, with some persuasion, I had to stop.

"Jane, do you ever feel that you are replacing one obsession with another?" asked my new therapist.

"Jane, darling, it's time to live a little, find your own way," my Grandmother told me.

Eventually, the drip drip of their advice wore away at me, and my efforts slowly dried up.

Thus, for a while, between 2005 and 2008, I gave up my desperate efforts. My job still kept me on the move, but I had time to myself. I found activities I liked. I went to gigs. I volunteered as an English teacher at a local refugee centre. Another teacher I became friendly with took me to a stitch ´n bitch session and I learnt to knit, of all things. I stopped needing regular therapy sessions. I tentatively began to make acquaintances who began to grow into friends that I might see at gigs and stand next to and then maybe text in advance to see if they were going. It was nothing like a sitcom. But it started to feel like living.

But then, quite randomly, I discovered that she did try to find me.

It was at a wedding. A cousin was getting married. And who, of all people, should be there but my old tormentor. Tamsin Green.

"Janey, hi!"

"Tamsin," I said as neutrally as I could, as I fought my seven-year-old self's desire to flee.

"How are you?"

"I'm good. How about you?"

"Fine thanks."

"Did Marie ever find you?"

Silence stretched between us. Her eyebrows rose. I watched her wet her lips, like I was some appetising morsel she couldn't wait to eat. I suppose, in a way, the emotions playing out in my face clearly were.

"What?" I whispered.

"Oh, it must have been... goodness, I don't know. Seven years ago, maybe? I bumped into Marie in town, in that old café around the corner from your house. God, she'd got big! Like a whale! I barely recognised her. She was putting up a poster with your name on it. She was looking for you... Guess she never found you, huh?"

Seven years ago. The exact time I was in Madrid.

I fled the wedding and her grinning, triumphant face.

I restarted my search. I trawled the internet: Friends Reunited, Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, Tuenti, Twitter, sending friend requests to every María García and Maite García I could find, drawing blanks and breaking my heart a little more every time. My profile picture was one of us together, the tear still visible.

Then, searching for my own birth certificate while reapplying for a passport, I finally find the paperwork with the death and marriage certificates, and I realise what I've been doing wrong. I can't decide whether to laugh, cry or scream. I do all three.

This is the year I will be thirty. This is the year she will be thirty-one. I need to try again.

Realising that my stepmother wasn't called Maite García makes me think about what other name María might go under.

Searching for María Matero throws up a picture of somebody who could be her. The image isn't clear, but it just might be my María: dark hairs, dark eyes, dusky skin.

My heart skips and trembles and deep within me something stirs.

The photo on the webpage is for a company called Aldea Inglés. They run English immersion programmes. There's no email for her.

Rehearsing my rusty Spanish in my head, I call the number.

"Hello, Aldea Inglés, volunteer department. Lucía speaking, how can I help?"

Slightly thrown by the woman answering in English, I hesitate. "Hi....Er.... I'm looking for María García Matero.... Does she work there?"

"She's not here right now. Can I take a message?"

Blood pounds through my brain and body, my heart positively aching. I don't want to leave a message. What if it is her but she doesn't want to see me? I might never know.

"Er... actually, do you have a number for her?"

"I'm sorry, I can't give out personal details for employees."

"No, of course.... Um... When might she be back in the office?"

"Probably not for a while. She's a Programme Director, so mostly works on our immersion programmes on site. Are you planning to volunteer?"

"Um, well..."

She seizes upon my hesitancy and launches into the sales pitch. I get a week of free accommodation, all inclusive, in a rural hotel, in exchange for speaking English with Spanish learners. All I have to do is get myself to Madrid. Well, that's something I definitely know how to do.

"I've got a vacancy the final week of July if you fancy it? María will be the programme director..."

I draw in a shuddering breath. "Okay, sign me up."

* * *

July 2008

"Okay, Anglos! It's time to go! Please make sure you've got all your bags and let's board the coach!"

Jason, our Canadian MC, is ridiculously infectious. Some people, returnee volunteers, actually cheer. My nervousness makes me immune.

"Remember people, leave a seat free next to you on the coach please. The Spaniards will be sitting next to you. We want them talking in English from the get go."

Along with 23 other native speakers from across the English speaking world, I mount the steps to the bus. They're a real mix: some American retirees who've been several times; a couple of young backpackers from New Zealand; Brits; Canadians; Aussies; Irish. A total blend.

"All right, everyone, get ready to welcome the Spaniards!" Jason hollers from the front.

They start to troop on. Like us, they are a real mix, from 20s to 50s. More men than women. Out of habit, I find myself examining the women's faces as they board, checking to see if any of them could be Maite or María. It's a habit I've had for so long, I don't realise I'm doing it. It occasionally causes problems and propositions.

None of these women could be her. It doesn't matter. Just a few hours and I might see her.

I've thought of nothing else for the past three months since that phone call. My nerves are so shot, I've got no nails left and I was barely able to stomach anything at breakfast.

I could have called again. I could have left a message. I could have found out the name of the hotel where they hold the programme and called there directly. But I couldn't face it. I couldn't face the disappointment, the potential for rejection. This hope of finally finding my María has been all that has got me through these past few months.

My knees are bouncing up and down. This is it!

Suddenly, somebody takes the seat next to me and snaps me from my reverie.

"Hi! Is it okay if I sit here?"

"No... I mean, yes, carry on."

"Okay, great. I'm José, pleased to meet you."

"Jane, hi."

He's a large guy, bearded, works in IT and speaks excellent English, which I compliment him on.

"Your English is flawless, José. Why do you need to come on this?"

"Well, my company is paying. I don't mind. It's a free holiday, right?"

The coach trip takes four hours and, on any other occasion, would be stunning. After rising up through the Sierra Guadarrama, past El Escorial and Franco's preposterous cross, we pass the walled city of Ávila, with its amazingly intact mediaeval fortifications. Pine forests give way to oaks and rolling fields of golden wheat. Windmills march across the plains.