by Paige Toon
I felt bad about deserting Libby, but she was being so clingy that night and Natalie seemed alright. She took me outside and introduced me to Em and Dougie, then she lit up a cigarette.
‘You want one?’
I shrugged and said sure, but it made me cough and that made them laugh.
‘Have a drink,’ Natalie said, passing me a glass of what I thought was Coke. Coke and vodka, as it turned out. It made me feel a little bit giddy. Libby came outside soon afterwards and looked shocked to see me sitting at the table, laughing and joking with them all.
‘My mum is on her way,’ she said tersely.
‘Did you call her?’ I asked with disbelief, rolling my eyes with disgust when she nodded her assent. ‘For God’s sake, Libby!’
Things were on edge between us for a while after that, but we eventually seemed to get over it. And then Mum died and everything went to shit.
It still surprises me how quickly my anger dominated my sadness. At first I retreated into myself. No one could comfort me – I was an orphan and I’d never felt more alone. And then I hit out. I had already missed a lot of school after Mum’s death, but I started to skip classes, even though Stu had decided I was ready to go back. One day, I came across Natalie and Aaron in the park and my feet just sort of took me over to them. It was amazingly easy to fall into step with them. They didn’t ask questions about Mum. They didn’t want to do heart-to-hearts and pat themselves on the back for being there for poor little Jessie. Not like Libby. All she ever wanted to do was ask me how I was, give me hugs and make me cry. I didn’t want her sympathy all the time. She kept bringing me down, reminding me of everything that I’d lost and taken for granted.
But Natalie and the others didn’t. They were fun, easy, light-hearted. They were shiny and new, and they took me away from myself and my pain for a while. They’re still taking me away from it.
The doorbell goes, jogging me from my thoughts. Natalie resignedly hands me her fag.
‘Hold this for me, Jess.’
She’ll be back and forth answering the door all night. Mike is not the getting-up-from-the-sofa type. She heads back inside and I glance down at her cigarette and impulsively take a quick suck. It immediately makes me wish I was drinking. Bugger it, I’ll just have a couple. Stu will get over it. Besides, I’ve broken one promise now, what’s the point in keeping the other? I go back into the kitchen and grab the vodka. I’m pouring some into my glass when Natalie returns.
‘I knew you’d cave!’ she exclaims.
I look past her to see Tom and Chris in the hallway. It must have been them at the door.
‘Hey, Jessie,’ Tom says, our eyes locking.
‘Hi.’ I hand Natalie back her fag and take a sip of my drink. The warmth that flows through my body may well be alcohol-induced, but I have a feeling Tom’s presence is majorly contributing.
Two hours later I am having such a good time. We’re in the living room, the music has been turned right up and loads of us are dancing. I think Tom’s gone outside, but I’ve resisted following him like an eager-eyed puppy dog. We haven’t spoken much. There must be fifty or sixty people in the house – some are next door in the TV room where Natalie is setting up SingStar on Mike’s PlayStation. I’ve drunk enough to just about allow myself to be dragged in there to ‘perform’, which is good because that’s exactly what Natalie chooses to make me do minutes later.
‘Come on, you are singing!’ she yells, pulling me out of the room and into the next.
‘Are you taking me on?’ I ask with a grin.
‘Hell, no. I’m not that stupid. Who wants to compete with Jessie?’ she shouts to the room packed full of people, holding my hand aloft as though I’m some sort of champion. A couple of guys shout drunken, ‘yeahs!’ so she pulls the boy closest to her to his feet, a dishevelled sixth-former from school who I think is going out with one of Natalie’s friends.
‘What song?’ Natalie asks.
‘He can choose,’ I say graciously, nodding at my opponent. I can’t remember his name, but it doesn’t matter because I’m about to kick his arse. Alcohol does wonders for my confidence.
‘Something rock or indie,’ he tells Natalie as she navigates through the menu.
Perfect.
‘“I Believe In A Thing Called Love”!’ he shouts, spotting The Darkness. I narrow my eyes at him. Interesting choice . . .
A minute later the whole room is cheering and laughing and half of them are singing along. It’s flippin’ hilarious. I don’t quite manage to get the top score because it’s a tricky song, but I still get Superstar while he only manages Wannabe. I must have drunk more than I realise to be enjoying myself this much. I never normally sing in public, and whoa, Tom’s just walked into the room. Right, I am definitely drunk, because I’m still standing here.
I try not to look at him while my next competitor chooses Hole’s ‘Celebrity Skin’. The song kicks off and I attempt to give Courtney Love a run for her money. I can tell by Natalie’s slightly awed expression that I’m killing it – in a good way. Naturally I win again and risk a glance over my shoulder to see Tom leaning up against the wall with his arms folded. He’s wearing black jeans and a light-grey T-shirt, and looks hotter than ever. He grins at me and raises one eyebrow.
A group of girls laughingly shove one of their friends forward to sing next and I push my hair out of my face and get ready to take on my next victim, but then she chooses ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ by INXS and the ground feels like it’s falling away from me. Not that song. Anything but that song.
The last time I heard it was at my mum’s funeral. It was one of her favourites . . .
Natalie looks at me, still smiling. She doesn’t know what this song means to me. We weren’t friends when Mum died; she didn’t come to the funeral, she didn’t even know what my mum looked like. That’s the whole point. Natalie’s a new friend, part of my future, not my past. Not like Libby.
She adored my mum, almost always defended her when she pissed me off. Libby used to say my mum was like me. She lived for her music and was young at heart, a free-spirited one-time rock chick. She could have been my friend. But I didn’t want a friend. I wanted a mum. Like Libby’s. Someone who cooked nice meals and did the gardening and wore age-appropriate clothing and who didn’t try to download my music on to her own frigging computer all the time.
I was so mean to Mum about it, and now she’s gone and I’ll never be able to tell her that I’m sorry. That I loved her. That I miss her.
My throat closes up and there is no way I’ll be able to sing this song. So I bolt out of the room well before we get to the lyric about living for a thousand years.
My mum didn’t even live to see forty.
I run outside to the garden. There’s a bench seat down the back and I need a little time and space to get my head together. I turn to sit down and jolt with surprise when I see that Tom has followed me.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks with concern, as I slump on to the seat and wipe away the tears trekking down my cheeks.
‘I’ll be alright,’ I mumble as he crouches on the ground directly in front of me. His face is close to mine.
‘What’s wrong?’ His brown eyes look even darker in the low light.
‘That song.’ I sniff. ‘It reminds me of my mum.’
I don’t know why I just told him that, like it was easy. I never talk about Mum to anyone these days.
He swallows hard and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down. He gets to his feet and I fleetingly think that he’s going to leave me to it, that this is too much, but he sits down next to me instead.
‘It’s OK to cry. I know it’s not the same, but when my dad left I must’ve cried every day for six months. Maybe more,’ he says.
‘I didn’t know that your dad left,’ I reply shakily, taken aback.
He tilts his chin my way, but doesn’t meet my eyes. ‘He walked out on us just over a year ago.’
‘Where did he go?’ I ask.
‘America. With some woman
he’d been having an affair with for three years.’ He sounds bitter.
‘God,’ I say. ‘And you haven’t seen him since?’
He looks down at his hands. ‘I haven’t wanted to. My mum was devastated.’
‘But you obviously do want to see him,’ I say gently, my mind feeling miraculously clear considering the copious amount of vodka I’ve consumed.
Tom shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t.’
I have a feeling he could, but he feels like he can’t, out of loyalty to his mum. If anything, that makes me like him more. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘JESS!’ Natalie calls from the house. ‘Are you down there?’
‘Yeah,’ I shout back wearily.
She hurries up the garden path and then stops in her tracks when she sees Tom. ‘Are you OK?’ she asks.
‘I’m fine,’ I reply. Then, to my dismay, Tom gets up.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he says.
I almost blurt after him, ‘don’t go!’ but Natalie takes his place and my heart constricts as I watch him lope back towards the house.
‘What’s everyone saying?’ I ask dejectedly as he goes inside.
‘Oh, don’t worry about them. They just think you ran off to throw up.’
‘Great.’ Obviously I’m being sarcastic.
‘Did you?’
‘No!’ I exclaim. ‘I just had a bad memory.’ I don’t want to go into the details.
‘About your mum?’ she asks uneasily.
‘Yeah. But don’t talk to me about it or I might cry again,’ I warn.
‘OK.’ She seems relieved. Here’s even more proof that she doesn’t do heart-to-hearts.
‘What did Tom say?’ she asks curiously.
‘Nothing much.’
‘Sorry, I wouldn’t have interrupted if I’d known you were out here with him,’ she apologises.
‘Don’t be daft,’ I brush her off.
She nudges me. ‘You want another drink?’
‘No, I think I’d better reign it back in.’
‘Worried about Mr Taylor?’ she teases.
‘A bit,’ I admit honestly.
‘Fag, then?’ she offers. ‘I don’t have any left, but I can nick one from someone if you want.’
I smile. ‘No, it’s OK.’
‘You are a flippin’ awesome singer,’ she says suddenly, with a grin, offering her hand for a high five. ‘We should form a band.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ I smirk, half-heartedly returning the gesture. ‘And what are you going to play?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll just bash about on a drum kit in the background.’
‘Sounds like we’ve got a Number One single, right there,’ I say drily.
‘I wonder if Tom plays guitar,’ she muses, before nudging me again. ‘He’s so into you.’
‘Let’s go back inside,’ I reply with a smile.
Back in the kitchen I hunt out some snacks. ‘I can’t go home drunk,’ I tell Natalie, who starts pulling crisps and biscuits out of the cupboards. ‘Actually, what’s the time?’ Stu said he’d come for me at eleven thirty, latest. I look around for a clock because my phone is in my bag in Natalie’s bedroom. The microwave says 12:33.
‘Shit!’ I exclaim. ‘Is that clock right?’
‘Nah,’ she brushes me off. ‘It’s always wrong.’
‘What about that one?’ I point at the oven’s digital display, which reads 10:45.
‘No, that needs resetting, too.’
‘Bloody hell,’ I mutter jokily, stalking out of the room into the corridor. I’ll go and get my mobile. I should probably text Stu, anyway. I turn to jog up the stairs, but stop suddenly when I see two people huddled together on the fourth step. They look up and my stomach falls. It’s Tom and Isla: his ex.
‘Sorry,’ I say, as Tom leans towards Isla to make room for me to pass. I thought they split up, but here they are, looking pretty cosy.
I feel nauseous as I go into Natalie’s room and hunt out my mobile. There are three missed calls from Stu. Dammit! It’s 11.25pm. I’ve been drinking, I’ve been smoking, but if I text him now at least he won’t hate me for failing him on the time front, too. I type out a message. Soz. Ready now.
He texts me straight back to say that he’s on his way. I stuff my phone back into my bag and sling it over my shoulder before steeling myself to go back downstairs. Tom and Isla are still sitting on the step, talking quietly.
‘Excuse me,’ I say as I start to walk down, my heart beating louder in my chest. Once more, Tom moves across for me.
‘You off?’ he asks, spying my bag.
‘Yep, gotta go.’
I don’t look at Isla, but I can sense the tension between them. I bet she’s trying to win him back, and why wouldn’t he be persuaded? She’s popular, smart and beautiful. I must look like a mess next to her. If I was Tom, I wouldn’t be interested in the crazy girl who cries at parties, either. Biting my lip to stop it from wobbling, I go to say goodbye to Natalie. I find her in the garden, smoking with some of the others.
‘I’m off,’ I tell her quietly, leaning in to give her a hug.
‘No way? Really?’ She pulls away with shock.
‘Yeah, Stu’s on his way.’
‘Can’t you stay for a bit longer?’
‘No, he’ll go mental if I keep him waiting.’
‘OK.’ She looks disappointed. ‘Call me tomorrow.’
‘I will.’ I head back in to the house and to the front door, purposefully not looking back at the stairs as I go out the door.
‘You’ve been smoking,’ Stuart says the moment I climb into the car. ‘And drinking. You stink,’ he adds angrily.
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ I reply.
‘Jesus Christ, Jessie!’ he snaps. ‘When is this going to stop?’
‘Please, Stu,’ I say wearily. ‘I’ve had a rough night.’
‘I don’t give a damn!’ he raises his voice. ‘You promised me. You’ve let me down. You keep letting me down! How can I ever trust you when you behave like this?’
‘Please,’ I say quietly, my eyes filling with tears. I don’t have the energy. Seeing Tom with Isla hurt me much more than I thought it would. It seemed like there was something between us in the garden, but I guess I was wrong.
‘You are something else, do you know that?’ He pulls away from the curb, and I don’t even bother to brush my tears away on the drive home. He probably thinks I’m crying to get attention, but this time he’s wrong. I wish I hadn’t gone out tonight. I don’t need any more pain in my life.
Chapter 4
‘A few of us are heading into Henley this evening,’ Natalie says to me the next day, when I answer a call from her on my lunch break.
I’m at work and it’s doing my head in to be inside on such a beautiful day. I can see the blue sky above the atrium in the middle of the mall, but the fluorescents down below are sucking the natural light right out of the air, something which never fails to depress me.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply uncertainly. Stuart was still in a foul mood this morning, even after a properly sincere apology.
‘Come on, we can go straight from work. There’s a load of us going.’
‘Who?’ I can’t help but ask.
‘Everyone. Aaron, Dougie, Em, Mike and a bunch of his mates.’ She hesitates. ‘I don’t know about Tom.’
I take a deep breath and try not to let her hear me sigh.
‘Did you see him last night with Isla?’ I ask the question that has been plaguing me.
‘I saw them chatting, yeah,’ she replies awkwardly, and humiliation rushes through me. It must be so obvious how much I like him. I wish it wasn’t. ‘I don’t think anything happened, though,’ she adds, trying to placate me.
‘Whatever,’ I say, and she doesn’t answer, which only makes me squirm more.
‘Oh, please come,’ she tries again. ‘Even if Tom’s not there, it’ll still be a laugh.’
Bugger it.
‘OK, why not?’
&nb
sp; I meet the others at the station after work and wait until I’m on the train before texting Stu. I usually walk home from work because we don’t live far from Maidenhead town centre, so he’ll be expecting me back around this time. He calls me as soon as he gets the text, but I press divert.
‘He’s going to do his nut in,’ I tell Natalie, who’s sitting next to me. The others are chatting noisily and playing about in the seats around us. She rolls her eyes. Her parents are so easy-going that she doesn’t get why Stu is overprotective. I try not to let on how worried I am. ‘Oh, well, it’s done now.’
My phone pings to let me know a message has come in. Uneasily, I take a look. Get your arse back here right now.
‘What does it say?’ Natalie asks, so I show her. ‘Oops,’ she comments.
‘He will kill me, you know,’ I muse, relatively calmly, as I study the old piece of chewing gum that has been squashed into the back of the seat in front of me.
Ping! I mean it.
I bite my lip. Natalie grabs my phone to read Stu’s message.
‘What are you going to say?’ she asks.
I shrug as I stare out of the window at a field full of yellow rapeseed flowers. ‘I’m already on the train, what can I do?’
‘You’d better tell him that,’ she suggests.
So I do.
Ping! Then catch the next one straight home!
I sigh and type out a reply. You know I’m not going to do that.
I wait at least half a minute for his reply. This is the last straw!
Unease overcomes me. I wonder if I’ve finally pushed him over the edge. What’s he going to do? Kick me out?
I text him back, I’m sorry. Really.
And he replies, Too little, too late.
‘Shit,’ I say out loud, warily showing Natalie our latest exchange. ‘Oh, well.’ I try to sound light-hearted. ‘It’s done now. I’d better enjoy my last few hours of freedom before he locks me up for good.’
Some of my bad feelings are miraculously washed away when we arrive at the riverside to see Tom, surrounded by a few of his friends. No girls, I note with relief. I avoid his eyes in a couldn’t-care-less manner as we wander across the park to the river. It’s a gorgeous evening and the aroma of freshly cut grass, river water and cow parsley fills the air.