by Nicci Cloke
I thought I’d quite like bar work actually. I’d done a bit of glass collecting last summer at a pub owned by someone Leon knew, and the shifts had always gone by fast. ‘Yeah, send me that, too,’ I said. I was already looking forward to getting applications sent off. To doing something.
My phone vibrated next to me on the bed, and I glanced at it, assuming it was another set of links from Daisy. But it was a message from Lucy.
Haha yeh we did, we ended up goin to the foam party at Diamond it was sooooo good! Feels rubbish to b back tho :(
A minute later, she followed it up with:
hey kno this is a bit forward but u wanna hang out sometime? I’m at my dad’s in Roehampton this summer, it’s easy on the train. B fun to go for a drink or something :)
‘I’ve got another bar job, this one’s at the Wetherspoon’s in Longhampton,’ Daisy said. ‘Interested?’
‘Yeah, hit me up,’ I said, watching Krysten Ritter slam someone through a wall. I glanced back at Lucy’s message again and tapped out a reply.
why’s that forward lol, sure everyone would love to see you! Let us know when you’re free and you can come see the sights of Kings Lyme!
‘How do you feel about retail?’ Daisy asked, reaching over to nab another bit of cheese.
‘Umm, fine, I guess,’ I said. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were drinking whiskey, barely keeping their hands off each other, and I gave Daisy’s foot a squeeze, realising all over again how good it felt to be here with her.
oh I kinda just meant me and u ;)
What? I glanced at Daisy again. She was distracted by the episode too, watching Jessica and Luke get it on, with her head balanced on her hand.
oh right. sorry, I didn’t realise. I’ve got a girlfriend, and also I wouldn’t do that to Dev
It took her a couple of minutes to reply, by which time Daisy was busy clicking through job listings again.
Dev? what’s it got to do with Dev?
u guys were together in malia!
lol what. we snogged twice on a night out – one of the times was because I lost a bet with him!
Huh? He stayed at yours night of the booze cruise
No he didn’t! He bottled it and left after about 5 mins. Boy is clearly still into his ex. Anyway, you don’t have to use your mate as an excuse, if you don’t fancy me that’s totally fine. Just say!
I frowned at my phone. That was weird.
Like I say, I’ve got a girlfriend. Nothing to do with fancying you or not. Have a good week.
I felt bad. I probably shouldn’t have even replied – what would Daisy think if she saw those messages? But I also didn’t want Lucy to feel completely rejected either. She seemed like a nice girl and it was no big deal that she’d asked me out. If anything, I just felt guilty that I clearly hadn’t mentioned Daisy to her. Another thing to add to the list of stuff I felt awful about.
‘Hey, Dais?’ I said, and she looked round at me. ‘You don’t need to do that. I’ll keep looking tomorrow. This is your favourite episode – come and watch it.’
BY FRIDAY, THINGS were starting to feel all right again. Although JB hadn’t really said anything on the group since we got back, when Nate sent a message asking if everyone was still up for going round his, he replied to say yes. Seeing his name there felt good, and Dev had been joining in like normal the last couple of days too. In fact, it’d been Dev who’d posted first the day before – a picture of a girl he’d been messaging on Snapchat.
I think I’m in love, the message said. The photo was a picture he’d taken from her profile, of her dressed up for Halloween or something. She was dressed as Harley Quinn, T-shirt ripped and shorts short, pointing her baseball bat at the camera.
Fit, Nate wrote back.
A solid 7, wrote Zack. Then, a minute later, Maybe a 7.5 if I was drunk.
I’d usually have joined in. We played this game often enough. Normally I’d just say something about the girl’s legs, which looked great in her torn tights, and I started to type. But somehow I just couldn’t press send.
But I was glad we were all talking again. And I felt sorry for Dev, especially after what Lucy had said about him bottling it. I didn’t know why Dev felt he needed to make up all this stuff about shagging girls when he was clearly still into Mollie. But if it made him feel better, I wasn’t going to get in the way of it.
I’d spent the rest of the week applying for jobs, even the Munchies one. There were still four weeks left of summer, so it’d be good to start earning as soon as possible – and, truthfully, I could feel myself getting into a bad routine again, especially with Daisy visiting her grandma up in Scotland for the week. I’d stay up late just clicking through social media or playing Xbox and then end up sleeping all day. It was just normal stuff, but I could feel that weird heaviness coming back. I knew that it wasn’t good for me.
I’d had a bad patch last winter. I’d never talked to anyone about it and I still didn’t really know exactly what had happened, except that one day, just a random Tuesday, I hadn’t wanted to get out of bed. Hope and I hadn’t broken up much before that, and I guess I was still sad about it. I missed her, or missed having someone, maybe, and I felt pretty empty. Maybe it’s difficult to explain this, but when you feel empty, it really fills up your day. It’s hard to find space to make any other thoughts stick, like your brain is just this big bottomless void that you can’t find a way out of.
It had just sort of gone away by itself – Mum and me had gone to Manchester to stay with my uncle and aunt and Steph, who could always make me laugh, and while I was there, I’d ended up chatting to Daisy on Facebook one night. We were in a couple of classes together and I’d always thought she was pretty, and once we got talking, we really got on.
Maybe that was just what everyone was like after a break-up – I kept thinking that it wasn’t that big a deal, like I was just being a total wimp. But I still remembered how awful it had felt, and I was still always, in a deep, dark corner of my brain, afraid that it might happen again.
So I was glad when it was time to leave for Nate’s on Friday night. Daisy was coming back on Sunday evening. And even Hope had replied to me, two days after I’d messaged her.
Sorry, just saw this. Don’t worry. All good. Been sleeping alllll week! x
It didn’t sound exactly like her, but it felt like maybe she’d forgiven us.
When I got to Nate’s, Dev and Zack were there, already halfway through a twelve-pack of beer. I added the ones I’d picked up – a bonus of being lanky was that I’d been able to get served since Year 10 – to the fridge and cracked one open for myself.
‘Who else is coming?’ I asked, sitting down next to Dev.
‘JB’s on his way,’ he said. ‘Hope said she might come later too, maybe some of the other girls.’
‘Cool.’ I looked at him a bit closer. ‘You look … merry.’
‘Yeah. Dhruv took me to the pub this afternoon.’ Dhruv was Dev’s older brother. He was in his second year at Cardiff University, studying medicine. From the stories Dev told, medical students were pretty wild.
‘Where’re your parents again, Nate-Dogg?’ Zack asked, going to the mantelpiece and picking up a photo of Nate’s mum on a beach somewhere.
‘Dinner party at an old friend’s or something,’ Nate said, taking it off him. ‘They’re staying at some B&B in Surrey.’
‘So how’s Harley doing, Devdas?’ Zack said. ‘Nailed her yet?’
Dev finished his beer and reached for another. ‘Nah, bro. Playing it cool.’
‘Where’d you meet her?’ Nate asked. ‘And what’s her actual name?’
‘Lily. She goes to Southfield, I met her at that guy James’s party the other week.’
We all raised our eyebrows. Southfield High was the school a couple of towns over, and it didn’t have a great reputation, especially over the last couple of years. There’d even been a shooting, when we were in the middle of GCSEs, which meant the area was on the news for weeks. There was sti
ll talk about putting metal detectors in at our school.
‘Bit of rough, eh?’ Zack said. ‘Well, whatever floats your boat, mate.’
‘How’s Daisy, Loges?’ Dev asked, clearly keen to change the subject.
‘Yeah, she’s good.’ Her signal was patchy in Scotland so I hadn’t heard much from her, but she’d sounded really happy. It was pretty much her favourite place to be in the world. I’d seen pictures – her grandma lived in a cottage on the road to some tiny village with just hills and sky everywhere you looked. The thought made me feel weird and panicked, but for Daisy it was the place she felt calm.
‘Shame she couldn’t come,’ Zack said. ‘Feels like it’s been ages since we had a full crew together.’
The doorbell rang, right on cue. Nate went to answer it and came back with JB.
‘All right, mate,’ I said.
‘Hi, guys,’ JB plonked a six-pack onto the coffee table. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Good, mate,’ Zack clapped him on the back. ‘Just about recovered. You?’
JB nodded. ‘Yeah. My liver’s talking to me again at least.’
‘Well, tell it to shut up,’ Zack said, handing him a beer. ‘Right! Who’s for a little chaser?’ He pulled out a bottle of whiskey.
‘Yes, mate!’ Dev said, squinting at it. ‘Legend!’
‘Nice. I’ll get some glasses,’ Nate said.
I was up for it. But I saw JB sighing. ‘It’s like six thirty,’ he said, sitting down next to me.
I shrugged at him. I really wanted that drink.
Whiskeys poured, Nate held up his glass. ‘To summer,’ he said.
‘To summer.’ The whiskey burned the back of my throat but it felt warm in my chest. It felt like relief.
‘Right,’ Zack said, passing out more beers. ‘It’s about Ring of Fire o’clock, don’t you think?’
‘Sounds about right to me,’ Nate said, pulling out a pack of cards from under the coffee table and shuffling them. He started splaying them out in a circle, face down on the table, and I cleared some bottles out of the way.
‘Don’t stitch me up,’ Dev said, laughing. He always laughed when he was getting drunk.
I wasn’t exactly a big fan of Ring of Fire, which, like Dev said, was mainly designed for stitching each other up. Every card you pulled had some kind of forfeit attached, for you or for someone else in the circle. Everyone who drew a king got to put some kind of drink in the cup in the middle of the circle – except for whoever drew the fourth king, who got to nominate someone to drink whatever was in the cup.
I wasn’t a big fan. But it did the job. It got you drunk.
‘Jesus!’ JB shoved his beer away. ‘Do we have to?’
‘Oooooh.’ Zack made a fake surprised face. ‘What’s up, madam? Can’t handle the pace any more?’
JB’s face was red. ‘Why do we always have to get hammered? Why can’t we just do something nice like have dinner or watch a film or something?’
It wasn’t just Zack who looked surprised at that. Where was this all coming from?
‘Have you ever thought,’ JB continued, standing up, ‘that maybe it might be nice to actually just have a beer and talk to each other every now and again? I can’t even remember the last time I had a decent conversation with any of you.’
We all blinked at him. Zack pulled a face, but before he could say anything, the doorbell rang.
‘That’ll be the girls,’ Nate said. ‘Chill out, JB, yeah?’
JB sat back down and none of us said anything. He reached out and took his beer and took a big swig.
‘He wants a chat,’ Zack muttered to himself. ‘And then we can all do our nails together.’
‘Fuck off, Zack,’ JB said.
Nate came back with Hope and her friend Charlotte. ‘Hey, guys,’ Hope said.
‘Hopey, how’s it going?’ Dev wrapped her in a hug. ‘Hey, Char.’
‘I’ll get you some glasses,’ Nate said, nodding towards the bottle of wine Hope had in her hand.
‘Georgie said she’s not gonna make it,’ Hope said to JB. ‘Something about your mum and David roping her in to help with making props?’
JB rolled his eyes. ‘Amateur. I dodged out of that weeks ago. They’re in charge of the summer school play again. She’ll be up to her elbows in papier mâché until midnight at least.’
‘Your parents are so cute.’ Hope sat down between us. ‘You OK, Logan?’
‘Yeah.’ I smiled at her. ‘How about you?’
Nate came back with two wine glasses and Hope poured drinks for herself and Charlotte. I glanced down at my beer. Empty again. I felt kind of awkward, after JB’s outburst and now with Hope there. I found that sips of beer kind of filled the gaps where you should probably be saying words in those situations. It was probably a good job I’d gone for the box of twelve bottles.
‘We were just playing Ring of Fire,’ Zack said, with a defiant look in JB’s direction.
‘Yeah, you in?’ Dev asked the girls.
Charlotte shrugged. ‘Sure.’
Nate picked up the bottle of whiskey and put it on the table. ‘May as well make it interesting.’
A couple of hours later, the second round of Ring of Fire had been abandoned. Nate had turned up the music and everyone was just kind of sitting around, having random conversations and laughing at stupid things on phones. I watched Zack and Nate talking about Zack’s brother, Freddie, breaking up with his girlfriend and I thought, See, we do talk to each other. I went to the fridge to get another beer, and when I came back, Dev was sort of swaying by a bookcase, watching the others. I went over to him.
‘You all right, buddy?’
He turned and blinked at me, this really weird expression on his face. ‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’
I glanced in the direction he’d been looking. ‘Who, Hope?’
He nodded. The movement made him stumble a bit, and I reached out to steady him before all of Nate’s dad’s history books hit the floor. ‘Yeah, course she is, mate.’
He rubbed uncertainly at his face. I think it was just hitting him how drunk he was. When he looked at me, his eyes were bloodshot. ‘I just … I feel bad.’
I felt sober then, this cold feeling flowing through me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘About … that night. About what happened.’
‘Yeah, well, we all do,’ I said, taking another big glug of beer.
He looked at me, chewing his lip, and didn’t say anything.
‘Dev,’ I asked, careful to keep my voice low, ‘do you know something I don’t? Something that happened that night?’
His eyes went wide and he looked for a second like he was going to cry. He looked guilty. ‘I just wanted her to have a good time,’ he said in a little voice, rocking backwards. I steadied him again.
‘Did you do something?’
I still half expected him to say no, I think. We all wanted her to have a good time – nothing Dev was saying was bad. But it was the way he looked as he said it. I just knew.
‘Those pills,’ he said, his voice even smaller. ‘The ones from those Exeter lads.’
I didn’t say anything. I just kept looking at him.
‘They were really good,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to share. So I put a little bit in her drink.’
‘Without her knowing?’ I felt sick.
‘I thought it’d be funny.’ Dev looked like he was going to cry. ‘Remember that time Zack did it to all of us at JB’s birthday?’
But I was too busy thinking about that night.
‘Dev, did you spike me too?’
Dev nodded. By then he was looking at the floor, like some little kid who’d stolen an extra biscuit. ‘I guess I got the amount wrong or something,’ he said. ‘You just puked.’ I had a memory of the boat, of leaning over the railing with someone rubbing my back. ‘But Hope … It fucked Hope up.’
I walked away. I had to walk away. But Dev followed me, stumbling over someone’s shoe as he came into the hallway afte
r me.
‘Logan, please don’t be mad at me. It was for a laugh. I thought it’d be jokes. I didn’t know …’
‘I can’t talk to you right now,’ I said, pulling on my shoes. My voice was so calm I surprised myself. ‘You’re drunk. I’m going home and so should you.’ He started towards the shoes, one hand to the wall to keep himself upright. ‘Not with me,’ I said. ‘I just need to be on my own right now.’
And I left him standing there.
I’D BEEN LOOKING forward to Daisy getting back all week, but when the day finally came I ended up sleeping through my alarm and had to run most of the way there. By the time I arrived at the shopping centre, sweating and out of breath, I was forty minutes late and Daisy wasn’t at the fountain where we usually met.
I fished my phone out of my pocket to call her, but before I hit dial, I heard my name. I spun round and saw her poking her head out of the door to her favourite coffee shop.
I jogged over. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Daisy had a seat by the window, her laptop set up. ‘Well, thought I’d do some writing.’ She typed a couple of words and then lowered the lid of her laptop a bit. ‘Did you have a good weekend?’
‘Yeah …’ I didn’t really feel like telling her I’d spent most of it trying not to think about what Dev had told me. Trying to ignore the group chat about stupid, pointless things. ‘How was Scotland? Do you want another coffee?’
She nodded and then held up the crumb-littered plate next to her. ‘Maybe another croissant too?’
I went to the counter, and by the time I got back she was typing again. I put her flat white down next to her and then slid onto the stool opposite.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I wrote two chapters this morning! I’m on a roll.’
‘Dais, that’s great. Feel like telling me what it’s about yet?’
She clicked a few times and then closed the lid decisively. ‘Yes, all right.’ She picked up her cup and took a sip and then studied me over the top of it. ‘But you can’t, like, laugh. Or frown. Frowning would really put me off.’