Summer Skin

by Kirsty Eagar

  ‘These guys are all forwards,’ Mitch explained.

  ‘Great,’ Jess said, glancing towards the bar area.

  ‘You don’t know what that means, do you?’ Mitch asked, his voice falsely cheerful.

  ‘No idea,’ Jess said, and they all laughed. She didn’t; she needed to get away so badly she felt sick. It wasn’t the guys. She could tell they were all right, nothing snide or covert in their faces. They were just guys. Guys trying to pretend a situation was something it wasn’t, for the sake of their mate. The person Jess needed to get away from was Mitch. Seeing him again was like being kicked in the chest.

  Tipene said, ‘So how’s economics working out for you?’

  Jess stared at him blankly.

  ‘Mitch talks about you a lot,’ he explained, trying to keep things rolling. ‘I mean, that’s how I knew.’

  When it was apparent Jess had nothing to say to that, one of the Rugby Sevens’ guys asked, ‘How do you and Mitch know each other, anyway?’

  ‘We used to sleep together,’ Jess told him abruptly. And then, to Mitch: ‘I can’t do this.’

  She broke free of his hold, starting to push her way through the crowd, not sure where she was headed, just desperate to get away. Mitch followed, grabbing the chain of her gold mesh bag, so that it bit into her skin, and she turned to tell him to leave her alone. But if she felt desperate, Mitch looked the same way, grabbing her by the shoulders.

  ‘Jess, nothing’s changed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I love you. I just had shit I couldn’t deal with, that’s all. I was scared. But I can’t do it anymore. I don’t care what happens now. I’ve just got to let it all fall down.’

  ‘You must be mad,’ Jess said. ‘Everything’s changed. You can’t just leave someone up in the air for weeks and think they’ll be okay with it.’

  Mitch shook her slightly, and then pulled her close, his face right in front of hers. ‘No, I know! I know that wasn’t okay. You’ve got to hear me out. Let me explain. And you’ll understand then, even if you don’t want me. But not in here, okay? Come outside with me. Please.’

  Jess clamped a hand to her mouth, thinking she might actually vomit she was so upset, and she was dimly aware that the people around them had turned to stare. But when she slapped Mitch as hard as she could across the face, they turned away. She’d shocked them. She’d shocked herself. The only person who didn’t seem shocked was Mitch. He didn’t even seem to have felt it.

  ‘Just talk to me,’ he told her, the red imprint of her hand clearly visible on his cheek. But then someone whumped into the two of them, nearly knocking Jess off her feet. It was Dud, no jacket, his shirt untucked and missing a few buttons, so drunk he was slurring already.

  ‘What’s all this then?’ he asked, looking from Jess to Mitch, his arms slung around their shoulders, so that Jess sagged under his weight. ‘Secret lovers’ reunion?’

  ‘Fuck off, Dud,’ Mitch said, his eyes on Jess. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry,’ Dud told Jess. ‘I kept it on the QT. Just like young Mitchell here asked me to.’ He laughed, spraying her with spit. Jess pulled away. And as she turned to go, one of them slapped her on the arse.

  Jess wheeled around, thinking for a second it might have been Mitch. But when she saw Mitch punch Dud in the stomach, she knew it hadn’t been.

  ‘She hates that,’ Mitch hissed, an ugly look on his face, and Dud doubled over with a hoarse coughing sound, his arms crossed over his stomach. Mitch punched him a second time, driving his fist into Dud’s gut so viciously that his body jerked upwards. Then he pounded his elbow on Dud’s back.

  ‘Jesus, Mitch. Don’t!’ Jess grabbed at his arm, feeling sickened, and frightened, too, because Mitch looked like he’d lost it, all the frustration he’d shown with her spilling over onto Dud. She thought he mightn’t stop, but he did.

  Instead of hitting Dud again, Mitch grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head back to look at Jess. ‘Apologise. And don’t ever fucking touch her, or talk to her, again.’

  All Dud was capable of was a whimper. Mitch let him go, and he barged blindly through the crowd, still doubled over. Mitch stared after him, his blue eyes burning, his posture stiff with anger. But as he focused on Jess again, saw how shaken she was, his eyes softened, his hands reaching for her.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She batted his hands away. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Jess, it’s me. You know that.’

  But she was looking past him at the two security guards who’d suddenly appeared, one each side of him.

  ‘Sorry, sir, but that behaviour is not appropriate,’ one of them said, politely enough—while they sharply twisted his arms up behind his back. ‘You’re going to have to leave.’

  Mitch started to kick and struggle, swearing at them, which did not help his case. Half lifting him, half dragging, the two guards bulldozed a path through the crowd, heading towards the entrance, Jess slipstreaming.

  ‘Excuse me.’ She touched one of the guards on the shoulder. ‘Hey, can you just listen? It wasn’t his fault. That other guy—Would you just stop?’ The guy ignored her, so she gripped his sleeve instead, and leaned back with her full weight: ‘Let him go. You’re hurting him!’ She sounded shrill and drunk and rabid. She’d turned into that girl.

  The guard glanced back at her, the whites of his eyes showing, his face red with the effort of trying to control Mitch, and spat polite words at her in a tone that was full of aggression. ‘Hands off, please, miss. I said, don’t touch. Unless you want to join him?’

  Jess stopped in her tracks. She didn’t know what she wanted. She didn’t even know what had just happened. And then the three of them were gone. She looked around her, seeing a wall of curious faces, not feeling embarrassed exactly, more like blinded, completely unable to distinguish any individual features.

  CHAPTER 42

  WHAT KIND OF MAN

  A way from the noise and press of bodies, Jess had the space to sway, and she had to touch the tiled wall to steady herself before she made it to the washbasins. She turned on a tap, cupping her hand beneath it and drinking deeply, terribly thirsty. She drank for ages, dimly aware of the other girls around her. Then she straightened, looking at herself in the mirror. She was a mess—flushed, dishevelled, all her make-up long gone—and her head was even worse.

  She made her way into one of the cubicles, slamming the door shut and kicking the toilet seat closed. Then she sat down, the tulle of her skirt puffing up around her like a life raft inflating. No sooner had she done so than her phone began to ring. She took it from her bag and flipped the cover open, her hands shaking. Mitch. She didn’t answer, letting it ring out. A short pause followed and then it started to ring again and Jess turned it off. The feelings were the same: her heart pushing him through her blood, like it had done for every beat in the last thirty-two days. But if he’d hurt her by staying away, he’d hurt her even more by just popping up and saying that everything was okay now. What kind of idiot did he think she was?

  After a while, Jess slipped her phone into her bag and stood, pushing down her skirt. She hit her hip on the door as she opened it, trying to squeeze through before there was enough space to do so. She knocked into another girl as she passed, telling her breathlessly, ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Mitch was outside—there was no way the bouncers would let him back in—and she had the feeling he’d wait for a while. What she needed to do was find Farren or Leanne or Allie, or even Michael or Callum or Davey—just anyone she trusted—so she could ask them whether she should go out there and hear what he had to say.

  But Jess was too late. Because before she made it out of the bathroom, Sylvie walked through the door, one hand pressed to her cheek. When Jess saw her, she stopped dead, her skin going cold all over, like she’d just passed through a ghost.

  ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this,’ Sylvie told her. But her green eyes showed no surprise at all. ‘Stay for a second. I want to talk
to you.’

  She crossed to one of the washbasins, taking up position in front of the mirror, ignoring the three girls who were already there, glancing only at Jess to check she wasn’t leaving. She was wearing vivid red lipstick and a little black dress, and in contrast her skin seemed as white and smooth as porcelain. Funereal. But when she took her hand away, Jess saw the angry mark on her cheekbone, and she had a disorientating moment of déjà vu.

  Sylvie grimaced, sucking air through her sharp little teeth. ‘Son of a bitch. Can you believe a guy just hit me in the face?’

  ‘Not Mitch,’ Jess said, feeling sick, because even though she didn’t think Mitch would do something like that, she was smart enough to know she knew nothing. She’d realised it as soon as she’d seen Sylvie walk through the door.

  Sylvie ignored the question, splashing water on her cheek. ‘Love the look. Not so sure about the boots this time, though. I saw the show outside.’ She glanced questioningly at Jess in the mirror. ‘Did he get a chance to tell you?’

  Jess said nothing, too tense to speak. But Sylvie waited. ‘If you mean about him and you, I already knew,’ Jess said eventually.

  ‘Not everything.’ Sylvie studied her carefully. ‘No, I don’t think so. But he was going to tell you. That’s important. Especially for Mitch.’ And all the while the other girls were chatting and laughing as they fixed their make-up, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Sylvie was about to tear Jess’s world apart. Because Jess already knew it was going to happen. She just didn’t know how. She thought Sylvie was going to tell her that she and Mitch had been together again. That she was the reason for thirty-two days of silence.

  She was wrong.

  ‘He rang me today,’ Sylvie told her. ‘You know how they say better late than never?’ She paused, as if expecting a response, so Jess nodded. ‘Well, it’s actually not true. He was too late. He’s let so much time go past that I am more angry at him now than I was at the start. I actually hate him now. But he did mention when he called that he would be talking to you too. What I’m trying to say is that he told me.’ Sylvie sniffed delicately, a flicker of hurt on her face for just a moment. ‘About you two.’

  God, she’s still got feelings for him, Jess thought. She took hold of the basin, needing to feel something steady.

  ‘You know what’s funny?’ Sylvie said, just for a second dropping her guard, the only time Jess had ever seen her vulnerable. ‘I kind of knew. That night on the bus, he kept looking at you.’ She cleared her throat, hardening before Jess’s eyes like she’d been varnished. ‘Anyway, because he didn’t get a chance to clear things up for you, I’d better do it. All hell is going to break loose soon, so you might as well know what is going on.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about what happened to Julian. What we did.’ There was something poignant in the way Sylvie said it. ‘The truth.’

  The three girls finished up, and Sylvie waited for them to leave. Each of them glanced furtively at her as they left. Jess, by comparison, couldn’t look at her any longer, her gaze sliding to her own reflection. Her face was so anguished she barely recognised herself. Fear, she realised. And then it was only the two of them, alone with Sylvie’s truth.

  ‘Did Mitch cause it?’ she asked, in a voice that made her sound much younger than she was. ‘I mean, the accident. Did he tell him that night? At the party?’

  Sylvie shook her head, and now her green eyes seemed too bright, backlit, fixed on Jess with an intensity that was eerie. Jess had seen that look on Mitch. It was grief. ‘Not intentionally.’

  And in that moment her beauty was impossible, bone-sharp, so precise, while Jess felt smudged and blurred and ground down. But Sylvie was also laid bare. Because Jess knew then. ‘You were there that night.’

  Sylvie nodded. Carefully. Her guilt wasn’t hot and raw like Mitch’s; it was a cold, brittle thing, something that could shatter. ‘Oh God, Sylvie.’ Jess crossed the floor in two quick strides and hugged her. Fiercely at first, and then more gently, because it was like holding a bird. Sylvie didn’t resist. She went limp, as though Jess had taken something from her.

  ‘I was up there visiting Julian,’ Sylvie said, her face buried in Jess’s neck. ‘The three of us went to the party together.’ She made a small sound as if something was hurting her. Jess still held her, however loosely, like they were friends, or sisters, or lovers. ‘Mitch and I had already slept together by then. But only once. Afterwards, he was over it. You know what—Well. Seems you don’t know what he’s like. But, for the record, I didn’t even feel guilty. Julian had done the same to me. I think I’d sort of planned it, really. And I liked Mitch. We used to talk a lot, you know. I knew he’d …’

  ‘Never had that before,’ Jess finished for her. Sylvie nodded, pulling back to look at her, and Jess dropped her arms. ‘Mitch told me there was a girl he used to talk to. I knew she must have been special.’ Jess meant it as an acknowledgement, every word a burn, but Sylvie took it as a kindness, and she didn’t like that at all—backing away from Jess until she found the edge of the washbasins.

  ‘Oh, I was special,’ she said. ‘Right up until we slept together. Sometimes I wish we’d just stuck to talking. We talked about how much we liked each other for a long time before we ever did anything, and it was so sweet. Mitch said nothing could ever happen, and I pretended I felt the same way. But in reality, I kept turning up.’ Sylvie’s eyes were glittering now, but she stayed unblinking so the tears didn’t fall. ‘That’s how it all started. If I went to Knights and Julian wasn’t around, I’d go see Mitch instead. After a while, I started to go when I was sure Julian wouldn’t be there. But everything changed after that first time. Mitch wouldn’t talk anymore.’ Sylvie exhaled. ‘On that night, though … New Year’s Eve. We were smashed, of course. And Mitch fucking relaxed for once. He was—well, happy, I think, because the three of us were there together. Kept telling us we were his two favourite people. And it was true. Because he might have cared about Julian, but he definitely cared about me.’ Sylvie said this angrily, as if Jess was arguing with her.

  ‘I know,’ Jess said.

  Sylvie pressed her fingertips to her forehead, as though she had a headache, or another pressure in her head that wouldn’t go away. ‘I was so stupid. I thought he might have changed his mind. You know how when you’re drunk, you’ll convince yourself of anything?’ She stared into space for a second. ‘The party was on a farm, and he’d gone up to the house for some reason—everybody else was down in the shed. I followed him up there. And I tried to talk to him. But he got angry, and then we started arguing, and we didn’t realise that Julian was standing there, listening. I can’t even remember what Julian said. Isn’t that crazy? I can’t remember his last words at all. I just remember turning around, seeing him, and thinking, Oh, shit.’ Sylvie shook her head, her face tight with pain. ‘He had the keys in his pocket.’

  ‘You can’t carry that,’ Jess said, and then stopped as a pair of girls entered the bathroom. They glanced from Jess to Sylvie as they crossed the floor to the cubicles, their eyes curious.

  Sylvie stared them down defiantly, but Jess had the feeling she was buying time, trying to harden again.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she said to Jess eventually. ‘You must judge me.’

  ‘For what?’

  Sylvie met her eyes and her face looked so raw. ‘Why not?’

  ‘If Julian had treated you better, maybe things wouldn’t have come to that. You didn’t make Julian drive, and you didn’t make him speed, and none of us should drink like we do. It’s just a tragic fucking waste, that’s all. Judging you is the easy way out.’

  ‘What about Mitch then?’ Sylvie’s voice was spiked with more than curiosity.

  Jess dropped her gaze. Mitch believed he’d killed his best friend. That crushed her. If she’d just shut up on that last night, maybe he would have told her then. He did tell her, in a way. It killed him.

  When she didn’t answer, Sylvi
e said, in a sour voice, ‘Do you know he never talked to me about it afterwards? Not once. What kind of guy treats people like that? He treated me worse than dirt, like it was all my fault. Just completely avoided me.’ She started to blink rapidly, as if her eyes were burning, and the tears finally broke. ‘And now, because he wants you back, he thinks I’ll be cool with everything? That I’ll shut up for him?’

  Jess touched her arm. ‘What did he say to you today? Can you please tell me?’

  Sylvie gave a flat laugh. ‘Oh, of course. You think he’s changed. Well, I don’t. He’s only got himself to blame for what happens now, though. Remember that.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Sylvie stretched her lips. It wasn’t a smile. It was a grimace. ‘Maybe he even hoped I’d tell them for him.’

  Jess felt that coldness again, crawling over her skin. ‘Who hit you, Sylvie?’

  ‘Dud.’

  Jess’s voice was hoarse. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Told the truth.’

  •

  Outside, everything seemed impossibly crowded, chaotic, the scene washed through with red lighting that was too dim and pulsed in time to Florence + the Machine, adding to Jess’s sense of disorientation. She pushed through the crowd, so panicked that for a moment she lost her sense of direction, whirling in a circle, up on her tiptoes, trying to see the exit.

  Someone grabbed her arm, and she turned on them, shaking them off. She’d thought it was Sylvie, but it was Tipene.

  ‘Where’s Mitch?’ he bellowed at her, looking wild-eyed, fierce.

  Jess, frightened, just shook her head.

  He jammed his face into hers. ‘No, listen! They’re after him. Some of the guys. Where is he?’