by Liz Bankes
Surely if she wasn’t doing anything wrong she wouldn’t have untagged herself – and she would also have mentioned that she was going there when she left last week.
Also, I’ve tried to ring her five times to apologise for missing the party but she is not picking up. I don’t know what to do. At the same time I think that if she does answer I might ask her about Max . . . and I don’t think I can take it if she just says that I’ve got no right to get upset at what Max does any more.
I’ve got too many thoughts in my head and I want to scream. I can’t concentrate on feeling angry because I feel guilty, and vice versa. People keep flashing before my eyes. Spencer. Max. Rosie. Dad. I’m pacing around and must be causing enough of a commotion for Granny to hear, because her head appears through the trap-door. For a woman of sixty-five, she’s pretty nifty on the ladder.
‘What’s going on up here, eh?’ she says softly.
I close Facebook and plaster a big grin on my face. ‘Nothing! I’m fine.’ Then I turn back to the screen because she’s coming towards me with her suspicious look.
She sits next to me on the bed, puts her arm round me and gives me a squeeze.
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of if you have a wobbly moment. You’ve been through a lot this year.’
‘Don’t worry, Granny,’ I say. But I tilt my head towards her and lean on her shoulder. We sit there for a while not saying anything.
When she’s climbing back down the ladder she pauses. ‘You’ll take things slowly with this boy, won’t you? Make sure he’s not a bastard.’
Chapter 28
Spencer arrives on location in shades and is looking a little paler than usual.
He immediately comes over to talk to me and I get a rush of warmth for him, even though I know he probably went off with that girl.
‘I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a brick,’ he groans. I smile at him and feel a bit lighter. It’s nice talking to someone who doesn’t know anything about the stuff with my friends. But I still find it really hard to concentrate. When something is unresolved, it gnaws away at me. It stops me from eating or doing anything normal. I am actually relieved that my meeting with the editor and the writer gets postponed by Colin. He’d forgotten that today is the day I have to dress up as a giant condom.
Before long I’m walking through the corridors of the uni building carrying a cardboard box full of sexual health leaflets and (normal size) condoms to the set for me and my fellow giant condom people to hand out. But with no food and loads of coffee, I am feeling shaky. My arms feel like they are hollow. Then the box slips through my hands and the thump of it hitting the floor echoes around the walls. It lands at a diagonal and all of the leaflets spill out, scooting along the floor with a whoosh. I feel like kicking the box, but I breathe in and sink down to my knees to pick everything up.
I crumple some of the leaflets in my frustration and then stop and sit back on my heels. I need to get a grip. These are for a scene. This is my job. No one on the show is going to care if I am feeling crappy because I forgot my friend’s birthday and am jealous about her hanging out with my ex.
That thought is a bit sad. I don’t have a person here to bitch and whine to without worrying that they will think I’m mean. Max was like my anchor, keeping me secure in the knowledge that I couldn’t be too awful a person becaus, like Mia, he saw all my worst bits and still liked me. Now I feel like I’m wading about, never sure how to be.
As I pick up the last flyer, I hear the rumble of voices further down the corridor. The deep one I am sure is Spencer. For a moment I think I can feel the vibrations through the floor, but it is probably footsteps – although Spencer’s ‘bad boy Hugh’ voice is very deep. The high, shrill one is most likely Heidi’s. I get up and heave the box with me as they round the corner.
Spencer is wearing a pastel pink shirt. He has something over his arm, which I think might be a gilet. It is a shame that landing his dream role also involves looking like a total knob. He walks up to me and holds out a bit of paper. It is one of my sex leaflets, along with a condom.
‘Yours?’ He grins.
‘Yep.’ I take them from him and then struggle to hold the box with one hand so I can drop them in. He puts his hand out to take the weight of the box.
‘Are you okay?’ His eyebrows are crooked, but it looks like genuine concern.
‘I’m fine. Are you still hungover?’
His face is pained. ‘Very,’ he whispers.
‘Come on, Spence,’ chirps Heidi. ‘We’re going to be called soon.’ She practically grabs him and drags him away from me.
He hands me back the full weight of the box and nods at me.
‘Good luck with your scene!’ I call after him.
I’m on set and in costume before I know it. All I have to do is hand out leaflets and chant, ‘NLU Sex Week’, over and over again, but avoiding saying it in time with the other condoms. I am not the condom who will actually hand the leaflet to Tom, who is reeling from the news that he’s got a girl pregnant from a one-night stand in the last series. That’s Condom 1, played by a girl called Lorna. I think her parents have turned up to watch. I don’t think many other people realise that Condom 2 is the girl who brings them coffee.
I’m absolutely boiling. Summer is in full force and I almost wish the costume was made of actual condom material rather than thick nylon, except then it would be see-through and I am only wearing a bra and jeans underneath it – they didn’t tell me that the costume had no arms, so I had to take off my short-sleeved shirt. It’s also really heavy and it takes a lot of effort not to sag.
When Mark yells, ‘Action!’ everyone starts milling around and I spot Spencer out of the corner of my eye. He is very subtly filming the scene on his phone. When Mark calls for another take, I shoot Spencer A Look and he puts the phone back in his pocket and puts up his hands in surrender. Then the moment passes and one of the writers starts talking to him and showing him a script.
The sun is beating down on my bare arms and I didn’t put any sunblock on. When this goes out on TV I’ll be red. And squinting. It’s exciting to actually be part of the show, but all I really want is to go inside and see if anyone has replied to my I’m Really Sorry email and texts.
After half an hour I never want to say, ‘NLU Sex Week’ ever again. Which is good really, because I probably won’t have to. We are all collected together to have some promotional pictures taken. They are going to release a teaser campaign revealing that there is a pregnancy, but not saying who it is. So we take pictures with different cast members while they all do an ‘OMG surprise baby’ face. When it is Heidi’s turn, she does her pose but a gust of wind flies a bit of crap into my eye, which makes me screw my face up at just the wrong moment. Let’s hope no one looks at Condom 2 in that picture.
And then my fun is over and I am back to being a normal runner. I check my phone. No reply to my messages yet. But, I mean, it is Sunday and so everyone is probably . . . at home doing nothing. Tomorrow Rosie will get the I’m Sorry chocolate gift I ordered. It is this chocolate plaque you can get a personal message iced on, so I asked for I’m sorry in capital letters.
I’m late for collecting the lunch orders, so I need to get out of the costume as soon as possible. I hurry back to the props room, although ‘hurry’ is pushing it a bit – the leg holes at the bottom of the costume are very small, so it is more of a hobble. I start unzipping the costume in the corridor, thinking how black skinny jeans were a huge mistake today. I am actually dying of heat.
Spencer is sitting at a desk in the props room reading his script and he jumps out of his skin when I come limping in. He’s still looking at me wide-eyed as I explain, out of breath, ‘Sorry! Need to get the lunch orders.’
Then I realise that the reason he is staring is that I am emerging from my costume with no top on. I was so hot I’d totally forgotten. The costume is hanging round my waist now and I am standing there in my bra.
Spencer’s face breaks ou
t into a grin. But before he can say anything we hear voices coming from outside of the room. Voices that I immediately recognise as belonging to the director Mark and Angry Skull. And they are getting louder and closer.
I start trying to pull the costume up over my hips again, but it’s all twisted round the wrong way and gets stuck, so I yank it down and step out of it. That doesn’t help the topless problem, though. Seeing as I heard that a runner got fired for getting the tea order wrong, I don’t want to be caught half-naked in the props room with a boy.
Spencer springs up and runs to the side of the room where there is a walk-in cupboard. The voices are just outside the door. I sprint over just as Spencer opens the cupboard door and I launch myself at the opening. He steps in after me and pulls the door closed.
Footsteps and voices enter the room. Shadows disrupt the crack of light at the bottom of the cupboard door as they talk.
Other than that it is pitch black in here. I can only just see Spencer’s outline. But I can hear his quick breathing underneath the deafening pounding of my heart.
I turn at the same moment he does and we are kissing. Our lips move forcefully, like we are fighting to get as close as possible to one another. His T-shirt brushes against the bare skin of my stomach sending shivers all over me. His hands are on my waist and my back and then my hair. All over I am burning for him and I don’t want it to stop.
I tried to arrange things to do together pretty much the week after Max and I broke up. I was trying to prove all the people wrong who said we’d find it really difficult to be friends so soon. We went for a meal. At first it felt like nothing had changed, but every so often something would happen that would make it awkward. Like when his mum called and didn’t tell him to say hi to me. Or when the old man at the next table called us lovebirds. When stuff like that happened, it was like the air around us turned sad. Max got tears in his eyes at one point and I saw him trying to get rid of them without me seeing. That made it so much worse. Every time I think of him crying I am absolutely racked by guilt, because I remember him crying when I broke up with him. When he realised what I was saying and all he said was, ‘No.’
The following week I got him to come round and watch a film. Because I was nervous I ended up being really formal about it and told him that dinner was at seven and the film would commence at eight. He put his hand on my arm, and said, ‘Chill out.’ We both knew we’d in fact be eating crisps and ice-cream at random points through the night, while watching a reality dating show, because that is what we would normally do.
It seemed to work. Everything felt normal and not sad. We even got over it pretty quickly when Millie came into my room, looked at us and said, ‘Well, this is weird,’ and walked out.
When Max looked at the clock it was way past midnight. Dad had already knocked on the door to ask how Max was getting home and we called back that he was going to walk.
‘Just stay!’ I blurted out when it came to it.
‘What . . . here?’ Max frowned.
‘Yeah! I mean, we’ve shared a bed a million times. It won’t be weird. It’ll be normal.’
His expression was unsure. ‘Um, okay. So, should we turn round while we get changed?’
I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d just started taking my jeans off. He saw that and turned to face the wall. So I turned to face the other wall.
‘Sorry, I don’t really know the new rules,’ he muttered.
‘Ready!’ I said, putting in a lot of effort to keep up the feeling that this was all fine and normal.
‘That’s my T-shirt.’
‘What? Oh, well yeah. But I always wear it.’ I had forgotten that the Barcelona top I wear in bed wasn’t technically mine.
‘I want it back.’
‘Max, don’t be a knob.’ I half laughed, then I saw his face. He looked really annoyed. Usually in arguments I was the annoyed one. I’d rant and rave about how much he stressed me out and he’d just laugh at me.
It was a strange, horrible pang in the pit of my stomach.
‘I was going to take it with me when I go to London,’ I said. ‘Something to remind me of you.’ My voice went all weird and shaky.
‘Why d’you want reminding of me now?’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’m just another one of your friends.’
‘One of my best friends. My closest friend. That actually means loads.’ There was anger creeping into my voice now. How dare he make out like I didn’t care about him? He couldn’t just have me as the bad person and him as the victim. It wasn’t fair.
‘Are you going to give me back my fucking T-shirt?’ he said nastily.
‘Fine. Turn round then,’ I snapped.
He did as he was told. I took the T-shirt off, put another one on and then rolled the Barcelona one into a ball and threw it as hard as I could at his back. He spun round, his face twisted in anger. He picked up the T-shirt and flung it down on the floor. He picked it up again and threw it down again. And kept doing it. His whole body was tensed in rage. I could tell he wanted to pick up something more satisfying to throw, but everything around him was mine. I ran over and tried to get it from his hand.
‘Stop being mental!’
As my hand touched his arm I couldn’t tell which of us was hotter. We were both burning. He stopped, but his arms stayed tense and his fists clenched. As we looked at each other, a familiar pull seemed to move us closer.
He put his other hand on my shoulder tentatively and all the fury in me changed to a deep, aching longing. It was like a hook, dragging me on. In perfect synchronisation, we moved together and kissed. Even as I kissed him, a million confused thoughts flitted through my brain. I wanted him, but at the same time I didn’t. I just wanted to cling to him and for everything to feel normal. I grabbed onto his hair and then started randomly thinking about how he must have had a haircut and not told me.
My head was all over the place but my body was taking over. I fell back on the bed and pulled him with me. He pushed against me and for a second I could feel him hard just on the place where I wanted him and a ripple of pleasure ran through me. He pulled back slightly and started to kiss my neck and his hand slid up my thigh.
The next thought I had was that the shorts I was wearing were also his. It was as though the same thought struck him at the same time. His hand froze and he pulled his head up.
The spell was broken.
Max stepped backwards, rubbing the back of his head, his expression split between anger and confusion. ‘I don’t think that’s part of the new rules.’
‘No,’ I whispered.
‘I’m going to go.’
My dad had waited up in the kitchen, and when he heard me walking Max downstairs he offered to drive him home. This time, Max went.
Chapter 29
We emerge from the cupboard like we are in a scene in a film, looking around guiltily and smoothing down our clothes. Spencer gave me the gilet to wear as a top.
We stand still and look at each other for a moment. And then start to laugh.
Gradually the laughter subsides, but the atmosphere between us still pulses.
‘You know, I didn’t get with that girl,’ he says suddenly.
Delight, relief and a strange unknown feeling surge through me.
‘I was going to,’ he admits, ‘but someone else was on my mind.’
It’s like tiny cracks are appearing in the wall I’ve put up against him. And I’m not rushing to block them.
Spencer’s script is poking out of the top of his bag. The whole time we’ve been eating our sandwiches and talking about something – possibly a band or a book – I’ve been looking at it.
I finally agreed to a date with him. Picnic on our lunch break. Another tiny step into uncertain territory, but it feels okay to take it. So far I haven’t freaked out.
‘Can I read it?’ I ask.
‘Okay.’ He leans across the blanket and pulls his bag over by the strap. ‘But you can’t tell any—’
‘OH MY GOD! YOU
’RE HAVING SEX WITH JAS!’
‘Shut up!’ He laughs and tries to reach over and grab the script from me.
‘But, oh my God! That means Harry and—’
He leans over again and this time manages to prise the pages from my hands. I think he might actually be a bit annoyed.
‘It’s not like there is anyone around!’ I protest. ‘Unless that squirrel happens to be a massive fan of The Halls.’
He is trying to look stern still, but I see a smile twitch at the corner of his mouth.
‘Am I annoying you?’
He’s forcing the smile down again, trying to keep his frown, but his eyes are sparkling.
‘Yes, you’re very annoying. But the most annoying thing is . . .’ He looks down and then up at me again with his eyebrows crooked. ‘ . . . that it makes me want to kiss you.’
I think I might melt.
He leans forward tentatively, gauging my reaction. I am doing my best not to go crazy-eyed and say, ‘Yes, please.’ Think I will look demure instead. What do demure people do? I think they look sort of sad.
He’s stopped leaning in and looks a bit worried. Probably because he was about to kiss me and I suddenly looked really depressed. I give a big grin to show him I am okay. He looks really confused now. I am ruining this. This is potentially the beginning of falling in love. It is like a scene from the show.
Oh, it’s okay, he’s leaning in again.
Wait a minute. But the most annoying thing is that it makes me want to kiss you?
‘That’s a line from the show!’
He stops and bites his lip. ‘Do you know every bloody line from the show?’
‘YES.’
He leans back on his heels and laughs to himself. ‘You make this very difficult. How about I just kiss you to shut you up?’
‘Well, I don’t know about that.’ I barely pause. ‘Okay, go on, then.’
He grabs the back of my head and kisses me softly. Moving forward slowly, he pushes his body between my knees as I relax. This time I can’t think about anything else except wanting to feel his weight on me. I pull at his T-shirt and he gently pushes me back onto the grass.