He shakes his head and starts laughing and pretty much keeps this up until we get to our station. Oh, and he also does a bit of tutting and says things like: ‘Doesn’t the iPhone Six take detailed photos?’ and ‘Did you hear that Jim’s been taken to hospital suffering from some sort of animal attack?’
Jackson only shuts up when I threaten to text Amelia and tell her about the time he ate dog food.
I run into Jim as soon as I get to college.
‘Dude,’ he says, laughing. ‘How about those photos?’
I shake my head. ‘I know … It seemed like a good idea at the time, right?’
‘Yeah, but once me and Mal busked outside Superdrug – we only knew one song, “Wonderwall”, and we wore shirts and ties – and that seemed like a good idea at the time too.’
‘But did anyone take a series of photos of you doing it then share them with the world?’
‘Just my mum, and she only shared them with Mal’s mum.’ Suddenly, he grins. ‘But it was a good party, wasn’t it? And as I always say, never regret something that makes you smile!’
I’m fairly certain he never says that.
‘I have to admit, I’m experiencing a touch of regret,’ I say, glancing around for Fab. I don’t want him to turn up and see me sharing a nostalgic post-kiss moment with Jim.
‘Are you saying you regret kissing me? Am I a bad kisser?’ Jim laughs as he says this, and I’m struck by how different Jim and Fab are. Jim is so easy-going it’s like Friday night never happened. There is no weird atmosphere between us, no awkwardness, no pressure. Right now, Jim’s almost horizontal approach to life is just what I need.
‘I’d give you eight out of ten for your kissing, and that’s high … But it did get me into trouble.’
‘How come?’
‘Oh … it’s nothing really. Just that I went to a wedding with Fab on Saturday and he’d seen the photos and he got all angry and jealous about them.’
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel a rush of guilt because I know I shouldn’t be talking about Saturday night with Jim, but, for some reason, I don’t stop.
‘He saw the pictures and wasn’t impressed. Said it made him realise what different people we are.’ As my mouth runs away from me and I paint Fab as some sort of possessive male, I feel better inside – like it was all for the best – so I twist what happened a bit more. ‘I’m obviously the horrible sort of girl who’d get off with someone for a laugh, but Fab would never dream of behaving so disgustingly.’
Jim’s face lights up. ‘Hey, I’m “the other man”. We’re in a love triangle!’
I shake my head. ‘No, we’re not. I’m not in any sort of shape with anyone.’
‘What about a cone? That’s kind of one-sided.’
‘Perfect. I’m in a cone!’ I force myself to smile and make my voice as light as his. ‘I’ve got to go and get my phone off Oliver. Oh, and I need to find that Francesca and kick her butt.’
‘Tell her she’s a perv from me!’
‘Will do,’ I say.
Then Jim slips his headphones on and we go off in different directions, and I keep my smile fixed in place all the way down the corridor.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Francesca agrees to take the pictures down straight away. She tries to give me some BS about thinking they’re ‘awesome shots’ – she does A-level photography and obviously sees herself as an artist – but I tell her they’re just tacky shots and that they violate my human rights. I say all this with a smile on my face so I only scare her a little bit.
After this, I dash across college and grab Oliver before he goes into maths.
‘Mum found it down the back of the sofa,’ he says, handing over my phone, ‘so I told her it belonged to my secret girlfriend.’ He sighs woefully. ‘But then she found two capes and an eye mask. I probably should have just told her about the party.’
Because of all the business I have to attend to, I get to psychology late. This means I have to stay after the lesson to hand in an essay and then I get to English late. Which I really didn’t want to happen.
I push open the door, and everyone turns to look at me.
‘Come in, Annie,’ says Miss Caudle with a nice smile on her face. She’s probably the only person in the room who hasn’t seen the pictures of me and Jim. ‘Sit down.’
Fab is already at our table so I walk across the room, ignoring the smiles and curious looks being shot in my direction.
Romilly isn’t smiling. She’s looking a bit heartbroken.
‘I didn’t cheat on him!’ I feel like shouting, but, wisely, I just keep my head held high and take my seat next to Fab.
He smiles briefly at me with closed lips and I smile briefly at him with closed lips. I can’t quite bring myself to make eye contact with him. Then I get out my books and open my laptop.
‘As I was explaining,’ says Miss Caudle, ‘today we’re going to be looking more closely at chapter nine, where Catherine announces her intention of marrying Linton and says it would “degrade” her to marry Heathcliff. Brokenhearted, Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights and doesn’t return for three years.’
And so begins a very awkward lesson.
Miss Caudle asks us to analyse Catherine’s behaviour. It’s fair to say that Fab and I have different interpretations of it.
‘Catherine is shallow and thoughtless,’ Fab announces with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. ‘She decides to marry Linton because he is cheerful, handsome and rich.’
‘She’s not being thoughtless – she’s actually being very thoughtful and practical,’ I say. ‘She knows that if she marries Linton she can escape the dreary house she lives in and her drunk, violent brother.’
‘So, for her own comfort, she breaks the heart of her best friend?’
‘Maybe her best friend should see it from her point of view,’ I say.
‘Maybe she should be a bit kinder!’ Fab ends this sentence by banging down his pen.
‘I think I’m going to answer the questions on my own,’ I say.
‘Good idea,’ mutters Fab, then he turns away from me and starts furiously scribbling notes.
I turn away from him too, and start tapping on my laptop. My chest is aching – in fact, everything inside me seems to be aching – but, slowly, Wuthering Heights works its magic on me and I calm down enough to glance over at Fab.
Annoyingly, he’s wearing his most normal outfit ever: dark jeans and a slim-fitting navy shirt. I could have really done with some board shorts or espadrilles today. Fab looks up, like he can sense I’m watching him, and I look back at my work, but not before I notice how being angry seems to have made his eyes a slightly darker shade of blue.
In the course of an average lesson, Fab and I touch each other at least three times, and I’ve come to expect our brief moments of contact. There’s the Hand Brush that happens when one of us borrows a pen or highlighter, then there’s the Nudge. Fab nudges me to ask me what words mean, and I nudge him back to tell him to stop interrupting me. Finally, at the end of the lesson, Fab gives me the Shoulder Squeeze. He’s so tall that as we leave the room and walk down the corridor, his arm naturally falls across my shoulders.
But not today.
When we get to the classroom door, Fab steps back to let me through, just like he always does, but once we’re out in the corridor, he says, ‘Goodbye,’ and turns and walks in the other direction. He doesn’t say it angrily, but he says it like I’m just like any other student in the class.
‘Yeah … Bye,’ I say, making sure my voice is just as nonchalant as his, then I rush off to the canteen.
I need a waffle. No, I need two waffles, a coffee and a long chat with Hilary.
THIRTY-NINE
‘What an absolute balls-up!’ says Hilary, which is about as close as she gets to swearing. She clutches her face with horror. ‘What a disaster!’
‘Hilary.’ I pull her hands down. ‘It’s not a disaster – it’s a disaster avoided. I mean, obviously I ha
te us being mean to each other, and the photos are a serious pain in the ass, but overall I’m seeing this as a lucky escape.’ I pick up my waffle and stuff a quarter of it into my mouth. I chew for a moment, then add, ‘I mean, how could I be with Fab if he expects me never to have kissed another person? I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just relieved that it didn’t come to anything.’ I sit back in my chair and smile at her. ‘See? I’m free as a bird!’
‘You don’t look free as a bird.’
‘Really? What do I look like?’
‘Sad.’
I shake my head. ‘Tired.’
‘But I thought you, quote, wanted him more than anything, unquote?’
‘Shhh! I wanted a leopard-print body-con dress once, but when it arrived from ASOS I realised I was wrong about that too. Sometimes reality doesn’t live up to your expectations.’
‘Like Hogwarts?’ she says. ‘I was so disappointed when I saw the films.’
‘Yes, although, strictly speaking, a film isn’t reality.’
Hilary’s eyes widen as if I’ve just told her something amazing. Hilary studies further maths, physics, psychology and French, plus Chinese GCSE ‘for fun’. She’s majorly clever. And yet sometimes she says the silliest things. It’s one of the many reasons I love her.
‘Here come the boys,’ she says, nodding towards the door. I look up and see Jim, Mal and Oliver walking towards us. ‘Is this going to be weird? Tell me quickly. I need to know what to do with my face.’
‘Not at all weird. I spoke to Jim this morning and he acted like nothing had happened.’
Hilary splutters into her paper coffee cup.
‘I know. That reaction itself is pretty weird.’
‘Jim’s one chilled-out dude.’
‘Don’t tell him that,’ I say. ‘It’s exactly what he wants to hear.’
Jim drops down on to the sofa next to us, and Oliver and Mal sit on the edge of the table.
‘What’s up?’ says Jim, opening his Dr Pepper, then looking from me to Hilary.
‘We were just talking about you and Annie kissing at the party,’ she says. ‘How funny was that?’
Oliver and Mal’s mouths drop open and Jim starts laughing.
‘Hilary,’ I say, ‘you are so full of surprises.’
‘Thanks!’ she says brightly. ‘But it was the funniest thing that happened that night, and a lot of funny things happened.’
‘Like when Oliver smoked rabbit droppings,’ says Mal.
‘You put them in the cigarette!’ protests Oliver.
Mal ignores him and carries on. ‘And when Oliver followed that girl around and kept swooshing his cape around her.’
‘I was in character!’
‘As a seriously creepy person.’
‘I’ve thought of another funny thing that happened,’ says Hilary, and she actually puts her hand up so everyone knows it’s her turn to speak. ‘Remember when Oliver thought he could fly and jumped off the kitchen table?’
As everyone laughs, Oliver shakes his head. ‘This is so unfair,’ he says. ‘There are only two people here who we should be laughing at.’ He looks pointedly at me and then Jim.
‘Yeah,’ says Jim, ‘but me and Annie didn’t do a dance where we stroked our own arms.’
‘I was referencing an iconic moment from the original Batman TV series – season one, nineteen sixty-six! You’re all too ignorant to appreciate it.’
Oliver’s words make us burst out laughing.
I flop back on to the sofa, unaware that Jim has his arm stretched out behind me. Essentially, I’m laughing my head off in Jim’s arms.
And that’s when Fab walks by with a plate of presumably discounted crusts.
Our eyes meet for a second, then he turns away, walks over to Adam and sits down with him.
I feel a rush of sadness, which is bizarre because Mal’s doing a very accurate impression of Oliver’s arm-stroking dance and I really should be laughing.
‘Fab looks a bit like Batman today,’ Hilary whispers in my ear. ‘You know, the good-looking one who freaked out and shouted at that man who walked in on his shot.’
‘Shhh,’ I say, putting my finger to her lips. ‘You’re not helping … But, yes, with that top on he does look a bit like Christian Bale.’
‘But Fab would never speak to someone as rudely as that,’ adds Hilary.
‘Never,’ I’m forced to admit.
FORTY
For the next few days, Fab continues to be perfectly polite, if very frosty, with me. He stops texting me, touching me and talking to me, unless he has to. He even starts agreeing with me in English.
Good, I tell myself, and because I’m still hurt that he could give up on me so quickly, I respond in exactly the same way, with nods and small smiles and definitely no banter or bickering.
But this doesn’t stop me missing him.
It begins on Friday.
Miss Caudle tells us our homework is researching Gothic fiction and that we can work alone or in pairs.
Fab says, ‘I’m going to make a film.’
I hear the ‘I’ and respond, ‘That takes too long. I’m going to make a poster.’ Then I have to watch as he wanders off to find someone else to work with.
I’d have loved to make that film.
Then, at the weekend, I’m reading Wuthering Heights and one of the characters says, ‘Honest people don’t hide their deeds.’
I think, Fab would like that, and I reach for my phone so I can text him, but then I remember we don’t share quotes any more.
I miss him for quite a long time then. Maybe an hour.
I miss him on Monday when I see him high-five Adam in the corridor and say, ‘What’s up, my brother?’
I miss him on Wednesday when I notice Jim’s wearing a T-shirt that says, Ironic T-shirt message and Fab’s wearing one that says, I Poland.
And I really miss him on Thursday when I see him pick up a crisp wrapper off the floor and drop it in the bin.
On Friday, I’m hanging around outside sociology, when I look out of the window and see Fab walking across the field. I spot him immediately because he’s so tall and because he’s the only boy at college still wearing shorts and flip-flops. Like me, he’s all on his own. But then Romilly runs up behind him and slips her arm through his. She beams up at him and Fab smiles down at her and they walk into college and out of sight.
Seeing this doesn’t make me miss him. It makes me feel like my heart’s being squeezed in a vice.
I lean my forehead on the cold glass of the window, staring at the now-empty field, and I try to work out just what’s going on in my head. Am I feeling so bad because I’m a jealous person who can’t handle Fab talking to another girl? Or am I feeling bad because I’ve let the best person in my life slip away from me?
‘Annie.’
I spin round and see Fab standing in front of me.
‘I have a thank-you card for you, from Julia.’ He passes me a white envelope.
‘Oh … right.’ I stare at it in my hands, then look back up at him.
For a moment, we don’t say anything, we just stand there as people push past us.
‘Well … Have a good weekend,’ Fab says, then he walks down the corridor.
‘You too,’ I say, but I don’t think he hears me.
I open the envelope and pull out a card.
Dear Annie,
Thank you for the Playmobil bride and groom. I think they might be our favourite present. Simon superglued them to our bedposts so now we will always remember our special day (and which side of the bed we sleep on!). I hope you like the photo. My cousin is a happy guy, but you take him to the next level!
Buziaczki (kisses)!
Julia
I look in the envelope and see a Polaroid photo. It’s of me and Fab and we’re sitting at the long table, facing each other and laughing. I didn’t even know it had been taken. Fab doesn’t look like he’s judging me. He looks like he’s loving being with me.
Ho
w have we come so far from this?
Suddenly, the heart-squeezing starts again, and a bit of nausea is added to it, and then I feel them. Tears, building up in my eyes and threatening to spill down my cheeks. I turn and blink furiously and try to swallow away my sadness. I tell myself that I don’t want to go out with Fab. That this would suffocate me. That he’s just too old-fashioned and he judged me on the basis of one kiss.
I tell myself that going out with Fab would make me utterly unhappy.
But if that’s all true, then how come in this photo I’ve never looked happier in my life?
FORTY-ONE
I suppress my sadness all the way through sociology and during the train journey home.
Jackson is an excellent distraction, as usual, and tells me a long and rambling story about how Amelia’s dad came home from work and caught Jackson sitting on the sofa in his boxer shorts.
‘It wasn’t rude,’ he protests. ‘I just can’t watch TV in jeans. I get too hot. Plus we were watching the Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa rescue puppies from Mr Burns and I was really laughing so I was hotter than usual.’
‘So what happened?’ I ask. ‘Did he chase you out of the house?’
‘No, this is the good bit.’ He leans forward, excited to be getting to the punchline. ‘Turns out Amelia’s dad watches TV in his boxer shorts too! So he took his jeans off and watched The Simpsons with us. He said it was great finally being able to relax around me!’
‘Jackson, that is such a beautiful story.’
‘Thanks, mate.’ He sits back and sighs. ‘Sad ending though. When her mum came in she said we were both disgusting and were never allowed to do it again, but Trevor – that’s Amelia’s dad – he gave me this big wink, so I think we will.’
‘Dream big,’ I say.
When we get to the ticket barrier, I see Mum waiting for me. Just the sight of her smiling little face and floral Marks and Spencer bomber jacket is enough to bring all my sadness back to me. Jackson is so easy to fool, but Mum’s a human lie detector.
Truly, Wildly, Deeply Page 14