by Louise Bay
“Really?” Jules sounded shocked. “You didn’t even take a gap year when we all took gap years.” She didn’t need to remind me of that. “So you’re really thinking of stepping out of the rat race? Wonders will never cease.”
“I’m not saying I’m going to do it. Just that I’m thinking about doing it.”
“Right. But you didn’t even think about it after Uni. So it counts as personal growth, Ava.”
If only she knew how much I’d thought about it. A wave of regret passed through me and I stood abruptly. Things could have been very different.
Past
Joel and I spent the morning in bed and I headed back to campus just before lunchtime. Joel offered to come with me. He could tell I was nervous, but I reassured him that there was no need for him to chaperone me. This was my issue and I had to deal with it. And anyway, I think I would have felt more selfconscious if he had been there. I felt braver on my own. I had my story prepared. I would simply say that, yes, Joel and I had kissed and left together and I’d stayed at his place—as soon as anyone asked me. I wasn’t going to lie anymore. I also wasn’t going to give away the fact we’d been together as long as we had been. I was going to make out like it was just a recent thing. I felt determined. No more hiding.
As I approached our block I took a deep breath. People often congregated on the stairs, and it was quite obvious that I was doing the walk of shame—I was wearing heels, for goodness sake. But I had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide, so I pulled back my shoulders and walked into my block. It was deadly quiet. Not a soul to be seen. Every door of the twelve bedrooms in our block were closed. That never happened. What was going on?
I took my time fishing my keys out from my bag and I kept looking around, waiting, half-wanting someone to catch me. Not that I was doing anything wrong.
Despite hanging about in my room in my clothes from the night before for around twenty minutes, there were still no signs of life in the block, so I gave up and got showered. I still had my towel wrapped around me and wet hair when Jules bust in.
“I feel fucking horrendous.” She was still in her PJs and didn’t look great. Jules normally wore her hangover better than that.
She slumped on my bed and covered her eyes with her arms.
“How are you showered already? You were pretty hammered last night.”
“It’s like 2 p.m. I slept in, believe me.” I smiled at the memory of Joel and I doing anything but sleep this morning.
“Well, you may never sleep again after what I’ve got to tell you.”
But what about what I have to tell you?
“Uh oh.” I was only half-listening.
Was Joel right? Would she not care that I was seeing him? Maybe she did really like him and she would be heartbroken.
“You promise not to tell?” she asked.
Maybe she’d stop speaking to me and our friendship group would be broken.
“Ava?”
“What? No, I won’t tell. What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something?”
“Well, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Go on. What did you do?” I asked.
“I shagged Adam. And then I freaked and ran away, but I didn’t know where to go so I slept on the doorstep of the block.”
“That is way too much information in one lump. Break it down for me.”
“You are such a fucking lawyer.”
“You slept with Adam?”
Jules groaned. “I did. Oh my god, I did.”
“So, do you like him like him?”
“What? No.”
“So why did you sleep with him?”
“Oh, what, I’m only supposed to sleep with guys I like like?”
“Well, it’s one way to go.” I wasn’t a prude, and I wasn’t crazy about the guy I lost my virginity to, but being so in love with Joel and the sex being so incredible and seemingly so inextricably linked to our feelings for each other, I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
“Ok. And you slept on the doorstep why?”
Jules looked at me as if I were asking the most stupid question in the world. I raised my eyebrows in expectation of her answer.
“To get away from him.” She shook her head.
“And you didn’t just go to your bedroom?”
“He was in my bedroom. We were in my bedroom.”
“Oh, I see.” Why didn’t she just ask him to leave? Jules wasn’t backward at asking for what she wanted, but I really couldn’t follow Jules logic today.
“So, have you seen him this morning?” I asked.
“No, I saw him leave my bedroom early this morning and now I’m in hiding.”
I nodded my head. And I thought my news would split apart our group. Jules and Adam were going to be first past the post on that. And in any event, Jules hadn’t even asked about me and Joel. Maybe no one had seen. There was part of me that was disappointed. I had worked myself up to it. I was ready, I thought, to take on the world if it would make Joel happy. It seemed the world didn’t want to be taken on. Not yet anyway. Hanna was bound to have seen us. She never drank that much and she managed to always have all the gossip the next morning. It was the only advantage to staying sober, as far as I could make out.
There was a knock at the door. Jules jumped to her knees and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Don’t answer. It will be Adam,” she stage whispered.
I didn’t know what to do. This was ridiculous. I couldn’t pretend we weren’t in here, the walls were thin, and whoever was at my door would have heard us talking.
I waved at Jules and made my way over to the door. “Who is it?” I asked through the door.
“It’s me, Ava, let me in.” It was Hanna. Thank god for that.
I opened the door. She was also still in her PJs. Did the clocks change or something?
She joined Jules on my bed as I continued to comb through my hair and busy myself at my dressing table.
“Oh my god, Hanna, what am I going to do? Can you believe it?”
“You didn’t, did you?”
Jules nodded. I wasn’t sure that she didn’t love the attention at that moment. She was certainly getting enough of it. Maybe she did like Adam. Maybe this was all just a ruse to keep the spotlight. As much as I loved Jules, she had an insatiable desire to be at the center of everything. Maybe that’s why the three of us got on so well. Neither Hanna nor I craved that like Jules did. We were happy for her to take center stage. It was just … I thought today would go a slightly different way.
“Oh my god. You were so drunk. You just went up to him and that was it,” Hanna said.
“I can’t really remember.”
“You don’t remember? We were at the bar, and I think you’d been to the bathroom or something, and you came over and said to Adam that you hadn’t given him a birthday kiss. And then you just grabbed him and stuck your tongue down his throat.”
“I did not.”
“You so did. And then when you came up for air, he said, ‘With all the shit you give me, I deserve a birthday blow job,’ and you nodded your head and said ‘You’re on,’ grabbed him, and the two of you left. Right there and then. It was hilarious.”
Jules was guffawing. She wasn’t the slightest bit embarrassed. Here I was ready to be mortified about a kiss on a dance floor with my serious boyfriend. Jules always managed to outdo me.
No one mentioned that Joel and I weren’t there. Perhaps no one could remember. But Hanna was giving a detailed account of the Jules and Adam hook up. She must have noticed we weren’t there.
“So, do you like him?” Hanna asked.
“Who, Adam? Are you serious?”
“I think you guys really match,” I said.
“That is such an insult.”
“It is not. You’re both my friends.”
“I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen. I can’t remember most of it, anyway. If I can’t rememb
er it, then it didn’t happen, right? Isn’t that what quantum physics says or something?”
“Or something,” I said.
“Well, I think you should make a go of it. What have you got to lose?” Hanna asked.
I loved that Hanna responded like that. It gave me hope that if and when people found out about Joel and me, I would have at least Hanna batting for us. Unless she assumed I’d get hurt because he was so far out of my league. Oh god, I was driving myself crazy. Should I just tell them, get it over with? Jules would definitely think I was trying to steal her thunder. And then she might be pissed off because she liked Joel.
No. I would leave it and see if it came up. I loved having Joel to myself in our bubble. Whose business was it, anyway?
Chapter Twelve
Present
I stood outside Hanna and Matt’s, dreading going inside. Was this what it was going to be like now? Was I going to keep turning up to Hanna and Matt’s with a bottle of wine, on my own, to watch everyone else’s life move on? Could I really sit and watch Joel bring a parade of women into our group until he found one he wanted to marry, and then watch them as they built their lives together? Presumably he was going to bring the insanely hot girl from his flat today. Would she recognize me from the other night? Probably not. What if she did?
Christ, I felt pathetic. I plastered on a fake smile and pushed the Victorian door open. I loved that Hanna still left her door open in the middle of London like she was living in the 1950s.
There was plenty of noise at the end of the hallway in the kitchen. I could hear Joel. Feel him, as always. I wondered if he ever sensed me in the way I did him. I’d never asked him when we were together, but it had always been like that for me. And it had never gone away.
“Hiya,” I announced as I entered the room, not looking at anyone in particular and heading straight to the fridge. Alcohol would make things feel better.
There was a chorus of replies, but I concentrated on Hanna, who was elbow deep in something that I hoped, by the looks of it, we weren’t going to have to eat at any point.
“What’s that?” I asked suspiciously.
“It’s that coulibiac thing that I made for Matt’s boss.”
Great, we were going to have to eat it.
“Wine?” I asked.
“What, you think I haven’t started already?” She looked stressed.
I settled on a stool watching Hanna and realized that Matt, Joel, and Adam were, as usual, involved in some video game and had barely registered I‘d come into the room, which was fine with me. What was slightly less comforting was that they had been joined by Insanely Hot Girl. She was so young. Of course she was. And she couldn’t have lungs because it must have been impossible to breathe in jeans that tight. She was an Insanely Hot Alien.
“She’s young,” Hanna muttered under her breath. “Jules is not going to be happy.”
I’d forgotten about Jules in all this.
“She’s with Joel?” I faked the question. Jules nodded.
“From New York,” she added, and raised her eyebrows.
I felt a punch to my gut. This wasn’t Insanely Hot Girl that Joel hadn’t slept with. This was someone insanely hot from his life in New York. Someone who liked him enough to come and visit him in London. Someone he liked enough to have in his flat. Thank god I had run the other night. I really hoped she didn’t recognize me, or that she’d forgotten about me or something.
There was a disappointed cry across the room from everyone except Adam, who cheered, as their game came to an end.
“I whooped you all,” he said punching the air.
Everyone ignored him.
“More beers, everyone?” Matt asked as he got up. He came over and kissed me on the cheek. Everyone else followed.
“Ava, this is Jamie.” Hanna made our introduction.
Her eyes lit up. “Hi again.” And she hugged me awkwardly and giggled. “I have more clothes on this time.”
I smiled, tightly and nodded. I felt Joel’s eyes on me. I couldn’t look at him.
“Again?” he asked quietly and Jamie responded before I could think of anything to say. “We’re old friends.” And she giggled again. Yup, she was a giggler. An Insanely Hot Giggling Alien.
Joel look confused and before he could press me, I hopped off my stool. “Shall I set the table?” I asked Hanna.
“Yes, for eight,” Hanna replied without looking up from whatever she was doing with her pastry and a rollery, bladey thing that looked like it belonged in a Chinese torture chamber.
Eight? “Is Daniel coming?”
“No, Jules is bringing someone. Some guy from the office.”
“Oh, does she know about the alien?” Shit, I said that aloud.
“The alien?” Hanna looked up from torturing the pastry. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said. God I hated bitchy me.
Hanna furrowed her forehead at me and shrugged her shoulders.
From the table I listened to Joel and the Insanely Hot Giggling Alien, praying she wouldn’t tell him about my visit. They stood slightly away from the others between me and the kitchen.
“What do you mean, you’re old friends?”
Couldn’t he just drop it?
She didn’t answer. She was trying to distract him.
“Tell me,” he asked again.
“It’s nothing, Joel.” She seemed irritated by his questioning. Good.
“Have you met her before?” He was whispering, but I was homed in on their conversation.
“Jesus, Joel, can’t you leave it? She doesn’t want you to know.” I had to admire her. She was trying to do the right thing by me and keep my secret. But I knew well enough that Joel wasn’t going to leave it there. I had my back to them and was fussing with cutlery. Where was this going to go?
“Know what, Jamie?”
“She just popped by the other day. I answered the door and she changed her mind or something. I don’t know. She asked me not to mention it.”
Fuck.
How was I going to explain this? What excuse could I use for going to his place? I could say I got locked out again. No, that wouldn’t work. It hadn’t been late and he knew Hanna and Matt had a key.
“And you were naked?” he asked.
“No. I was in a towel. I’m not going to open your door naked, am I?”
“I have no idea. You are so irresponsible I wouldn’t put anything past you.” His voice was clipped and irritated and it soothed me. He was pissed and I was pleased.
Jules then burst through the door. It was just the distraction I’d been praying for.
“Hey, guys.”
“Wow, you’re hot!” she immediately said to Jamie. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jamie,” she said and pulled Jules into a hug, too. Jules wasn’t much of a hugger even with the best of her friends, and she looked shocked at the intrusion of her personal space.
“Well, aren’t you friendly? American, I presume?”
“My accent gives it away, I guess.” She giggled, again. “I’m with Joel.”
Jules threw a look at Joel and then back and her and then to Hanna who raised her eyebrows.
“She’s my business partner’s little sister,” Joel explained.
“I’m 21. I’m not so little.”
“And you’re in London?” Jules asked.
“I am.” She grinned, not realizing that Jules’ question was hoping to solicit rather more information that she had given out.
“Well, this is Harvey.” She introduced Harvey to Jamie and then to the rest of us.
Harvey was very good-looking. And probably, although I wouldn’t have put money on it, gay.
Past
“So, how did it go?” Joel called me wanting to know how everyone had reacted to our kiss on the dance floor and my walk of shame. Jules and Hanna were still in my room discussing the aftermath of Jules and Adam’s shagfest, so I’d slipped out into the corridor.
“No one’s mentioned
anything. I don’t think anyone saw, and then Jules is all full of drama because she had sex with Adam last night.”
“So you didn’t tell them?”
“Did you just hear me? Jules and Adam!”
“I don’t give a shit about Jules and Adam.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was enjoying the Jules and Adam drama, partly because is deflected from Joel and me.
“Did you want me to tell everyone, even if they didn’t see us?” I didn’t understand what had Joel so uppity. It was just as it always had been with us, same as yesterday, same as last week. Joel didn’t respond. “Do you want me to make a big deal about it?”
“I thought the issue had resolved itself last night, that’s all.”
“Is there an issue?”
More silence.
“Joel?”
“Whatever, Ava.”
“Are you mad?”
“No, I’m not mad. I just don’t get it. Why do you care what they think so much?”
I did care about what they thought, but it wasn’t just that. I was afraid I would lose him, afraid what we had would disintegrate under the magnified lens of our friends’ scrutiny. Afraid he would wake up and realize that he could do better, whatever that meant. Afraid our group of friends would bend and splinter.
“I’m just trying to protect us.” This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone and I wasn’t explaining myself very well. I wanted Joel to understand.
“By hiding?”
“It’s that Observer Effect thing, isn’t it?”
“What? You think we will change if others are looking at us?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“Look, I love you, Ava. That’s not going to change. If you think it will change for you, by people knowing … I just don’t know what to think.” He sounded upset. It was the last thing I wanted.
“Did I ever tell you I applied for Cambridge?” Maybe he would understand this.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I did, and I got through to the interview. And everyone was so excited and the school made an announcement in our assembly, and all my friends were telling me how I was going to ace the interview and my parents were so proud and told their friends and—”