Remix

by Non Pratt

  When we stand to leave, I bump him gently and smile, trying to make it right, to make it light. “I’m not sure it matters, but your new girlfriend has my seal of approval.”

  “It matters,” he says, and for a second he looks at me like he wishes it didn’t. “Bye, Kaz.”

  He walks quickly towards the path leading across Three-Tree Field and I want to call him back, to ask him the one question that’s been plaguing me, burrowing into my brain.

  Did you sleep with her before you slept with me?

  But I don’t. It’s hard to see how the truth will make that right either.

  33 • BITTERSWEET ME

  RUBY

  It’s oddly peaceful here in the tent and I feel better for having had a shower. On the way back to the tent, my gut twisted when I passed a girl wearing a Gold’ntone T-shirt. The realization that I will never be able to listen to their music again rips me a new one. I will never be able to hear “Tonight Too Soon” ever again.

  I shouldn’t have let Kaz believe this was Stu’s fault, but I cannot tell her – anyone – the truth. Memories fade with time, but words spoken out loud become facts.

  I can’t face these facts. Not now. Not ever.

  “Ruby. Can I come in?” It’s Lee, outside the tent.

  I don’t say anything.

  “I know you’re in there. Please, Ruby.”

  I crawl out of the tent, wrapping my arms around myself, rumpling the whimsical unicorn vest that I bought when I felt distinctly more whimsical.

  “What?” I can barely look at him.

  “Not here…” He casts a glance to where Owen and Anna are cooking breakfast.

  When Lee turns to walk away, I follow. His neck is sunburned and I imagine flicking it hard enough to make him howl. When we reach the path, Lee keeps pausing to let me fall in step with him, but since that is what I’m specifically avoiding doing, I fall out as soon as he starts up again.

  It is very satisfying.

  Eventually, we reach a quiet patch of the campsite where the tents thin out towards the car park and Lee sits down.

  “Are you going to sit with me, or stay standing there like Christ the Redeemer?” he says.

  “Why do you do that?” I snap, wanting a fight.

  “What?”

  “Make a reference to something you know I won’t understand. You used to hate it when Callum did that and now you’re doing it to me. Showing off doesn’t make you special.”

  “I’m not showing off. This is just how I talk.”

  “Frankly, Mr Shankly, you sound a bit wanky.” But he’s not going to take the bait.

  “I know that’s some music reference you think I won’t get.” Lee sighs and lies back on the ground. “Call it even and sit down.”

  I do as I’m told.

  Lee says, “You didn’t tell Owen.” Not a question, so I don’t give an answer. “Thank you for that.”

  This galls. “As if I’d inflict that kind of pain on someone I love so much.”

  “Stop being so angry with me. Not everything you see is black and white, you know.”

  “Was the man in the van Owen? No. Enough said.”

  “Actually” – Lee sits up and pulls my arm so I’m twisted to face him – “not enough said. Owen and I broke up. On Friday.”

  “Friday?”

  “After I behaved like a dick about him singing—”

  “But I thought…” I’d seen them hugging outside their tent, but then every time I’ve seen them together since then, at camp, on the hill, the photo he texted of them in the crowd … I realize I saw no kisses. No hand-holding. No glances or touches. I carried on seeing what I wanted to, even when it wasn’t there. That hug I saw was one of breaking-up, not making-up.

  “We thought it would make things awkward for everyone else and that wouldn’t be fair,” Lee says quietly, pulling tufts of shrivelled grass from the ground.

  “But you love him.”

  Lee looks at me with such misery that I can’t help but soften towards him. “You think I was the one who did it? I’m not the strong one. I’m the coward who’d rather spend a summer spoiling for a fight than face telling the person I love the truth.”

  “But Owen loves you—”

  “Love isn’t enough, Ruby. Not to survive me moving half a world away. I can’t be the boyfriend Owen deserves and he knows it.”

  His eyes shine with unshed tears, the deep blue that circles the skies of his irises more marked, as if his eyes were drawn, then filled in.

  “I don’t want to leave him.” Tears spill out and he sniffs. “But I can’t take him with me and I can’t do long distance and all that would happen is that I’d hurt him even more.” Lee’s crying properly now, shaking as he talks, the words sputtering on breaths he can’t quite take in.

  “I love him so much, but I’m so weak that I can’t even do my own dirty work. He told me that if it would stop me from trying to hurt him, then we should end things now, because …”

  He stops and sucks in a breath, and I can’t help but reach over and wipe away his tears. I wish I could help fix him, but it’s him that’s doing the breaking.

  “… because he still wants to love me, even if we’re not together. Even if we can’t be … because I…” Lee breaks down and I hold him as close as I can. “Why did I do this, Ruby? What’s wrong with me that I have to push away the one person I want to be with?”

  I hold him, saying nothing because there is nothing I can say.

  Maybe I did grow up to be like my brother after all.

  KAZ

  In the haze of euphoria that comes with finally doing something right, I do something completely out of character.

  “Why are you ringing me?” my sister asks when she picks up the call.

  “Hi, Naomi, how lovely to hear your voice.”

  “It’s ten in the morning. Your voice is ruining my lie-in.”

  “I thought you’d be halfway down Oxford Street by now.”

  “Sunday. Shops don’t open till later. Plus Dad’s demanded a break, the lame ass. How’s your crappy festival?”

  “You don’t really care, do you?”

  “Not at all, but I’m weirded out by you ringing me. It’s making me come over all polite.”

  Which is her way of showing concern, I suppose. “You were right.”

  “Always. Be more specific.”

  “About Tom. About me deserving better.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something I’d say…”

  But we both know she did.

  “Whatever we had, it’s over now. I don’t want him back any more.” Saying it sets me free.

  “You don’t sound like you’re a pathetic, weeping, wailing blob of snot…”

  “Charming.” I laugh. “That’s because I know it’s the right thing this time.”

  “It was the right thing last time.”

  “All right, no need to be smart about it. I just wanted to tell” – I was going to say “someone”, but – “you.”

  Silence. My sister doesn’t really know how to handle me being nice to her. I wouldn’t either, if the situation was reversed.

  “So now I’ve woken you up, can you do me a favour?” My tone makes it clear the conversation is back to normal.

  So is Naomi’s. “Probably not.”

  “Ring Mum. Ask her about her date last night – it’s not just me she wants to gossip with.”

  As I end the call, I’m level with the charging tent and I collect Ruby’s phone, before turning back towards our camp. My thoughts drift to Sebastian and I smile at the thought of telling Ruby about all the good things that have happened this weekend, as well as the bad. Because I’m going to tell her everything now – as Ruby said, she and I don’t do secrets.

  I’m distracted as Ruby’s phone starts to vibrate and a message flashes up.

  Hey, Ruby, on the off chance you’ve charged your phone… I’m at your camp. Where are you? Stu

  34 • CARELESS WHISPER


  RUBY

  After a while Lee asks me how he looks.

  “Puffy” is my answer.

  “But in a cute way, right?”

  “If you find blotches and snot cute, then sure, why not?”

  He hauls me up off the floor and we walk back side by side. I don’t know what my brother is thinking about, but for the most part I’m thinking that Lee has only partially explained what happened last night and for all I want to be able to leave it as it is, I can’t.

  “Lee?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you do it?”

  He doesn’t ask what I mean – he knows I mean the boy he was with, the not-Owen whose shorts Lee had been unzipping. “I told you, Ruby, I’m weak. And I thought it would make me feel better to know I could be with someone I didn’t love.”

  The thought process is so alarmingly familiar that it knocks the breath out of me.

  I don’t want Wexler to be Stu – that’s kind of the point.

  But it didn’t make me feel better, and looking at Lee, I’m not sure it worked out for him either.

  “But in Owen’s van? What were you thinking?”

  Lee shrugs. “I have spare keys. Thought it’d be better than bringing him back to Owen’s tent.”

  I give him Ultimate Disapproval Face.

  And then, as if it has only just occurred to him, his brows pull together and he tilts his face to look at me closely.

  “What were you doing there?”

  KAZ

  Camp is deserted but for a lone figure standing, hands in pockets, waiting for someone who isn’t me.

  “What are you doing here?” I say.

  Stu turns at the sound of my voice. He looks exhausted and he hasn’t shaved since Friday – although the way he smells I guess he’s washed. Stu always smells good. Pheromones from his sex overdrive, presumably.

  “I’m looking for Ruby. Do you know where she is?”

  “Why, so you can just keep hurting her?”

  Stu looks confused. “What do you mean?”

  “That I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

  “Seriously, we’re still doing that? You telling me what Ruby wants when you’re the one who hurts her the most?”

  “Me?” I can’t even believe he’s saying it. “You cheated on her.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Stu snaps his head back and stares at the sky, before glaring at me. “Will you let it go?

  “How can I? You CHEATED on her!” How loud do I have to say it for him to hear?

  “I made a mistake. One that you” – he points not just with his finger, but his eyes, his voice, his whole being – “won’t let me forget.”

  “Because you were going to carry on as if nothing happened!”

  Like Tom is doing with Lauren. But Stu is not Tom. Stu would have done it again…

  “What if I had carried on as if nothing happened? What. Fucking. If? Did you ever, for a second, allow for the tiniest possibility that I made her happy? That for all you think I’m a toxic landfill of a human being, I didn’t love her?”

  “You’d a funny way of showing it,” I say quietly.

  “You think being in love is the same as being perfect, do you?” For the first time I see something more than a caricature of a slutty sex god, I see someone who feels pain and hope. And regret. “Do you really believe that love makes you a better person?” God knows it has made me worse. “Well, it doesn’t work like that. It makes me want to try, but that’s the best I can do – and you won’t even let me have that.”

  But he hasn’t been here to see the mess he’s made of my friend this weekend, the shell of the Ruby I love who walked into camp this morning.

  “The only way you know how to try is to hurt her, Stu.” My voice is quiet, but clear. He does not need to take a step closer to hear it, but he does anyway.

  “You think I did so much damage when I slept with another girl, but even Ruby knows my heart wasn’t in it. You talk about cheating like it’s the worst thing that could happen. But you and Lauren? That’s betrayal on a level I couldn’t hope to achieve…”

  “Don’t say that.” I don’t want to hear this. Not at all. “It’s not true.”

  “You mean more to Ruby than I ever could. Where were you last night, Kaz, when Ruby needed you? With Lauren? And why? Just because you feel so guilty that you’ve been fucking Lauren’s boyfriend?”

  Stu’s almost shouting, but my voice comes out as a horrified whisper. “What? I didn’t…”

  “Come off it!” Stu laughs at me, a short sharp bark. “You can fool Ruby. You can fool Lauren. But you can’t fool the guy who saw you leave Tom’s tent, your bra in your hand and tears down your face.” Ice-cold dread floods through me as I picture bumping into Stella. I’d been so keen on running away I hadn’t taken the time to notice who she was with. “Because you found out that Saint Thomas of Selkirk’s as much of a dog as me. That he’d do you the same time he’s banging someone else.”

  “I didn’t know about Lauren,” I whisper, not sure who I’m trying to convince.

  “You didn’t want to.” Stu looks at me like he’s always had the truth of it. “Tell me, Kaz, are you going to do for your new BFF what you did for your old one? You going to give Tom the same ultimatum you gave me?” It’s as if he’s shining a light into the deepest darkest places where the guilt, the hypocrisy is cosseted in the bubble wrap of self-righteousness. But Stu isn’t finished unpacking me. “Guess it’s harder this time. Tom didn’t cheat with some stranger, a girl she’ll never have to meet, a girl who meant nothing – you’re going to have to tell Lauren that her boyfriend had sex with you.”

  In that one, two, heartbeats, there is no sound, there is nothing outside of my world except those words.

  And then…

  A half-sob.

  Life is happening in slow motion. I turn so slowly that she’s already turned to run from what she’s heard.

  Not Ruby: Lauren.

  35 • DAYS ARE GONE

  RUBY

  Lee and I are nearly back at camp. He knows I lied when I said I went to Owen’s van because I needed some space away from Kaz and Lauren, but he didn’t push it.

  “Speak of the devil.” Lee points at someone running through the tents, stumbling over the guy ropes. The sound of her sobs reaches us, and we glance at each other, confused. I’m about to tell him to go after her, when we see Kaz hurrying down the path towards us. “Sorry, excuse me please… Oh, just… OUT OF THE WAY!” she shouts at a group of boys who are having a piggy-back fight.

  “Kaz!” I catch her arm. “What’s going on? Is everything OK?”

  “I’m so sorry, Ruby. I’ve got to find Lauren.” She looks frantic and I let go of her arm. Lee points in the direction Lauren went and Kaz rushes on a few steps before spinning back. “Your phone, take it, take it…”

  I take it.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I’ve fixed things. I’ll meet you in the arena.” She closes the distance between us and gives me a hug. “I’m sorry. Stu’s looking for you. Don’t let him get to you.”

  “OK…” I pat her back, wondering why I’m getting such a desperate hug.

  “I love you, Ruby.”

  “Um…”

  “You know that, right?” She pulls back from the hug to look at me so intently it’s quite scary.

  “Kaz, are you dying?”

  “No. Just making a mess of absolutely everything.” And then she’s off again.

  KAZ

  Where’s she gone? The crowd is so much larger today and I despair of finding her. I feel like such a bad human being on so many levels that I almost give up there and then. Until…

  There. And even though I’d rather be running in the other direction I plunge forward.

  Lauren’s stalled by the crowds at the gate, but the queue is knotted too tightly for me to get through. I call Tom.

  “Lauren knows!” I say by way of greeting.

  “She—” There’s a beep
on his phone and a pause as he checks the message. “Oh. I just got a text…” – which I assume he’s reading – “What the hell, Kaz? I thought we agreed—”

  “I didn’t tell her!” I’m angry. “She heard Stu shout that you slept with me when you were supposed to be sleeping with her.”

  There’s a (presumably) stunned silence on the other end of the phone, during which time I manage to process the meaning behind what I’ve just said, the question I hadn’t meant to ask – the answer Tom is not giving.

  It’s the last, undeniable piece of the puzzle: the condoms in his bag; the girlfriend sharing his tent; the way Lauren talked… And yet I talked myself out of all of those things because I still wanted to believe in a Tom that didn’t exist.

  I’m so stupid.

  “… are you now?” Oh. Tom is talking.

  And I’m angry.

  “In the arena. I’m going to find Lauren,” I say.

  No, furious.

  “KAZ, DON’T—”

  Make that apoplectic.

  “Sod off, Tom. It’s not like you’re capable of making it better, either.” And I hang up for good.

  I’m never answering one of his calls again.

  RUBY

  Stu is at our camp. I honestly have no idea what has gone down, but he does not look happy.

  God, I love him.

  No, that’s not right.

  Lee’s ahead of me, barging towards my ex-boyfriend. “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think I’m doing here? Looking for Ruby.” Stu tries to look round my brother, but Lee leans to block his view.

  “Well, she’s not here.”

  “She’s right there, you twat, I can see her with my eyes.”

  “What are you doing, Lee?” I elbow him out of the way. “Hello, Stu.”