by Emlyn Rees
She comes back with two large vodkas and pushes one towards me. ‘Drink.’
I blow out my cheeks.
‘Drink!’ she warns.
I take a sip.
‘All of it.’
She watches me until I’ve finished it. I can feel the vodka warming my throat.
‘Now listen, you. It’s Saturday night and I’m not having any of your nonsense. Have you got that? None of it.’ She thrusts the dress towards me. ‘You’ve got fifteen minutes.’
Zanzibar is packed by the time we get there. I almost turn and run at the sight of the crowd, but H grabs my arm and pulls me inside.
We have a few drinks and dance for a while, but I can’t really get into it. My heart’s not in it, and I feel like I’ve got two left feet.
About an hour later, when I come back from the loo, I stand by a pillar looking around for H. The dance floor is crowded and I start to panic that I’ve lost her. I feel horribly exposed. I can’t talk to anyone, I’ve got nothing to say.
‘Amy! Over here!’ I spot H waving at me, and I wave back, relief flooding over me.
‘I’ve found some blokes for us,’ she says, her eyes glittering with excitement.
‘H!’ I protest.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘I was talking to this bloke at the bar. He’s really nice. And he’s got a miserable mate with him, too!’
‘Thanks a bundle!’
‘They’re upstairs. They’re buying us drinks,’ she says, grabbing hold of me, but I shake out of her grip.
‘If you’re trying to match-make me with some miserable git, I’ll kill you.’
‘Would I? I haven’t even met the miserable one yet. It’s the one at the bar I want you to meet. He’s lush.’
‘No!’
‘Just come and say hello. For me. Go on, what harm can it do? If we don’t like them, we can leave.’
I bite my lip as she drags me across the dance floor to the stairs. When we get to the top, my heel catches on the step. I turn round to unfasten it. H is waving.
‘They’re over here,’ she says. I straighten up and follow her in the direction of the booth at the back.
‘Here!’ she says, satisfied, when I catch up with her. ‘This is Matt.’ She’s looking at him. ‘This is Amy.’
? ! ?
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe, because this isn’t any old Matt, this is Jack’s Matt.
But even weirder than him being here in the first place is that there’s no look of surprise on his face.
Chloe.
It’s got to be Chloe. She’s the only reason that he could be here.
What’s she trying to do? Embarrass me? Get me back for today?
How could she?
H is completely unaware of what’s going on. She shuffles into the seat opposite Matt and pats the cushion next to her. She gives my arm a shake and frowns at me, before pulling me down. I land with a thud.
Everything has stopped.
Time has stopped.
Because where there’s a Matt, there’s usually a Jack.
And then I see him.
He’s walking over from the bar, carrying four pints of beer. He’s looking at them, concentrating hard.
‘Here’s our Rossy Boy,’ says Matt, rubbing his hands together.
Everything is screaming ‘Run!’, but I can’t move.
It’s too late.
Jack reaches the table and puts the pints down. It’s only then that he looks up and sees me. He turns quickly and glares at Matt. ‘What’s going on?’ he demands.
I can tell from the way the colour drains from his face that if there is some sort of a conspiracy going on between Chloe and Matt, then H isn’t the only one who’s no part of it.
Matt is a picture of innocence. ‘Nothing, mate. These are the girls I was telling you about.’
‘Hi, Rossy Boy,’ chirps H, cheekily, ‘I’m Helen.’
Jack stares at her outstretched hand, before eventually taking it. ‘Good to meet you,’ he mumbles.
‘And this is Amy,’ Matt chimes. He waits for Jack to speak, but Jack says nothing. ‘Aren’t you going to shake hands, mate?’ Matt prompts. ‘Where are your manners?’
Jack sits down and for the first time he looks at me.
Right into me.
‘Hello, Amy,’ he says. His hand stays where it is.
H looks at Jack and raises her pint to him. ‘Cheers. You must be the heartbroken one, then.’ She nudges me in the ribs. ‘Heartbreaker, more like.’
‘No, you got it right the first time,’ says Jack.
‘Amy’s an expert in heartbreak, aren’t you, love?’ H blunders on, failing to notice Jack’s stony expression. ‘You two should have a lot in common.’
Matt splutters on his pint, slams his glass down on the table and then launches into a coughing fit. Jack whacks him on the back, so hard that I think his teeth are going to fall out.
Fine. So Matt wants to play games? Let’s do it.
‘What’s your sob story, then?’ I ask, my eyes boring into Jack’s.
‘I got dumped,’ he replies.
‘It’s a real shame. She was a stunner, wasn’t she?’ Matt says.
‘She was amazing. I’ll never meet anyone like her again.’
H tuts. ‘Blimey, you’re as bad as Amy. You can’t let it get you down, you know. There are always plenty more fish in the sea.’
‘Not like her, there aren’t,’ says Jack.
I look away from his intense gaze. ‘Why did she dump you?’ I ask.
‘I love this track. Shall we go and dance?’ interrupts Matt, looking at H.
H shakes her head. ‘We can’t leave now, we’re just getting to the juicy bit.’
‘Bollocks to it,’ says Matt. ‘Knowing this one, he’ll be talking all night. Come on, let’s leave them to it.’
H stands up to follow Matt. She leans down to whisper in my ear. ‘You’ll be all right, won’t you? Come and grab me if he turns out to be a psycho.’
And then we’re alone.
‘So?’ he asks.
‘I think you owe me an answer.’
‘What? About why she dumped me?’
‘That’ll do for starters.’
Jack takes a deep breath. ‘Because I did something stupid. I made a mistake.’
‘Just a mistake?’
‘No, it was worse than that. I let her down. And I started to tell her what happened, but she wouldn’t listen.’
‘Do you blame her?’
‘Of course I don’t. It would have been a miracle if she’d hung around after what I told her.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I rang and rang. Then I went to her house and waited for her, but she wouldn’t answer the door. So I wrote her a letter to tell her exactly what happened, but she didn’t reply.’
I can feel tears rising. ‘Maybe she didn’t read it,’ I whisper. ‘Maybe she was so hurt and so angry that she let her best mate burn it in a saucepan.’
Jack looks horrified. He strokes his cheeks, very slowly. ‘Then she wouldn’t know how I felt and how it actually was.’
‘So, how was it? Actually?’
Jack looks straight at me as he speaks. ‘I fell asleep next to another girl. I shouldn’t have done it, but I was drunk and I was angry. And when I woke up, this other girl was going down on me. And I freaked. I pushed her away. I threw her out of the house.’
‘And you’d expect your girlfriend to believe that, would you?’
‘Yeah. It’s the truth.’ He pauses then, and I realise that our eyes are locked together again. ‘But the worst bit is that I lied to her about it. And it nearly killed me, because I’d realised something,’ he continues.
‘And what was that?’
Jack’s fingers touch mine. ‘That I was in love with her. That I still am. Completely. That I want to be with her, more than anything else. But I couldn’t tell her any of this until I’d told her the truth, even if that meant losing her
.’
I think back to everything I’ve thought over the past week. I think back to all the advice I’ve been given and how I still ended up feeling confused. And now, I realise, it was because I wasn’t listening to my heart. I tried to stop believing in Jack and it wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible because I love him. And now that he’s told me the truth, it all makes sense. My heart was right all along.
But before I can say any of this, Matt and H are back.
‘Are you okay?’ asks H.
‘Better than okay,’ I smile, slipping my hand into Jack’s. ‘I’ve just been asked to dance.’
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Published by Arrow Books in 2005
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Copyright © Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees 1999
The right of Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
Extract here copyright © 1969 ‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie Onward Music Ltd, 11 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7TQ
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First published in the United Kingdom in 1999 by Arrow Books
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ISBN 9780099279273