All the Little Things

by Sarah Lawton

  ‘I have no idea how you are so skinny,’ I tell her, sitting down next to her and picking up a slice. I try and eat it too quickly and the hot sauce burns the roof of my mouth, right behind my teeth. It will blister, I know, and I will have a tender raw patch for the next few days.

  ‘Ow.’

  ‘You should blow on it first, Vivvy,’ Molly snipes at me. ‘I thought you were getting good at blowing?’

  I decide to ignore this, though I do blow on the pizza.

  We eat the rest without talking, and then Molly gets up to get us drinks. I can hear her poking around in the utility room, then she goes into the loo. On a whim I slide her phone toward me over the counter and tap in her passcode. There are no messages from Alex, but I see lots from Serena. Molly wasn’t telling me the truth about why the others aren’t coming tonight. Serena’s been speaking to Matt. She knows what happened and she is not happy about it. That’s why her and Tilly aren’t here. This is the end of everything now. She’s destroyed us, ruined us. Another black mark for Molly, who has clearly been getting away with things for far too long. I hear the flush and I push the phone away, my hand shaking. She comes back with wine and I take a deep breath; I need to calm down and stay in control.

  ‘Are we allowed to have this?’ I ask her, knowing that Abi can be a bit funny about us drinking. My mum is desperate to be a relaxed, uber-cool mum, but Abi has no such qualms, despite the buggering-off-all-the-time tendencies.

  ‘Who gives a fuck?’ is her succinct reply. ‘They’re out ’til after midnight as they’ve gone off to do some restaurant in Bath for the stupid blog.’ She pours us large glasses of wine, the liquid glugging out of the bottle. I look at her face, notice that she looks flushed, and a bit smudged. I think she has been crying. I don’t feel sympathy. This is all her own stupid fault.

  I sip the wine. It isn’t the same as the one I drank with Alex our first night. I think about our kissing on the sofa and what we ended up doing this afternoon that was even better. When I look up, Molly’s eyes are boring into me again.

  ‘You’re screwing him, aren’t you?’ she says.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire. You’re screwing Newboy. There’s something wrong with him, you know. He asked me all sorts of weird things about you.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like where you’re from, who your dad is, if you even know who he is. Why you’re so fucking weird.’

  ‘I am not weird! And he doesn’t think I’m weird, he gets me!’

  ‘Clearly there’s something wrong with him then!’

  ‘What, there’s something wrong with him because he’s not interested in you? Because he wants to know about me, instead?’

  She gives me a cool look.

  ‘No, I just don’t trust him. He’s creepy.’

  ‘How do you know what he is? Have you been hanging out with him?’

  ‘No. He’s probably going to get kicked out of the college because he’s never there.’

  ‘I see him there! You’re just jealous!’ I say, before realising that she has been manipulating me into admitting there is something going on between us.

  ‘So, is he any good? Big dick? Did you suck him off?’

  Hearing her reduce my afternoon into small, dirty phrases is making me even more cross, so I tell her if she doesn’t shut the fuck up then I’m leaving, and that nothing has happened anyway. I know she doesn’t believe me and instead she immediately follows it up with another sucker punch. The Molly one-two.

  ‘You know I could have him any time I wanted, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’ I have to close my eyes for a second to keep the hate in.

  ‘Alex. He doesn’t want you. We practically fucked in the common room yesterday. He was all over me.’

  ‘Why are you saying this? You’re a liar. You just said you didn’t hang out with him, but now you’re fucking him in the common room?’

  Molly shrugs, and sways slightly. Is she drunk again? She is! I wonder how much she has been drinking recently. It’s as if alcohol has taken away the old Molly and replaced her with this new one that I don’t like. That I don’t like at all.

  ‘Not lying. I thought you would want to know. He’s not trustworthy.’

  ‘Molly, I really think you should shut up.’ She won’t. She has no idea how angry I am.

  ‘What are you going to do about him? I think you should dump him. Don’t make me prove he’s just the same as all the others. He wants me as much as they all do. It’s all they want.’

  Her eyes are appraising my face as I listen to this. Is this a threat? Is she actually threatening me? Would she actually try this now she knows I am with him? Can I be sure she won’t? Oh, Molly. You stupid girl. I won’t be threatened.

  ‘I don’t know why you are saying all this, Molly. It’s none of your business.’

  ‘I thought you might actually be upset for once,’ says Molly, sipping her drink, eyes sliding away.

  I remain still but my mind is frantic. Am I supposed to cry? Thinking about what Molly said makes me feel furious so I try to push the thoughts away. I need all of this to stop. How did I end up with such a shit best friend again? I feel like I have been fooled, like she has always been this person underneath, that she’s just fake niceness varnished over a hateful, green-eyed thief. She is jealous of me, of my boyfriend, of my mother. She wants what’s mine. But she is not going to have it.

  Molly goes and sits in the front room, flopping down onto the sofa and spilling wine on herself, but she doesn’t notice. I sit and breathe for a minute, trying to calm down. I need to pretend everything is okay while I come up with a plan, so I go and sit down next to her, and I grab her hand to make her think I’m not angry with her. She doesn’t say anything, but I see her relax. We finish watching a film we started weeks ago, when things were still perfect, and drink more wine before going upstairs. I ask to borrow pyjamas and she gives me a scrappy little lace nightie which I’m not sure about. She’s wobbling about all over the place, she must have been drinking all day. Part of me wants to just go home, but then there will be the inevitable inquisition from my mother. And I haven’t decided what I need to do about Molly yet.

  ‘This is a bit small,’ I tell her, holding up the nightie by its tiny straps.

  ‘It gets hot in here. You know I can’t sleep with the window open.’

  No other bed wear seems to be appearing so I put it on in the bathroom, use her mouthwash to get rid of the taste of pizza and wine and go and climb into bed. She faffs around for a while in her ensuite (cleanse, tone, moisturise, brush, brush, braid) before coming back and pacing around her room for a bit, switching on the fan she’s got on the desk to move the stuffy air in useless circles. Her plait is as thick as my wrist at the top and it tapers down to a whip of gold at the bottom which flickers side to side as she walks, a cross cat’s tail. Eventually she jumps on the other side of the bed and crawls up to get under the sheet. It’s hot enough to sleep without it but she can’t sleep without some sort of covering, I don’t know why. Maybe she doesn’t feel safe in the place she’s most meant to, at home, at night, in her bed.

  There’s enough light in the sky outside gleaming through the gaps in the curtains for me to see Molly’s profile next to me. Her eyes are still open and she’s staring into the dark above her. I don’t want to talk about Alex again but I can feel the words bubbling up in my mouth so I press my tongue onto the smooth, sore, burnt spot behind my teeth and I taste metal instead.

  I don’t think I’m going to but at some point I actually fall asleep listening to Molly’s breathing. Maybe it’s the change in it that wakes me up, or it’s the dream I’m having about Alex running his smooth hands over me, shoulder to hand, hip to knee, breast to waist. I wake up, and it’s Molly who has her hand on me. It’s underneath my nightie and flat on my breast bone. She knows I’m awake.

  ‘I was wondering if you had a heart, Vivian. I was wondering if t
here’s anything inside you at all,’ she slurs, before slipping her palm sideways, cupping my breast, her thumb brushing over my nipple. I have no control over it stiffening and I’m frozen and I don’t know what to do. I can feel her breath on my cheek, smell sour alcohol, and she slowly moves her hand over my ribs and down my body.

  ‘Please, don’t,’ I tell her. ‘Please.’ But she puts her hand over the top of my underwear, her fingers resting between my legs, applying the faintest pressure.

  ‘Did he touch you here, Viv?’ she whispers, hot mouth at my ear. ‘Did he kiss you here? You know I could kiss you there and it would be better than anything he could do?’ Her lips brush my neck and I suddenly regain control of my body and I jump up, pushing her away so violently she knocks against the wall.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I shout at her now. ‘Are you mental? You’ve fucked everything up! Everything was perfect, why have you fucked it up?’ I run into the bathroom and I put my clothes on, throwing the scrap of nightie into her shower. I can’t stop the rage spilling over and I lash out, sweeping everything from the windowsill to the floor; I lose it, just for a screaming second, and then perfume smashes at my feet in a cascade of bright glass and the scent stings my eyes.

  I go back into Molly’s room and she’s just lying there, on her back, with the light from the window shining on her face. I can see the silver track of a tear slipping over her cheek but I don’t care. I don’t say anything.

  It’s in this moment, watching her cry in the gloom, that something whirrs and clicks in my brain, the way she’s been acting. It is just that, isn’t it – an act. It’s an act for me. She’s in love with me. She doesn’t want Alex, he’s not shady – she just wants me for herself! All this time, she’s been playing up – why the hell did I not realise sooner? I could have used this. All that power over her, and I never realised; I let the control slip through my fingers and now we are here and Molly has thrown everything away and it’s too late. Now she’s nothing to anyone, and I’m afraid of what she might do next.

  I won’t let her ruin me like Lexie did.

  London

  ‘What’s wrong with her now?’ asked Rachel, as she walked into the house past Vivian, who was running up the stairs.

  ‘She’s got a face on because I keep telling her she’s too young to dye her hair,’ said Carol, wryly. ‘She’s even younger than you were when I told you the same thing, and you pulled exactly the same face.’

  ‘Why does she want to dye her hair? She’s only eight!’

  ‘She says she wants to have yellow hair like Lexie.’

  ‘To go with the blue shoes and the sparkly blue rucksack like Lexie?’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Carol.

  ‘Even if it was blonde it wouldn’t look like Lexie’s, hers is so long and thick. I wouldn’t mind her hair myself! Vivian’s is too fine, I’m not sure she’s going to get it to grow past her chin any time soon.’

  ‘Takes after me – Vivian? What have I told you about eavesdropping?’

  ‘I came down to see Mum,’ said Vivian, who had been listening from the foot of the stairs. ‘Is that why my hair isn’t long? Because it’s like yours? It won’t grow?’

  ‘’Fraid so, my love! It’ll grow more when you’re older. It’s just fine,’ said Carol, pulling on the tips of her own short bob ruefully.

  Vivian frowned. ‘What time am I going to Lexie’s?’

  ‘I’ll drop you off,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m going out for a drink; I need to get ready first, though. And you should count yourself lucky that you got Nana’s lovely shiny brown hair and not Grandad’s curly hair, like mine!’ She ruffled Vivian’s head, grinning down at her.

  Vivian just pulled a face, and leaned away. ‘Get off. Hurry up, Mummy!’

  ‘Go and get your bits together, okay? I’ll jump in the shower.’

  * * *

  Rachel pulled back the shower curtain and nearly slipped out of the bath entirely. Vivian was standing in the bathroom with her jacket on and her bag on her shoulders, watching her silently.

  ‘Viv! You nearly gave me a heart attack!’ She reached past her and pulled a towel to her, wrapping it round herself. ‘Funny girl,’ she whispered, pressing her lips to Vivian’s forehead.

  Vivian pulled away, as she usually did. ‘You’re all wet, Mum. Hurry up, I want to go now.’

  ‘I need to get ready first, babe. Give me ten minutes.’

  Vivian followed her through to her bedroom, perching on the bed and watching as she got dressed, intently observing her putting on make-up. ‘Why do people wear make-up?’ she asked, picking up a lipstick and screwing it up and down, up and down.

  ‘To look nice, I guess.’

  ‘You already look nice,’

  ‘Ah, thank you, sweetheart.’

  ‘Does everyone wear it? Lexie has got some lip gloss, but I don’t like it, it’s sticky. Do I have to wear make-up?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want to. You’re beautiful as you are.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Vivian, matter-of-factly. ‘I want to look like Lexie.’

  ‘Vivian,’ said Rachel, wracking her brain for the right words, ‘everyone is different. They like different things, but that doesn’t stop us being friends, or loving each other. You don’t have to be like Lexie for her to like you.’

  ‘No one else likes me, though. Everyone likes Lexie.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s anything to do with how you look, though, darling. It can be difficult when you’re eight, can’t it? It will get better, I promise. Come on, let’s go.’

  * * *

  The bar was crowded with Friday night customers, all jostling each other. Rachel was standing at the back wall by the steps that led down into the garden, waiting for Beth to come back with more drinks. She’d bumped into her at the tube station earlier in the week and despite trying to escape without notice, had been collared and strong-armed into handing over her number. Their catch-up had so far mainly consisted of Beth grilling her about exactly what she had been doing for the last ten years, no doubt in an effort to ascertain whether or not she was worth being friends with.

  They’d briefly been close as teenagers, but Beth was the sort of person who could make you feel like you were their best friend but then drop you the second they found someone else interesting. Rachel was getting the distinct impression that this hadn’t changed and was trying to think of an excuse to leave when her phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Rachel? It’s Lucy.’

  ‘Hi, is everything okay? Give me two secs to get outside – it’s loud in here.’ She pushed through the crowd, tapping Beth on the shoulder as she did and gesturing to her phone. ‘Two secs,’ she told her, before squeezing out through the people milling at the door.

  ‘Lucy, hi, sorry, I’m at the Village – it’s manic in there. What’s up? Is Vivian okay?’

  ‘Er, yes, Vivian’s fine, it’s just, I think you need to come and get her.’ Rachel felt her stomach plunge, a looping sensation that made her feel drunker than she was.

  ‘I’ll come now. I’ll literally be two minutes.’ She tapped out an apology to Beth – who was bound to find someone to latch on to – and set off around the corner onto Eden Road and up to the little cottage. Knocking softly on the door she found herself biting her lip, nipping it hard enough to taste iron.

  Lucy opened the door. ‘Rachel, I’m so sorry, I tried to call your mum but she wasn’t answering her mobile and I didn’t like to try the landline in case she was in bed already…’

  ‘It’s fine, honestly, but what’s wrong?’

  ‘Come in.’ She led Rachel into the little front room where Vivian was sitting on the sofa in her nightie. She didn’t look up, staring down at the floor instead, her face blank. She was hugging her knees to her chest, chin on her knees. Lucy gestured with her head and Rachel followed her into the hallway.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It might be better if I show you. Come up.’

  Rachel fo
llowed Lucy up the stairs and into a small bedroom, where Lexie lay sleeping. She looked around. ‘I don’t understand, did she hurt herself on something?’

  ‘No,’ said Lucy. ‘Look.’ She walked over to her daughter’s sleeping form and ran her fingers over her head, and Rachel gasped, putting her hand to her mouth in shock. Lexie’s hair had been cut off in ragged chunks, the edges rough in the dim light from the hallway.

  ‘She brought the scissors with her, Rachel,’ said Lucy. ‘She waited until Lexie was asleep. I came in to check on them, and I found her cutting off her hair while she was asleep.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘Why would she do that?’

  Rachel

  I woke up to Alex kissing his way down my body again. I felt like the whole day had been a dream, so I didn’t try to stop him; I encouraged him instead, lacing my fingers again through his hair. Maybe it wasn’t even real. The way he was using his mouth and his fingers, I didn’t think this was his first time, but it didn’t make the guilt any less. I could feel it simmering beneath the pleasure. He moved over me, kissed me, and slid himself into me again and we rocked gently together, slowly and exquisitely building up a tension that made me shudder and moan into his mouth. I could feel him smile his sharp smile. I bit his lip.

  It was becoming almost unbearably good when we both froze as the front door opened and closed. We heard Vivian take off her shoes and then she came up the stairs, quietly, every soft footstep hammering at me. Alex started to move his hips in small, agonising circles and resumed kissing me, nibbling at my neck, and I hated him with a sudden passion, paralysed by fear of discovery. Vivian went straight into the bathroom and I heard the shower hiss on, the sound of water hitting the floor muting when she got in. Alex heard it too and his slow hip movements turned into resounding, headboard banging thrusts and I orgasmed so intensely that I couldn’t breathe. He finished, kissed me once more, firmly with promise, and then slipped silently out of the bed, into his clothes and out of the house like he was a part of the night.