by Alice Oseman
I’m halfway through my cup when I spot someone familiar in the crowd. I squint through the window at the figure. Puffy hair, skinny jeans, button-up shirt. He’s walking towards Starbucks when he stops and stares directly at me, eyes widening.
Oh.
It’s Mac.
Oh God.
I can’t deal with this confrontation right now.
I slip out of Starbucks, pretending I haven’t seen him, and start walking in the opposite direction, round past the various station shops and cafés. I sneak a glance back and – oh God, he’s seen me. I walk a little faster and slip into a WHSmith, heading towards the back of the shop. I pretend to be perusing the sweets section (which is, at least, very characteristic of me), when I hear:
‘Angel!’
I turn. Mac is walking into the shop, waving at me. I wave cautiously back at him and he starts walking towards me, swerving round the shoppers and the aisles.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘Hi,’ he says. He looks vaguely out of breath, like he’s been walking very fast.
There’s an awkward silence.
‘Why are you here?’ I ask.
‘Well … I thought I’d see if I could catch you before you left, actually,’ he says.
‘Did Juliet send you?’
‘No.’
Oh. That’s weird.
He senses my confusion and smiles sheepishly. ‘Well, when we woke up and we found out you’d left from your note, Juliet was really upset, so I wanted to—’
‘You wanted to come and find me and bring me back in some sort of valiant attempt to get back in Juliet’s good books,’ I say.
He chuckles. ‘Is it so bad to want to do something good for someone you like?’
I shrug at him.
Juliet was upset? Even after our big argument?
I thought that was it for our friendship.
Fuck. Have I fucked up?
‘This is like that movie trope where someone has to run to the airport and stop their romantic interest from leaving,’ I say.
Mac smirks. ‘Except you’re not my romantic interest.’
‘Yeah, no shit.’
He snorts and looks down. A couple of people push past us.
‘Let’s … let’s go find a bench, or something,’ I say.
We leave the shop, walk in silence towards a bunch of nearby seats, and sit down next to each other. I stare up at the departure board, becoming distinctly aware of the crowds of travellers swarming around us, walking from cafés to escalators to platforms. Everything’s swirling and moving. Nothing stays still for more than a second.
‘Why’d you do it?’ I ask him.
‘Do what?’
‘Lie.’
He looks away.
‘I wish I hadn’t done that,’ he says.
‘Well, you did.’
‘I know.’
‘Did you just really fancy her, or …?’
‘Fancy,’ he scoffs. ‘I’m not twelve.’
I raise my eyebrows. ‘Okay, then.’
‘Sorry, just hadn’t heard anyone use that word since, like, Year 7.’
‘Okay. How about deeply in love? Is that better?’
He huffs out a laugh. ‘Are those the only two options? ‘Fancy’ or ‘deeply in love’?’
Oh God, he is really starting to piss me off.
‘Why don’t you explain your feelings, then?’ I say, leaning back into my seat and folding my arms. ‘Settle in, my guy. Let’s make each other really uncomfortable.’
He pauses. ‘Well, okay. So, I like her.’
‘Now, is that a like, or a like like?’
‘Oh my God, you sound like my mum. I had a crush on her, okay?’
‘Okay, okay. Just clarifying.’
‘We were talking on Tumblr messenger quite a lot. And obviously I could see from her Tumblr that she was mainly interested in The Ark. So I just … sort of … suggested that I liked them too, which, you know, wasn’t a full lie, I liked a couple of their songs I’d heard on the radio! But … the lie just, like, went on from there. Got bigger and bigger until I was paying literally a hundred quid to go to their concert and come down to London just so I could see her.’
‘And how did that work out for you?’ I ask.
‘Well, I really could have bloody used that hundred quid for something else.’ He laughs.
Someone who deserved to go to their concert could have got that ticket.
‘I think we were getting along really well in real life,’ he continues, ‘er … until we went out after the meet-up on Tuesday.’
‘Did something happen?’
‘No. Nothing specific.’ He rubs his forehead, then looks at me. ‘It just became very apparent that she’d rather be hanging out with you.’
I blink. ‘D-did it?’
‘I mean firstly, she talks about you literally all the time.’ He folds his arms. ‘We’d start talking about something, and she’d always find a way to bring you into it. You were like … this constant presence in all of our conversations.’
I say nothing.
‘Secondly,’ he continues, ‘she started to sense that I didn’t like The Ark as much as she did. And it’s not like she wanted to talk about The Ark all the time, like you, but when we did talk about them … she could tell that I wasn’t that interested.’
‘Good,’ I say. Good. I’m glad Juliet could tell. She’s not stupid.
He looks at me. ‘Honestly, I thought it was just … a band she liked.’
Just a band she liked.
Imagine if The Ark was just a band we liked.
‘Sometimes you need to lie.’ He runs a hand through his hair. ‘Do you ever feel like nobody knows the real you?’
When I don’t respond he huffs out a laugh and looks away.
‘That’s what I feel like,’ he says. ‘Back at home, in the real world. I … I’m not myself. I just say and do things to make people like me. Not even my closest friends know anything important about me.’ He shakes his head. ‘And I don’t know why I can’t just be myself around anyone … whoever that is.’
I stare at him.
‘And then I started talking to Juliet online.’ His eyes glaze over. ‘And she liked talking to me. She was excited about talking to me. And I could be myself. I could talk to her about all sorts of things and we had stuff in common. And I just thought … if I could just reach out to her and get to know her in the real world … maybe I could have someone in my life who knows and likes the real me.’
He breathes out harshly and looks away.
‘But I made a mistake,’ he says. ‘I get it. The lie. Just one little lie slipped in, just one thing I had to lie about to get her to really like me. Just like I’ve always done to everyone I meet. Lie to make people like me. But I get it. You can’t make friends or … or relationships based on lies. And in the end the whole thing was a lie anyway. Our relationship. The idea that I had in my head. It was all something I’d just … fabricated. To make me feel a bit better about myself. So I had something to just … believe in.’
I open my mouth to say something snarky, but close it again.
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘I’m not gonna start, like, begging for forgiveness, or whatever.’
I lean forward and put my head in my hands.
Fuck.
Why is nothing ever simple?
After a few moments, he says, ‘Er, you okay?’
I sit up again. ‘I get it.’
‘What?’
‘I get why you lied.’ I smile weakly. ‘I do stuff like that too. Back at home, with my school friends. I just say things to be liked and … stay silent about stuff I care about. Because I feel like no one cares about the “real me”. But with Juliet I felt a bit more like myself.’
‘Oh.’
‘We’re both a bit shit, aren’t we?’
Mac chuckles. ‘Juliet’s probably the purest out of all of us, anyway.’
‘Yeah.’
‘
Well, I came here to tell you to go back to her,’ he says.
‘I can’t. I’ve already fucked up our friendship.’
‘No.’ He slaps his hand down loudly on his knee. ‘No. Juliet needs a friend like you.’
‘What, one who won’t shut up about a boy band?’
‘No, one she can actually get along with and have fun with.’ He shakes his head. ‘Like, considering her home life now, she really, really needs you. Like, now more than ever.’
Wait. What’s he talking about?
Home life? Now more than ever?
‘What?’ I ask. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know,’ he says. ‘Her parents?’
I properly sit up now, a faint throb of panic sitting in my chest. ‘What are you talking about?’
He frowns. ‘Are you … joking?’
‘No, I’m not fucking joking, Cormac!’ I say, nearly shouting by this point. ‘Please explain what the absolute fuck you are talking about!’
And then he says something earth-shattering.
‘Juliet’s parents kicked her out,’ he says. ‘She’s had a horrible relationship with them for years, but her refusing to do law at uni was, like, the final straw. You know her parents are big-time lawyers, right? And so are her older siblings? So her parents just kicked her out, said she could make her own way. She’s living with her nan permanently right now.’ Mac shakes his head. ‘It’s really fucked her up. You really didn’t know about that?’
No.
No, I didn’t.
‘She’s, like, all alone in the world.’
I get flashes of conversations. Me complaining about my mum to her on the train. Juliet’s expression as I got off the phone with my dad. Her trying to tell me something, again and again and again, but me changing the subject, bringing up The Ark; always, always talking about The Ark instead of anything actually important.
‘Why … didn’t I know that?’ I say, my voice hoarse.
‘Maybe you never asked,’ says Mac, but I’m already standing up, yanking my rucksack open and digging around in there, searching for my phone, because I need to call her. I need to call and tell her I’m sorry and we don’t have to talk about The Ark any more, we can talk about this, she can tell me, God, I’m so sorry—
But my hand closes round something else instead.
Jimmy’s knife.
‘Can you just step back a little bit for me, Jimmy? That’s it. Yep, just back a little bit. There we go. Need to make sure you stay in shot in the aerial camera.’
TV studios are always much, much smaller than they look on TV. Much too hot under the lights.
We run through our numbers a couple of times while the sound team adjust microphones and instruments and sound boards and other things I don’t know the name of. We’re performing ‘Joan of Arc’, obviously, and also a cover of ‘All The Things She Said’ by t.A.T.u, which is one of our favourite songs, but in the first sound check I forget the second-verse lyrics, and in the second sound check I get the ‘Joan of Arc’ chord sequence all muddled up. When we’re done, Rowan mouths ‘You okay?’ at me. I never normally get music stuff wrong.
We’re not recording until eleven so there’s time for a short break after the sound checks, when we’re introduced to the host. When we get to our dressing room Lister immediately starts rummaging through the drinks they provided, but when he discovers there’s no alcohol, he just sits down in a chair and doesn’t move.
Rowan and I don’t say anything, but from the look on Rowan’s face, I think he might know what I know. About Lister probably being an alcoholic.
We’ll have to deal with that at some point.
When we have time.
We get called back into the studio half an hour later. Apparently there was some fault with the microphones during the sound check and they need us to do it again.
We play ‘All The Things She Said’ once through, then stand and wait while the sound techs are fiddling about with buttons and wires. I glance to one side at Rowan. He’s spaced out, staring into the air. Holding his guitar like a soldier with a gun against his chest.
He looks worse than he has all week.
Sometimes I look at Rowan and can’t remember what he used to look like. We were in primary school when we met. We were placed next to each other in class and told to learn five facts about the person sitting next to you. All I remember about Rowan’s was that his favourite band was Duran Duran. All he remembers about mine was that I’d never broken a bone.
He had rimless glasses and short tight curls. His jumper was way too big for him. As soon as we both learnt that we each wanted to be in a band we were best friends.
The boy next to me now isn’t anything like that boy. Not bright-eyed and excited to tell me about the new guitar he got for his birthday. Not dragging me to the music block to show me he could play the bassline for a Vaccines song. No laughter. No wonder.
We got what we wanted, in the end, though. Didn’t we?
We wanted to be in a band.
‘Where is Bliss?’ says Rowan, after several minutes of silence. He knows neither of us know. But he’s asking anyway.
Lister starts tapping out a quiet jazz beat on the drums.
‘Rowan,’ he says, which is weird, because he always calls Rowan ‘Ro’. ‘Do you really want to be with Bliss?’
Rowan snaps his head towards Lister, immediately agitated. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean, that you argue. Both of you. All the time.’
Rowan freezes. Then he turns away again.
I start pressing the buttons on my Launchpad in time with Lister’s beat. It isn’t on, so it doesn’t make any sound apart from rhythmic clicks.
‘I do love her,’ he says.
‘So?’ says Lister.
‘I just … wish there was a way for us to be together like normal people,’ says Rowan. ‘Without … you know. All this.’ He gestures around him at the studio. ‘And the new contract.’
‘You know we’ve got a bit of leeway with the new contract; we can negotiate—’ Lister begins, but Rowan interrupts him.
‘I know, but I want the new contract,’ he says. ‘It’s gonna spread our music worldwide. But Bliss … our relationship … this is just the price of fame.’
Lister chuckles and lowers his head. ‘So dramatic.’
Rowan starts plucking a few notes in time with my button-pressing and Lister’s beat.
‘One day we’ll be able to do what we want,’ says Rowan.
‘When’s that?’ I ask.
‘One day,’ says Rowan.
Lister starts singing under his breath.
‘And when he gets to heaven,’ he sings – words I don’t know, and a tune that goes somehow perfectly with the chords Rowan is making up on the spot – ‘to Saint Peter he will tell: One more soldier reporting, sir. I’ve served my time in hell.’
‘Can we have “Joan of Arc” one more time, then, lads?’ shouts someone from the sound board.
We stop jamming and I turn my Launchpad on.
‘It’s contract-signing time,’ says Cecily, slamming several copies of the contract down on the table in the middle of our dressing room. ‘Who needs a pen?’
‘Hold on, I thought we were doing this after the recording?’ asks Rowan, confused.
‘No, babe. Fort Records cancelled our meeting later, so they want the contracts posted ASAP. Might as well get it out of the way now.’
I pick up a copy of the contract from the table and flick through it. It looks just as garbled and dramatic as it did when I last looked through it. All the less favourable bits keep catching my eye, all the bits about us having to do longer tours and more publicity. It’s all just more. It’s so big that we can’t control it any more.
It’s like The Ark isn’t even ours any more. It’s just a brand. Not real.
I look up and Rowan already has a pen in his hand and is swirling his name along the dotted line of his copy. His face is blank.
‘Jim
my?’
I turn and find Cecily holding a biro out to me. I look at the pen.
‘You okay, babe?’ she asks, looking me directly in the eyes. I can’t remember when I last looked her in the eyes. She might be the mum of the band, but sometimes I feel like I barely know her.
‘Erm,’ I say.
The pen. I need to take the pen and sign my name and sign my life away.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.
I look back at Rowan. He’s chucked the contract away, leant back in his chair and closed his eyes.
‘Erm …’
Lister is flicking through his copy, frowning and shaking his head, tapping his pen against his forehead.
More. It’s all more. So big I can’t hold on to it any more. So big that it’s not ours any more. And what will we get in place of that? Lies. More lies. More fake smiles and forced interviews and fans that will lap up the lies and take photos of us and stalk us and hate us–
‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I say.
Cecily withdraws the pen. She suddenly looks concerned. It’s an expression I don’t recall seeing on her before. ‘Okay. Don’t be long.’
I splash some cold water onto my face before realising that I’ve already had my make-up done. Whoops.
I think I’m losing it.
Going off the wall.
Is this why celebrities eventually get addicted to drugs? Because it all gets a bit too much?
Sometimes I think about taking drugs. Sometimes I think it might help.
When I see Lister smoke and drink, I know it’s bad, but I understand why he does it. It’s so he doesn’t have to think.
I hate thinking.
The bathroom door swings open and Lister enters the room. He does a little double-take at seeing me standing there with a wet face, but then smiles and says, ‘We seem to keep meeting in bathrooms, don’t we?’
I chuckle. ‘We do.’
‘I’m not here to assault you this time.’
‘You didn’t assault me. You just misjudged. You stopped when I said no.’
‘Well, I didn’t exactly ask for permission, did I?’
