by Holly Bourne
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I got carried away.” His voice was quite slurred and I tilted my head, smiling at him a little. Britain’s binge-drinking culture was rubbing off on him. It made him ten million times more adorable, but my kitchen was still wrecked.
“Right, everyone, help me clean up.”
People kicked into action well enough. I dug out more kitchen roll from under the sink, and handed it out. “Rip some off, and THEN mop the floor,” I instructed, looking pointedly at Sylvia.
Some of the boys put the table the right way up again, others moved bits of paper around the floor using their feet.
“Umm, Amber?” Evie asked. “I’m sorry your kitchen is destroyed and all, but is it okay if I just watch the clean-up?”
I nodded. “That’s fine. Actually, while I’m busy with this, do you mind going and checking on Lottie? She’s asleep in my room, but Will just left her there.” I ripped off a bin liner and collected up some discarded cups.
“He just left her, like, unconscious?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I know. He’s playing poker upstairs. I think…”
Someone asked me for more kitchen roll and I got distracted by the clean-up. I was just crouching on the balls of my feet, soaking up the last of it, when I heard the thud of the kitchen door being flung back on its hinges.
“CAREFUL!” I yelled. “I don’t want my dad to gut me…” I stood up to see who was breaking my house, and there Lottie stood, her hair all on end, her face red.
“Lottie, you’re up. I—”
“You’re LEAVING?” she yelled, just as Evie appeared in a fluster behind her. “You’re FUCKING LEAVING?”
Sleeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Lovely sleeeeppppppp.
Zzzzzzzz…
Oufft.
A giant weight fell onto me, crushing my legs.
“OUCH.”
“Sorry, we didn’t know anyone was in here.”
I opened my eyes in the dimness to see Ethan and some girl, still half-sitting on me.
“Get off me!” I demanded, my legs feeling like they were turning cartoon-flat. “Jeez!”
Ethan and the random girl laughed and got up. The strap of her top was around her shoulder, and her skirt was all hitched up around her waist. She didn’t even seem that embarrassed as she pulled it down.
“What are you doing in bed anyway?” Ethan asked, readjusting his jumper, which was up around his armpits – probably about to be pulled off, until they fell on top of me.
“I’ve had a very hard day, I’m just having a rest…” I stumbled, feeling quite out of it. Where was I again? Oh yeah. Amber’s party. What was it again? Oh yes, New Year’s Eve. My mouth felt very dry… Oh yeah, I’d been drinking. Quite a bit.
Had I fallen asleep?
And, hang on, Will…I saw Will! He put me to bed. Where the heck was he?
Ethan and the random stumbled back towards the door – the music got louder and then quieter again as they pushed each other out onto the landing.
“Let’s try another room,” I heard Ethan say. I probably should’ve tried to stop them but I wanted to finish this lovely nap. I closed my eyes again…
But I couldn’t sleep. Will. He’d just left me here? Alone? He hadn’t sat by my bedside and stroked my hair and whispered that he loved me as I slept it off? Or, at the very least, thought Fuck you, Lottie, you’ve got wankered and now you’ve ruined my evening on the inside, but on the outside still sat and looked after me? That’s what you DO in a couple. God. There was that first weekend visit to Royal Holloway when he’d decided to try a space cake and spent the entire evening vomiting in the bathroom. I’d had to meet most of his housemates over the top of his head down the loo, but I’d STAYED with him all night. Even though my eyeliner had been totally on point that evening, and everyone knows you shouldn’t let perfectly-applied cat flicks go to waste.
I huddled my legs up to my chest, falling over onto my side, trying not to cry. Why was everything going wrong? I took out my phone to check the time. Jeez – it was less than an hour to midnight. Was Will just going to leave me unconscious when the bell struck twelve? I didn’t know what bell it was really, but I knew people who loved each other tended to like to be around each other when the random bell did whatever it does. I took a selfie to see how gross I looked, and the flash of the flash made me see stars.
When the stars had stopped, there was a pretty disastrous face staring out of my phone.
“Uh God,” I whispered. “Will, I now understand why you didn’t want to stroke this hair.”
I sat up, my head swooshing. I needed make-up. Stat. I would make myself look incredible and find Will and apologize for being a drunken mess and not bring up the other week, and the clock would strike twelve and the bell would toll and we’d kiss like we were in the movies and everything would be okay again. New year, new start. Maybe my New Year’s resolution could be to try harder with my housemates? Or stop lying to everyone about how happy I was?
Was I doing that?
Maybe.
Oooh, I bet Amber’s amazing light-reflecting moisturizer was in here somewhere. The really posh one you can only get in America. She never lets me borrow it, but, right now, if I could ask her, she’d definitely say yes, if she could see the state of my face.
I rolled onto the floor and got up from all fours. Then made my way over to her dressing table where she keeps all her junk.
God, Amber was a slob! There was crap EVERYWHERE. Where was that bottle? It was yellow, I thought. Oooh, perfume. I picked it up and sprayed some on. Before remembering I already had perfume on. Hmm. I looked at the bottle. It had hints of vanilla, and my perfume was citrus. Citrus and vanilla sort of went, didn’t they? I knocked a few things over – “Whoops” – and bent down to pick them up, hoping I’d not smashed anything.
A stupid little bottle had rolled under the bed. I sighed and got down clumsily to reach for it, praying I didn’t discover one of Amber’s infamous plates of mouldy sandwich.
Where was the bottle? What was my hand touching? Hang on, there was all this paper in the way. I grabbed it and pulled it out. That was better. I reached back under and my fingers grasped the cool glass of the pot. Got it! I was just withdrawing my hand triumphantly, when I glanced down at the stack of papers and saw…
We are delighted to confirm your place at Rhode Island School of Design. Attached is all the course information, as well as the forms we need you to fill in regarding college accommodation. As an international student, we invite you to start two weeks before term begins to take part in our “cultural introduction” program, where you can meet other international students and orientate yourself…
What?
I put the letter down. Picked it back up again.
WHAT?
Amber?
Rhode Island?
Rhode Island isn’t in England. It’s in America.
CONFIRM YOUR PLACE?
This wasn’t just an offer. This was a confirmation.
Amber had a confirmed place at a university in America?
Amber was leaving?
Leaving us?
Tears sprang to my eyes instantly, my throat feeling coarse and hollow. My stomach felt so sick, so quickly, that I had to sit down on the floor and clutch at it.
She can’t go. It’s so far! We need her. It’s us. Why is she going? Is it to be with Kyle? It must be. WHAT SORT OF SHIT FEMINIST IS SHE?
She can’t go.
She can’t.
What am I going to do?
What is EVIE going to do? I mean, she’s the one with OCD, and Amber thinks it’s okay just to leave the country? When Evie can’t fly?
The shock and horror was quickly replaced by something else… Anger.
Not anger – rage.
My fists curled in, my hands shook. She can’t go, it’s so selfish, why why why why? Blood flung itself around my body.
Then I had a new thought.
She was leaving and she hadn’t even bothered to tell us?
We were her BEST FRIENDS and she’d not told us? Not even discussed it with us? Not talked it through? Seen what we thought? Seen if we MIND?
I stood up. Amber couldn’t just leave. She couldn’t just not tell us! What was she thinking? Where was she?
Lottie was still drunk, but that didn’t stop her blowing my world into chunks. Bleedy, oozing chunks of horror.
“You’re fucking leaving?” she yelled in Amber’s face, with such force I imagined Amber’s hair being blown back.
Leaving? LEAVING?
No no no no no no no no no no no no.
But Amber’s face, oh God, it told me everything I didn’t want to know. She went red, her eyes filling with tears. I saw her blink them away.
“How…how?”
“How did I find out?” Lottie yelled, waving her arms around like a maniac. “I found your confirmation letter. In your room. Where you’d all abandoned me apparently.”
“We were just coming to get you.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Lottie snapped. “What’s going on? You’re leaving?”
There was quietness between us against the loud chaos of the surrounding party as Amber gulped, then said, “I’m leaving, yes. I got a place at Rhode Island School of Design. In America.”
BAD THOUGHT
Nonononononononononononononononononono
BAD THOUGHT
She can’t. She’s all I have. She can’t, she can’t.
My body took over; it grabbed the steering wheel off me and twisted it until I was skidding and screeching in the direction of total and complete panic.
“Amber?” I managed to stammer.
She’d crossed her arms all defensively, her prickles up.
“And when were you planning on telling us?” Lottie demanded, her pupils all over the place. Still wasted, though the anger seemed genuine. It was carving through her intoxication, sobering her up enough to say lots of things she actually meant rather than drunk-meant. “Were you going to bother telling us at all?”
“Of course—”
But Lottie cut her off. “Or were you just going to leave a note? Hi, girls. Just to let you know I’ve FUCKING EMIGRATED, tootles for now. Laters.” Lottie’s arms were whirling all over the place, like she was a drunk windmill. People in the kitchen started to stare. “Or were you just going to send a postcard, with Guess what? written on the back?”
“Oh, you can talk, Lottie!” Amber’s voice trebled in volume, matching Lottie’s now. “You’ve only gone to London, it’s practically DOWN THE ROAD, and yet we never hear from you, do we, Evie?”
It wasn’t a question I was supposed to answer.
BAD THOUGHT
Amber can’t leave.
BAD THOUGHT
Everyone is leaving.
BAD THOUGHT
I’m being left behind because I’m boring and broken and too scared to go away anywhere, and they’ll forget me and I’ll be alone for ever.
GOOD THOUGHT
You won’t be alone though, Evie. You’ve got Oli…
BAD THOUGHT
You’ll be stuck with Oli, with no one to talk to about it.
WORSE THOUGHT
You can’t talk to your friends about it anyway.
Amber was still yelling, on the defensive. Her default setting. “So don’t you have a go at me, Lottie. What excuse do you have? For never coming home? For never inviting us there?”
Lottie’s mouth fell open. “What? What the hell? I see you guys all the time.”
Amber laughed bitterly. “No you don’t! You’re only with us this Christmas because all your London friends aren’t here. Don’t pretend that’s not true.”
Lottie’s mouth was still open. She closed it. Opened it again. “That’s not true,” she whispered, so quietly I could hardly hear it.
It was just then that Kyle arrived – back from taking the bin bags out. He scooped his arm around Amber and asked, “Hey, whatsup?”
I wasn’t handling it well.
The part of me that wasn’t TOTALLY ANGRY could see that. But that part was hiding in the corner, uninterested in taking part in this conversation.
I say conversation – it was a fight.
How did Lottie find out? That girl – that bloody girl! I swear she’s the most irritating, know-it-all, smug, interfering… Oh God, I didn’t want it to come out like this. Evie’s face! She looked like everything was falling apart. And I guess for her, it was. But I didn’t have time to process that, because Lottie was still drunk and yelling in my face.
Kyle’s arms curled around me, squeezing me, asking what was up.
“I’ll tell you whatsup,” Lottie said. God, her voice was hateful. What had happened to her? Why was she being like this? “Your girlfriend is apparently leaving her entire life behind to be with a boy. Some feminist!”
Okay – now it really was a fight.
“Woah!” Kyle held up his arm, casting a protective spell around me. “Lottie, calm down.”
Uh oh. He’d told Lottie to calm down.
She ignited.
“DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME TO CALM DOWN, I’M ALLOWED TO NOT CALM DOWN, FUCKING PATRIARCHY ALWAYS TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN…”
While I yelled over her, “How DARE you make this about feminism! Do you not think I’m capable of making a decision for me? What sort of friend are you? Aren’t we supposed to support each other’s choices? I mean, HOW DARE YOU?”
And Kyle kept going, “Woah woah woah, I didn’t mean it like that. Both of you, come on, let’s take some time. Let’s go outside…breathe, breathe… Evie? Are you okay?” Evie was flat-out crying, and part of me felt so sorry for her, but the other angry part of me was just SO ANGRY and sad and pissed off because I was scared to leave, and I needed their support and I couldn’t believe I was leaving them, because I loved them, but I HATED LOTTIE and, and…
Bloody Will crashed through the kitchen door, holding a bottle of beer. He saw the state of everything and said, “What the hell is going on?”
Why was Amber yelling at me?
She was the one LEAVING, she was the one who HADN’T EVEN TOLD US.
And now she’s spouting all this crap about me going off to London?
I mean, what?
This was going all wrong, and my mouth was SO dry, and, what?!
What does she mean I’ve just buggered off to London? That I don’t invite them? Has it occurred to them I’m TOO EMBARRASSED to invite them to London? To show them just how much my housemates hate me. And how alone I feel, even with the column and the WEP and all the good stuff – that none of it counts, because nobody seems to like me that much?
I was so angry. I was angry at Amber for leaving. And I was angry at tonight for going so wrong. And I was angry at Will for not having sex with me and then leaving me alone in the dark. And I was angry at the world and the future and growing up and becoming an adult and all the other things that just do not turn out how they’re supposed to.
And then Kyle is here, telling me to CALM DOWN?
I can’t really remember what I said. Just yelling, and flailing, and Evie was crying and I felt TERRIBLE. Because Amber was leaving.
She can’t leave.
What are we going to do without her?
HER BIG ANGRY FACE THAT I HATE?
I know, I’ll keep yelling at her and Kyle, and insulting them until they agree to change their minds. Perfect plan – perfect!
And then Will was there.
Will. Swearing, and clutching a beer.
“Will!” I yelled, and I put my arms down instantly. I didn’t want him to see I’d started a fight. I didn’t want him to see I was out of control. I’m not sure why. I mean, one of the reasons I loved Will was that he’d fallen in love with me for me – for angry, complicated, over-dramatic me.
Well, I thought he had.
Recently it’s seemed like it’s actually all those bits of me he silently wishes away.
“Lottie, what’s going on?”
> “Nothing to see here!” I said brightly, trying to stand in front of Amber and Kyle and a crying Evie.
“Oh, that’s just great,” Amber shouted from behind me. “Turn your back on this. Just scream in my face and then turn your back on this.”
Shh, Amber! I thought. Not now! Not when I need to impress Will!
“Lottie?” Will peered around my body to analyse the scene. “Seriously, what’s going on?” He didn’t sound interested, only annoyed. Oh God, I was annoying him. I couldn’t annoy him. Why am I always annoying people?
“Amber’s moving to America.” It was the first time Evie had spoken and her voice, her voice almost sobered me up. It was so sad, so quiet, so restrained. As usual, Evie wasn’t yelling or screaming or telling everyone off. She was always so much better – the peacekeeper, the chill one, even with everything.
“Oh.” Will pushed his glasses up his nose. “Right.”
“To be with her boyfriend,” I couldn’t help adding, in a high-pitched bitchy voice, glaring at Kyle.
“Stop it!” Amber screamed. “Have you even thought to ask me why I’m going? Because then I might actually tell you. Have you ever thought how hard it was for me to make this decision?”
Shit – the decision was made. She really was leaving…
“I couldn’t, could I?” I replied, not yelling because Will was watching and looking slightly bored…or maybe I was imagining it. “Because you DIDN’T TELL US.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“Well, it’s hard because you’re always so terribly busy in London.” She used the same bitchy voice as me.
I shook my head. I didn’t know what to think or feel. Everything was blurring. And on top of that, Will just turned and walked away. Walked away! I needed to sort things with him. I turned and followed him into the rest of the party.
“Lottie, don’t go,” Evie said. “It’s almost midnight!”
But I ignored her, and pushed through a group of people blocking my way. Trying to get to him.
We were left there, without her.
Amber laughed, quickly, sharply. “I can’t believe her. She just walks off, in the middle of an argument, to follow her boyfriend. And she tries to call ME a bad feminist?”
