by Anne Thomas
That sinking feeling I'd felt in my stomach only got worse, until I just felt sick. Really sick. By the next morning – after the sleepover, which just involved a lot of giggling, shrieking, and eating chocolate as we made our way through numerous horror films and ended with my mother storming into the room at five in the morning to tell us to go to sleep – I realised that the sick feeling in my belly wasn't just an after effect of too much chocolate and not enough fluids. No, it was a feeling of apprehension.
And that feeling of apprehension was about to be proved right.
*Bonsoir, Billie. Je présente mes excuses pour mon fiancé. Il est juste un peu plus de protection Nerys.
Chapter 16: Can't Do This Anymore
The next morning, I woke to find Grimm snoozing on my forehead. My father was peering into the living room, looking somewhat wary, and he backed out of the room without speaking one word. A little light streamed in through the gaps in the curtains and the TV was blaring, stuck on some music channel we must have put on very late in the night.
Around me, nearly everyone else (except for Louis, Adam and Ann) was stirring. "Ugh, my head hurts," Sharon moaned, clutching her forehead as she kicked her sleeping bag, which was tangled around her legs.
"I feel really hungry," Elisha spoke up, smacking her lips. She was already on her feet, a vision in bright pink hot pants and a bright yellow vest top.
I sat up quickly, Grimm falling off my head with a disgruntled meow. I was on one of the inflatable mattresses that took up most of the floor space. I was sharing said mattresses – and an assortment of quilts, sleeping bags and blankets – with Gareth, Billie, Siân, Ann and Beth. Elisha had spent the night curled up on my father's armchair, while Louis and Sharon occupied the two sofas. John had slept on the space of floor directly in front of the TV, while Adam had slept on the floor, wedged in between one of the mattresses and the sofa that Louis had slept on. It hadn't been one of the most comfortable nights, but it hadn't been too bad either.
Apart from the fact I felt kind of sick for most of it, and that Billie barely even looked at me for entirety of the sleepover. But he had said that we'd talk about it the next day, so I was feeling kind of hopeful.
Kind of.
"Someone wake the rest of them up," Siân said loudly, aiming a kick towards Ann. Ann awoke with a jerk, red hair sticking up all over the place.
"Where am I?" she mumbled thickly, rubbing her eyes. "Where are my glasses?"
"You're at my house," I informed her helpfully, kicking the mass of blankets and so on off me. "I assume you're glasses are at home."
Elisha launched herself on top of Louis, with a loud shriek of, "I'M HUNGRY!" He let out a startled yell before toppling off the sofa, dragging Elisha down with him; they landed on top of Adam. Adam didn't move, or anything, but after a few stunned moments as Louis and Elisha lay there, limbs knotted together, he finally spoke. "What the fuck," he said. "Whoever the hell that is, get your arse out of my face!"
Elisha leaped off him like she'd just been burnt, her face flushing. She stumbled backwards over the inflatable mattress, stumbled over Siân's leg and went flying down on top of me. Billie dodged out of the way. I was just complaining, quite loudly, when my father ducked his head back into the room.
"I've got to go to work, princess," he said to me, "But I made you all a plate of toast and a pot of tea."
A pot of tea? I thought. I hadn't even realised we had a teapot. I tipped Elisha off my lap and got to my feet, wobbling precariously on the mattress.
"Thanks, Dad," I said, sending a grin in his direction. He just stared at me, before letting out a bark of laughter and shutting the door behind him as he left.
Around me, one by one, my friends were beginning to laugh as well.
"Look in the mirror," Siân coughed out. I spun around (the best I could, that is, without tripping over Billie) and caught sight of myself in the mirror. My hair was all tangled and knotted, sticking up about a mile from my head and in every direction; and for some reason; two brightly coloured sweets were caught amongst the knots. Brow furrowing, I tore the sweets from my head and threw them at the floor.
"What the hell," I grumbled.
"There were a few bowls of sweets on the mattress," Billie explained, not looking at me. "I guess they must have tipped." He silently handed me a large brush, which had been passed to him by Sharon. She smiled at me.
Gratefully, I took the brush and dragged it through my hair until it was more or less fit for public, and stumbled across the mattresses to hand the brush back to Sharon, who shoved it back in her overnight bag.
"I'm going to get some toast," I called over my shoulder, dragging the door open and stepping into the hallway.
In the dining room, my two older brothers nursed cups of coffee and glowered at us as we trooped through to the kitchen.
"Stupid teenagers," Pete grumbled. "Hell, I wasn't that noisy when I was their age..."
I swatted at him as I passed, and Elisha shot a rare frown in his direction. "The films were scary!" she informed him, sounding very much like a petulant child. "That was why I was screaming so much."
We all crowded into the kitchen, where a large plate piled high with toast sat on the kitchen table. Next to it was a glass teapot I'd never seen before in my life, filled with dark amber tea.
I crossed the kitchen to the cooker and reached upwards, pulling a selection of plates from the rack. I placed them on the table beside the plate of toast and then bent down to get some mugs from the cupboard. Gareth removed his green mug with blue dots on from its hook underneath the plate rack.
"So, um, just help yourself to toast, I guess," I shrugged, dashing over to the fridge to get out the milk. "We only have full-fat milk, is that okay with everyone?"
Everyone except for Siân let out a noise of assent.
"What, Siân?" I asked with a roll of my eyes, placing the bottle down on the table.
"It's full-fat," she explained.
"I know. I just said that." I sighed heavily and watched Elisha as she grabbed a lot of toast and put it on her choice of plate.
"Well, I only drink skimmed," Siân sniffed, carefully arranging two slices of toast on her plate. I rolled my eyes again and sniffed right back.
"Well, that's tough?" I suggested with a tiny smile. Siân scowled in my direction and pouted, and finally muttered something along the lines of "Okay."
Everyone stocked up on toast and poured out their tea. Gareth even got the biscuit tub down and there was a small argument over Hobnobs and chocolate digestives before Ann swept in and put the tub away before Billie started throwing Hobnobs in John's face.
They all filed out of the kitchen, leaving me and Ann stood alone as I reached up to get down my Rat Pack mug from above the cooker. Ann was slowly stirring sugar into her tea, and watching me with wary eyes.
"What?" I asked, pouring tea into my mug.
"Be careful when you talk to Billie," she said bluntly. "I don't want you to get hurt." Grasping her mug by the handle, she picked up her plate and waltzed out of the room.
I joined them all about a minute later. They'd arranged themselves all over the dining room – sat at the table, on the window seat, on the tiny sofa, and my mother was perched on the computer chair. I hunkered down onto the floor next to Billie.
While everyone else chattered on – mostly talking to my mother about the night before – I remained mostly silent, eating my toast. Billie barely spoke a word either. When he stood up to put his pots in the kitchen, Ann sent me a look, which I knew was a hint to follow him and talk, so I did.
I found him dumping bread crusts into the paper bin.
"Wrong bin," I said, placing my plate and cup onto the table and crossing the kitchen. I put my hands over his and stilled them, moving them over to the normal bin. "That's for paper and cardboard," I explained, "And that one is for bottles. This one is for everything else."
He didn't answer, instead preferring to stop and pick the offending crusts
out of the paper bin and drop them into the correct one.
"So, not a fan of crusts?" I asked, pulling myself up onto the table. "You know, they make your hair curly."
The corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. "I don't need any help with that," he pointed out, placing his plate into the washing up bowl and then washing his hands. I smiled, eyeing his very curly hair.
"True." I picked at the hem of my pyjama top, and then spoke again. "About Glyn..."
"Hmm?" He prompted as my words trailed off. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared through the kitchen window, looking out onto the garden.
"He came over when I was getting ready yesterday," I explained, hesitantly. "He wanted to talk about us, actually."
"Yeah..."
"But my brothers wouldn't let him talk to me alone so they were there the whole time," continued. "And, basically, he doesn't think we're real. He thinks we're pretending to make him jealous."
"Well, we're not trying to make him jealous," Billie said, a touch of bitterness in his voice, and I pushed my hair out of my eyes. "So what did you do?" he asked, turning around to face me.
"Well, I lied, of course," I assured him. "I told him that we were a real, bona fide couple. I mean, it's not true but..."
His jaw tightened, and he swore, quite loudly, arms dropping to his sides. "Shit," he said, eyes narrowed, "I actually... can't do this anymore. Seriously."
"What?" My brow furrowed and the sick feeling returned to my stomach.
"This." He gestured between him and me, shaking his head. "I can't keep on pretending that we're a couple."
"Well, no offence, Billie, but it was your idea in the first place," I snapped, pushing myself off the table. I grabbed my pots and they clanked loudly as they clashed together. "So I'm sorry if you can't be bothered –"
He laughed, and I winced. "You don't get it, do you?" he said, voice sounding angry, bitter, sad – and probably a whole load of other emotions that just made me feel even more ill.
"No," I responded darkly.
"Whatever." Billie began to stride towards the door. "When you realise why I can't do this anymore, Nerys, come and find me, because right now... We're over." And he opened the kitchen door and vanished.
I stood there, mouth gaping. Dimly, I heard him asking if it was all right if he used the bathroom, and my mother tell him that it was. Slowly, pots still in my hands, I walked towards the open door and stepped into the living room.
Everyone looked concerned, while Adam and Louis – closest to the kitchen – looked sympathetic. Ann's face was expressionless.
"Billie's going soon," Adam told me. "He's just gone upstairs to get washed and stuff."
I nodded, silently. I didn't trust myself to speak. Adam scooted over on the window seat and pulled me down next to him. I didn't resist.
"Are you okay, sis?" Pete asked. "Did he do something? Because..."
"Peter," my mother said in a warning voice. "Don't."
Now I felt like I was going to cry, so I stood up again, holding up my pots as evidence for why I had to leave the room. "I just...you know." And I hurried into the kitchen, letting the door bang shut behind me.
Once in the kitchen, I dumped my pots into the washing up bowl with a loud crash, and then braced my hands on the worktop, looking down at the swirling, dirty water. Why the hell are you so upset,my mind chided, you don't even like him like that!
I heard the door open and then someone hugged me from behind. Looking down, I saw it was Elisha, but Siân and Sharon and Beth quickly joined in on the group hug. Ann watched us from where she was stood by the table, and then she looped her arms around my neck too. "I'm sorry, Nerys," she murmured into my ear, and then I let my eyes close and my tears fall.
As anyone could have predicted, things had ended badly.
Naturally.
Chapter 17: A Bloody Nightmare
Returning to school the following Monday was pretty hellish, to say the least. At first, no one seemed to acknowledge that anything had happened, apart from my friends, that is. And then, at break, Billie just wasn't there. He wasn't hanging around with us, and neither were his friends. The same happened at dinner; he wasn't there either.
By the next day, however, people seemed to have worked out what had happened. Gwen and company came up to me during break and started quizzing me about it; Adam and Ann got rid of them pretty quickly before they could even unleash their venom, but it was written all over their faces. They found it funny, and they were just waiting to say, "I told you so."
And shortly after they left, Nichola and Kerry appeared to offer me their condolences. Or, you know, something along those lines. "I can smack him for you, if you like," Kerry offered, chewing noisily on gum.
"Hmm, she's good at that," Nichola informed me, examining her talons. They'd changed since last time – they were now bright pink and looked even more false than they had during the incident with Gwen. "Seriously though, Nesta, Mully would tear him apart for you if you wanted."
"Um, well, thanks for the offer," I said, smiling, "but it's okay."
"If you're sure," Kerry said as they reluctantly walked away. "But the offer still stands for Gwen, if you're interested."
"She might not be," Siân piped up, "But, you know, if you want you can kick their heads in on my behalf."
Kerry eyed Siân up and down. "Sure, but it'll cost –"
"No!" I interrupted loudly. "It's fine, Kerry, seriously. No need to, uh, kick anyone's heads in. Trust me."
I'd already gone through all of this with Adam. Out of all my friends, he'd seemed the most pissed off about Billie breaking up with me, partly because he seemed to blame it on himself. "It was my idea," he told me, "I was the one who said you should go out with someone because of Glyn, and now he's upset you –"
"I'm not upset," I'd insisted in response.
"You cried," Adam replied flatly. "That's bad enough."
I was touched that he felt that way but I still felt like everyone was overreacting. After all, it wasn't like we were a real couple. I'd been saying that to everyone, until I was blue in the face, but no one took me seriously. They all got little 'know-it-all' looks on their faces, like they knew something I didn't, but I had other things to worry about.
Primarily, that meant Glyn. I mean, sure, I was worried about school stuff. Right at that time I was stuffing my head with lots of things – Spanish verbs, science facts about batteries and physics and stuff like that, and lines for the play we were doing at the end of the Autumn Term; and on top of that, I was trying to complete two essays for my English coursework and another essay for History. What fun.
But on top of that, I had Glyn to concern myself with. As soon as it got out that Billie had ended things with me – or whatever you want to call it – Glyn came crawling out of the woodwork again, making many attempts to get me to go out with him, just like he'd done before. It seemed that Adam's suspicions had been correct in the sense that Glyn left me alone when I had a boyfriend but reverted back to his old ways the second Billie was out of the picture.
"I just knew you and him weren't meant to be," he gushed, following me to my History lesson (which was pointless as he had Law in the portacabins which were not only outside but on the other side of the school ground). "You just didn't fit together, you're too good for him, so, would you want to go out with me on Saturday?"
I opened my mouth to reply, but Ann materialised next to me with a bark of, "Push off, Newell."
He scampered away pretty quickly, as people tend to do when Ann loses her temper with them. She might be a geek, but she's a scary one when really, fully irritated.
Billie learnt this, on the Wednesday after Halloween. He, along with most of his friends, had managed to avoid us all on Monday and Tuesday, but after leaving a History lesson just before dinner, we ran into them on the Humanities corridor, leaving one of the Geography classrooms.
They walked towards us, and us towards them, but there was kind of a delayed reaction. I
spotted them first, and Joe West spotted us first, but he didn't really let on. Ann and Adam noticed pretty quickly, and before any of us could stop her, Ann stormed right up to them and collared Billie, smacking him quite hard into the wall. She muttered something into his ear and then released him, stomping off down the hallway while he looked more than a little bewildered.
Shyly, I manoeuvred myself around them all and hurried after Ann, while Adam, Siân and Beth followed; shooting Billie irritated looks as they went.
I pestered Ann over the rest of the week to tell me what she'd said to Billie, but she always, always refused. She said it wasn't important, because he hadn't paid any attention to what she'd said. This just made me feel even more curious.
A week later, I found out.
It was after English on the Wednesday, as we all filed out of the classroom after the bell had rung for break. He was lounging against the wall opposite the classroom door, hands in his pockets and eyes fixed on the floor. His eyes looked up as we began to exit, chattering quite loudly about the work we had just been doing during the lesson.
"Nerys," he said, voice quiet but still carrying quite clearly through the corridor, "Can I speak to you?"
I hesitated, but then Ann rested a hand on the small of my back and pushed me gently in his direction. "Go," she whispered, and I heard a kind of smile in her voice.
I nodded and walked towards him, and we began to walk down the corridor, side by side, in the opposite direction to everyone else.
"Ann's pretty scary sometimes," he said conversationally, while I tugged at my hair. "I wasn't expecting her to slam me up against the wall like that. I nearly shit myself."
"Mm," I responded, and he looked at me, wincing.
"I'm sorry," he said abruptly, coming to a halt at the end of the corridor. "That's what I wanted to say. I'm sorry that I upset you and I'm sorry I ever...Well, I'm just..."
