by KE Payne
I drew in a long breath. “I think we’d be mad to let what happened at the pool ruin our friendship.”
“Friendship?” Alex asked. “Is that all you think this is?”
I bit at my lip and nodded. It seemed that lying was the best option.
“Tal, you must know by now how I feel about you,” Alex said. “That the feelings I have for you go way deeper than friendship.” Her face creased. “I thought you felt the same way.”
“I don’t know what I feel.” I turned and gripped the side of the balcony. “It’s like…Nicole all over again.”
“I told you before,” Alex said, “I’m not Nicole.”
“No,” I replied, “but I’m still the same Tally.” I looked at her. “I can still hurt you, just like I hurt Nicole.”
“You’d deny your feelings for me,” Alex said, “just because you think I’m going to get hurt?”
“I didn’t say I had feelings for you.” I didn’t want to say that, I honestly didn’t.
“So why did you kiss me?” Alex asked.
“I was confused.”
“That wasn’t a confused kiss,” Alex said. “I know the difference. You wanted to kiss me.” Our eyes held. “Just as much as I wanted to kiss you.”
“But it’s all impossible,” I said, trying to ignore the feeling Alex’s continued scrutiny of me was eliciting. “You and I will be impossible.”
“Only because you’re making it that way.”
Alex paused.
“Just tell me what you want,” she eventually said.
“I don’t want…any of this,” I said. “I don’t want to have feelings for you. I don’t want…” I sighed. “I just want all this to be better again,” I said, gazing out across the courtyard. “That’s all I want right now.”
Alex touched my arm. I turned back and faced her.
“So tell me what I have to do to make all this better,” she said.
“You have to not like me.” I held her gaze.
“I can’t do that.”
“You have to, Alex,” I said, moving her hand from my arm, “and the sooner you figure that out, the sooner we can move on from all this.”
*
She didn’t say another word after that. She looked at me awhile, almost as if she wanted to say more, but instead, left the balcony, slamming the fire exit closed behind her and leaving me standing alone outside.
The fresh air was welcome. I stood for a good five minutes, letting the air cool my skin, knowing I should go back into the party, but not quite feeling ready to do so yet. I held on to the side of the balcony and gazed up into the inky black sky, replaying my conversation with Alex back again to myself in my head. I’d said the right things, I was sure of it. Alex did have to not like me, just as much as I had to not like her. It was as simple as that. It would never work. We had to work together every day and to do that professionally, we had to keep our relationship platonic. I had to keep telling myself that over and over again. As I stared up, trying to count the sparse stars in the London sky, I really wished that a big gust of wind would come and take everything out of my hands and send it up into the sky, far away from me.
“What are you doing out here all alone?” Robyn’s head appeared round the side of the door. She walked unsteadily onto the balcony, threaded an arm round my shoulder, planted a kiss on my cheek, and muttered, “Loser.”
I could smell the alcohol from a good foot away.
“You’re having a good night.” I reached up and took her hand that was dangling loosely round me. “Had yourself some freebies?”
“We’re number one,” Robyn said, tightening her grip on my shoulder. “Cut me some slack.”
“Slack cut.” I laughed. “Sorry.”
“Why are you even sober?” Robyn asked. “We’re here to celebrate, aren’t we?”
With everything that had happened with Alex, I wondered if I’d forgotten that.
“You should take a leaf out of Brody’s book,” Robyn said, leaning against me for support, “and let your hair down.”
“Alex?”
“Yup.”
“Why?” I asked, “What’s she got to do with anything?”
“Who?”
“Alex.”
Robyn frowned and I could see she was trying her hardest to focus on my face.
“What?”
She was driving me mad.
“Alex,” I said. “You said I should take a leaf out of her book.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Robyn said, then puffed out her cheeks. “She came in from God knows where just now.” Her gaze drifted away.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Robyn!”
“Hey, I thought you said she didn’t drink?” Robyn jerked her head back to me.
“She doesn’t.”
“She does.” A slow grin escaped Robyn’s lips. “Downing shots in there.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Atta girl.”
“Alex doesn’t drink,” I said. “Never has done.”
“Yeah, right.”
I carefully removed Robyn’s arm from my shoulder and made for the door, holding it open so she could follow me back in. After helping her past the toilets and back up the stairs, and once I knew she was safely away from the stairwell, I left her and walked back towards the main part of the club.
It was still bursting. The music had been hitched up a notch, and as I made my way back towards the bar, past the heaving crowds, the bass of the song that was being played pummelled my chest. Lights flickered around me, making it difficult to make anyone out, and the DJ kept shouting out, eliciting cheers, which was making my head pound with confusion as I desperately looked around the floor, trying to find Alex.
I needed to apologize. I couldn’t leave things the way they were. If she was drinking, it was because of me. Because I rejected her, just like I’d rejected Nicole. I wasn’t about to let it happen again.
For someone drunk, she was really quiet. I eventually saw her, tucked away in the corner, leaning against the bar, with only Brooke standing next to her with her arm round her shoulder. When I approached her, Alex stood up straighter, turned, and looked right at me. She lifted the glass she was holding, shrugged, then knocked it back in one. All the time she did it, she kept her eyes on mine. When her glass was empty, it was filled again by the barman, without Alex even having to ask.
It was grotesque. Wrong. Alex wasn’t like this.
I stood next to Brooke and stared at Alex.
“You okay?” I lifted my chin to her.
“Fine.” Alex picked up her next drink. “You?”
I shot a look to Brooke, who pulled a face at me as if to say she had no idea either. Except I did have an idea. I knew full well why Alex was behaving like this.
The next drink went down. Another one arrived soon after. The barman was a jerk. If a story appeared in the next day’s papers, I’d know who to come looking for.
“Alex…” I put out my hand. “You want me to take you home?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
I looked around me, hoping that no one other than Brooke could see.
“Alex, you don’t drink.” I reached over and took the glass from her hand. “You need to stop this.”
She snatched the drink back from me, spilling some of it on the floor. “What are you,” she said, “my keeper?”
While Brooke looked on, Alex drank her shot back in one go.
“I said, didn’t I?” Robyn. I’d no idea she’d turned up. “You said”—she prodded me hard in the ribs—“that I was talking bollocks.”
I rubbed my side.
“Alex.” I held my hand out again. “Let me get you home.”
“What do you care?” Alex suddenly sounded sober. “What do you care about me?”
I cared.
“Alex, please.” I wished she’d take my hand.
“Don’t act like you give a shit about me,” Alex said, crossing her arms and tucking her h
ands underneath, “when we both know the truth.”
Robyn and Brooke were watching, so I took the coward’s way out. I pulled a confused face at them and acted like I didn’t know what Alex was talking about, and felt worse than I’d ever felt in my life.
I locked my eyes onto Alex, hoping she’d see my desperation. All it took was for one idiot to photograph her on their phone, and she’d be plastered all over the Internet within the hour, and with it her reputation would get a right kicking. I knew if I let her be demeaned like that, I’d never forgive myself.
I kept my hand held out until finally—thankfully—she took it. Once she did, I pulled her to me. She felt soft and loose, thanks mainly to the alcohol she’d consumed. I didn’t care. She was safe, she was quiet, and no one had seen apart from us three and the barman. Ed could deal with him later, I figured.
“I’ll see her home,” I said, still holding Alex. “Go and enjoy yourselves.”
“Let me.” Brooke approached me. “It’s cool.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to let Alex go, but before I could think about it too much, she’d been transferred from me to Brooke and was now leaning heavily against her, staring at me but not speaking.
Then she was gone.
Chapter Twenty-four
I didn’t stay on at the party after that. What was the point? Despite Robyn’s grumbling that we’d all abandoned her and that we’d miss the presentations, I said my goodbyes and caught a cab straight back to my apartment. As I sat in the back of the cab while it drove through London at one a.m., my mind tumbled over, replaying everything that had happened that night.
There were so many things I could have done differently. So many chances missed.
I leant my head against the cool of the cab’s window and watched the city lights as they coalesced; whites and oranges and reds became a blur as my driver made the most of the quieter night roads. I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked it, although I had no idea why I thought Alex would have texted me. She’d seemed incapable of anything, and I suddenly became worried that something bad might happen to her, so I rattled off a text to Brooke asking her to make sure Alex was okay.
By the time I’d put the key in my apartment door, Brooke had replied.
She’s fine. Don’t stress. Anyway, I’m going to stay at her apartment with her tonight x
The tears started flowing before I’d even gone in through the door.
*
I woke up the next day with a pounding head, which was ironic considering I’d only had a handful of champagnes the night before. Before any other thoughts had a chance to filter their way through my foggy mind—what the time was, what to eat for breakfast—Alex was already in there. Because she was always in there. I turned over and stretched under the duvet, pointing my toes until my muscles stung, then buried my head into my pillow, and lay like that for two or three minutes, listening to a light rain rap against my window.
I lifted myself up onto my elbow, reached out a woollen arm, and grabbed my phone from the cabinet to the side of my bed then switched it on, narrowing my eyes against its harsh light in the rainy gloom of my room.
Nine a.m.
There was a text too. From Brooke.
I flopped back down against the pillow and read it.
Sleeping beauty. LOL.
She’d sent a picture of Alex, asleep. I knew Alex would be furious if she found out, because I was sure I’d be just as annoyed if anyone did that to me.
It didn’t stop me from looking at her photo, though. Even asleep she was beautiful. Asleep and hung-over. She was lying on her side, her head sunk deeply into a pillow. Her thick eyelashes rested against her cheeks, and I stared at her closed eyes for the longest time, imagining how it would feel to be lying next to her right now, gazing at her. Alex’s hair was flopped over her eyes so that her fringe landed just above her eyelashes, and she looked so peaceful it was hard to connect the girl in the photo with the same girl that was rapidly heading out of control the night before.
I scrolled away from the photo, then sent a message to Brooke: You shouldn’t have photographed her.
I lay back and stared up at the spotlight on my ceiling, then felt my phone vibrate in my hand.
She’s already seen it, you numpty! And she’s totally cool with it x
Alex was awake. I imagined the pair of them, sitting in Alex’s apartment, talking about anything and everything. I held my phone up above my head and wrote, She okay this morning?
Brooke wouldn’t read that as, Did Alex talk while she was drunk last night? Would she?
Evidently not. A message came back saying, She’s fine. Bit quiet but she says she has the headache from hell, so not surprising. You up to much today? x
I let my hand flop back onto my stomach, phone still clutched in it, and let out a long breath. Was I up to much today?
Yes, stressing mostly.
*
“Lightweight.”
Robyn had invited herself round. Great. I’d planned my day off down to the last minute, and it hadn’t involved anything more arduous than a cheesy afternoon TV movie, a long soak in the bath, and my daily exercise to the pizza place downstairs. Now Robyn was here, looking as fresh as a daisy and taking the piss out of me because I’d had the audacity to leave the party before five a.m., which was when, as Robyn was now telling me in the minutest detail, she eventually fell out of Hares.
“So I’m a lightweight because…?” I asked.
She was stretched out on my sofa, legs dangling over the arm.
“Because people our age can usually make it a bit further past midnight than you did,” she said.
“It was past one.”
“Big shot.” Robyn pulled a face. “And then I come round here and find you still in your PJs watching some trashy film on Channel Five.”
“She’s been betrayed by her new husband,” I said, rolling a hand in the direction of the TV, “framed for a murder he did.”
The look of disdain on Robyn’s face was evident.
“Six months ago,” she said, “you would have been coming out of the club with me at six.” She threaded her hands behind her head. “Six months ago, you’d have been celebrating hitting our first number one single like there was no tomorrow.”
“I did celebrate,” I said. “I had champagne.”
“Woo-hoo.” Robyn lifted her hands up and shook them.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Take the piss.”
Robyn lifted her legs from the arm of my sofa and sat up straight.
“I’m here with you,” she said, gazing round my apartment, “Brooke is with Alex, and according to her, she’s as flat as you are.”
“What are you both?” I asked. “The mood mafia?”
“See, it’s comments like that,” Robyn said, looking at me, “that make me know everything isn’t okay at Tally Towers.”
I should have answered, but I didn’t.
“So what’s up with you and Alex?” she asked. “Still?”
I felt adrenaline prickle my chest.
“Nothing.” If I knew I didn’t sound convincing, then Robyn certainly wouldn’t be convinced.
“Try again,” she said.
I shook my head.
“Listen,” she said, “when I said to you the other day that you two need to sort your shit out, you said there was nothing to sort. Didn’t look like it from where I was last night.”
“It’s not like that.”
“So tell me what it is like.”
“I can’t.”
“You told me you and her were cool,” Robyn said. “You gave me a whole lot of bull about it being ‘Missing You’ that you weren’t cool with, but you recorded your vocals for it the other day, and we all agreed everything had worked out okay in the end.”
“It had. It did.”
“So?” Robyn pressed. “What’s your problem with her now?”
“I told you,” I said, objecting bein
g backed into a corner, “there is no problem.”
“Okay,” Robyn said. Now it was her that sounded annoyed. “You know that if the papers find out that this perfect image we’ve created is all bullshit, then the fans will feel duped, and…”
“It’ll be like Nicole all over again.”
“Exactly.”
“It is like Nicole all over again,” I said.
Robyn propped her elbows on her knees. “Alex is on something?” She looked confused. “Sure, she got wasted last night, but…drugs?” When I didn’t reply, she pulled her hands through her hair. “Great. Just great.”
“No. I didn’t mean like that.”
“So?” Robyn flitted her hands at me. “Explain.”
I bit at my lip.
“I got confused,” I said. “Thought I liked Alex too much.”
“Like Nicole?” A look of understanding shadowed Robyn’s face.
“Just like Nicole,” I repeated. “I kissed her too. Just like Nicole.”
“You’re making a habit of this, aren’t you?” Robyn laughed.
“See? This is exactly why I didn’t want to say anything to you.” My voice rose angrily. “It’s not like I deliberately go out of my way to make out with all my bandmates.”
“You’ve never tried with me.” Robyn bumped my leg with hers.
“That’s because I don’t fancy you.”
“You fancy Alex?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I put my head in my hands. “Yes.” I peered up at Robyn through my fingers. “I think I do.” I buried my head again. “I’m so confused.”
Robyn scooted closer and put her arm around me.
“I’m guessing,” she said softly, “that the way Alex has been acting just lately, she feels just as confused as you.”
“No, I think she’d go for it in an instant,” I said. “It’s me that’s making her act the way she is.”
“Because you’re messing her around?”
I nodded.
“But you kissed her,” Robyn said. “Why would you do that if you’re not sure how you feel about her?”
“Like you’ve never done that with someone?” I asked her.
