by KE Payne
“Just mucking about,” Libby said bluntly.
“I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes,” I said. I pushed my mug away. Suddenly the thought of more chocolate made me queasy. “I thought it would be easier now that I’m not with Amy, but if anything, it’s worse.”
“So then you have to do like I’ve told you before,” Libby said. “You obviously can’t and won’t avoid her. So you just have to try and ignore the fact that you fancy her and carry on hanging out with her as a friend—otherwise it’s going to drive you mad.”
“Like it already hasn’t?” I slumped back into my chair.
“You’re just complicating things,” Libby said. “You need to keep everything much simpler.”
“Nothing about my life is simple right now, Lib,” I said. My heart sank, realization hitting me. “Absolutely nothing.”
Chapter Thirty-two
It was all such a mess.
I was miserable, totally unable to shake the negative feelings that had followed me round, hour by hour, since Eden had told me she was busy. When I should have been concentrating in my English lesson on act 3, scene 4 of Titus Andronicus, all I could do instead was go over and over all the interactions Eden and I had had over the last few weeks, trying to make sense of them all. I wanted to convince myself that Libby was right: the best thing for me—and my mental well-being—was to start treating Eden as the friend she was, and move on.
Sometimes, convincing yourself that something is right is the hardest thing in the world to do.
*
“Didn’t you know?” Gabby leant against the wall outside the classroom. “She has a hot date tonight.”
Her words floated into my ears as I approached their queue outside the French room. I was with Libby on our way to our own class further up the corridor. Nothing that Gabby had just said registered in my mind. Until I heard the next part. That made me slow right down.
“Don’t tell me Eden finally gave in?” Beth looked from Gabby to Eden then back to Gabby again. “And that all our nagging’s paid off?”
“Yuh-huh.” I saw Gabby put her arm around Eden. “And lemme tell you, Marcus is well up for it.”
“Well, he’s waited long enough, hasn’t he?” Beth grinned. “You shouldn’t have left him dangling so long, Eden. Poor guy’s been going out of his mind.”
“That’s the point, dummy.” Gabby pulled Eden in closer to her. “She was always going to go out with him, weren’t you?” She looked at Eden. “But Marcus didn’t need to know that.”
I watched all this unfold from just down the corridor, near enough to hear, but far enough away that they couldn’t see me. I watched as they all laughed at what Gabby had said.
“Ignore them.” Libby pulled on my arm. “Just keep walking.”
“Did I hear what I think I just heard?” I whispered to Libby. “Eden has a date tonight?”
“The Marcus, I presume?” Libby said.
“She said she was busy tonight,” I muttered under my breath. “I never imagined it was because she was going out with Marcus.”
“She is free to see who she wants,” Libby said kindly. “You’re not dating her. You can’t dictate who she goes out with.”
“I know that,” I said. “Still hurts, though.” I stopped walking, not wanting to have to pass them, and leant against the corridor wall. I felt sick. I plunged my hands into my hoodie pockets, clenching my fists inside them. Right then I really wanted to hit either Beth or Gabby, or better still, both of them.
“Treating him mean, huh?” Gabby’s voice sounded again.
“Something like that, yeah.” I heard Eden’s voice for the first time.
Every word the three of them said about Marcus was like a hot knife being pushed, slowly, into my chest. Jealousy and hurt ate me up. I burned with loathing for Gabby and Beth, not only for setting up Eden in the first place, but for announcing it right now to just about the whole school. I never knew jealousy could hurt as much as it did. Listening to the three of them go on and on about how wonderful Marcus was was making me physically ill.
I detested Eden at that moment as well. I was furious with her on so many levels. For making suggestive comments to me. For messing with my head—she slept on my shoulder, for fuck’s sake!—when her intention all along had been to date Marcus. I’d chosen not to believe Libby; now the last little crumb of hope I’d had that Eden might actually like me had been blown away.
She was going on a date with Marcus.
“How can she do this to me?” I muttered to Libby as the door to Eden’s classroom finally opened, and I saw them all file in.
Libby leant against the wall with me. “Some girls get off on being head-fucks. Eden’s obviously one of them.”
Sometimes the truth really hurts.
Libby looked at me. “I mean, your clue should’ve been in the kind of friends she has.” She tossed her head towards Gabby and Beth as they both disappeared into the room. “Remember what I told you when you first asked me who they were? I told you they were a bunch of prima donnas who think the world revolves round them, and it’s true.”
I looked down at my feet. “But I thought Eden was different,” I said. “She’s the smartest, nicest person I’ve ever met.”
We walked past Eden’s room and my feet slowed. I leant just by the door frame and glanced in. She was sitting at her desk with Gabby and Beth. I looked over to where they were sitting, at the front of the room: all three were deep in conversation, laughing amongst themselves, giggling and whispering. My spine ran cold at the awful thought that Eden really was playing some fucked-up game with me, just for her own—and Gabby’s and Beth’s—amusement.
While I watched, my stomach filling with rocks at every laugh, Eden looked up at me. If she was feeling bad, her expression didn’t show it. Instead, she studied me impassively for a few seconds, then looked away again.
“Smart and nice…and clever enough to reel you in,” Libby said, pulling me from the doorway.
I was beaten. Defeated.
Eden and her games had won.
Chapter Thirty-three
“Right, no racking up any phone bills while we’re out.” My mother jiggled her coat on. She pouted at her reflection in the mirror, then fussed with her hair. “We’re going to Garfunkel’s for dinner afterwards, so don’t expect us back much before midnight.”
“Phone bills?” I sat on the bottom of the stairs, elbows resting on my knees, my face cupped in my hands. “When was the last time I used the house phone?”
I was in a foul temper. Watching my mother prancing about in front of the mirror and coming out with bullshit about phone bills was plunging me into an even worse mood.
“Just don’t spend the whole night gossiping to whoever your latest mates are, that’s all,” my mother said, continuing to fiddle with her appearance even though it was perfect.
“Planet Earth to Mother,” I muttered darkly. “I Skype, text, or use my minutes on my phone, remember? Have done so for the last hundred years.”
“And you got yourself something in for dinner, didn’t you?” she asked, completely oblivious to both my mood and my sarcasm. Much to my disappointment.
“Yup,” I said, looking towards the kitchen. “Enough to feed a small platoon.”
“I hope Eden has just as big an appetite as you do.” My father appeared in the hall where we were talking, adjusting his tie as he did so. “Help you eat that monster pizza I’ve just seen in the fridge.”
“She’s not coming,” I said. “She’s busy.”
“Shame.” My mother grabbed her house keys from the hallway table.
“Mm.” I stood up from the step, brushing past my father to get to the kitchen. Suddenly I needed a drink. I opened the fridge, ignoring the dumb pizza mocking me from the shelf, and took a bottle of beer from it.
“Are you okay?” my father asked from just behind me.
“Yup. Fine.” I opened the beer and took a large gulp from it, coughing as the bubbles hit
the back of my nose. “Gonna eat dinner, then find a DVD I haven’t watched yet.” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “Then go to bed.”
“Not too many of those, please,” my father said, nodding to my beer.
“Past caring, to be honest,” I said. I turned to go.
“Tabitha.” The usual warning voice.
“I’ll stick to just this one, don’t worry.” I lifted the bottle and smiled sarcastically.
“You seem down,” my father said, putting his hand on my arm and stopping me from moving. “And tetchy. You looked like you were flying high the other day, now you’re prickly again.”
“Goes like that,” I retorted.
“You’re very up and down lately,” he said, his hand still on my arm. “I’m used to you being moody and sarcastic. Monosyllabic.” He looked at me knowingly. “So it’s been nice to see you so full of life these last few weeks. What’s brought you down again?”
“I’m not down,” I lied. “I’m fine.”
My father looked at me, longer than I felt relaxed with. “If there’s something bothering you, you can tell me or your mother, you know that?”
“Yup.”
“Is there anything you want to tell us?” He rubbed his hand on my arm.
Yeah right. Like I was going to tell him about stuff? Like he’d understand?
“Nope.”
“Are you in trouble at school?”
“Why do you always think I’m in trouble at school?” I slammed my bottle down on the kitchen unit.
My father dropped his hand from my arm. “Habit,” he said. “The fact you were always skipping school in Cragthorne is a start.”
I looked down at the small pool of beer that had jumped out of the bottle and spilled onto the kitchen unit when I’d slammed it down, the small bubbles in it popping and chasing after one another.
“Or perhaps because of all the phone calls we used to get, thanks to you always being in trouble or mixed up in something that didn’t concern you,” my father continued. “Want me to go on?”
“That was then,” I said. “I’m different now.”
“I’ll take some convincing on that one, I think.” My father stood, hands in his pockets.
“Seriously, Dad,” I said. I didn’t want to have this conversation one little bit. Not tonight. “School’s fine. I’m not in any trouble, everything’s just hunky-dory, I swear.”
“Well, if you’re sure…” He looked away as my mother called to him from the front door.
“I’m sure,” I said, wandering into the front room and swigging from my bottle. “Never been surer.”
*
The house was eerily quiet after my parents went out. Once they’d finally closed the door behind them, my mother giving me one last lecture about switching ovens and lights off, I was alone.
And it was always when I was alone that I did the worst of my thinking.
I don’t know how long I sat in the front room after they’d gone. I stared moodily at the swirling pattern on the rug at my feet, empty beer bottle in my hands, imagining Eden out on her date with Marcus.
She was with him now. Laughing, hanging on his every word just like I hung on every word of hers. He had his arm around her. She liked it. They had an instant attraction, and now Eden was wondering why she’d waited so long to date him. He was everything she was looking for in a guy: funny, attentive, good looking.
Would she tell me all about it at school on Monday? I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope with that. Would I make a show of myself?
Two hours passed.
Eden and Marcus barely left my thoughts.
By the time I’d mentally dragged myself back to the here and now, it was pitch-black outside. I was aware of a strange white light pooling in front of me, coming from the moon, and realized with a jolt I’d been sitting in total darkness for goodness knows how long. I stood up, jarring myself back to reality, and immediately felt freaked at being in the dark on my own. Imaginary creepy shadows danced in the corners of the room. I began switching lights on, gaining comfort from the soft lighting being thrown out around me, illuminating corners that just seconds before had totally weirded me out.
I grabbed another beer from the fridge, ignoring the uneaten pizza, and went to my room. Knowing the only person who could make me feel better would, in all probability, be on Skype, I picked up my iPad.
She’d make it all okay. Libby would tell me the things I really needed to hear right now.
She answered after around a dozen or so rings, just at the point where I was going to give up. Relief spread over me as I saw her friendly face flicker into life on the screen, quickly followed by a wave of nausea as I saw she was eating a tub of ice cream.
“Is that all you do? Eat?” I shuffled myself back on my bed and balanced my iPad on my knees.
“It’s Friday,” Libby said through mouthfuls. “So that means just one thing. Ben & Jerry’s.” She lifted the tub up and peered at it. “Caramel Chew Chew, to be precise.”
“Nice.”
“And I’ve escaped The Grandmother for five minutes, so I can chill out up here without being asked every five minutes about school and boys. In that order.” Libby licked her spoon. “So you okay?”
“Not really,” I replied. “Thinking about stuff too much.” I lifted my beer. “This is helping though.”
“Eden?”
“Who else?” I put my beer down then started picking at a loose bit of thread on the seam of my jeans. “She’s out with Marcus and it’s all I can think about. Her with him, probably making out somewhere while I’m sitting here with knots in my stomach ’cos I’m so eaten up with jealousy.” I looked at Libby, still vigorously spooning ice cream into her mouth. “I hate it, Lib. Just hate it.”
“I wish there was something I could say that would make it better,” she said, scraping her spoon round the side of the tub. “But there isn’t.”
“Why do I always fall for the straight girl?” I pulled at the thread on my jeans until it came away in my fingers.
“You fell for Amy,” Libby offered helpfully. “She wasn’t straight.”
“You know what I mean.”
“London’s full of lesbians,” Libby said. She gave her spoon one final lick, then tossed it back into the empty tub. “Find someone else. Go to a club, meet someone. Forget about Eden.”
“I think I’ve proper fallen in love with her, though.” I picked up my beer again. Stared miserably at the label. “I can’t just switch that off and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
“You love her?”
“Reckon so,” I said. “How is it, though, that love can be so fab and so shit at the same time?”
“If I knew the answer to that, then I’d be…” Libby opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. “Well, I don’t know what I’d be, but you know what I mean.”
“Thanks for always listening to me,” I said. “I mean, for listening to me banging on about Eden all the time.”
“S’okay.” Libby grinned. “It’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”
“But I appreciate it,” I said truthfully. “If I didn’t have you to talk to, then I think I’d go nuts.”
“Your parents left already?” Libby asked.
“Yeah, theatre.” I waved my hand over my mouth, mock-yawning.
My phone vibrated across my desk on the other side of my room, lighting up the ceiling above it.
“Phone’s ringing,” I said. I swung my legs off the bed. “Wait a sec.”
I put my iPad and beer down and went to my phone.
Icicles cascaded down my neck when I saw who it was. I stared at it, not daring to believe it was true, then went back over to my bed and spoke to Libby again.
“It’s Eden,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-four
“What does she want?” I looked at Eden’s name, flashing on and off.
“Well, answer it, dummy,” Libby said. “And then you’ll find out. Quick, before she rings off.”
“Okay, wait.” I put my iPad to one side.
“Hi, Eden.” My voice was wobbling. “How’re you?”
“Can I come over?” Eden sounded quiet.
“What? Now?” I looked at my watch. Nine thirty p.m.
“Yeah.”
“Sure, if you want.”
“I do want, yeah,” Eden said. “I’ll catch the next train over. Be with you in about half an hour, okay?”
“Sure. Where are you at the moment, then?” I asked, puzzled. “Aren’t you still out with Marcus?”
“I’m…just out,” Eden said. “No, I’m not with Marcus.”
“Right,” I said uncertainly. “Well, I guess I’ll see you in a bit, then.”
Eden didn’t say goodbye; instead she just finished our call without another word.
I put my phone down and picked up the iPad. “Did you hear all that?” I asked Libby.
“I only heard you,” Libby said, “not her. Is she coming over?”
“Seems like it,” I said.
“What are you going to say to her?” Libby asked.
“Dunno.” I shrugged. “It’s kinda hard to stay pissed off with Eden when she’s standing in front of me looking so damned hot.”
“TMI, thanks.” Libby grinned.
“Look, I’m gonna go,” I said. “She’ll be here in half an hour. Just enough time to make myself look a bit more presentable.”
“Okay,” Libby said. “Text me later, yeah?”
“No worries.” I shut down Skype and looked at myself in the mirror. Pulled my top off and replaced it with the rugby shirt I knew Eden liked. It was creased. Would she notice? At least it was clean, unlike my jeans. A hasty change of trousers, a good clean of my teeth, and a squirt of something smelly that I found lurking on my table five minutes later, and I was good to go.
Then I waited. The house fell deafeningly quiet again as I paced around, waiting for Eden to arrive. I sat in the lounge, flicking through a magazine my mother had left lying on the coffee table. I ambled into the kitchen and stared blankly out of the window for a while. I returned to the lounge once more, picking up the magazine again and reading the exact same page I’d just been looking at, moments before.
