My Heart Goes Bang

by Keris Stainton

  Kyle reached out and ran his fingers over the back of Lou’s hand and she yanked it away. Again.

  ‘OK. Then meet me for lunch,’ Kyle said.

  Lou wanted to say no. She almost said no. But she knew he wouldn’t accept it, knew he wouldn’t let her go if she said no. So she said yes.

  Issey woke up to find Liane pressed up against her back, one arm curled around her waist, hand dangling over her belly. One of Liane’s legs was between Issey’s, their ankle bones knocking together.

  ‘Fuck,’ Issey murmured. She was already turned on. She’d woken up turned on. What if Liane’s hand moved just a bit lower …

  She shuffled forward, away from Liane, swinging her legs out of bed and letting Liane’s arm fall down onto the mattress. She grabbed her dressing gown and tiptoed out of the room and down to the kitchen.

  Paige was sitting at the dining table, fully dressed, eating an enormous bowl of cereal.

  ‘Big night?’ she said, pausing with the spoon just in front of her mouth.

  ‘Sort of. Not really. Weird night.’

  ‘Get a tea,’ Paige said. ‘You’ll feel better.’

  Issey put a teabag in a mug and flicked the kettle on. She walked around the other side of the table and leaned back against the units.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  Paige looked up and nodded, pointing at her mouth to show it was full of cereal.

  ‘I … You said you were bi, right? When we first moved in here?’

  Paige swallowed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Did I? I think I’m pan.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ Issey said. Her bare feet were freezing on the tiled floor. She stepped one on top of the other. ‘I don’t think I know what that is exactly.’

  ‘Well, some people think bi suggests binary gender – so, male or female, right?’

  Issey nodded. The kettle started to boil and she walked around the breakfast bar to get to it. Paige shifted in her seat so she was half turned towards Issey.

  ‘But if you believe gender is a spectrum, then bi doesn’t really work because there’s not just two. I mean, it works for some people, that’s how they identify and that’s fine. But it didn’t feel right to me. And pan does. So.’

  Issey poured hot water into the mug and then turned around again.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘What?’ Paige said, reaching back and picking her phone up off the table. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go in a bit …’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ Issey crossed the room to get milk from the fridge.

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ Paige said. ‘I’ve got, like, a minute. How did I know I was queer, do you mean?’

  Issey frowned. ‘I think so. Yeah.’

  Paige shook her head. ‘I think I sort of always knew. I had crushes on boys at school and on girls too. And there was never a time that I really thought about one more than the other. I mean, specific people, yeah? But it was always just there. Both.’

  ‘Right,’ Issey said. ‘I remember you mentioned a girl you were seeing when we first moved in?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Paige said. ‘That’s not really a thing any more.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Issey said. ‘I’m sorry. I never … I didn’t ever really think about girls.’

  ‘But you are now?’ Paige asked.

  Issey nodded, biting her lip. ‘I mean, I always had crushes on boys. You’ve seen my room – I’ve got Bang! and 1D and Justin Bieber posters on my wall.’

  ‘You’ve got Beyoncé too,’ Paige said.

  Issey smiled. ‘Everyone loves Beyoncé. But I don’t think I fancy her.’ She frowned. ‘Do I?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Paige said. ‘But I know I do.’

  ‘I think … you know when people ask who you’d fancy if you were gay? I mean, when you’re not gay?’

  Paige nodded.

  ‘I’d probably say Beyoncé. But I don’t, like, get turned on when I look at her.’

  ‘But there is someone, right? Which is why you’re asking me.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Issey said. ‘And I don’t know … I think about her. Like that. I do get turned on when I think about her. I think about touching her and kissing her and stuff.’

  ‘And stuff,’ Paige repeated and waggled her eyebrows.

  Issey smiled.

  ‘Sorry,’ Paige said. ‘You just look terrified.’

  ‘I kind of am,’ Issey said. ‘It’s just … it freaks me out. And I think – is it just cos we’re spending so much time together? Or because she’s my friend? I remember reading a thing in Glamour or somewhere about how it’s natural to fantasise about other women, it doesn’t mean you’re gay. But I … I don’t know.’

  ‘Can you talk to her about it?’ Paige asked gently.

  Issey shook her head. ‘Fuck. No. No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘If she’s your friend, she’d understand, right? Unless she’s homophobic.’ She glanced at her phone. ‘Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I’ve got to go!’ She stood up, dropping her phone in her pocket, and pulled Issey into a quick hug. ‘Don’t worry about it so much, OK? And you can talk to me any time. Will you be all right?’

  Issey nodded. She felt small next to Paige. Small and young and stupid.

  ‘She’s not homophobic,’ Issey said.

  ‘Good,’ Paige said. ‘Talk later, yeah? Come to the Rose?’

  Issey nodded. ‘OK. Yeah.’

  Paige grabbed her bag and coat and ran out of the room. Issey heard the front door slam and picked up her tea, blowing across the surface of the liquid.

  Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her dressing gown and she pulled it out. It was a text from Liane. The text had three coffee cups and the face with the medical mask.

  ‘I feel like shit,’ Liane said when Issey took her up a cup of tea and a plate of toast. ‘Actual shit. Shit in human form. Like the poo emoji. But not smiling.’

  ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve had some tea,’ Issey said, putting Liane’s mug on the bedside table and perching on the end of the bed with her own.

  ‘Do you need to go?’ Liane said. She didn’t look like her eyes were actually open, but they must have been open enough to see Issey.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Good. I know we haven’t hung out much lately.’

  ‘No,’ Issey said. She wanted Liane to say why. To either say she didn’t regret the kiss or she did. Just something. Instead of pretending it hadn’t happened.

  ‘We could go and get breakfast, maybe? I’ve got some vouchers for McDs.’

  ‘OK,’ Issey said. ‘I need a shower first though.’

  ‘OK,’ Liane said. Issey was almost out of the door when she said, ‘Iz? I feel bad about last night. I need to know you forgive me for my wangery.’

  Issey stopped and leaned against the doorjamb. ‘You were a dick.’

  ‘The biggest dick,’ Liane said. ‘And not in a good way. I’m sorry. Does it help to know I feel like actual shit?’

  ‘Little bit,’ Issey admitted. ‘But I feel a bit shit too. For turning up like that. It was really nothing to do with me –’

  ‘No,’ Liane said. ‘I mean, yeah, it was nothing to do with you.’ She smiled. ‘But you were worried. And I said I’d phone. And I didn’t phone.’

  ‘So we’re good?’

  ‘We’re good.’

  Chapter 29

  Lou stood in the doorway of the canteen and watched Kyle. He was sitting by the window and staring down at his phone. Every now and then he pushed one hand back through his hair. Lou could just about see the tattoo of a crown on his wrist. She’d loved that tattoo when they’d first started seeing each other, she remembered kissing it, in bed at Kyle’s place. Before it all went to shit.

  She didn’t bother getting anything to eat – she had a KitKat, a packet of Quavers and a bottle of water in her bag. She crossed the room before she could change her mind, and sat down opposite Kyle.

  He looked up and his face split into a smile and … he had a good smile. And a good face. Lou co
uld remember what it was like to like him, to wait for him to look at her and smile at her. She remembered what it was like to want him to want her. But she didn’t want that any more. Not now she knew what a shit he could be.

  ‘Kyle,’ Lou said. She was gripping the edge of the table with both hands. ‘If you don’t stop … bothering me … if you don’t stop texting me and waiting for me …’ She took a breath. ‘I’ll have to report you.’

  She looked up from her hands and into his eyes. He was staring straight back at her, his expression blank.

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ he said.

  ‘I do,’ Lou said. ‘I do mean it. Please.’

  She pushed her chair back. Stood up. And left.

  ‘I can’t talk now, Dad, I’m at work,’ Paige said.

  She turned her back to the bar and held her phone between her ear and shoulder as she sliced a lemon, dropping the slices into a jar of iced water.

  ‘I really need to talk to you,’ he said.

  Usually, telling him she was at work was enough; he’d say ‘Oh, sorry’ or ‘I’ll call back’ or even just grunt, but then he’d hang up and she could get on with whatever she’d been doing before. But not this time, apparently.

  ‘What’s up?’ she said now, keeping her voice intentionally casual.

  ‘I’m going to sell the house,’ he said. He sounded sober. Could he possibly be sober? Maybe he was just less drunk than usual and that sounded sober to her now.

  ‘I’ve found a little flat,’ he said. ‘You know the new development? Down by the park?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, even though she didn’t.

  ‘It’s only small, but it’ll do for me. But half the house is yours. And I hope there’ll be some money for you too. So I need you to come and sign some documents. As soon as you can. Maybe at the weekend?’

  Paige’s brain had stopped functioning properly at ‘sell the house’. Last time they’d talked about this, her dad had cried and then got so drunk he’d been sick all over himself on the sofa and Paige had left in the middle of the night and slept on a bench in the bus station. He couldn’t really be planning to sell it, could he? Not just planning either, but actually taken concrete action? She wasn’t going to get her hopes up, let herself think that this might actually solve her problems, that her dad would give her some money from the sale, come through for her when he never had before.

  ‘I’ll have to call you back,’ Paige said. And hung up.

  Ella sat at the dining table in the lounge with the flat’s bills spread out in front of her and her bank account open on her laptop. Something wasn’t adding up, and she wasn’t sure what. She grabbed a notebook and pen and listed the outgoings and the incoming monthly payments and then she spotted it: Paige hadn’t paid her portion of the bills.

  Her phone buzzed on the table and she grinned as she opened a selfie from Nick. He was at work, pouting, a full trolley of books next to him.

  ‘Come and help?’ he texted.

  ‘Can’t,’ she replied. ‘Busy with grown-up household stuff.’

  Ella scrolled back through a couple of months’ bank statements, wondering how long this would take and if maybe she could actually chuck it in and go and meet Nick after work, and found Paige hadn’t paid last month either. Annoyance flickered through her. It was bad enough that she had to be responsible for all this shit, without the others fucking up. She took a breath. She was sure Paige hadn’t done it on purpose. Maybe she’d had a problem with her bank. It would have been better if she’d told her, but perhaps she hadn’t noticed either.

  Once she’d cross-checked all the other payments and confirmed everything else was sorted, she closed her laptop and texted Nick: ‘What if I came to meet you when you get off?’ She regretted the phrase as soon as she’d sent it, but laughed when Nick replied with a string of aubergine and tongue emojis. She grabbed her coat off the back of her chair. She could talk to Paige tomorrow.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  During her break, sitting in Jonny’s office while Jonny covered the bar, Paige stared at her bank account on her phone. There was a crack running across the middle of the screen, but it couldn’t hide the fact that she not only had no money, but that she hadn’t paid the house bills for the past two months. How could she not have noticed? She’d thought one day that there was a little more in the bank than she’d expected, but she’d done a couple of extra hours at the pub and so she’d just assumed it was that. She should’ve been keeping a closer eye on it, she knew, but it had always been her instinct to stick her head in the sand when things started to go to shit. It was either that or run away.

  Maybe she should call her dad back like she’d said she would. Ask him exactly what he was planning to do about the house, and if there really was going to be any money for her. But she wouldn’t be able to trust the answer anyway. No matter what he said, she wouldn’t believe she was getting anything from him until she actually had it in her hand.

  What were her other options? Could she run away? Not yet, no – she didn’t have enough cash to get her to Birkenhead, let alone anywhere she might want to go – but when she got paid. Or when her next loan payment came through. She could just pack up and go. Start again, somewhere else. The thought of it made her feel sick. But so did knowing that Ella knew she couldn’t pay her bills.

  Chapter 30

  Lou knocked on Ella’s door and pushed it open.

  ‘Hey,’ Ella said from the bed. She was leaning back against the headboard, her laptop on a pillow on her lap. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Not really,’ Lou said, crawling into bed next to her, even though there wasn’t room. ‘Can I show you something?’

  ‘Course.’ Ella pushed her laptop away and turned towards her friend.

  Lou took a deep breath and unlocked her phone. ‘Do you remember Kyle?’

  Ella nodded.

  ‘I bumped into him a few weeks ago. He was being a dick. You know I told him last year that I didn’t want to see him any more? Turns out he didn’t believe me.’

  ‘Lou,’ Ella said, gently.

  Lou looked up at the ceiling. ‘And then one day he was waiting for me outside the library – remember the day I came to meet you in the bookshop?’

  Ella nodded. The day she’d thought Nick would ask Lou out.

  ‘And I told him again. That I wasn’t interested. That we were, you know, never ever getting back together.’ She laughed humourlessly. ‘So that night he sent me this.’ Lou turned the phone and Ella only had enough time to register that it was a photo of her best friend, naked, before Lou took the phone away again.

  ‘Lou,’ Ella breathed. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I know. He’s got more. He’s sent a couple more. But he says he’s got loads. He took them while I was asleep. And once when I was …’ She let out a huge breath. ‘Blowing him.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ Ella said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before? How long – that was ages ago, that day at the bookshop. Is that the day he sent the first one?’

  Lou nodded.

  ‘You’ve been on your own with it all this time?’

  It was that that made Lou’s eyes burn with tears, and she nuzzled her head into Ella’s shoulder.

  ‘Fucking hell, Lou. You should’ve – why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I knew you’d say I had to report it.’ Lou’s voice was strained, her throat tight. ‘I didn’t want to …’

  ‘Didn’t want to report it?’

  ‘Didn’t want to be that girl. You know.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Ella said again. ‘What do you think he’s going to do?’

  Lou shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Probably nothing. I just fucking hate the idea that he’s got them at all, you know?’

  Ella nodded, her cheek brushing against her friend’s hair. ‘What a piece of shit.’

  Lou huffed out a laugh, draping her arm over Ella’s middle and snuggling even closer.

  ‘I can really pick them, you know?’

  ‘No,’ Ella said. ‘
Fuck that. This is not on you. Him being a shithead is nothing to do with you.’

  ‘That’s OK for you to say. You with your perfect boyfriend.’ She tipped her head back and smiled so Ella knew she was joking.

  ‘He’s not perfect,’ Ella said. But her cheeks had flushed pink and her eyes were sparkling because, well, Nick wasn’t perfect. But he was pretty fucking awesome.

  ‘I never should’ve shagged him,’ Lou said. ‘I knew he was a dick.’

  ‘But not this much of a dick.’

  ‘No,’ Lou said. ‘And, I mean, everyone’s got nudes, yeah? It’s not like … even if he showed people, they’d just be like “yeah, nudes, whatever”. It’s not that big a deal.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ella said.

  ‘I mean, I know you haven’t –’

  ‘I have,’ Ella said.

  ‘You have not.’

  ‘Not nudes,’ Ella said. ‘But I sent Nick a tit pic once. Just because … I don’t know. Cos it was so not me. So I thought I should try it.’

  Lou laughed. ‘And?’

  ‘He opened it at work. He spilled his coffee into the till. Short-circuited it. There was a whole big thing. I won’t be doing that again.’

  Lou fiddled with the edge of the duvet cover.

  ‘I just don’t know what to do about it, you know?’

  ‘We can go and see your student advisor,’ Ella said. ‘They’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Is it confidential?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think so,’ Ella said. ‘I’m sure you can tell her you don’t want it to go any further. But you have to do something. You can’t leave it like this.’

  ‘He hadn’t been as bad lately,’ Lou said.

  ‘Lou,’ Ella said gently.

  ‘I know,’ Lou said. ‘I just … I thought he’d stop. I thought he’d get bored.’

  ‘He’s enjoying it,’ Ella said. ‘It’s like a power thing, I would think.’

  Lou nodded.

  ‘And you know if he stopped doing it to you, he could still be doing it to someone else.’

  ‘I know,’ Lou said again. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. He needs to learn that it’s not fucking OK.’