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And what did she mean, about ignoring her gut? Does she .?.?. think she’s missing something? Like what? Like .?.?. lying? Cheating? Owen isn’t perfect. He might have broken my heart out of nowhere, but – acheat? And I know it doesn’t exactly sound like a long shot, but Owen hates cheating. Anyone who knows Owen, knows how much he does. He’d wax lyrical about the betrayal of it, the collateral. Becausehehimself, was the collateral of cheating, he used to say. Every droplet of anger, of insecurity, in Owen isbecauseof cheating. A little boy completely rejected by his father because of it. Him and his mother, isolated because of it.
‘I Will Survive’ blares out of the speakers and the DJ announces the dancing competition will be starting soon and for all contestants to gather at the front of the stage. Then, suddenly, Jack is beside me. He takes my arm.
‘I’ve donated forty quid to the charity dance-off,’ he says into my ear. ‘Which means we can sit and laugh at the dancers without guilt.’
And what is it Chloe said? She can’t move on right now. The hurt is too much. And Iknowyou can look at it from a hundred different ways, but Ididcause that hurt. My stupid words caused it. My stupid words that were never meant to be sent, and yet, somehowwere.And if they were still in my drafts, how different would my life look right now? How different would Mum and Dad’s look? Cate’s? And I know Jack says it doesn’t matter, but – say if someone really did do this on purpose? His friend seems to think so.
A sheen of confused tears burns my eyes. Angry tears. Despairing tears. What-do-I-do-next tears.
I want to cry them out. I want to leave.
But instead I nod, say, ‘Sounds good,’ as Jack bends to wipe a dusting of dirt from my film-reel shoulder.
*
Text Message from Cate:omg I’m at the cinema with Ralph and he is honestly the nicest man alive, isn’t he? He remembered I like strawberry pencils and he’s just emerged from the lobby with a whole Pic’n’Mix bag of them for me? He’s also just given me his hoodie because I’m cold. Anyway. Hope you don’t read this because you’re too busy snogging Jack’s face off in the shadows. Also, that bodysuit tears easily, lol. Bet Jack’ll soon find that out, hahaaaa. Love you xxxx
*
The dance competition does lift my spirits – just a little. But when Jack gets cornered by a group of drunken, loud men who seem to each take turns in bear hugging him, I’m happy to slink off, alone with my thoughts, which seem to be riding their own haunted funfair carousel around and around my brain.
I feel confused and sad.
Tired and a bit sick, too. Hunger, probably.
I arrange some food in a brown take-away box from a long table of buffet-food in silver, roll-top-lidded dishes – some mini spring rolls, vegetable tempura, some undisclosed dumpling thingies shaped like sea-shells – and head outside with it, through large open double doors. Party guests are scattered on the damp, squeaky grass – smoking and vaping, having big, involved deep chats; collars loosened, hair, dishevelled, words, slurred, laughter, raucous.
I find a picnic table near the edge of a lake, which looks like a thick, black oil slick in the dark. It’s quite mild for October, but the air is damp; the smell of wet soil and cigarette smoke.
I turn my face to the sky; blow clouds upwards, to the speckles and speckles of stars, feel my heart slow, from gallop, to slowing steam-train.
My whole world, turned upside down, just like that. Its own exploded universe. Everything out of its usual place. And it isn’t seeming to settle either. I keep waiting for it all to simmer down, and every time it does, it seems to be kicked up again, by a sudden gust of wind. Owen. Chloe’s pain. Alexis. My .?.?.feelings, I suppose you’d say, about Jack. Jack who is my (temporary) boss. Jack who is leaving. Jack who .?.?. makes mefeel.Because he does. I feel things with Jack. Deep, new, scary-but-safe-all-at-once feelings.
And Mum and Dad of course. Let’s not forget Mum and Dad – the one unit I always saw as untouchable. That perfect, unshakable love I hoped to find one day, myself.
I slide my phone out of my tiny cross-body bag, spring roll resting like a cigar between my teeth, and check.
Nothing.
In the distance, the sound of traffic whirs, like a faraway snowstorm.
I look down at my phone again.
Nothing.Nothing.
I miss where Mum and Dad always were; calling me on the sofa on a Saturday night, watching a box-set the rest of the world watched ten years ago. I miss Alexis, too. Her advice. Her funny texts which are always soin her voice, I can hear them in my head. I miss the quiet, simple life. Before – well. Before the truth was set free. And some (Ralph) might argue, that why would you want a quiet simple life if it’s based on lies. But I do. In this moment, I do. I’d love a simple life; a lovely little slice of under-the-radar, B. E. life. To feel safe, for a moment, and not like everything is my fault, and I’m alone out here, amongst the debris of it all. I’d give anything.
‘Oh, of course,’ comes a voice, and immediately, I stiffen, brush crumbs from my mouth. He’s here. OfcourseOwen was invited. Of course. Top of his game, acolades for miles, awards and a portfolio, bursting at the seams, like a rammed-full filing cabinet. ‘When someone said did you see the girl dressed as a reel of film? I thought, ah, that’s got to be Mills.Surelyit must be Mills.’
‘Locate the mystery idiot and it must be Millie Chandler?’ I ask, prickling. I shut the little lid on my box of food, as if it’s a secret, and wish, almost instantly, I hadn’t bothered, because what does it really matter now, what he might say? Owen had a thing about food. He’d often talk about how I grazed too much, ate too many ‘empty nutrients’, how I should ‘give myself the food I deserve’, harp on about self-care and food being fuel and not joy. An image of me eating a giant BackDonald’s with Jack, a table of napkins and laughter, flicks into my mind.
‘Millie, I’m kidding,’ Owen chuckles. ‘Just ayouthing to do, though, isn’t it? Wouldn’t want you any other way.’
And he would always say that, when we first met. That he loved my clumsiness, my chaos, my late-sleeping-in-ness. By the end though, I felt it’s what made him leave. A man weighed down by months of it; who simply needed to release himself of my aimlessness, and go and live his real life.
Owen takes a seat beside me, sliding along the bench, both of us sitting the wrong way, facing out from the table, to the vast, black mirror of a lake. Instinctively, I inch away a little. A defense mechanism maybe. Being close to Owen feels scary. Like if I get too close, we’ll touch, and the shock will throw me back ten feet.
He looks at me, his wide, lopsided smile fading. The top button of his black shirt is undone, dark chest hair, sprigging from the gap, his tanned, stubble-speckled neck. I almost can’t bear to look at him. It’s that thing again. The nostalgia. The nerves. The unease and fast heart.
