‘The beginning of…?’
‘The beginning of your realisation that you are totally able to have great relationships. And something I forgot to mention:you and Ihave a great relationship. You have great relationships with all your other girlfriends. I love you. You love me. You are a person who issocapable of having great relationships.’
I’m just staring at her because on the one hand everything she’s been saying makes perfect sense, but on the other I’m pretty sure she’s wrong.
‘I love you too,’ I say in the end, because I’m not sure what else to say.
Lizzie reaches over and we share a lovely, big, long hug before we settle back into our sofa corners.
‘Would you think about all of that?’ she asks. ‘For me?’
I nod. I feel like Idonow have stuff to think about.
‘And will you come for drinks at the weekend knowing that Jake will also be here? And quite a few other people.’
I nod again. I care about Lizzie too much to make things awkward for her with Dan. Jake and I can totally be polite to each other for a few minutes and then chat to other people. Totally.
20
JAKE
‘Jake, are you okay?’ Max says. ‘You were miles away?’
Shit. I was thinking about Freya, and Dan and Lizzie’s drinks this evening. I can’t work out whether I’m really looking forward to seeing her or quite the opposite. I’vereallymissed her this week. Like… ithurtsthinking that there’s no possibility of seeing her likethatagain. And I don’t want to make that hurt worse. But, also, I can’t help stupidly hoping that maybe, just maybe, if we spend more time together somethingcouldhappen. And also it would be nice just to see her because I really do miss her.
‘Sorry, yes, fine. Just thinking about the weather.’ I don’t want to upset him; I know that my family have been worried about me since the divorce. ‘I’ve been cycling into work but it isn’t great in heavy rain. A lot of thunderstorms have been forecast for next week; have you seen?’
‘Are you sure you’re okay? Do you usually worry aboutweather?’
‘Ha, yeah, no, true.’
I’m an idiot.
I’m also thirty-six years old, not sixteen.
So it’s truly ridiculous to firstly be thinking so much about Freya and secondly be making up stupid things so that I don’t have to admit it to my own brother.
The drinks are in Lizzie’s flat, which isn’t that far from Freya’s house.
I’m still in my do-I-want-to-see-her-do-I-not state when I arrive, but actually, there are a good twenty people here, and I don’t immediately see her; instead I end up getting engrossed in conversation with some old uni friends who I haven’t seen for a while, and when I do catch sight of Freya on the other side of the room I see that she’s surrounded by a little group, all talking very animatedly, and decide that actually this is for the best. We won’t really interact this evening and that will be that.
A few minutes later, however, my back bumps pretty hard into the back of someone smaller, and when I turn round to apologise, I discover that it’s Freya, and that the bump caused her to spill wine down herself.
‘It’s okay,’ she says in response to my apology. ‘One of those things. And, also, it wasn’t your fault. It was me. I took a step backwards and bumped into you.’
‘I also took a step backwards,’ I say inanely.
‘Mutual fault, then. And you got lucky in being more competent at holding on to your drink than me.’ She smiles at me, and I try hard to ignore the fact that it’s like I can actually physically feel the smile somewhere inside me. ‘Anyway, at least it’s white.’
‘Sticky, though. Should you maybe try to wash it out?’ I try to avert my eyes, without obviously averting them. The wine’s making her top cling to her, which is making me rememberthings from last weekend and think thoughts that are extremely inappropriate given that we definitely won’t be doing that kind of thing again.
‘Yep, probably. I’ll get something from Lizzie.’
‘Let me help you,’ I say, before remembering that I will certainlynotbe helping her to clean a stain off the chest region of her top. ‘Or not. I mean… Obviously you can probably manage yourself. Just offering. But I totally get that you will probably be very happy to do it yourself.’ Yep, the social skills of a sixteen-year-old with a serious crush. I need tostop talking.
Freya is just laughing at me, and rightly so.
‘Very kind, thank you,’ she says, still sniggering.
