University of York
2009
The thorny branches of the bush she was wedged into scratched at Rachel’s bare arms. As her oversized sunglasses slid down her clammy nose, she offered up a silent prayer that no one was about to pass by.
Like a character from one of the clichéd cop dramas her mum was obsessed with, Rachel was hiding in a hedge in broad daylight – transfixed by the sight of two people deep in conversation, sitting on a patch of yellowed scrubby grass a few metres away.
It was late July and, although only around ten o’clock in the morning, the day was already warm in the oppressive way that promises an evening downpour. The moisture now pooling at the small of Rachel’s back and beneath her armpits, however, was less a consequence of the muggy atmosphere and more a result of her rapidly rising heart rate.
She waswillingthis not to be real. Hoping it might not be true.
It wasn’t working.
They were too close together, too intimate. His hand was resting in hers and their inclined bodies formed a graceful arc, lit from behind by bright sunshine.
He was wearing yesterday’s clothes.
Rachel tasted the acrid flavour of impending vomit and wondered if she was going to be sick.Not here, not now.
Her stomach contracted, muscle and flesh tightening, curling inwards.Just breathe, she told herself.
She scrunched her eyes shut and gulped down lungfuls of air until the twisting sensation in her gut let up a little.
Always a sucker for punishment, Rachel made herself look at them again. He was kissing her now – the other woman.
Even from a distance Rachel could tell this was one of Jack Harper’s special signature kisses: languid but delicious, rich with intent. She hated him for this, but for a split second felt her standard longing for him too.
She knew she would never forgive him, and yet, as his arms snaked around someone else’s waist, she couldn’t help admiring him. His overlong chestnut-brown hair shone in the sunlight, casting an ironic halo of copper-coloured light around his head. He opened his green-gold eyes as the kissing stopped, and his smile – a wide, lazy grin for this skinny girl with a treacle-dark mane – was a baseball bat to Rachel’s stomach.
Misery ballooned in her ribcage. Her sadness felt massive – so big it might push vital organs out of place. A sensible voice from somewhere deep inside Rachel insisted that, awful as this was, it still didn’t rank as the worst thing that had ever happened to her. But still, how could Jack be doing this? Today of all days? It was crushing.
And his doing ithere– out in the open, on the lane she so regularly walked down … It was as if the location he’d picked sought to minimise his offence. The thoughtlessness of it implied that, to Jack, hooking up with someone other than Rachel was no big deal. There was cruelty in this, she realised, whether he’d intended it or not: it heaped humiliation on top of hurt, spoke of unequal affections. It made her feel stupid for letting herself care so much.
That word,stupid, clanged in her head. She should have seen this coming. Jack’s Lord Byron Lite act, as she’d once called it, had seen him motor through girlfriends faster than she sped down their reading list of set texts. But her resolve to keep him at arm’s length despite his obvious charms had crumbled when he’d told her she wasn’t like anyone else, that she was different – that he’d fallen in love with her.
She had believed him.
Hot tears filled Rachel’s eyes and she forced her thoughts back to the present, shoving down the hysterical laugh that was bubbling up her throat. This was aridiculoussituation.
She needed to get home. She couldn’t hide in a hedge forever … Not even for another ten minutes, she realised, checking her watch.
Rachel’s parents would be arriving soon and they were notorious for being early, particularly on special occasions. And for reasons that only a handful of people knew, including the cheating snake now casually fondling his latest conquest, today was averyspecial occasion.
She didn’t want to crash back through her front gate flustered, sweaty and feeling like she’d been freshly disembowelled, only to find them waiting on the doorstep in their Sunday best. She needed to greet them happy, serene and smiling, ready to put the kettle on. The carton of milk she’d popped out to buy weighed heavy in her right hand.
Like the bile that still threatened at the back of her throat, Rachel swallowed her mess of feelings. Now, she decided, wasnotthe time to throw them up. If she wasn’t going to confront Jack, though, she somehow had to sneak past him and his new friend.
She wondered how long they were going to sit there, the bastards, alternately snogging and making moon eyes at one another. Then the bleak truth occurred to her: Jack and this girl wereutterlywrapped up in the moment, and the lane was fairly wide … Rachel could probably walk by without them even noticing. The realisation stung, almost as painfully as everything else.
She took a deep breath, extracted herself from her improvised hiding place and walked – quickly, but not so fast that she’d make herself conspicuous – towards the main road.
Rachel had less than half an hour to get home, compose herself and start getting ready for the ceremony.
It was graduation day and her mum and dad were coming to watch her collect her First. They were proud of her. They wanted to celebrate.
London
2019
