Page 61 of Unnecessary Drama

‘Well, it doesn’t matter now,’ I say.

‘It does matter. You still matter to me,’ he says, putting one hand over mine and squeezing it, before letting go and looking into my eyes. I feel my face burning a little, because Tristan is over the top and the touch of his hand makes me want to run, but something about his earnest intensity is still appealing. At one point in time, we really liked each other. Maybe he’s still a little bit in love with me, or, even better, in lust with me. Would that be so bad? He’s the only person here tonight who I am confident is more interested in me than in Lauren. I refuse to analyse how pitiful that thought is.

Jesse is suddenly by my side.

‘Hey,’ he says.

‘Hey,’ I say.

Jesse hesitates for a second, before reaching out and taking my hand in his. I expect him to hold it limply, perfunctorily, but he holds it tightly and rubs his thumb over the top of my knuckles gently, and it feels so nice I could almost cry.

Jesse and Tristan chat, and then Tristan moves away, and I immediately take my hand from Jesse’s, and we don’t speak or even make eye contact. But I keep thinking of his thumb rubbing over my hand.

Damn it.

All those movies, all those books, they made fake-dating look fun. Doing this in real life feels awful, because I’m just lying to people, for no reason other than I’m insecure, and I’m lying to my body and maybe my heart, and I don’t know how to make myself numb again.

We find a newly opened karaoke bar and, fifteen minutes later, we’re all in a booth, and Lauren and Penny have their heads bent together, poring over the options for songs and shrieking with laughter.

Penny and Harper decide to sing an old Lady Gaga song together, alternating lines, and then a Beyonce song after that. Harper has a lovely voice, good enough to be in a band. Everything about her, really, screams that she should be in a band. She and Penny look at each other with such joy while they are singing that watching them makes me feel better about the world.

Lauren goes next, singing by herself, then a duet with Henry, who is so nervous he drops the mic three times but actually has a nice voice when he gets going. Lauren is not a good singer, and she misses all the notes, but she has the confidence that gets her through any kind of performance, and she wiggles and shimmies around, throwing her head back, hamming it up.

I keep sneaking glances at Jesse, who is definitely watching Lauren, possibly because she’s on stage singing but possibly because he finds her irresistibly attractive. The thought of him and Lauren in his bedroom at the end of the night is looming over me like a spectre, and I feel it, how much I don’t want it to happen, rolling through me like waves of nausea.

Tristan and Kendra do multiple duets next, and then they call Jesse and me up.

‘No thanks. I don’t sing,’ I say. My voice isn’t as bad as Lauren’s, but I have never enjoyed karaoke.

‘Me neither,’ says Jesse.

Tristan shakes his head. ‘I’m not taking no for an answer!’ he says.

Jesse and I stand up, and I feel everyone’s eyes on us. The pressure to perform both being in a relationship and sing at the same time is a lot. Lauren starts heckling, and I determinedly ignore her, but I can feel my face getting hotter and hotter. Jesse points to song after song, but I keep shaking my head. No, I can’t sing that. I can feel aggravation rising inside me.

‘Just pick one,’ Jesse says, and he’s clearly frustrated with me, and I can see Tristan’s eyes widen with concern.

Lauren stands up and grabs the mic off me.

‘You’re taking too long,’ she says. ‘I’ll duet with Jesse.’

I grab the microphone back.

‘Actually, we’ve already heard two songs from you tonight and it’s two too many,’ I say.

Lauren makes a face at me.

‘So start singing,’ she says. She’s looking at me like I’m the one behaving terribly, which makes me want to cry with frustration, because, yes, I am behaving terribly but also no one understands how misunderstood and alone I am in this horrible world.

‘I will if you give me a chance, but we know how much you need all the attention, all the time,’ I snap. All my emotions have merged into a kind of red haze of anger and Lauren is the easiest target here. A nice, familiar target.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ She grabs at the microphone again, and I wrap my hands tightly around it and push her away. She doesn’t let go, and we wrestle with the mic. I feel like we’ve stepped back in time and we’re seven and nine years old, wrestling over the TV remote or a hair tie or a piece of clothing or the last packet of tiny teddies in the box, or any of the many items we have fought over in our life.

Jesse jumps back to get away from us, and he trips over the microphone stand, and falls onto the floor, and I turn to grab him, and trip on his leg and fall as well, and Lauren comes crashing down on top of us both.

26

Everyone rushes over to help. Lauren and I are absurdly both still gripping the microphone, and Jesse is trying to wriggle out from underneath me, and Harper is saying, ‘Here let me help’, but not actually doing anything to help. Tristan says, ‘We need to separate them,’ like we’re toddlers, and there’s a lot of stumbling around, and Kendra falls over and her knee squishes my boob, briefly, and it hurts enough to send a jolt of rage through me and suddenly I can’t stand any of it anymore.