PHOEBE
‘How are you dancing? I can’t walk properly.’ I squeezed the mop in the bucket.
‘You are shit at mopping,’ Josh laughed. ‘You do weird show-mopping, have you mopped a star?’
‘It’s a snowflake.’
‘Have you just chucked all the water on the floor? Do you ever wanna leave here? It’s like you want to sleep the night in Bettys kitchen.’
‘Well, at least I wouldn’t have to walk anywhere.’
Josh picked up the mop and started systematically working it round the floor. ‘Phoebe Bennet: too posh to mop. Too tired to dance. Too full to eat another vanilla slice.’
‘I’ve had two. I’m sorry. My back aches.’
‘I thought it was your feet, you shirker. Go and start doing the stocktake in the freezer.’
I was about to tell him about how the freezer reminded me of The Shining, and every time I went in there I freaked out, but I thought that might be a step too far. I pulled the incredibly heavy door open and walked in. It was completely silent. I took my shoes off and put my feet on to the freezing floor and padded about, letting the cold soothe them.
I took the clipboard off its hook. I was completely alone. I tried to remember the last time I had actually been by myself and I couldn’t. Apart from being in the toilet, every second of my day was spent with other people. Even at night, I shared a single bed with either Frankie or Luke. I sat down on the floor and leant against the wall at the back of the freezer. The cold crept through my bun and right to my head. The buzzing ache in my feet spread through my body.
I took my phone out of my pocket. My mum had messaged me a picture of Fat Cat asleep on my Turtles pillowcase. Seeing it made me feel lost and kind of disconnected. I tried to call Mum but there was no reception. I hadn’t been home at all. Becky went home every weekend. Maybe I should go back for my birthday, just do a family thing. For no reason at all I started crying.
It was ridiculous. Nothing had happened. I shut my eyes and let it wash over me for a second.
‘Bennet?’ Josh was standing at the door. ‘Are you OK?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah. I am, just . . .’ I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t really know what was going on. ‘Just leave me for a minute, honestly. I’m embarrassed. I’m a shambles of a person.’ Trying to speak was making me more tearful. I sniffed in a disgusting attempt to try and pull myself together and wiped my eyes. ‘Honestly, just give me a second.’
He nodded and walked out. But as soon as he did I wished he hadn’t. I scanned the clipboard and told myself I would get up and start counting in exactly three minutes. I felt like I could fall asleep. It was like the tears had drained me, left me totally exhausted.
The door creaked again and Josh was peeking back into the empty kitchen. ‘OK, coast is clear.’ He pulled the door shut. He was holding two steaming cups in one hand.
He crouched down next to me. ‘Do you want the tea or the hot chocolate?’
I reached out and took the tea.
‘Budge up.’ He sat down.
‘Imagine if we got trapped in here. This is how they killed people in the Cold War.’ I leant my head against his shoulder.
‘Bennet, you do know that’s not why it’s called the Cold War?’
‘It’s in a Bond film. They kill the man in a freezer. Or it might be a sauna, actually.’
I closed my eyes and neither of us said anything. The silence just rolled over us.
‘Are you OK?’ he said softly after a while. ‘I’ve never seen you upset. It’s horrible. You’re such a smiley person usually.’
I nodded against his shoulder. He smelt like chocolate and fabric softener. ‘Yeah. I really do think I’m just tired. I miss my mum today. It’s the first time I have, properly. I’m nineteen soon. It’ll be the first birthday I won’t be with my family.’
‘Well, you could go home for it?’
I shook my head. ‘Nah, I don’t want to, and the girls are organizing something, I think.’
‘What do you want to do in your twentieth year then, Bennet? If me and you are sitting on the floor in this freezer one year from today, what one thing do you want to have done?’
The steam off the tea was dissolving the ice on the shelf and making it drip. ‘I dunno.’
‘Come on, it can be anything. So you can say “The year I was nineteen I . . .”’ He scooped his finger round the edge of his mug to get all the foam.
‘I feel really boring. Can I get back to you?’
He tilted his head on top of mine. ‘Yup. This freezer is actually warmer than my house.’
‘Has Will still not fixed the boiler? Are you definitely moving out next year?’
‘I think so. It’ll just be . . . easier.’
He took two Bettys biscuits out of his pocket and gave one to me. ‘So, how’s your ever-eventful love life, then?’
I elbowed him. ‘I told you I don’t have chlamydia.’
He laughed softly. ‘You get in some scrapes, Bennet, I swear.’
‘All right. We don’t need to list them.’ If he knew about the condom he’d probably die laughing right here in the freezer.
‘But you and Luke are solid, right?’ he asked. ‘It’s not him making you sad?’
‘No. He is one of the really, really good things. Well, I think he is. I just wish I knew what was actually going on between us. As in, I am in it, living it and I don’t really know. Like, we see each other every day. We spend most nights together. We message each other. We cook together. Don’t those things, added up, mean that we are a couple?’
‘Well, it sounds pretty couply.’
‘But I don’t exactly know what happened with his ex and he never talks about it. And he was a bit off about Frankie taking a picture of me and him together at the 999 thing. I dunno . . . I hate this stuff. Like, how you never know what the status is. What the status of your own life is. I mean, is there an amount of time that passes, and then you just kind of are a couple, whether you’ve said it out loud or not?’
Josh shrugged. ‘If you’re worried about it, just ask him. What are you scared of?’
LUKE
For a moment, I thought she was Abbey.
It was just a few seconds, in that weird, fuzzy state between sleep and waking, but, still, I could have sworn it was Abbey’s head resting softly on my chest. Then my phone buzzed on the bedside table, and reality came sliding back into focus.
It was the morning after yet another night before; another night where we’d both gone out separately, got pissed, then ended up back in bed together.
I woke up the same way I always seemed to wake up these days; with a throbbing head, and a tongue that felt like the top of a snooker table. I tried to swallow, but my mouth didn’t have enough moisture, so I ended up making a weird sort of clicking noise at the back of my throat, like a radiator coming on.
Through the door, I could hear the chemists having an unnecessarily loud conversation while smashing saucepans about. Eventually, they headed off to labs and I lay there, listening to the soft flutter of Phoebe’s breathing, and thinking about Abbey. I thought about how I’d feel if she slept with someone else. Like, I really thought about it. Hard. I tried to imagine her telling me, and exactly how I would react. I decided that, honestly, I’d be happy. I just wanted her to be OK. I wanted us both to get on with our lives.
But, then, was I really getting on with my life? I still wasn’t totally sure if I was ready to start something new. Something official. I liked Phoebe – a lot – but the idea of getting into something serious seemed so much riskier now. What if things ended with her the same way they had with Abbey? What if I was destined to go through life just screwing stuff up and hurting people? What if I was never brave enough to start another relationship because I was so sure it’d all turn to shit?
Truth was, I’d spent all this time worrying that I’d fucked Abbey up, but I never really considered that maybe she’d fucked me up a bit, too.
My phone buzzed three times in quick succession, and Phoebe snuffled and shifted under the duvet. I couldn’t reach the phone without lifting her head off my arm. She scratched her nose, blinked a couple of times, then grabbed my phone, and passed it to me.
‘Was that your alarm?’ she mumbled.
Four new messages on the football group flickered open. A photo of a girl I vaguely recognized from somewhere, with Will’s and Dempers’ and Wicks’ increasingly grim comments underneath.
I switched the phone to silent, and locked it. ‘It’s just the football group.’
Phoebe rolled over, still half asleep. ‘Mm. What’re they saying?’
‘Just about training later.’
I pushed the duvet back, and then suddenly remembered I was completely naked. Being naked with Phoebe when we were pissed in the middle of the night felt like the most natural thing in the world, but I still wasn’t quite ready for it in daylight.
I wriggled my foot out of the bed and used it to blindly sweep the floor for my boxers. I connected with something and reached down to grab it, only to find that it was just my T-shirt. My boxers were, for some reason I couldn’t quite remember, all the way across the room.
‘I just need to grab my, erm . . .’ Instead of finishing the sentence, I put my shirt on and stood up, tugging it as far down my arse as it would go, and waddling to the door like a penguin in a cocktail dress.
I put my boxers on, and when I came back from the loo, Phoebe was sat up in bed, putting her bra on.
‘Do you want some breakfast?’ I asked.
She frowned. ‘Well, yeah. But your kitchen smells so, so bad.’
‘It’s all right, I’ve got a system now. I just open all the windows.’
‘But it’s November. It’s freezing.’
‘Yeah, so then I turn the oven on full and leave the door open.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Still not sure.’
‘All right. One sec.’
I went and knocked at Arthur’s and a muffled zombie-moan told me he was still in bed.
‘I’m putting your cheese in the bath,’ I shouted through the door. ‘Just for half an hour.’
There was another moan, which I took to mean, ‘Please, go right ahead.’
When I’d moved the cheese and aired the kitchen, Phoebe ventured in wearing my tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt, and we sat munching toast.
‘Hey, who’s that girl Ed’s always with?’ she asked, putting two more slices in the toaster.
‘Which one?’
‘You know. The blonde girl who looks like she’s in a Wes Anderson film.’
‘Oh, right. Sarah, or Sophie, or something. From his halls.’
‘Are they together?’
I shrugged. ‘Dunno. Don’t think so.’ I got the jam out of the fridge. ‘I have tried to pump him for information, honestly. But Ed doesn’t exactly talk much about his feelings.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, can you try harder? Frankie’s eternal happiness basically depends on you.’
Arthur’s door swung open and he emerged, scruffy-haired, wearing his duvet like a massive coat.
‘Here they are,’ he yawned. ‘The lovebirds.’
We both forced a laugh.
‘What we saying, then?’ He peered at my plate and scratched his chin. ‘Toast?’
‘Yes, Arthur. That’s what this is.’
He picked up one of my pieces, which I’d just coated with jam, and walked back to his room.
‘Right, I’m back to bed for a spliff and some Schopenhauer. If you need me, you know where I am.’
He slammed his door. Phoebe smiled at me. ‘I remember you saying on that first night how your corridor weren’t that great. But Arthur is really nice.’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, he is. I do feel a bit better here now. It’s just that I’m not that similar to most of them, and I guess that freaked me out at first.’
She took a sip of tea. ‘Are you still gonna live with Will next year?’
‘Er . . . Maybe.’ The atmosphere tightened slightly. I’d barely even spoken to Will in the past few days. He hadn’t messaged me all week. ‘I need to chat to him about it properly.’
We finished breakfast and she headed off back to D Block. Even saying goodbye was weird nowadays. Full on lip-kissing always felt way too couply in the mornings, so I just went for a kind of half-arsed cheek kiss that morphed uncomfortably into a semi-hug.
‘See you later,’ she said.
Back in my room, I found my phone humming with Wall of Shame comments, but I didn’t even look at them. Instead, without thinking too much about it, I wrote Abbey a message:
‘Hey. Long time . . . How are you? Really hope you’re ok.’
I didn’t hesitate, just pressed send. Then I lay back on my bed and tried to wrap my head around the impossible-to-understand medieval literature we were supposed to read for next week’s seminar.
A few minutes later, she replied:
‘Hey. I’m good. Much better anyway. I miss you.’