LUKE
Rita looked down at the book. ‘I feel like it’s too precious to actually touch. How much was it?’
‘Fifty-five quid,’ I said, and she whistled: ‘Luke. Going all out.’
We were drinking Oreo milkshakes on the bus back from town, where I’d spent a good half-hour rifling through various dusty bookshops until I’d finally found it. An early edition of Ariel.
‘I hope she likes it,’ I said.
Rita handed it back. ‘She will.’
The present had been her idea. Well, not the book itself, but the idea of getting Phoebe something special for her birthday.
But the extra thing – the surprise – had been all me. It had come to me on that mad night in D Block, right after I’d made my garbled apology to everyone. I suddenly knew what I needed to do. I hadn’t even told Rita about it yet. I hadn’t told anyone.
A week had gone by since the Sardines craziness, and it had quietly, inexplicably, turned into the best week of term so far. Not because everything was suddenly perfect: it wasn’t. Random girls still gave me evils as I walked through campus, and the D Block lot were as frosty as ever, but at least it was all out in the open now; not some shadowy, guilt-ridden secret that I had to carry around on my own.
Me and Phoebe definitely weren’t back to whatever we had been before Becky left, but we were edging closer. We’d spent most days together in the library, whispering and laughing and people-watching, when we should have been working on our essays. We hadn’t even kissed again yet, but in a weird way it felt like we were closer than before. Like, now that everything had been knocked down, we could actually start to build something new.
Will had gone home the day after the match. No one even knew if he was coming back. All football stuff was on a sort of hiatus. The morning after Sardines I’d gone and spoken to Arthur and Rita about it all. The Wall of Shame; everything. Just laid it all out and told them how awful I felt. And how I knew saying sorry didn’t make it better, but I was still really, really sorry.
Rita had told me: ‘You know, Luke, for someone who’s not a dick, you can be such a dick.’ But then Arthur had thumped me gently on the arm, and they’d both told me how much they’d hated the first term, too.
A buzz in my pocket shook me out of the memory, but before I could check it, Rita said: ‘So, are you and Phoebe actually a thing again now?’
‘I don’t know, really. I feel like tomorrow, at her birthday thing, maybe . . .’ I took a sip of my drink and stared out of the bus window. ‘I don’t know. It’s still kind of awkward. I want us to be a thing again, but I’m not sure whether she wants it. I don’t really feel like she’s properly forgiven me—’
‘Which, let’s be honest, is fair enough,’ Rita cut in sharply, and I could tell she was only half-joking.
I nodded. ‘I know, I know. I really fucked up. Shit, man. Why do things have to be so messy?’
‘They don’t.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, we’re not sixteen any more, Luke. It is possible to sleep with someone a few times and for things not to be awkward afterwards.’
‘Not sure about that.’
‘Well . . . Me and Arthur.’
I nearly choked on my milkshake. ‘What? Seriously?’
She smiled. ‘Yeah, seriously. We had a little thing in the first term. I was still rebounding pretty hard from Jack. And me and Arth just got on so well. We were spending loads of time together, and . . . it just happened.’
‘Shit. Then what?’
‘Well . . . I think he wanted it to turn into something more serious, but I wasn’t sure. I mean, I’d literally just split up with Jack. So I suggested that maybe we should just be mates for a bit and see what happened. And a year later, we still are mates. Really good mates.’ She pushed the bell for the next stop, and stood up. ‘And who knows what’ll happen in the future? In spite of my good taste, and his many, many shortcomings, there is still something about that boy . . .’
I lifted my knees to let her past. ‘I can’t believe it. You and Arthur. I’ve always thought you’d make an amazing couple.’
‘Ha! Maybe. Who knows, I’ll probably end up marrying him.’ This idea made her snort into her milkshake for a good five seconds.
She got off the bus outside her house, and I stayed on till campus: the end of the line. I walked the long way back, around the lake, towards Jutland. It was properly, bitterly cold, and I could feel the book bumping against my back through my rucksack. I thought about giving it to Phoebe at her birthday dinner tomorrow, and how she might react. And then I thought about how she would react to the surprise.
As I passed the library, I remembered that buzz in my pocket. The message was from Reece. It said: ‘Shit man, you OK? You seen Abbey’s Instagram . . .?’
A little quiver of shock ran through me – mostly at the fact that Abbey literally hadn’t even crossed my mind in the past week. I checked her Instagram and saw that she’d posted a new photo, just a few hours ago. She was smiling brightly in it, and weirdly my first thought was to wonder how long it had been since I saw her smile properly like that.
My second thought was: Who the fuck is the guy kissing her?
By the time I got back to B Block, I’d tried her five times. No answer. I unlocked my room and kept trying. Nothing. Just the first two seconds of her voicemail, over and over again: ‘Hi, it’s Abb—’. Hang up. Redial.
The guy in the picture had glasses, black hair and a full beard, like a proper adult, even though he couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than us. They were stood on a beach somewhere, wrapped up in scarves and jumpers, Abbey’s hair billowing out sideways in the wind. He had his eyes closed, and was kissing the side of her mouth, while she half-kissed him back and half-grinned at the camera. At me.
I tried her again. No answer. I felt panicked suddenly. On edge. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why was I reacting like this? I thought back to that morning in bed with Phoebe a few weeks ago, when I’d wondered how I’d feel if Abbey met someone else. I’d really thought I’d be OK with it. Relieved, even. Happy.
But clearly, Hypothetical Me was much more stable and mature than Actual Me. Actual Me, as it turned out, was a fucking pathetic dick. Actual Me was suddenly wondering if breaking up with Abbey had been a huge mistake.
But then, were we really broken up? That night after the initiation, I’d said, ‘I’m not over you,’ and she’d said, ‘I’m not over you either.’ What the fuck did that actually mean?
After an hour or so, sick of feeling this cold, gathering panic, I gave up and went for a walk across campus. I purposely left my phone in the room, picturing it swollen with messages and missed calls by the time I got back. In the end, I was out of the block for all of about six minutes – I basically jogged to the munchie machines and back – and the phone was just as Abbeyless as it was when I left.
I picked it up and tried her again. No answer. Arthur knocked on my door, and poked his head round: ‘Yo. What you up to?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Who were you calling?’
‘No one.’
‘Cheeky spliff?’
‘No, you’re all right.’
‘Bit of cheese?’
‘No.’
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’
As soon as he’d closed the door, my phone buzzed. I leapt on it, but it was just a message from Phoebe, asking if I wanted to have coffee with her and Flora before the dinner tomorrow.
I chucked the phone back on to the bed, but it burst straight back into life again. It was ringing now, and Abbey’s name was flashing across the screen. I felt my heart kick into double-time.
‘Abbey?’
There was silence, and for a horrible second I thought she’d hung up. Then she spoke, really softly.
‘Hey Luke . . . Are you OK?’
A weird sense of calm came over me. Like, now I’d finally got through to her, everything was going to be all right.
‘I just needed to speak to you. Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling for ages.’
‘We’ve been driving back from Sussex. I’ve been down there quite a bit lately, staying with my gran.’
‘Cool. How was it?’
Another pause. ‘Yeah, it was good.’
I couldn’t dance around the subject of the photo any longer. ‘So . . . what’s his name?’
She sighed, heavily. ‘Luke . . .’
‘Oh, his name’s Luke, too? That’s a coincidence.’ I was being a twat, and I knew it. But then, as we’ve established, Actual Me is – and probably always will be – an utter twat.
She sighed again. ‘He’s called Marcus.’
‘Marcus?’
‘You don’t need to say it like that.’
‘Who the fuck is called Marcus?’
‘He is.’
‘Right. So, is he . . .?’ I ran out of words. ‘Who is he?’
I listened as she explained how they’d met. How his family had rented a cottage next to her gran’s. How they’d spent most of the past few weeks hanging out together, going for walks by the sea. How he’d just finished uni – he was twenty-two, he’d got a first in Classics at Oxford – and was now trying to figure out what to do with his life. How they’d bonded over both being in what Marcus referred to as ‘a transitory stage’ of their lives.
If I’d disliked the bloke after seeing that photo, I absolutely hated him now.
‘Are you together, then?’ I asked, when she’d finally finished talking about Marcus and all his incredible achievements. ‘Like, is he your boyfriend?’
‘No, Luke. Of course not.’
‘Well, you look pretty cosy in that picture.’ I was reaching new, previously unexplored levels of twattishness.
She half-sighed-half-tutted. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, or whatever, by putting that photo up, but—’
‘I’m not embarrassed, Abbey,’ I snapped. ‘I don’t care what other people think – I never did. I just care about what I think and what you think.’
‘Well, what do you think?’
‘I think . . .’ What did I think? ‘I think it’s really weird seeing you with someone else. Not just weird. Horrible.’
There was silence again. Then she said: ‘Luke, you need to figure out what you want.’
‘I don’t know what I want,’ I said, lamely.
‘Well, you said you didn’t want me any more,’ she said. ‘You broke up with me, remember?’
‘I said I wasn’t over you.’
She groaned. ‘You only said that when you were pissed and lonely and . . . confused, or whatever.’
‘Well, I didn’t know you were going to run off straight into the arms of some posh knobhead called Marcus.’
‘He’s not posh.’
‘So you’re not disputing the knobhead bit?’
She ignored this. ‘Look, I didn’t know I was going to run straight off to Marcus. I didn’t run straight off to Marcus. I didn’t plan any of this. I’m sorry. But isn’t this what you wanted? I’m OK now, Luke. At least, I think I’m on the way to OK. Aren’t you happy about that?’
‘Yeah. Of course.’
‘Luke . . .’ Her voice wavered, and sounded heavier suddenly. ‘Trying to get over you has been the hardest, most awful thing I’ve ever had to do.’
I didn’t know what to say to this. I felt like the conversation was snowballing out of control. I was saying things I wasn’t sure I meant. I felt knackered.
‘What are you saying, then?’ she said, finally. ‘Are you saying you want to get back together?’
‘No. Or . . . maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Great,’ she snapped. ‘Well, your decisiveness is really reassuring.’
‘Sorry.’
I heard her click her tongue, irritably. ‘Shit, we can’t talk like this. I hate not being able to see you. It’s crazy talking about this stuff over the phone.’
‘I know. It feels like years since I last saw you.’
‘Yeah. I know.’ She exhaled, heavily. ‘Shall we just talk tomorrow? I’m tired, we’ve been driving for ages.’
‘Yeah, OK. Speak to you tomorrow.’
I knew I should try to think properly about what I really wanted. Try to get everything straight in my head. I messaged Phoebe back and told her I couldn’t meet tomorrow in the daytime, as I had to work.
Then I looked down at the Ariel book, poking out the top of my rucksack, and wondered what the fuck I was going to do.