PHOEBE
Seeing Flora tumble out of the carriage and on to the platform made me unexpectedly tearful. I sprinted over to her like she was my long-lost love. In a way she kind of is, I suppose. She is the memory stick that carries anything that has ever happened to me that meant something. The sight of her is like a jolt connecting me to every version of myself I have ever been, all at once.
She was wearing the old red duffle coat that was her dad’s in the eighties. It was sort of falling off her shoulders because she was carrying so many random bags. Underneath, she was wearing a knitted jumper and the lime-green flares she had bought from an Etsy shop that had been too small so we had hacked the waistband off.
‘Best one.’ She cuddled me hard. ‘Happy birthday. I thought you would look different but you look exactly the same. Are you crying? I joked to my mum you would cry but now you actually are.’
‘You know what I’m like. Why do you have so many small bags? You look like a crazy bag lady.’
‘Because I didn’t bring a small suitcase to uni, only one massive one.’
I slung three of them over my shoulder and then linked arms with her.
It was a weirdly warm day for the first of December, and the sun made York look quaint and picturesque. We wandered through the cobbled streets and took a photo by the wall. Flora reached out and ran her fingers across a block. ‘It’s weird that an actual medieval person stood right here . . .’
‘I find stuff like that totally crazy. Do you remember when Mr Gillcrest told us that if you stood on a star and looked at the world you would be looking at it in Tudor times? And I still don’t get that thing about the human race fitting in a sugar cube.’ I reached out and put both my palms on one stone.
‘You remember the weirdest things.’ She put her hands next to mine. ‘I am so excited to see you with Luke Taylor. Like, beyond.’
‘OK, well. Just know that it isn’t going to happen until I have laid down some ground rules.’
Flora started pigeon-footing her way along a crack in the pavement, and held her arms out like she was on a trapeze. She looked at me and winked. ‘What’s it worth? Cos I have material.’
I jumped in front of her. ‘I mean it. However drunk you get, whatever happens, you cannot say . . . anything. I mean, I feel like it’s best if you don’t ever speak to him.’
‘What, so you’ll be married and I’ll be godmother to your kids but I’ll never have spoken to him?’
‘Yup.’
She put her arms down. ‘OK, I’m obviously going to play it perfectly. I’ll be like “Oh yeah, Luke, I couldn’t picture you when Phoebe mentioned you, but actually, yeah, now I recognize you.”’
‘You’re over-acting. It’s not panto.’
‘I’m not, you’re paranoid. Who won the drama cup?’ She took a bow at a random man walking past.
‘Look. I just . . . I’m nervous. This week has been really weird.’
It was weird because suddenly the gap between who I was on the inside and who I was on the outside had become like a crater. Outside there was the casual, confident me who agreed with Negin and Frankie that maybe Luke didn’t deserve to be forgiven, and that I could do better. And inside was the real me, who was spending way more time with him than I was letting on, and was getting deeper into it than ever. And now Flora was dive-bombing right into the middle of it all and I was going to have to negotiate it.
‘We have been together every day,’ I told her, ‘but we haven’t even kissed yet.’
‘Romantic. Like a weird Amish dating trial.’
‘No. I just think he wants us to get it right this time. He said he wants tonight to be amazing.’
‘Maybe he’ll flamenco dance in the middle of the restaurant.’ Flora snorted. ‘Anyway, is this real? Like, actually real? Like, Luke Taylor. Marauder’s Map Luke Taylor? Love potion Luke Taylor—’
I jumped on her back and she screamed. ‘This is exactly what I am talking about. You have to shut up.’
She nodded. ‘OK, OK. Promise.’
‘Do you actually?’
She held my hand. ‘Obviously.’ She squeezed it. ‘I’m messing with you. I would rather die than fuck it up. I feel like this is happening to me, too. It’s happening to us.’
We walked into the main bit of town, to the huge glass windows of Bettys.
‘Oh my god.’ Flora walked right up to the window where an elderly couple were eating strawberry meringues and cupped her hands and peered in. ‘Bettys is fan-cy. It looks like the kind of place Daisy Buchanan goes for tea.’ She started to Charleston.
The couple stared disapprovingly at her and she smiled at them and backed away. ‘There is a full-on queue to get in. Like a club. Are you joking me?’
She walked into the main door for people who only want to buy things over the counter. I followed her in and scanned the room but Josh wasn’t there. I felt a bit disappointed.
Sandra appeared. ‘Josh isn’t here, love. He’s on his break. Do you want something to take home with you? Is this your friend?’
Flora bowed slightly. ‘Yup. Friend-from-home. Best friend, in fact.’
We picked a cake each and Sandra put them in a box and tied it with ribbon.
‘He’s probably at the pasty shop,’ she said, as she handed them to me. ‘And he’s already had four French fancies.’
Him not being there made me realize how much I wanted Flora to meet him.
And then, as we wandered back down the street, something pushed between us and linked both our arms. ‘Now then, Birthday Girl.’ Josh was still holding half a pasty in his hand, which he took a chomp out of. ‘Do you want one? I’ve got two more. It’s not your real present, obviously.’
‘Two more?’ Flora said, disapprovingly. ‘And you’ve already had four French fancies.’
‘Spying on me when you don’t even know me?’ Josh shook his head. ‘I’m Josh.’ He held out his Greggs bag as greeting.
Flora shook the bag. ‘Flora.’
Josh and Flora are those kind of people who have that easy confidence that means they can make friends with anyone in about thirty-five seconds.
‘Are you coming out tonight?’ she asked.
Josh shook his head. ‘I’m working.’
‘He’s actually working my shift, so I don’t have to work my birthday.’
‘I’m gonna come out afterwards, though. Would never let Miss Bennet’s birthday go uncelebrated.’ He held out his arms and gave me a massive hug. ‘Happy birthday.’ He picked me up as he said it and then waved us goodbye whilst shoving the rest of his pasty in his mouth.
‘Well, he is attractive,’ Flora said. ‘Apparently, York Met is full of eligible bachelors.’
We walked back to campus, and I started to feel weird about Flora being there. Like she was an anachronism that didn’t belong in Jutland D Block, but in my bedroom or the sixth-form common room or Finnegan’s on a Friday night.
When we got back to the corridor it felt like a bit of an anticlimax, because no one was there. I showed Flora my birthday present from Frankie and Negin – a set of big wooden letters to decoupage for our house next year. They were in all our initials, including Becky’s. Then we went into the kitchen, made Oats So Simple and crumbled a Crunchie bar over the top.
‘Shall we have a nap?’ Flora ran her finger round the bowl and ate the last bits of Crunchie-flavoured porridge.
We got into our pyjamas and climbed into opposite ends of the bed.
‘Luke Taylor has slept in this bed,’ Flora mumbled. ‘That’s fucking weird.’ I checked my phone. Luke still hadn’t messaged since telling me happy birthday at 10 a.m. It was making me nervous. Of all the days to not be in touch. But maybe he was busy, sorting my present, or something. I wondered if it was a surprise party in halls, or decorating the restaurant or something?
And then Flora fell asleep and I lay there imagining how the night would be. I thought about Luke hugging Flora and then, when I wasn’t there, telling her how much he liked me. How they would get on and Flora would ask us both to go and see her in Leeds. I wanted to look really good, because tonight did feel like something I would remember for ever.
I woke up to faint knocking on the door. ‘You in, Phoebe?’ It was Negin.
‘Yeah, we were just napping,’ I called gently. Flora wriggled around. I opened the curtain up a bit. Negin pushed the door and craned her head in.
‘Hey, I’m Negin. Do you guys want a cup of tea?’
‘That would be amazing.’ Negin wanting to be nice to Flora made a wave of happiness wash over me.
Flora wriggled around to face Negin. ‘That would be legit amazing.’
By the time Frankie came over all we had achieved was making room for Negin on the bed and drinking another cup of tea and eating the other two Crunchies in the pack. Frankie had brought a seaside bucket and spade with donkeys on them to use as a punch vessel and stirrer.
‘Er, we’re not leaving for another three hours,’ I said.
‘It’s your birthday, Phoebster. That means we’re getting on it, and we’re getting on it hard.’
She sat down on my floor and started filling it with brightly coloured juice and then vodka. She opened a bottle of Coke and poured it in and started mixing it with the spade. ‘I feel like a witch making a brew.’ She peered into the bowl. ‘Make Ed want to kiss me,’ she muttered in a slow zombie voice as she stirred.
We started getting ready, but the longer Luke didn’t text me, the more anxious I got. I tried to be as breezy as possible and only allowed myself to check my phone every four songs.
‘Have you seen Luke today?’ I tried to sound casual. Frankie and Negin shook their heads. They didn’t look like they were acting.
‘Haven’t you?’ Frankie asked.
‘No, no, I mean, he knows I’m with Flora so . . .’
They all nodded.
‘So, what do you think of Luke Taylor?’ Flora said conspiratorially. ‘I mean, I don’t know him, you guys do.’
Neither Frankie or Negin said anything immediately and then they both nodded exaggeratedly. ‘Yeah, he’s really nice. Really, really nice.’ The way Negin said it made me nervous. I didn’t want to get into all the Wall of Shame stuff. To be honest, I’d given Flora a slightly rose-tinted version of it all, playing up Luke’s walk-off at the match and almost making him out to be the hero of the whole thing. I turned the music up but Flora kept talking.
‘I mean, you must understand how mental this is for me. Like, I spent seven years of my life investing in Phoebe’s Luke Taylor chat, and it’s like, now her and Luke Taylor are an actual thing.’
Negin and Frankie nodded again.
‘You guys know about the Marauder’s Map, right?’ Flora asked.
‘Flora, shut up.’ I hit her on the knee. ‘This is exactly what I was talking about earlier.’
‘Oh come on, I can tell Frankie and Negin.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘OK . . .’
Flora shuffled up on to her knees and leant forward, swishing the spade like a wand. ‘Basically, in Year Nine we found a copy of Luke’s timetable in the library and hand-drew a Luke Taylor Marauder’s Map so we knew exactly where he was at all times.’
Frankie whistled, and Negin said: ‘We could do with that now, to be honest.’ I laughed along with them, but my stomach was tenser than ever.
Connor and Liberty and the others met us in the kitchen and we took pictures and played Ring of Fire. I kept going to the toilet to look at my phone, but nothing. He said he would come. He knew Flora was coming. When I came back into the kitchen, Flora, Negin and Frankie all exchanged a look.
‘Have you heard from Luke?’ Flora asked casually. ‘Why don’t you message him?’
‘Yeah, I’ll see where he’s at.’ I shrugged like it was no big deal as I got my phone out, and wrote: ‘Are you coming for pre’s? If not, see you at browns at 8?’
I put my phone in my pocket and made myself not look at it for the rest of the game. I pretended to have forgotten my lip gloss and ran back to my room just so I could check my phone without them seeing. He had seen the message. I took a deep breath. I only sent it half an hour ago. He might be doing anything, really. But, what?
As I walked back to the kitchen I could hear them all talking through the door, but when I opened it, they went quiet suddenly.
‘What did Luke say?’ Negin asked.
‘Oh, nothing yet. I think he’s finishing his essay.’
She smiled, and Frankie said: ‘Luke Taylor . . . What an enigma.’
I laughed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘No, nothing. Just . . .’ She tailed off, and looked at Negin, like she was tagging her into the conversation.
‘I just wonder if he has . . . issues,’ Negin said quietly, and Flora handed me a massive drink.
LUKE
I was leaving the library when I got Phoebe’s message. I checked my phone and saw she was getting ready to go to Brown’s with Flora and everyone.
I wandered around campus aimlessly, and thought about calling her, or even heading over to D Block, but I didn’t. Eventually, I just sent her a message that said: ‘Sorry, been so hectic today, see you at dinner later x.’ Which basically translated as, Sorry, I’m a massive wanker, but at that moment I couldn’t think of anything better.
I hadn’t even had time to sort the surprise out. It was supposed to be the big thing for tonight – bigger than the Ariel book, even – but I’d been so weighed down with Abbey thoughts all day, I’d forgotten all about it.
I got back to B Block, fully intending to flop down on to my bed and try to get my head straight before I headed out to the dinner. But when I opened the kitchen door, I thought I was hallucinating. Like, maybe the half-spliff I’d had earlier with Arthur was making me see things. But there was no way Arthur’s rubbish weed could cause such a heart-stoppingly realistic apparition.
‘Hey,’ Abbey said.
‘Hey,’ I heard myself say back.
She stood up and I thought she was coming over to give me a hug or something, but she just stayed on the other side of the table, scratching her elbow awkwardly.
‘This girl let me in,’ she said. ‘Hope that’s OK.’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I meant to say. But instead I said: ‘Yeah, of course.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘It smells quite bad in here.’
‘That’s the cheese,’ I said, flicking Barney’s latest note on the fridge.
I was having serious trouble coming to terms with the fact that she was actually here. Here in York. Here in B Block. She looked healthy and happy – or maybe just healthier and happier than the last time I’d seen her. She was wearing her long, dark-blue coat and she must have just got here because her cheeks were still pink from the cold. It felt like so long since I’d last seen her.
In the end, she answered the question without me even asking it.
‘I know this is a bit out of the blue, but after yesterday, I just thought it would be better to talk properly,’ she said. ‘Face to face.’
‘Yeah, definitely.’ I nodded. ‘It’s good to see you.’ And it really was. I felt the sudden urge to go and hug her, to hold her tight and feel her pressed right up against me, with her head tucked neatly under my chin. She used to say that’s how she knew we were meant to be together; because we clicked into each other perfectly, like a jigsaw puzzle.
‘Can we go somewhere the smell can’t get us?’ she asked, frowning. I unlocked my room and she followed me inside.
‘So . . . This is where it all happens?’
‘Yeah, I guess. If by “where it all happens”, you mean “where I try to understand what the fuck Ted Hughes is going on about.”’
She sat down on the bed, and cracked a smile. ‘I bet you haven’t changed your sheets once yet, have you?’
I smiled back. ‘Good guess.’
‘And I bet your mum put these on for you.’
‘Yeah, yeah. You know me so well.’
It was meant as an off-the-cuff comment, but I felt the air tighten around it. She really did know me well. We were together nearly three and a half years. That had to mean something, right?
I sat down on the bed next to her. ‘So . . . what’s going on, then?’ I asked.
She smoothed a crease in the duvet. ‘I don’t know. I just . . . after we spoke yesterday, I wanted to see you. To talk about stuff properly. About what’s happening. Or what’s going to happen.’
‘OK.’ I had no idea what was going to happen, but even more worryingly, I had no idea what I really wanted to happen.
Earlier, getting stoned with Arthur, I’d tried to think about what I’d do if Abbey told me she wanted us to get back together. I eventually concluded that my head would say no, but my gut – or was it my heart? – would say yes. Why can’t bodies think as a whole? Or was it just my body?
There was a knock on the door. The handle swivelled, and Arthur’s head appeared.
‘I will have a cup of tea, then, if you’re mak—’ He clocked Abbey and stopped. ‘Oh. Hi.’
‘Hey,’ Abbey smiled.
‘Abbey, this is Arthur. Arthur, Abbey.’
‘All right? Just seeing if you fancied some Scrabble action, Luke, but no worries. I’ll see you later. Nice to meet you, Abbey.’
‘You too.’
When he’d left, she looked around the room: ‘It’s so cool, this. It’s like living in a big block of flats with all your friends.’
‘I’m so sorry about you not going to Cardiff,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe I haven’t even told you that yet.’
‘It’s OK.’ She nodded. ‘I really think it was for the best. I think if I’d gone this year, I would have ended up dropping out in, like, two weeks. I just know I wasn’t in the right place for it.’
‘But you’re going next year?’
‘Yeah. My mum and Miss Sawyer sorted it.’
She stood up and started flicking distractedly through the books on my desk. She picked up the Ariel book – Phoebe’s present – and murmured, ‘This is pretty,’ and I thought about how my life was starting to become so messy I might never untangle it.
She put the book back on the desk. ‘Sorry, Luke. I don’t know what’s up with me at the moment. It’s quite random to just get on a train and come up to see you.’
‘No, it’s not random. I mean, it is a bit random. But good random.’
‘I just thought it would be better if we actually saw each other. That it might help us both figure out what we wanted.’
‘Yeah. Definitely.’ There was a pause while she stared down idly at my Modern Romantic Poetry anthology. Then I said: ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’
I went back out into the kitchen, and checked my phone. I had two missed calls from Phoebe. I checked her Story: they were on the bus into town. In the picture, she was smiling brightly, wearing an ‘IT’S MY BIRTHDAY, BITCH’ badge that I assumed was Frankie’s doing. Using every bit of mental strength, I forced out all traces of guilt, and concentrated on boiling the kettle.
We drank our teas, and then I cooked us some gloopy, slightly burnt tuna mayonnaise pasta, which Abbey actually seemed quite impressed with, mainly because it was the first meal I’d ever made her that didn’t involve a microwave or my mum. We ate it at my tiny desk, sat so close that our plates overlapped at the edges, and laughed about stupid stuff: what people from school were doing on their gap years, how her ultra-posh mate Veronica had converted to Buddhism within forty-eight hours of arriving in Thailand. It almost felt like the beginning again; the early days of Year Ten, when we were just getting together, realizing how much we fancied each other, how well we seemed to fit.
But there was also this weird, nagging sense of unreality about it all. Like we both knew deep down that this was an odd sort of flashback that couldn’t possibly sustain itself in the long run. At some point, we had to talk about the future.
When we’d finished eating, I went and washed up, and checked the pictures of Phoebe and the rest of them in Brown’s. I told myself I could think about all that later. I just had to get through whatever was going to happen with Abbey, and then I could make the world’s biggest apology to Phoebe tomorrow. I went back into the room and said: ‘So, what do you fancy doing?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, I was sat on a train for three hours, so it’d be nice to go out for a bit. You could show me York.’
‘There’s not much to show.’
‘Erm, excuse me. I’m sure your mum told us York was the UK’s second most popular tourist destination?’
‘Yes, I think she only mentioned that 700 times over the summer.’
She laughed. ‘Well, then.’
We walked off campus and followed the little leafy back streets into town. Even though I was purposely aiming us at the exact opposite side of the city to where Brown’s was, I still felt a constant thrum of terror as I imagined Phoebe or Frankie or Negin stepping around every corner.
We’d just turned on to the main road, which was lined with identical red-brick terraced houses, when I heard a sudden burst of music and shouting.
‘Oi! Taylor!’ I looked up to see Trev leaning casually out of a top-floor window, waving a can of lager at me. The room behind him was packed with people, dancing and shouting and drinking.
‘Yes, Trev,’ I shouted up at him. ‘Is this where you live?’
He shook his head. ‘No idea whose house this is. But I’m sure everyone’s welcome. You coming in?’
I looked at Abbey. ‘Er, no, I don’t think so.’
Abbey shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t mind. It’d be nice to meet some of your friends.’
‘No, I really think—’
‘Luke Taylor! Get the fuck inside!’ Drunk Toby had materialized next to Trev at the window, brandishing a half-empty bottle of vodka.
‘We could just say hello.’ Abbey smiled.
‘I’ll let you in!’ Trev yelled, disappearing back into the room.
Feeling the panic in my chest step up a few gears, I pushed the broken gate open. Trev ushered us into the living room and I realized I recognized nearly every single person inside it. Misty and Brandon and the quidditch lot were all here. Hot Mary was chatting to Scouse Paul on the sofa. Even Caribbean Jeremy was sat on the carpet, inexpertly rolling a stupidly big spliff.
Drunk Toby came galloping down the stairs and whacked me on the back. He handed me a can of Stella, and then started introducing himself to Abbey. Trev turned to me: ‘What’s going on with Will, then? Do you think he’s actually gone for good?’
‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’
‘I heard he had to see the Provost. They might disband the team.’
‘Shit, really?’
He took a swig of beer. ‘I was thinking, you know, if they do, we should just start our own thing next term. No initiations, no dickheads, no Dempers. Just playing football and having a laugh.’
‘That’s actually a really good idea,’ I said.
‘I’ve already told Toby,’ Trev said proudly. ‘He’s on board.’
‘I reckon Ed would be into it, too.’
We clinked cans and he staggered off towards Jeremy, who was now attempting to light his precarious spliff. I looked past them, over at the doorway, to see that Negin and Frankie had appeared, and their eyes were shooting daggers at me.
And next to them, Abbey was talking to Phoebe.