LUKE
Connor was charging madly towards us and my first thought was: He’s going to punch me. He is literally going to punch me in the face.
But he didn’t. He just picked Becky up and carried her victoriously back to her screaming corridor, who swallowed her in a wild scrum of hugs and kisses and war whoops.
I just stood there, by myself, watching it all happen and feeling simultaneously really pleased and slightly awkward. All week I’d had this picture in my head of me turning up to Phoebe’s birthday dinner with Becky in tow, and the two of us being given this hero’s welcome. Obviously that plan had completely gone to shit over the past twenty-four hours, but still . . . At least something good had come out of it.
Phoebe broke away from the Becky bundle, and looked over at me. She was wearing this long, white dress, and it brushed the hall floor gently as she crossed to me. I couldn’t read the look on her face. But, then, I never really can.
All she said was: ‘How did you find her?’
‘This girl on Ed’s corridor, Jamila, used to go to school with her,’ I said. ‘She gave me her address.’
Her eyes widened a little bit. ‘What, you actually went and physically got her?’
I nodded. ‘She only lives, like, an hour away.’
‘That . . .’ She fiddled with the weird fur scarf thing she was wearing. It was like she was trying to find the right words hidden somewhere inside it. ‘That was an amazing thing to do,’ she said, finally. ‘You have a weird ability, Luke Taylor, to be the hero and the villain at the same time. Like, concurrently.’
‘Right . . .’ I shoved my hands into the pockets of my dad’s too-big tuxedo jacket. ‘Is that a compliment, or . . .?’
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. ‘No, it’s definitely not a compliment. But it’s still impressive. It’s like, just when we are all going to sentence you to death for doing something terrible and unforgivable, you go and do some miraculous thing that saves you at the eleventh hour. I mean . . . how did you convince her to come back?’
I shrugged. ‘To be honest, I think she was already convinced. She said she’d told her boyfriend about the photos and everything, but they’d made up and they were back together now. So I think she would’ve come back next term anyway. All I did was convince her to come back for tonight.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Just that I was so sorry about everything that happened, and that no one, literally no one, had fucked up this first term more than me. But I was still coming back. I told her we should both look at it like first term didn’t happen. Like, next term we were starting again from scratch.’
We looked over at Becky, who was still being joyously manhandled by Frankie, Negin and the rest of them. She caught my eye for a second – or maybe it was Phoebe’s eye – but whoever’s it was, she looked happy. Definitely the happiest I had ever seen her.
I turned back to Phoebe. ‘This is gonna sound weird, but can we go outside for one second? I’ve got to give you something.’
‘That sounds ominous . . .’
‘Please, just one sec.’
I grabbed my bag and she grabbed her coat and we walked out of the hall and started following the edge of the lake round to Wulfstan.
‘So, look . . .’ I started. ‘I know it’s awkward to mention your birthday . . .’
She cut me off with a humourless snort-laugh. ‘Last night was pretty much a disaster from start to finish.’
‘Because of me.’ I nodded.
She didn’t look at me. ‘Well . . . At least eighty per cent because of you, yeah.’
We got to the First Night Bridge and both automatically sat down on it, with our legs dangling out over the edge. The hum of music and laughter from the hall carried across the lake towards us. Earlier, on the train back with Becky, I’d tried to rehearse this whole big speech in my head, but like everything else this term, I ended up just bumbling straight into it without thinking.
‘Phoebe, listen,’ I said. ‘I know that everything that happened with Abbey yesterday makes me out to be a complete arsehole. And obviously the reason for that is because I am a complete arsehole. But you have to know: I barely spoke to her all term. Yesterday she literally came up here out of the blue. And I know it was awful, and I’m so sorry, but it was also good because we finally sorted everything out. We just needed to see each other and say the last things we had to say, and properly say goodbye. And we’ve done that. And the truth is . . . I told her how much I like you. Because I really, really like you. And I want us to be a couple. Like, an actual couple. You have been the best thing about uni. The only good thing.’
I stopped to catch my breath, but Phoebe didn’t say anything. She was just watching the water lapping softly at the bank below her. I reached into my rucksack.
‘I should have given you this yesterday. And it’s not wrapped because I am a twat. And, y’know, also because I was busy heroically bringing Becky back . . .’
She gave me a pretty hefty eye-roll for that, which, to be fair, I deserved.
‘But, anyway . . . happy birthday.’
I handed her the Ariel book, and she just stared down at it blankly, like I’d given her a bus ticket, or something. Finally, she said: ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Do you really like it?’
She turned to look at me. ‘Of course. Thank you. It will be on my shelf for ever.’ She touched the yellowy, frayed corner of the cover, gently. ‘I love things like this. Like, when you look at them it reminds you suddenly of some really specific memory. Something you thought was buried, but then you touch this kind of emotional portkey and it all comes back to you.’
‘Yeah.’ I nodded, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what she was on about. I was mainly wondering if and when she was going to respond to my declaration of . . . not love, exactly, but pretty serious like.
Suddenly, she said: ‘Why were you crying on that first night?’ and I must have flinched or something because she added: ‘I saw you in the computer room.’
I exhaled. ‘Well . . . Me and Abbey had had this awful summer and I just couldn’t take it any more. We broke up that night. Or . . . started breaking up. I don’t know. It feels so long ago. But I felt like there was all this pressure welling up inside me, and it just got too much . . . I can’t really describe it.’ I shook my head. ‘I can’t really describe anything. I think about that a lot. I feel like the words that can explain what is actually happening inside me don’t exist.’
She looked at me, and almost laughed. ‘Listen . . . this is cringe but I really don’t care any more.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I fancied you at school. I feel like I’m on a TV show doing some big reveal, but whatever, there it is. Secret’s out.’
I didn’t really know how to respond to that. I was more interested in whether she fancied me now. So I just said: ‘Well, that’s nice . . . thanks,’ which for some reason made her laugh so hard that her fur thing fell off and nearly dropped in the water.
I grabbed it before it could tumble over the edge. ‘Hang on, do you mean even in Year Eleven when I had that ridiculous, shaved-at-the-sides haircut?’
She laughed again. ‘Well, it lessened then, obviously. That was when I turned my attentions to Adam Kramer.’
‘Thank god. I would have lost all respect for you.’
She wrapped the fur back around her neck, and I wondered if maybe I should try to kiss her.
She stretched her legs out over the water and sighed and then looked me dead in the eyes. ‘To be honest, Luke, and obviously I may live to regret this, but . . . I just don’t think I want to be with you.’
PHOEBE
He opened his mouth to respond, but I kept talking.
‘I want us to be friends,’ I said. ‘Proper, real friends who would be there for each other whether we were getting with each other or not.’
He closed his mouth, and then nodded. He looked out across the lake.
‘And right now,’ I said, ‘don’t you need a proper friend more than you need a girlfriend?’
He smiled sadly. ‘Well, yeah. I haven’t got too many proper friends at the moment.’
‘That’s not true.’
He straightened his back and reached over to hold my hand. ‘Phoebe, seriously, I know things have been really messy, honestly, I know that, but—’
I shook my head to cut him off. ‘Things haven’t been really messy, Luke. You’ve been really messy. And your mess has started to mess me up, too. So, if you really do like me, then be a good friend and don’t let that happen.’
He breathed out slowly, like he’d just been deflated. But he kept hold of my hand. Finally, he said, ‘If friends is your final offer, Phoebe, I guess I’ll have to take it.’
I wriggled my fingers round his, into a handshake position: ‘To friendship.’ He laughed and we shook. He was really handsome in a tux. Clean cut and broad and grown-up. He looked like he was born to wear it, and walk down a red carpet having his picture taken.
We clambered to our feet and started to walk back round the lake. When we got to the hall I said: ‘I’m just going to put the book back in my room. Don’t think Sylvia would forgive me if I got Jägerbomb all over it.’
He nodded. ‘See you in there.’
I watched him walk off into the madness of the ball, where Ed and Arthur and a few others were cheering and waving him over. And that was it. I had rejected Luke Taylor. Year Nine me would have died from shock at that sentence. It actually made me laugh out loud, to myself, like a lunatic. And then I wanted to tell Flora. I got out my phone and saw she had texted back:
‘You look awesome, best one. If you ruin that dress I will kill you xxx’
I went back to my room and squeezed the Ariel book on to the little bookshelf. Who knows, maybe Luke Taylor would turn out to be the love of my life, but in order to ascertain that I would have to actually get to know him first, and properly pay attention this time.
I wandered back down the deserted Jutland walkway, and as I crossed the car park I could see Josh was near the entrance to the hall. As I came in, he turned and smiled and I felt a bit nervous. He started walking towards me, and I wondered what we would say.
‘What time you heading home tomorrow?’ he asked. There was a tension in his voice I had never heard before.
‘Think my mum’s coming at midday.’
Neither of us knew what to say next. I replayed the moment I had tried to kiss him in my head. It was almost unbearable.
Just as I was about to make an excuse and walk off, he threw his arms around me. And I hugged him back. And we both just stayed there in the hug. The words we’d said had felt all strange and wrong and not what we meant, but the hug felt right and not weird and how things really were.
We broke away and looked at each other and I didn’t understand what was happening between us. What he felt and what I felt and what everything meant. But there was loads of time to figure that out.
‘I’ll see you later, Bennet.’ He smiled.
I found Frankie and Negin at the edge of the dance floor, watching Becky get frantically waltzed about by Connor. Luke was on the other side of the hall, dancing with Arthur and Rita and everyone. There was still no sign of Will, or any of the other football boys.
‘So . . .’ Frankie took a sip of her drink. ‘Glad you and Luke Taylor are love’s young dream because my life as the nun of York Met is continuing without my consent.’
Negin gave me a look that said: Things are not good.
‘Shape-Face Girl and Ed are over there,’ she whispered. I followed her glance to where Ed and Sophie-or-Sarah were kissing, right in the middle of the dance floor.
‘Oh, shit,’ I groaned.
Frankie huffed. ‘Maybe if I had a banana mouth and perfectly circular eyes I could bag an attractive tall man, too.’
‘Well, I’m not with Luke Taylor, either,’ I said. ‘So you can also sign me up to the York Met nunnery.’
‘Me, too,’ Negin sighed. ‘Interesting Thought Boy is getting with some random.’
‘What?’ We followed her gaze. I didn’t recognize ITB at first without his holey jumper. He looked less philosophical in a tux. But there he was, his tongue down the throat of some rand—
‘That’s not a random!’ I yelled. ‘That’s Stephanie Stevens.’
‘Who?’ Negin and Frankie said in unison.
I shook my head. ‘I should never have saved her life. I should have let her choke on her own vomit.’
We stood in a row, my head leaning on Frankie, and Negin’s head leaning on me. We just watched Stephanie Stevens and ITB, and Ed and Sophie-or-Sarah like we were watching late night QVC.
‘Oh well . . .’ Frankie sighed. ‘I think we should just get Becky, dance our arses off, then go back and decoupage our letters and competitively eat cheese toasties until one of us dies from a cheddar overdose.’
‘Sounds good.’ I looped an arm around each of them. ‘I mean, you know loads of people die in Freshers’, right? Like, millions.’