He's After Me

Chapter THIRTY-THREE



Someone tells Zoe that her best mate’s having a breakdown on the steps of the Art block and soon she turns up and gets rid of Ben.

She’s brilliant. She listens without interrupting as I gulp out my tearful tale of how I was nearly discovered by my own father in his bed with my boyfriend. Then she does something I don’t expect.

She giggles!

‘It’s not funny!’

‘It’s hilarious! I can just imagine you two hopping around in the dark, trying to get dressed. It sounds like a farce!’

I sniff loudly. ‘I suppose, when you put it like that. Then we had this mad race downstairs while Dad and Jude were coming up in the lift.’

She shakes her head, still spluttering. ‘It would’ve served you right if you’d got caught red-handed. I knew what you were up to, you know.’

‘Do you think I’m terrible?’

‘Nooo,’ she says comfortingly. ‘No harm done, is there? Who’s to know?’

‘That’s what Jem says.’ I feel better already.

‘I was just mad at you because you didn’t let me into your sordid little secret,’ she confesses.

‘Well, you know it all now.’

Not quite all. She doesn’t know about the state we’d left the flat in, the food and drink we’d consumed, the clothes I’d worn. I pull my coat tighter around me. She’s forgotten about Jude’s top, the one she noticed yesterday, the one I’m still wearing right this minute. No need to remind her. No need at all.

‘What was it like?’ she asks suddenly.

‘What was what like?’

‘You know. Spending all that time with Jem. Together, in the flat. Just the two of you?’

Images from the past few days crowd into my mind:

A soft bed, the centre of our existence; damp towels on a bathroom floor.

Laughing and loving together; waiting and worrying, alone.

Falling asleep in each other’s arms, drunk with love; waking up with a hangover.

Champagne and olives; morning breath and a raging thirst.

Jem’s beautiful mouth; a borrowed razor, thick with hair …

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, her face pink. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘No! It’s just so hard to explain. It was … it was … more.’

‘More? More what?’

‘Just … more. More than anything else I’ve ever known.’

‘Lucky!’ she breathes.

But I’m not sure she’s right. I don’t know if I want more. I think I just want normal.

I muddle through the day somehow, keeping my coat on all the time, so Zoe and my eagle-eyed English teacher, Mrs H, won’t notice the top I’m wearing. I bump into Mr Thomas again at lunchtime and he looks embarrassed and hummphs a bit and suggests that perhaps he (hummph, hummph) and I (hummph, hummph) overreacted and things aren’t as bad as we thought. Jem phones to see how I am, sounding really unfazed, and says he’ll pop round this evening. It looks like life is returning to normal again, thank goodness.

At the end of the day, Zoe walks back to mine with me. Her suggestion, so Mum can see I’ve been staying with her. What a mate! Mum is already home and pleased to see us.

‘Hi, girls! Productive few days? Get lots of revision done?’

‘Not bad.’

‘We’ve seen quite a lot of Jem since you’ve been at Zoe’s. He popped round last night and the night before. I think he was missing you.’

‘Yeah, he said. On the phone. He’s coming round tonight too.’

‘Thought he might be. He’s one of the family now, you know.’ Livi sidles round the door. I’ve only been away three days but she looks different somehow. Sort of cocky. She’s changed out of her school uniform already and is plastered in make-up.

‘Where you going?’

‘Nowhere. Some of us care about the way we look,’ she says, looking me up and down insolently. ‘Is this the new grunge look you’re cultivating?’

‘Meow!’ says Zoe and everyone laughs.

‘Actually, I think I will go and grab a shower before dinner,’ I say graciously, even though I’m aching to slap my sister’s impertinent little face.

‘No hot water at your house, Zoe?’ asks Livi. I glare at her as I pass, then stop and sniff suspiciously.

‘Is that my perfume you’re wearing?’

‘No!’ she says, but her face goes pink.

‘Better not be!’ I say grimly. But upstairs I can tell she’s been using it – the bottle’s moved. Little thief!

Forget about it, Anna. You’ve just borrowed someone else’s apartment without asking. Someone else’s lifestyle. Don’t begrudge your kid sister a drop of perfume.

I peel off my clothes, stuffing Jude’s top and panties into the back of my wardrobe with a grimace, turn the shower up high and step in. The hot water makes me gasp, but I refuse to turn it down as it cascades over me, cleansing my body and my guilty conscience simultaneously in fierce, scalding blasts. Afterwards I dress from head to toe in clean clothes and dry my hair. As I sit with my head bent, hair dangling down in front of me, above the noise of the hairdryer I hear the doorbell and a deep, male voice downstairs. Jem’s here already.

I stand in front of the full-length mirror, appraising myself. Clear brown eyes, thick straight hair, smaller than average but everything in the right place. I don’t look any different from normal. Nothing to suggest I’ve spent the past three turbulent days, unbeknown to anyone but my best friend, in a secret love nest with my boyfriend.

I glance longingly at my bed, neatly made and inviting, my pyjamas, folded nicely, peeking out from under my pillow.

Later.

At the moment the man of your dreams is waiting downstairs for you, Anna. Most girls would give the world to be in your shoes.

I heave a huge sigh and go downstairs to see him.