What could she say? She had a boyfriend? That was a lie, as two minutes’ inquiry in the JCR would reveal. That was the problem with living in college—though it had felt so very big on the first day, she was rapidly coming to realize how very small Pelham really was. Part of her wondered if she should say yes—was she really going to spend three years pining after someone who had never looked twice at her, someone, moreover, who was going out with her best friend?
Go out, get drunk, sleep with someone else, and put Will out of her head once and for all. That was what she would have told a friend in her position. But whoever was destined to help her get over Will, her heart knew that this boy was definitely not that person.
“I’m sorry, there—there’s someone else,” she said at last, hoping that would suffice and he would not inquire any further. The boy flushed an even deeper shade of red, his face pomegranate-colored above his dark blue blazer.
“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Of course. No worries at all. I mean, well, if you change your mind—Jonty Westwell.” He held out a hand. “I’m over in Cloisters.”
“Thanks,” Hannah said. “It’s a really kind invitation.”
She stood up, casting about for an excuse to end the conversation.
“Um… I think… I’m just going to pop to the bathroom.”
“Yeah, sure. No probs. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Hannah said, and she drained her wine, put down the glass, and hobbled painfully out into the corridor, where she stood for a moment, catching her breath and trying not to groan inwardly at the hash she had made of turning down Jonty gracefully.
“Sooooo…” said a drawling voice from behind her, and she turned to see April, closing the door of Dr. Myers’s room. “Someone else, eh? Who’s the lucky man?”
Hannah felt her cheeks flush again.
“Oh God, I only said that to get rid of him.”
“You should have said yes! I know Jonty. He’s thick as pig shit, but he’s a sweetie, and more to the point, his dad owns Westwell Pharmaceuticals.”
“He can’t be that thick,” Hannah said irritably, pulling off first one of April’s teetering high heels, then the other. She felt as if she had descended a step on an imaginary staircase, suddenly six inches shorter than April. “I mean, he did get into Oxford to study English.”
“Oh you,” April said affectionately. “You’re so naive, Hannah. First, he’s a rowing blue. Second, did I mention his dad owns Westwell Pharmaceuticals?”
“So? You still have to pass the entrance exam.”
April made a dismissive noise through her nose.
“Oh, that! I had an ex at Carne who made a pretty good living taking people’s BMAT for them.”
“That’s medicine,” Hannah retorted, but half-heartedly.
“Well, whatever the equivalent is for English. Just because you wouldn’t do that, doesn’t mean everyone else is as high-minded as you.”
“April, you shouldn’t talk like that.”
“Why not? Because people will think I bought my way in too?” April said, laughing. “So what? They already think that, why not give them the satisfaction of thinking they’re right?”
“But they’re not!” Hannah exploded. “I know full well they’re not. Why do you talk like this? I’ve read your essays, April. You’ve got nothing to prove.”
“Exactly,” April said, and suddenly she was no longer laughing but deadly serious. “I have nothing to prove. So let them say what they want.”
There was a silence, then Hannah said, “I’m turning in. What about you?”
“I don’t know,” April said. She looked out the window at the top of the staircase, across the glittering roofs of the college and away towards the water meadows beyond the Isis, striped black and white in the frosty moonlight. “I’m not sure. Horatio’s asked me and a couple of girls to go for a drink in town. I’m not sure if I can be bothered, though.”
“Horatio?” Hannah knew the single word dripped disapproval, but it was too late to take it back.
“He’s not my tutor,” April snapped.
“He’s a tutor, though. Don’t you think this is a bit inappropriate?”
“We’re not in high school,” April said impatiently. Then she turned and opened the door to Dr. Myers’s rooms, letting out a gust of cigarette smoke and laughing conversation. “I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind. Don’t wait up.”
“I—” Hannah said, and the door slammed behind April. “Won’t,” she finished to the empty corridor, and sighed, picked up the borrowed high heels, and crossed the hallway to go to bed.
AFTER
When they get home from the restaurant, Will falls into bed and straight into a deep slumber, but Hannah—though she felt tired in the taxi—finds she can’t sleep. She tries hot milk, white noise to drown out Will’s snores, but nothing works. Her joints hurt. Her breasts are sore. Everything aches and she can’t find a comfortable position in bed.
At last, she pulls out her headphones and does something she hasn’t done for months, years, even. She opens up Instagram and navigates to @THEAprilCC. April’s account.
April was the first person Hannah had ever met with Instagram, back in the days when filters were strictly for coffee, and plenty of people didn’t even have a camera on their phone. But April had been one of an early handful to download the app and she had known, somehow, that this would be big.
Now Hannah scrolls back through ancient selfies, with sun-soaked filters and frames to make them look like Polaroids. There are photos of April draped across punts, pictures from college bars, a snap of some tuxedo-attired boy being led by the tie down St. Aldates. All the drunken, laughing, unselfconscious mementos of student life, a decade ago.
She knows the photos well, and not just because the press mined them for publicity shots. In the early days, when they were all that was left of April and of her own life at Pelham, she had flicked through them obsessively—noting every like, reading every comment, each one testament to April’s impact on the world and the gaping hole she had left.
RIP April <3
OMG still cannot believe you’re gone. Luv u.
Wow she fit what a shame lol
It wasn’t healthy—she knew that, even at the time. And at last the pain the pictures caused outweighed her need to look, to prove that April had been real, and flesh and blood, and as beautiful and vivacious and happy as Hannah remembered. So finally, as the comments died away and the likes slowed down, she’d forced herself to stop going back.
But now, looking at them again, she is struck anew by April’s luminous, unpolished beauty, not just in the photos where she is dressed up to the nines, hip jutting, makeup on point, but even more so in the candid snaps—April lying in bed in a splash of morning sun, makeup-free, smiling sleepily at the camera. Oh hai there she had captioned that one, and then a series of hashtags: #nofilter, #nomakeupselfie, #sundaymorning, #godilookamess.
I miss you… Hannah types out in the comments, and for a moment her finger hovers above the send arrow. But she doesn’t post. Instead she deletes the three words and goes back to April’s feed, scrolling through the decade-old snaps.
A young, sharp-cheekboned Will laughing at her from the banks of the Isis makes her stop momentarily, ambushed by his vulnerability. And there, halfway down the page, is a photo that always makes her catch her breath, even though she knows it’s coming—a picture of herself and April, side by side, each holding up a drink. April has her mouth pursed in a selfie pout, but Hannah looks taken by surprise. She is laughing, uncertain, looking not at the camera but at her friend. It’s a Shirley Temple, Daddy, promise kiss emoji reads the caption, and Hannah feels something clench inside her, a mix of grief and anger and… oh, she doesn’t even know what emotions anymore. For a long moment she stares at the picture—at the two of them, so heartbreakingly young and vulnerable—and happy. Happy in a way that she can’t remember being for a very long time.
The urge to reach out through the years and warn the two girls in the photo is almost painfully strong—so strong that, suddenly, Hannah can’t bear it anymore. She shuts down the phone and lies there staring into the darkness, thinking of what might have been.
* * *