Page 15 of How We Began

“Um, not that flat, Lil.”

“Which flat then?”

“Tristan’s.” When she said Tristan’s, what she meant was the one I share with him when I’m not at uni. I hoped to God they weren’t on my sofa.

“Oh…” I didn’t know what else to say other than, “See you tomorrow then.”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow, Lilah.”

I could hear her giggling as I hung up.

“Don’t ask,” I warned Ben.

He didn’t.

I’m not the only one drinking out of the giant cup of remorse this morning. Meredith is having a rather large dose herself. I found her earlier being sick in her sink—nothing goddess-like about it.

“So did you?” I asked, crash-landing on her bed.

“Lilah!”

“Well, did you?”

“No.”

“Really?” I leant up on my elbow to study her.

“No, really. I passed out.” She covered her face in her hands, making loud sobbing noises, and I snorted a loud laugh which made my head hurt so I quickly stopped—that’s karma for you. “It’s not funny! It’s embarrassing!”

“Don’t worry, Mer. If he thinks you’re worth it, he’ll wait for the right time.”

“Will he?”

It took all my restraint to not pull a face. I know Tristan. He is a bit of a tart but he definitely seems keen this time. Well, he has seen her twice. That is keen for Tristan. But then there is the small issue of the age gap. He is quite a bit older, chronologically speaking, although he does possess the mental and emotional capacity of a fifteen-year-old.

Luckily, I didn’t have to answer. She jumped up to be sick again, and I dozed to the lovely sound of my friend retching her guts up.

“What about you?” she had asked, returning to a horizontal position next to me, wiping her face on what appeared to be a T-shirt.

“What?”

“Um, smoochie smoochie in a boothie.”

“I can’t believe you just tried to make that rhyme.”

“Well?”

“Well, stuff happened, but it’s complicated, you know?”

I pulled a pillow over my head and tried very hard not to exist for an hour.

Now, I’m back in my room and my thoughts are spiralling.

I hate the word complicated, but I can’t work out if I’m making things more complicated by even thinking of the word, and now I’m even writing it down.

This thing with Ben, it’s something unknown and it’s coursing through my veins like liquid gold and stealing all my rational thoughts. I never had many before, and now I’ve got nothing. But I don’t want this to be another ‘Lilah Thing.’

Ben and whatever this could be deserves more than that.