Page 51 of How We Began
I wish that they’d stop looking at me like that, like I could click my fingers and everything would be okay. Because no matter how hard I try, it won’t be.
When I thought of the way Ben stood in the kitchen last night, the slope of his shoulders as he told me about his dad, it made my heart feel hollow. It made me want to chase after him down the stairs and follow him wherever he was going.
“Listen, guys.” I levelled them both with my serious stare, though, judging from their twitching lips, it wasn’t that serious.
“Ben needs to do his music thing, and if the band has been offered a break, then he should go with it. I know he’d be crazy to miss out and he knows it too.”
I finished my tea and got up to put my mug in the sink, deliberately turning my back on Meredith and Jayne. I can’t give them the one thing they want, which is a happy ending.
(9.30 p.m.)
I was staring at pictures on my phone. There were some of us from Fez club. That night seems like a lifetime ago, when we were all giggly and posing for the cameras. There is one of Ben and me on the dance floor, his arms around my waist as he smiled against my neck. Then I had a thought. What night is it? Tuesday? Sod it!
There is nothing better to do, well there is, and it’s called studying, but that can wait.
I launched myself into the hallway to announce, “Come on, I call a girls’ night. It’s student union night at Fez.”
Meredith pulled her door open wide with a look of suspicion painted on her face. “I’m not coming if you’re only drinking herbal tea all night!”
I laughed at her grumpy face. “I won’t. I promise. I can still drink alcohol, just not so much anymore.”
She cocked her head to the side, thinking it through. “Okay, deal. I'm in. Give me fifteen minutes!”
Jayne shouted her agreement through her door, and I’m now just waiting for them to finish getting ready.
It’s a girls’ night and you know what? I think it’s just what I need. Why didn’t I think of this before?
9th January
(2.30 a.m.)
It really was a girls’ night. Well, to start with anyway. There was no Tristan, no Ben, and none of the various University football players Jayne toys with. Just the three of us girls together on the dance floor. I only had two very small Gin and Slimlines. Jayne and Meredith had a lot, lot more, a lot, a lot.
There is something very funny about being out with drunk people when you are sober. I’ve never realised this before as it is normally it me who’s drunk. Before we got in the queue to the club we visited the Weatherspoon’s across the road. Jayne and Meredith got louder and louder with every glass of wine.
“Stink Trishtan shloves me?” Meredith dribbled into her Pinot.
“Oh god! Not this again!” I banged my head on the table with a loud and desperate groan.
“Shwhere, ish he?”
“I don’t bloody know! I’m his twin, not a mind reader.”
“Oh.” Guzzle, guzzle, guzzle.
Then we had the same conversation again. Only louder.
By the time we made it onto the dance floor, I was clutching my bottle of fizzy water like my life depended on it as Meredith spun around me like a demented chimpanzee. When someone tapped me on my shoulder, I turned to find James, Mr Hotbod gym instructor.
“Hey.” I smiled, giving him a big hug.
“Hey to you,” he said back in my ear. He tried to move into our little dancing circle, stepping very close to me, hands on both of my hips, attempting to dance with me. I stepped back but Meredith was performing a Whirling Dervish routine behind me.
Smiling, I kept dancing while trying very hard to find a gap to move into.
Why do people do that, assume they can just dance with you regardless? In my humble opinion, I think Regency style dance cards should be bought back into fashion. Ooh, I do know something about history… or maybe I’ve just watched too much Bridgerton.
Anyway, I’ve digressed. Thankfully the tune changed and I ducked out of his grasp, positioning Jayne in-between us. This was the second time I’d used her as a sleaze shield, and my stomach twisted with a pang of guilt, but I wasn’t comfortable with him being that close at all.
