Chapter Six
Friday
Ruby:
I don’t think I was prepared for uni. Like, at all.
By Friday night of my first week, I’d worked out nobody else had a clue what they were doing either. Some of them were just much better at pretending.
Everyone is downing drinks, knocking back shots, grimacing, and then carrying on as if they aren’t feeling sick and half-cut.
Everywhere I look, people are introducing themselves for what must be the fiftieth time.
Conversations begin with What's your name?
Where are you from? What are you studying?
before somebody inevitably suggests doing more shots together.
I can’t tell if everyone's genuinely having the time of their lives or whether we're all performing some bizarre Freshers' Week ritual where admitting you're overwhelmed is strictly forbidden.
“Lincoln Uni!” the pound-shop DJ yells. “Are you having fun?”
The roar that answers him is deafening. Glasses are raised into the air, people whistle loud enough to make my ears ring, and somebody near the bar starts chanting something that catches on straight away.
I look over at Brooke, who seems completely dismayed, carefully tucking one of her brown curls back into place. “This was supposed to be one quiet drink!”
“It still can be!”
She gapes at me. “Ruby, there are about four hundred people in here! Do you know how long my hair took today?”
“I know. How do we make it stop?”
“More importantly, how long do we have to stay before leaving isn’t rude?”
“We’ve not actually spoken to anybody yet,” I point out.
Brooke wrinkles her nose. “With good reason.”
A girl bopping past us gives Brooke a huge smile and says something neither of us have any hope of hearing.
Brooke smiles politely, nods along and shouts her own name back at full volume.
The song changes before any other conversation can take place and the random girl throws both arms into the air, dancing with such enthusiasm that one of her elbows narrowly misses Brooke's face.
“This is why I don’t leave the house!” Brooke screams, throwing herself backwards to avoid being taken out by an enthusiastic rendition of Mr Brightside.
The girl doesn't apologise. She doesn't even seem to realise she's nearly rearranged Brooke's face as she disappears into the crowd.
“Oi, girls!” A blonde I vaguely recognise from our corridor comes barrelling towards us, weaving between people with two drinks in one hand and no regard for anybody in her path. “The weirdest thing just happened to me!”
Brooke points dramatically at her ear. “Can't hear you!”
“I SAID—”
“WHAT?” Brooke screams. “IT’S TOO LOUD!”
The blonde points across the dance floor. “MY—”
“FRESHERS!” the DJ bellows, somehow even louder than before. “MAKE SURE YOU INTRODUCE YOURSELVES!”
The blonde gives up, laughing as she throws her hands in the air, screaming. “I AM ABI LANGFORD!”
Beside me, Brooke just stares at the room in complete disbelief as people scream their own names, “My God.”
We'd only come down for one quiet drink after bumping into each other back at halls, both of us admitting we should probably try to meet new people. But in the short time it had taken us to order two drinks and find a table, the Student Union had descended into complete and utter carnage.
“This is hell,” Brooke shouts. “My actual worst nightmare.”
I look at her, dressed in black skinny jeans and a strappy top beneath her purple bomber jacket. “You don’t like clubbing?”
“No! My parents raised me to fear God and sticky floors.”
Neither do I, I don’t think. I’ve not really been and this isn’t shaping out to be the best of my experiences.
“Oh my God!” Abi gasps loudly, whipping back around towards us so quickly she spills her drink over her shoes. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?” I shout.
She points frantically into the crowd and starts talking but I can’t hear her.
I point to my ear, dipping my head towards her. “SORRY?”
She gets even louder and even more frantic but I have no clue what she’s saying and I can’t work it out.
Neither does Brooke, both of us shaking our heads.
Abi looks between us and the speakers hanging from the ceiling before letting out an exasperated groan.
“COME ON!” She grabs Brooke's wrist. Brooke grabs mine, and suddenly I'm being dragged through a sea of people with no idea where we're going.
“Abi!” I laugh, feeling slightly delirious. “WHERE ARE WE GOING?”
She glances back over her shoulder. “SMOKING AREA!”
“NEITHER OF US SMOKE!” Brooke squeaks.
“SO?” Abi is undeterred, pulling us harder.
Brooke gives me a baffled look. “THEN WHY ARE WE GOING THERE?”
“BECAUSE I NEED TO TELL SOMEONE ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!”
We stumble out into the corridor, Abi dragging Brooke with her and Brooke dragging me.
“Are you alright?” Brooke asks Abi, her voice finally returning to a normal volume. “Has something happened?”
“Yes!” Abi cries. “My ex-boyfriend as of three weeks ago is here!”
I wince. “You didn't know he was coming to Lincoln?”
“No! It's so random! He was meant to be staying in London.”
“Are you sure it's him?” Brooke asks carefully.
Abi gives her a withering look. “I should hope so, since I dated him for two years. And him coming up to me and screaming ‘surprise’ certainly sold it.”
My eyes widen. “Oh, shit.”
“I’d know his stupid, psychopathic face anywhere!”
Brooke’s eyebrows disappear upwards. “What do you need us to do? Do you need a hug?”
“No.” Abi grimaces, letting go of Brooke’s arm. “Do I look like a hugger?”
She looks totally mental, I’ll be honest. She’s wearing some odd plastic poncho, and she’s the height of a giraffe, her blonde hair is in this weird half-up, half-down bobble thing, and her pink lipstick is a little smudged.
“Do you want us to go and talk to him?” Brooke offers, releasing me.
“And say what?”
“I don’t know… Piss off?”
Abi’s face softens. “You’d do that?”
Brooke shyly shrugs. “If you wanted me to?”
“Oh my gosh!” Abi squeals, pressing a hand to her chest. “That is so sweet!”
Brooke shoots me a glance. “I don’t know if I’d be any good at it.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Abi vigorously shakes her head. “The fact you offered is enough.”
“I’d come too.” I hear myself tell them. “I’m not sure how much it’d help, but strength in numbers and all that, right?”
“Do you reckon we could take him?” Brooke asks, cracking her knuckles.
“What?” I’m aghast, glancing at her hands. “As in like… attack him?”
She shrugs again. “Well, there are three of us.”
Abi starts to laugh.
“My mother would sense it from Louth and appear here before I’d even thrown the first punch.”
“Your mum’s in Louth?”
“My mum is everywhere when I’m doing something I shouldn’t be.”
I hold up a hand before this derails further. "Okay, realistically, none of us are fighting anyone tonight. What's the actual plan? Are we going to look at him menacingly from a distance, or—"
"I want to walk past him holding both your hands," Abi stretches out her spine, determination taking over her features, "looking like I have never once thought about him. And that he was wrong when he said I look like a dementor in this poncho."
Brooke studies the poncho. “You do look a bit like a dementor.”
Abi gapes at her. “Are you siding with a cheating, lying, scumbag of a man?”
“No. You look lovely.” Brooke winces. “...In a dementor sort of way.”
“This is outrageous.”
“Look, I’m not saying it to offend you. I’m saying it because it objectively does make you look like a Dementor.”
I burst out laughing. It's unfortunate, but Brooke is telling the truth. The black plastic poncho drapes from Abi's shoulders in long, flowing folds, making her look less like a first-year university student and more like she's about to glide through Hogwarts.
Abi hangs her head dramatically. “I thought you two were going to be my new best friends.”
Brooke looks stricken. “We can still be your best friends.”
Abi peeks up through her eyelashes. “Even if I resemble one of Voldemort's minions?”
Brooke nods earnestly. “I’ll slap some glasses on, whack a scar to my head, and you can call me Potter.”
Abi bursts into laughter. "Okay. Fine. I'm leaning into it. I'm a Dementor tonight. Everyone who wronged me is about to feel very, very cold."
I lightly fist-bump the air. “That’s the spirit.”
Turning sharply on her heel, Abi reaches for the door handle and yanks it open. The noise crashing back over us. "If he says one word to me—"
“I’ll bite his ankles off,” Brooke menacingly threatens.
“I’ll throat punch him,” I tack on.
“I genuinely love you both,” Abi shouts over the music, towing us both back into the crowd by our wrists. “Best friends in minutes.”
We push back into the thick of it, trying not to laugh that somewhere out there in the strobing lights is a boy who has no idea he's about to be glided past by a furious, glamorous Dementor and her two entirely unqualified henchwomen.
Abi's chin is up. Brooke's arranging her face into a menacing scowl, and I’m just kind of plodding along with them.
Abi has her shoulders back, poncho billowing behind her like a cape, and Brooke and I fall into step on either side of her.
"There," she hisses suddenly, nails digging into my arm. "Blue shirt. By the bar. Don't look." Both Brooke and I turn to look. "I SAID DON'T—"
"Sorry!" Brooke whips her head back around.
“You looked directly at him, Brooke."
"I panicked!"
"We had ONE JOB."
I bite down hard on a laugh but it comes out anyway, and Abi rounds on me next, except she's laughing too, poncho crinkling, all three of us dissolving into it right there in the middle of the crowd, completely useless as an intimidation squad.
This isn’t like me at all. None of it is. It’s a bit overwhelming, to tell the complete truth. But on the plus side I could report back to Dr. H that in my first week of Uni I have been a willing participant.
I am going to things. I am making friends. I’ve just got to be sure they never meet my dad. Which shouldn’t be hard given I don’t speak to him anymore.