Chapter 15
Now
‘Miss Matthews?’ The photography teacher catches me as I head out of class.
Jacob lingers in the doorway for a second as I walk to her desk.
‘I hear you have a conditional offer to study fashion, in Milan of all places.’ I cast a long glance at Jacob, who all of a sudden takes a great interest in changing the settings on his camera.
‘Yes, miss,’ I reply, warmed that Jacob has been talking about me, even if it is to our photography teacher – who we’ve often found napping in the dark room.
‘Congratulations.’ She’s sincere, but she digs around in the array of papers in her desk noisily, not looking at me as she speaks. ‘Where is it …’ she mutters to herself, collecting the huge pile of essays that are clearly in her way and dropping them onto the floor. ‘Ah ha!’
She draws out a crumpled leaflet from the stack and places it on the edge of her desk for me to read.
Young Creatives Exhibition
A place for young people to display their talents to the community and industry professionals
‘Now, as you’re well aware, we don’t have a fashion and textiles department at this college, so the exhibit is usually quite art and photography heavy.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s some great stuff, but I thought you could mix it up a bit.
Since you’re late to my cohort, if you chose to do it, I could count some of your exhibit towards your final grade, and I’m sure it would go a long way with your university prep too.
‘I also hear you’re independently studying your fashion A-level? If you give me the contact of your tutor back in London, I’m sure we can come to some arrangement about this counting towards your coursework.’
Now it’s my turn to not look at her while she speaks. My head is still swimming with the Times New Roman of the leaflet.
‘Why me?’ My furrowed brows give away my confusion, I’m sure.
‘Mr Thorogood tells me on good authority that you would do our establishment proud, and I believe this could be a useful assignment for you, and your future, too.’
‘I—I …’ I trail off.
Jacob has been talking about me? Not only that, but he’s been singing my praises? Why is it that he has been so awkward, so distant to me in person, and yet here he is … helping me with my A-levels?
Because he’s my friend, that’s what friends do, I remind myself.
‘You take this.’ Our teacher slides the leaflet closer, taking my silence as hesitation and not confusion. ‘And just have the weekend to think about it, okay?’ Nodding, I thank her before turning back to the door.
Clearly, the mention of his name has sent Jacob scarpering, and I have to hunt across campus to find him. Sadly, in the few weeks I have been here already, my directional skills have not improved, and I’m sure I pass the science block at least three times before I hear my name called.
Pen waves me over from a bench in the courtyard.
She’s sitting on top of the table, her legs resting beside Jacob who sits beneath her, scribbling away at a notepad in front of him.
My heart sinks a little at the sight of them both together, but I smile at her anyway.
Pen has done nothing wrong, aside from being too friendly, too beautiful.
It’s not her fault that I’m jealous of her, and the sight of her only makes me ashamed of my own feelings for her boyfriend.
‘Please say you’re going to do the exhibition?’ she says as I arrive at the table. Clearly, it’s not just to the photography teacher that Jacob has been talking about me. Except, this time, it doesn’t feel so sweet. This time, it feels less like he’s been singing my praises, and more like pity.
Do he and Pen lie awake in the same bed, discussing how pathetic I am? I can’t decide what’s worse – their charity, or the idea of them sharing a bed.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, plopping my bag onto the table and sitting opposite Jacob, who looks up from his notepad expectantly. The thrill of the last ten minutes deflates, as reality returns.
‘Why not?’ he asks, a little aggressively.
‘I just don’t know if I’ll have time. I’ve got so much to catch up on in my classes, and Grandad needs more and more help on the farm.
’ I think about the hours we’ve been up in the last week alone, trying to prepare the farm for late autumn and the frost that is beginning to threaten each morning.
All of that on top of all of the studying I do in between has rendered me utterly exhausted, and I suppress a yawn just thinking about it.
‘Don’t be silly, Ava. Jake says you’re so good at your fashion stuff. You need to focus on what you want. I’m sure your grandad will have plenty of help on the farm.’ She looks towards Jacob who nods into his pages. Riveting pillow talk, I’m sure: my fashion ‘talents’.
‘I suppose …’ I trail off, trying to refocus my thoughts onto the actual issue at hand. ‘My uni offer is only a conditional, and I do need some miracle to pass this fashion course without a teacher.’
Pen claps her hands together loudly and Jacob and I jump in unison. ‘Perfect. You’ll do it. We’ll come and have a look at the exhibition too, won’t we, Jake?’
‘Yes, can do,’ he says quietly.
I could shake him. Why is he so different when we’re alone?
Why does he show hints of being the boy I knew, and now, he’s closed off and guarded again, as though he hasn’t just tried to help me get to uni without me even asking?
Does he not want Pen to know exactly how close we are?
Does he not want anyone to know that he feels at least something for me, even if that is just a nostalgic sense of friendship?
It’s like he’s embarrassed to know me when we’re around others.
‘Thanks for helping me out,’ I address him directly, hoping he will at least look me in the eye to reply.
‘It’s nothing. Miss Hill has been looking for more students to do that exhibit for ages. Maybe now she’ll stop asking me.’
‘Oh, right.’ The high I felt is slowly seeping out of me like a tyre with a slow puncture. ‘Well, I appreciate it.’ I smile at Pen, who gives me a blinding one in return. ‘I better head home. I’ll see you guys around.’
I find Callum waiting at the bus stop when I round the corner.
He has one of his earphones wedged firmly in his ear, whilst he chatters away with a boy I vaguely recognise from my English class.
I notice a Warhammer pin hanging from the stranger’s backpack, and that’s enough for me to know exactly how they’ve managed to strike up a conversation.
They speak so intensely for a pair that must have known each other less than a week.
They laugh at something with an easy, unguarded openness that has always seemed to come naturally to Callum and I’ve never known how he does it.
A little jealousy stirs in me. Even back home, in a city known for its coldness and its people’s disinclination for conversation with strangers, he’d pick up friends on almost every street corner with complete ease, like he does with just about everything else.
Most of my friends were Callum’s first – he’d do all of the hard part, and then introduce me when I could slip into a friendship seamlessly.
When he spots me, he wraps up the conversation with a clap on the boy’s shoulder and jogs across the road to meet me.
‘You not getting a lift with Jacob?’ he says, offering me his other earphone.
‘I don’t know what’s going on with him at the minute.’ I sigh, stuffing the earphone in.
‘It’s strange isn’t it, coming back here when we aren’t kids any more.
’ Callum looks to me with a comforting smile.
‘Like, I don’t mean we’ve aged since last time or anything.
I mean, coming here was always for fun, always a place of childhood and adventure and excitement.
Coming for the holidays meant it was somewhere special that we only associated with fun.
It’s weird coming now and having to live in reality. ’
I had been trying to find the words for it, and as always, my twin has made the scrambled thoughts in my brain make sense.
He always has a way of being the calm in the storm.
He still feels it’s battering winds just as painfully as me, but he’s able to find the strength to steer the ship.
He feels things, just like I do, and yet he always manages to see the light at the end of the tunnel – a skill I have yet to master.
He grins as he speaks, as though this ‘weirdness’ is an adventure to him, when to me, it feels like the end of all I’ve ever known.
‘Good first week?’ he asks, noticing my sullen face and bumping me with his elbow.
‘Define good.’ I laugh dryly.
‘You’re still upright. That’s something.’ He smiles again, and I feel some of the tension I’ve been carrying since this morning begin, just slightly, to loosen.
‘Are you doing okay?’ I ask, weaving my arm through his to pull him close, like we always did when we were afraid of the dark or being scolded together.
Sometimes, I think he downplays his emotions just to be able to be there for me.
When Granny died, we just about went into hibernation together, curled up in my bedroom in silence, just trying to comfort the other with our presence.
While I could have stayed there for an age, it was Callum that decided it was time to get up and face our irreparably changed world. I couldn’t have done that without him.
‘Oh, you know me. Always have a grand old time. Well, until they told me my history course is now on the Russian revolution, when I was doing the French back in London.’ He shrugs.
‘It’s all just different, isn’t it.’ Guilt stirs in me.
I have neglected my twin a little these past few weeks.
I’ve been so concerned about my own feelings, and his smile is so constant, his joy so seemingly limitless, that I realise I haven’t stopped to think he could be struggling too.