Chapter 20
Adam asks my mum to marry him. I was trying to suss out his game plan, but he has way more money than us, so it must actually be love.
My mum is NOT the romantic type, never felt the need to marry my dad, so I imagine it’s taken a lot for her to say yes.
Aoife, Bianca, Ronks and Shreya are coming to the wedding. The Twins have gone skiing. I know never say never but I can already say with absolute confidence that skiing is something I’ll never do. From lack of want, affordability and all the other awful reasons. Even though I’ve not spoken to Lowe in a while, Mum pushes me to invite him. ‘I was going to anyway!’ I tell her. I reckon it’s just so she can give me the you’ll marry that boy one day penetrative stare.
Lowe stands by my side in a crinkled light-blue shirt over his BMX t-shirt, still looking like everything I want. I watch Mum – the most unromantic stoic holding a bouquet made of homegrown wildflowers – say, ‘I do’ and she is the happiest she’s ever been, and I think of Dad, all by himself, dissolving instant coffee into his BEST DAD IN THE WORLD mug.
Annoyingly, I am still too self-conscious to ever show my teeth in a photograph, even though my teeth are absolutely OK, but I’ll get there, one day. As the photographer snaps photos of us and my hair that doesn’t feel like my own, tousled into chipolata bridesmaid ringlets, people I haven’t met before throw handfuls of dried petals in our faces and I look for Lowe in the crowd. But he hasn’t left; he’s right there. He takes my hand and holds it. His thumb criss-crossed over mine. And he doesn’t let go. I think I’ve underestimated how much I need him.
We all take the absolute piss out of the free bar but Lowe takes it too far and throws up in a bush outside the venue. I hoist him up like a puppet and decide it’s time to take him home.
He gargles, ‘Leave me here. I’ll wait for you – have a good time.’ Crawling into the very same bush he’s just thrown up in.
‘Don’t be silly.’ I hoist him up. ‘I’ve had enough anyway. If one more person tells me how much I haven’t changed a bit … I’ll … I’ll … I’m too tired to think of the repercussions.’
Of course, I’ve changed; I’m a woman now … aren’t I?
We get the bus back to mine. Me in my ridiculous velvety red-wine bridesmaid’s dress that makes me look like I have hips in places that aren’t even humanly possible and Lowe retching. He spits, throws up again, the doors of the bus swishing and swashing like oars, vomit sweeping back and forth like windscreen wipers until the tide touches my painted toes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he apologizes. ‘Thank you for looking after me. I love you.’
He loves me.
And just when I’m about the say it back, he says, ‘You’re my best friend.’
Best FRIEND.
Let go, Ella.
A week later we’re at WASP bar – a coffee shop by day, and by night a very illegal drum and bass club that doesn’t seem to mind the fact that there are children’s high chairs stacked in the corner and seventeen-year-olds raving and doing lines off their laminated breakfast menus. The only transition from day to night is that the chalk board listing all the coffee prices is swivelled to reveal:
NO HATS
NO HOODS
NO TRAINERS
Everybody inside is wearing one of the above if not all three. Still, it’s always a relief to not have to memorize the star sign characteristics to match a fake ID with a birthday on it that isn’t mine. When in reality no bouncer is going to ask me what traits make up an Aquarius anyway.
(Honest. Curious. Creative.)
I’m messaging Nile a bit from the party. He’s at this late-night Film Club thing that he’s started hosting. He invited me along, sweetly, but I said no because all my friends are here. Lowe’s here, wearing a shirt again and it isn’t even for a wedding. He asks me to go to the shop with him to buy cigarettes. He says he wants to talk.
For a second, I wonder if the star I wished on has actually come through, that my wish knew to activate just before things develop with Nile? We should just sack the party off and say how we feel, for real this time.
Once Lowe’s bought his BH from the off-licence, he mindlessly offers me one and I turn it down, annoyed that he would even think I’d want a cigarette. Doesn’t he know me?
‘You’re so lucky to not have an addictive personality,’ he tells me.
You don’t know the half of it.
‘So … ’ he begins. ‘There’s a girl from college here tonight.’
Oh. OUCH. ‘ … And?’
And, ‘I like her,’ he says. I think about how into her he must be to confess this; she must be driving him crazy. ‘I need your advice, Ella. She says she likes older men so … ’
‘That’s why you’re wearing the shirt?’ I ask (even though my mum’s wedding is obviously what gave him the idea), smiling, finding out that yes, it still hurts, that I still hold feelings for him. Trying not to cry, I reflex with humour. ‘Cos you want to look like a bloody accountant?’
‘Ha, yeah … does it look OK?’
He really wants to know, popping his collars up adorably; my opinion matters to him.
I could be a bitch but I can’t.
‘You look really lovely,’ I say, because it’s the truth.
‘OK, thanks.’ I’d never seen him so self-conscious. ‘I just … really like her.’
Stab. K, bye. I’m dead now.
He squints, the cigarette smoke waters his eye. He rubs them with his fingers, childishly. ‘You’re the best.’ he inhales. ‘You’re the best girl in the world.’
He exhales and puts his arm around me. And I’m where I should be, my favourite place of all – in his arms. But he’s positioning me just right for the bullet to sink into my chest.
‘I’ll point her out when we get inside.’
Oh, will you now?Oh, FUCK OFF. Make sure you do.
‘Great,’ I say, even though I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.
And he does. The whole room is dancing to Cameo’s ‘Candy’, leaving me out (I’m just jealous because I don’t know my lefts from rights).
‘That’s Rachel … ’
I see her in slow motion, sitting on a leather couch, sipping her drink. And that’s when everything stops. Her head twists back, her long dark-brown hair swishing past, to look at me in the eyes, her face in full beam when she sees Lowe return. She likes him back, I can tell. She looks so much like me. But the Goddess version. Oh God.
I text Nile: Are you still out? Would it be weird it I came to your film thing now? x
He writes back: it would be SO weird It would make me happy if you came. X