Nudge 31 The Group Chat
The Group Chat
‘Good morning.’
His lips brush against my skin as he whispers into my ear, voice gravelly from our lie-in. Then he turns to face me, his tongue eagerly exploring my mouth.
‘Good morning to you too,’ I whisper in between kisses.
He laughs softly into my mouth, teeth grazing my lower lip. The small nip drives me wild. I grab on to him tighter, clawing at his arms as our kisses grow deeper and deeper.
‘We need to stop.’ His lip curls as he eyes my frustrated face. ‘If we keep this up, we are never leaving this place. We’ve still got to tidy up and get you home.’
He punctuates his warning with a teasing tap on my nose, which is scrunched in a very forced anger as I scowl back at him. I want to mean it, but I’m too damn happy to give off anything that looks mildly believable.
‘One more hour,’ I say in protest, stroking down his arm.
‘And mess up your Sunday routine? Never.’
‘I don’t have a Sunday routine!’
He scoffs. ‘Liar.’
‘I haven’t since you dared me not to.’
‘Well, I do.’ He jumps out of bed. ‘And you dared me to stick to it. So, we need to go!’
I don’t know what’s worse – how determined he is to stay organised or just how sexy I seem to find it.
I have no energy left to be mad at the cold space between us, I’m too busy resisting the urge to jump on him again.
I need to cool down – it’s ridiculous. I’m like a cat in heat.
One look at him and I lose every ounce of sense I have.
‘You OK?’ he asks, smirking far too much for my liking.
‘Mmhmm.’ It’s not remotely believable.
‘Sure . . . Well, I’m gonna shower. You coming?’ he asks, hand reaching down to the bed.
‘I fear for our time management if I do,’ I sulk, slapping his hand away.
He laughs wholeheartedly and leans in for one last kiss before heading to my ensuite.
I lie flat on my back, my hair bonnet rustling against the silk pillow as I replay the events of the weekend in my head.
They burn in vivid colour, as rich and vibrant as they were when they happened, drowning out the water that runs faintly in the distance.
Me and Aiden. Aiden and me. It’s something I never dared dream of and somehow everything I’ve ever needed.
It feels too much like a dream – something that could only exist between Evie’s tall walls. My heart murmurs slightly, in time with the thought of what happens when we leave – when the bubble bursts and we’re back to who we were before we got here.
Will he still like me?
My stomach drops. The thought grows with each passing second.
You’re being stupid. It’s been five minutes.
I try to shake it off, but it’s no use. The pit in my stomach is too deep and there’s only one cure for it, or rather three cures waiting for me in our group chat.
I reach across the bed for my phone, stretching as far as I can without moving.
It feels foreign in my hand, the way I’ve ignored it for the past few days.
But it’s time to get back to business and soft launch reality, if you will.
I need a second, third and fourth opinion before my head explodes on this expensive bedding.
I squint as it turns on, the lock screen aggressively shining back at me as I wait for my eyes to adjust. The wallpaper flashes to reveal a smiling girl, dressed in a full leotard and holding a trophy.
It’s not my phone. A message lights up the screen, causing the previously stacked ones to unfurl.
I drop it immediately, but not before I catch my name, multiple times.
I shouldn’t. I know that. It’s not good for me. Not good for us and whatever this is.
I trust him.
I don’t know him.
I need to know what it says.
The shower’s still running, the water echoing across the bathroom’s marble walls and mingling with whatever joyful tune he’s humming. He’s not leaving any time soon and I don’t plan to have a full look, just a peek to set my mind at ease.
It’s probably nothing.
I shouldn’t do it.
But what if it’s not?
I can’t start whatever this is on a foundation of distrust!
Fuck it. It is definitely better to know. It’ll be nothing, and I’ll feel stupid and will never need to look again.
I trust the gnaw in my gut and the shake in my hands. They wouldn’t do this over nothing. With one final glance at the bathroom door, I take a breath, reach out my hand and bring the screen closer.
Maddison Clarke? This has to be a joke . . .
Not Moany Maddy?!
Thought u were just tryna steal her job lol
Not a single girl in years and now HER? Bro . . .
Nah u can’t go from Lucy to that, come on . . .
Yo u dog!
They go on and on, back and forth with each other longer than I can stand. It’s too much, too real. The same boys from school saying the same things they said every day for years of my life.
I can feel my heart slow, blood running colder as I let the phone fall back onto the mattress where I should have left it.
‘It’s all yours!’ Aiden practically sings as he strides through the room. His stupidly wide grin shrinks the second it takes in my now sunken frame. ‘Wait, what’s wrong?’
He rushes over to grab my face, his eyes laced with worry.
He checks my temperature, and then my body for any signs of injury.
I can’t speak. I lean into the comfort of his hold a mere second before it makes me recoil.
I can’t let him do this. Can’t let him keep making me feel protected.
I’m not safe with him. He and his friends have proven that I never will be.
He looks closer, fear running up his face as he twists my head and studies for any sort of sign. I don’t know what he’s searching for, but I can tell that he won’t stop until he finds something.
‘Y-you have a message.’ My words trip over themselves. ‘Loads, actually. From your boys.’
I gulp back the tears that threaten to follow. It’s not the time to cry. It’s time to be strong, prove I am OK.
He freezes, fear and worry dissipating as they are quickly replaced with a newfound confusion.
His eyes squint back at me for more context, but I can’t speak without breaking my glare.
I manage a quick nod towards his phone on the bed, which he follows instantly.
My chin falls forward as he drops his hand from my face and ventures over to retrieve his phone.
His eyes widen as he scrolls through the hours of chat, breath catching more with each message that he reads.
His teeth clench firmly, face falling back to unreadable stone as he clutches the device tightly and looks over at me.
‘I didn’t go through it on purpose,’ I say, a shake evident in my voice. ‘I thought it was mine and then I saw my name, and I just . . . well, I couldn’t stop.’
‘How much did you read?’ he asks gruffly.
He’s trying not to shout, but his nostrils have started to flare.
‘I don’t know . . . Not all of it, but enough,’ I say. ‘I kind of got the gist . . .’
The bed sinks as he sits on the side, back facing firmly away from me. He throws his head in his hands, heavy breaths leaving his mouth. ‘I don’t even know where to start.’
I get it, I do. I shouldn’t have looked and there’s a big part of me that wishes I never did.
But then there’s my breath that’s growing steadier and my heart that’s beating faster, letting me know that I did what I needed to do.
The lust-filled bubble that we have lived in this weekend was just that: a see-through, deeply fragile bubble.
It had no choice but to burst, and it was better for it to happen now than later, before we took it too far.
‘You should get back to your room,’ I say.
‘What?’ Aiden asks weakly.
It’s the first time he moves, turning to look me in the eye. His brow is furrowed, face flustered. He knows he’s been caught out and not even he can think of a way to spin it.
‘We have to go, right? And I need to shower before we do. You should go back to your room. Maybe start on the tidying.’
‘We need to talk about this.’
He’s so solid, yet also ready to collapse. I have to look away.
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’ I wrap the sheets around me as I sit up. ‘You guys said what you said and I’m sure you’ll say more.’
‘Us guys?’ he says. ‘Maddison, I wasn’t involved – you saw the messages.’
‘Some of them, yeah, but they had to start somewhere, right? My name wouldn’t have come up like that without you setting them off.’
I can feel my wrists start to shake, my body waver as I think of their thousands of jokes at my expense. I can still remember their laughs and their impressions. They echo non-stop in my ear, making me wish I could disappear.
‘You think I would do that? Encourage that?’ He spits the words out in anger, eyes still trying to catch mine.
I stare down at the crumpled duvet, fixing it tighter around my naked body and trying to shut out the noises in my head.
This isn’t like then. This is somehow ten times worse, because this time I actually thought I was safe.
I was an idiot, who threw decades of opinions away after one stupid kiss in his stupid car.
An idiot who should have stuck to her guns and never taken him on in that stupid tent.
‘Why not? You’ve done it before, time and time again.’ My words grow louder and stronger. I’m not the girl at the house party any more. I won’t be the one that feels bad.
‘Seriously? Maddison. I told you last night that I would never do that to you again.’
‘And then look what happened this morning,’ I say.
‘I wasn’t involved!’
‘They’re your friends, Aiden. That doesn’t just come out of nowhere.’
‘I barely talk to them!’
‘Then how did they know?’ My voice cracks.
‘I just . . . I don’t know.’ He gestures, grasping for words. ‘I just needed to tell someone about you. Someone who knew—’
‘What a joke I was to you?’
‘What you meant to me. Still mean to me. I thought they would get it. I don’t know, I thought they’d understand.’
I feel his hands slam into the mattress long before I hear the thud as the bed rocks ever so slightly with the strength.
It’s not enough to derail me. I shut my eyes tight and focus all my energy on my senses.
What I can touch, what I can hear, what I can smell, taste, can’t see.
I rub the sheets between my fingers, grip on to them tight and record the sound.
He can’t hurt me now. Not here. Not ever again.
‘Look, Aiden, this weekend was fun, but we both know that it was only for the weekend, right?’
I wait for him to exhale or smile with utter relief that poor Moany Maddy hasn’t accidentally fallen in love with the guy who just wanted a quick fuck. But he doesn’t.
‘Maddison,’ he says, a pleading in his tone.
‘We’ve spent a lot of time together, and we’re only human and we needed to get it out of our systems. And we did. All weekend. So now we can forget about it and go back to being us.’
‘Out of our systems?’ His voice is low.
‘Well, this obviously isn’t a thing, right? I mean, I’m me and you’re you. We both know how that works, and even if we didn’t the whole outside world sure does.’
I swivel towards him to stress my point with a gesture to his phone, but I make the mistake of looking at him in the process. He’s frozen, dejected and confused.
‘You don’t mean this,’ he finally manages to say.
His eyes are clouded with a disappointment I almost believe.
But I saw those messages. I know the real him and I’m sure he is disappointed in a different way.
Disappointed that I caught on before he could make me the butt of his big joke.
He got me all through school and even uni, so it’s not working this time.
‘Of course I mean it.’ I raise my chest proudly and try to relax into a cool, nonchalant state. ‘I mean, you and your friends were right. I’m sure if I told my girls what I’d been up to, they’d say even worse.’
‘They would?’
They wouldn’t. But the pained croak in his voice, while biting, almost makes the lie feel worth it.
‘We are who we are – two people who have never got along. The event’s just over a month away. There’s no point in pretending any different now.’
‘Uh, yeah. Sure,’ he says, slowly blinking back to life. ‘You’re right, I guess.’
He rises and gathers his things. I feel the last of my heart rip in two, but it’s needed.
‘Exactly,’ I say, nodding back. ‘We get ready, we go home and then we smash out this party. One of us gets their dream job, the other walks away, just like we planned.’
After everything, it’s that sentence that finally stops him dead in his tracks, head swivelling to take me in in sheer disbelief.
‘You still want the job?’ he asks.
‘Of course. Do you not?’
It’s why we’re here. I have to remember that’s why we’re here.
He hesitates before he answers, studying my frame closely.
‘Yeah, I do. Guess we just . . . got distracted.’ He sighs.
‘Exactly. But that’s over and now we can focus.’
He nods firmly and my stomach sinks at his confirmation. But we both know it’s for the best; we are at our best apart from each other, and this little blip back together is just that, a blip. His friends and my friends would all agree.
I rise from the bed, holding the duvet around me as I make my way towards the bathroom to drum in the point. His eyes follow me as I go. I can feel it, but I know that it’s not the same. This isn’t a look of desire – it’s a look of goodbye.
My chest tightens.
‘So, I’ll meet you downstairs when I’m dressed?’
One more word and my voice would have broken.
‘I’ll start on the tidying.’ He nods.
And then he turns the doorknob and wanders out into the hallway, leaving my room and my heart emptier than it has been the entire weekend.