Chapter 4
Rachel
I probably fell in love with Josh the very first time we met.
It was November, the year I turned eighteen, and I was two months into university, studying for a business degree.
I’d dithered for too long over applying to live in halls, not wanting to leave my dad, and home – even though the university campus was only a few minutes from our house.
The equilibrium we’d worked so hard for felt like a spirit level bubble that had only just come to rest.
By the time Dad had managed to persuade me that moving out would be a positive step – the start of an adventure, not the end of everything good – all the halls places were taken, so I was added to the waiting list. Not long afterwards, a room became free.
We virtually collided in the corridor as I was moving in and he was moving out. He was hauling a suitcase behind him, two bags strapped across his chest, weighing him down.
He was dark and lean, a little taller than me. I took in the faded jeans and Vans, the hint of muscle beneath his T-shirt. The soft creep of stubble across his jawline.
‘How come you’re leaving?’ I said, to be polite more than anything else, though I was also secretly hoping to confirm his departure wasn’t due to black mould, or some kind of beetle infestation.
‘I sort of . . . got a book deal.’
I hesitated, not sure if this was student-speak for something worse than the beetle thing.
He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. As in, I wrote a novel, and a publisher bought it.’ His tone was bashful, but I could see electricity in his eyes.
‘Wow, that’s . . . Congratulations.’ Oddly, I almost reached out to touch his arm, as if we were old friends.
In the sterile silence of the corridor, I felt his gaze spread through me. Tiny tributaries of heat, reaching into every part of my body.
‘Well,’ he said eventually. ‘It was really nice to meet you . . .?’
‘Rachel.’
He nodded politely. ‘Josh.’
And then he hobbled away along the corridor, weighed down by his bags, and I felt a pulse of sadness that he was going.
To my left, a door swung open. Someone stuck a hand out, wrist decorated in bangles, chunky rings on all four fingers. A couple were shaped like skulls.
‘I’m Ingrid,’ said the slight figure at the end of the outstretched arm. Barefoot in leggings and an Umbro T-shirt, she had ice-blonde hair, but a warm smile and dancing eyes. I noticed a nose ring, a neat slash of plum lipstick.
I smiled back and shook her hand, introduced myself.
‘Nice, isn’t he?’ she said, nodding in the direction of the boy who had just made my stomach spill with stars. ‘We’re having a party later. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he’s here. Leave it to me.’
My smile widened. I couldn’t help it. ‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘Are you joking? My middle name’s Cupid.’
Later, at the party in the common room, as I was helping myself to more of the bright red cocktail Ingrid had not only made but invented, Josh appeared at my shoulder.
‘I should have left you a list of things to be wary of. And top of it would be any kind of cocktail concocted by Ingrid.’ He smiled. ‘How’s the room?’
‘Lovely, thanks. Although . . . you left something behind.’
His face fell. ‘What was it?’
I laughed, assuming he was fearing he’d forgotten a pair of dirty boxers, or a porn mag. ‘Just a notebook with some poems in it.’
Josh looked as if he’d have preferred it to have been the porn.
‘I only read half of the first one, I promise. Just because I wasn’t sure if it might be important.’
‘Thank God. And no, not at all. The whole thing was an insult to poetry, honestly.’
‘Remind me to get it for you later.’
He smiled. ‘Thanks. There’s bound to be a decent bonfire I can chuck it in on my way home.’
He said this, I assumed, because it was Guy Fawkes that night. But anyway. I didn’t agree. I could tell how much longing and love had been poured into even just the few lines I had read.
I started to tell him so, but had to almost shout to make myself heard over the music. Acid house, a relentless, galloping beat. Giving up, I mouthed, ‘Hey, do you want to . . .?’ gesturing to a sofa at the edge of the room, away from the speakers.
We moved over to it and sat, the cushions sagging slightly beneath us. It was a little quieter in that corner, but only just. We shuffled close together, our heads inclined.
Sipping my drink, which was dizzyingly sweet and violently alcoholic, I asked what his novel was about.
‘It’s crime. A kind of . . . cold-case procedural thing.’
‘Is that the official pitch?’
He laughed, looked down at his hands. I noticed a writer’s bump on his middle finger, a soft knoll in the flesh of him. His skin was smudged with ink. I pictured him having ideas for novels in the middle of the night, scribbling them down frenziedly with a leaking pen. ‘God, I hope not,’ he said.
‘You must have worked hard.’ I privately envied his bravery, quitting uni after just two months to follow his dream.
He nodded, but modestly. ‘Swerved a lot of school discos.’
‘Lucky you. I always hated the discos.’
‘How come?’
‘Two left feet.’
He raised a palm. ‘High five to that.’
Our eyes met. His were liquid brown, and I wanted to dive into them. The air between us felt charged, suddenly. Molecules realigning, a shift in pressure.
He asked what my ambitions were, a question I always dreaded, given I could never come up with anything more thrilling than wanting a steady job I might stand half a chance of enjoying. I suspected this lack of imagination would disappoint him. But, equally, I didn’t quite see the point of lying.
‘Nothing wrong with wanting security,’ he said, once I’d filled him in, to my relief. ‘I don’t think you should ever try to be anything other than exactly who you are.’
At that moment, another friend of Ingrid’s, who was having tequila funnelled into his mouth nearby, sat abruptly upright and projected a stream of it directly at Josh. Liquor shot through the air, a surprising volume of it spraying all over his grey T-shirt.
I started laughing, reached out to touch his arm. ‘Oh, my God. Are you okay?’
‘Sorry, mate,’ gasped Ingrid’s friend, holding up a hand. ‘Sorry. Gag reflex. Sorry.’
Josh just looked at me as he wiped second-hand tequila from his face. ‘Gag reflex,’ he repeated, deadpan.
I laughed harder. I couldn’t help it.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’ Josh said.
And oh, how I did.
In the distance, just visible in the purple sky above Bedford’s building tops, gunpowder was exploding, mingling with the music still beating inside my head. The horizon was hypnotic, whirling with colour and dancing light, the ink of the dark made pale.
Josh turned his body to mine. Somehow, I think he knew he didn’t need to speak. Taking my face between his palms, he leant forward and kissed me, his mouth warm and sweet from the lager he’d drunk.
I pressed my back against the cold wall. I could feel his pulse firing. Our skin was hot in the wintry air. The spilt tequila had lingered, the spice of alcohol blending with his ocean-scented cologne. He pushed his hands through my hair, kissing me so deeply that all the breath left my body.
Eventually, he pulled away, levelling his dark eyes to mine. ‘I’m really glad it was you, Rachel.’
And I was glad, too. Because – even in that moment – I knew, I knew, I knew.