Chapter 9
NINE
In their second year, they all moved off campus.
Ellen and Lucy shared a house with two girls who Lucy had met by chance at the housing office while scanning the noticeboards for available private properties to rent.
Surprised, but flattered, that Lucy would rather share with her and two strangers than go in with the two other girls in their group – who were staying in a serviced apartment in town that Ellen would never have been able to afford – Ellen didn’t even mind that their new housemates complained constantly about the heating and the hot water system.
Robert lived with Ian and three other boys in a house that Ian’s parents had actually bought outright – ‘It’s such a good investment to have a house in a student town’ – and they were only two streets away.
Having seemed to have forgotten her ‘don’t screw the crew’ mantra, Lucy and Ian were now an item and she spent pretty much half her life on his lap.
Every Friday and Saturday night they would end up back at the boys’ house after a night in town.
Sometimes Lucy would come home with Ellen, often she wouldn’t.
Robert was different from the rest of them.
Aside from his well-spoken accent there was nothing to give away the fact he came from a wealthy family.
He wore jumpers with holes in the cuffs and jeans that didn’t fit quite right because they’d been handed down from his older brother.
He was a scientist, but loved to read novels.
Quiet, but full of knowledge. The last to push himself forward, but the first to reach out if you’d had a bad day.
That’s why, when he offered to walk her home that first time, she hadn’t allowed herself to believe that there was anything else in it than him being a perfect gentleman.
As she was pulling on her coat to leave alone, Robert had insisted he walk her back.
‘It’s after midnight, you can’t go on your own. ’
‘But it’s only two streets away. I’ll be there by the time you find your trainers.’ Truth be told, she was equal parts excited and terrified at the prospect of being on her own with him. What if she said something stupid? What if she couldn’t think of anything to say at all?
But, in the end, it’d been as easy as talking to her friends back home.
He was funny and interesting and asked her lots of questions about herself.
He was impressed – rather than mocking – of the fact that she had been the first person in her family to go to university.
When he’d said, ‘they must be very proud of you,’ her cheeks had warmed with pleasure.
Despite the fact that they were both walking as slowly as was possible without stopping, they reached her house less than ten minutes after leaving his.
She wondered – hopefully – whether he might kiss her goodbye.
But, after waiting for her to open the door, he’d given her a mock bow and left.
She’d been too embarrassed to ask him to come in, even though she hadn’t wanted their time alone to come to an end.
It was the third time he walked her home that she’d plucked up the courage to ask him in. ‘My mum sent me a tin of hot chocolate. If you want to come in, I could make us some?’
‘That’d be great. Thanks.’
Over two steaming mugs, they’d whispered so as not to wake up her other two housemates.
He made her laugh, impersonating one of his tutors who spoke so slowly that he sent the students to sleep and she told him all about the small town she’d grown up in.
Then they discussed their friends. ‘You and Ian are pretty close, aren’t you? ’
There was a lot about Ian that she wasn’t keen on, so had been quite pleased when he’d shrugged. ‘Not especially. He’s okay, but he can be a bit of an idiot at times. He and Lucy seem pretty loved up. Has she said how it’s going?’
It seemed like a strange question to ask. ‘She’s pretty happy, I think. I haven’t seen as much of her in the last few weeks.’
He looked down at his hands, then back up at her. ‘And how about you? No one you’re interested in?’
She felt her face colour with the intensity of his eyes on hers, her stomach flutter with hope that this was going somewhere. ‘Well, that would be telling.’
Shuffling forward in his chair, one of Robert’s knees slipped between hers, he was close enough that she could smell the sharp notes of his aftershave. ‘But you might be interested? For the right person?’
Chest tight with apprehensive excitement, she nodded. ‘For the right person, yes.’
He leaned in towards her. ‘And could that right person be me?’
She bit her lip, giggled. ‘I think it could be. Yes.’
And then he kissed her.
For the next hour, they couldn’t keep their hands off of one another.
All the times she’d dreamed about him were nothing compared to the reality of being in his arms, his hands in her hair, lips pressed to hers.
When he had to leave – because if I don’t go now, I never will – it was like pulling apart two strong magnets, and she lay in bed that night with her arms wrapped around herself thinking only of him and his promise to see her again tomorrow.
When Lucy came home late the next morning, Ellen couldn’t wait to tell her what had happened. But her response hadn’t been what Ellen was expecting. Considering that Lucy had her own boyfriend, Ellen had hoped that she’d be pleased for her.
‘Robert? You and Robert?’
It was difficult to decipher whether her expression was disbelief or disgust. Ellen had chosen to read it as surprise. ‘Yes. And I’m really happy about it. I think he’s really nice.’
She thought he was a lot more than that. He was sexy and funny and clever and kind. It was almost unbelievable that someone like him would even look at her. But he had, and she wasn’t about to let Lucy make her feel anything less than ecstatic about it.
Narrowing her eyes for a moment, Lucy seemed to be reading her face. Then she shrugged. ‘Well, good luck with that.’
From that moment on, something shifted in their friendship.
It wasn’t that Ellen was one of those girls who got a boyfriend and dropped her friends, far from it.
No, the shift was in Lucy. Looking back, that might have been the reason that Ellen didn’t go to Lucy on the night that she and Robert had their one and only terrible argument.
Maybe she knew that Lucy wasn’t the person to give her the right guidance.
Lucy had never given any encouragement to Ellen and Robert’s relationship, and had even – during one of the many periods that she and Ian had broken up – tried to suggest that getting tied down to one man was a waste of their college years.
Downing shots of something sickly sweet, she’d slurred at Ellen that they would both be better off without them.
It was only a short time later that she’d realised how true those words had been.