Chapter 5 #2
Pea: I saw them first. Nicole and Kelly and Fay.
Probably the worst people we could run into.
I tried to get Alex’s attention but he was looking straight ahead, his eyes set on a fixed point in the distance.
I looked down at my hand again, in Zak’s, and I knew they would notice and comment on it.
They were sitting on a bench and we were heading straight for them, and it was like a car crash was going to happen and only I could see it.
Zak: Pea slipped her hand out of mine and I noticed that she was looking at these three girls. We were in front, AJ and Alex behind, and when we reached them, the girl in the middle called out. ‘Who’s your boyfriend, Pea?’
Pea: I froze. Nicole never spoke to me. Never.
But I can imagine how surprised she was to see me walking down the street with a tall, handsome stranger.
I knew that if he opened his mouth and spoke it was all over.
But I didn’t know whether it was best to ignore her completely or make something up. I muttered, ‘He’s just a friend.’
Zak: That hurt, man. It made me question this whole thing. If she didn’t want her friends to know that there was something going on between us, then what was it, really?
Alex: I was barely aware of Nicole and her little gang of bitches. I was hearing that joke AJ had told, over and over. Feeling the warmth of his tongue in my mouth and his hands on my skin. What the fuck did any of it mean?
Zak: Before I knew what was happening, AJ had sat down on the edge of the bench and was talking to them.
Nicole: It was the maddest thing. I should have known as soon as I saw Pea Hunter with some guy who was really quite fit, but I didn’t put two and two together until the other boy came and sat on the bench next to Kelly and asked how we were and I heard his American accent.
Kelly: I’m Kelly Cross. I almost screamed, I swear to God. AJ fucking Silver, sitting next to me on a bench in West Wilding town centre. Five minutes ago we’d been buying gum and cigarettes in Somerfield. It was like some mad dream.
Nicole: He asked what we were up to and whether we wanted to go with them.
Kelly said, ‘Go where?’ As if we were going to say no!
We all stood up and he asked our names and we said them, Kelly first, then me, then Fay.
He said, ‘Hey Fay, rhymes with AJ. I’m AJ, by the way.
’ We were all pissing ourselves laughing and I remember noticing how good he smelled, kind of woody and minty combined.
He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered them around.
Pea: I wanted to go back. I looked up at Zak but he wouldn’t meet my eye. Then he pushed forward a bit and introduced himself before taking one of the cigarettes from AJ’s pack.
Kelly: The brother was a bit older and he had these intense eyes.
If it was now, I’d definitely have gone for him.
But we were totally blinded by fame. I mean, we were smoking a cigarette with a guy who we had posters of on our bedroom walls.
Nothing in our lives had come close to this moment.
And I knew from the way Nicole was giggling and reaching out to touch AJ’s arm that the race was on for one of us to get off with him.
Nicole: No, I didn’t think at that stage that anything would happen.
Fay: My name’s Fay Johnstone. Nicole was definitely flirting. I mean, I think we all were but she was better at it. We all stood and started walking, following Pea and the brother, Zak, to God knows where. I’d known Pea since primary school. She wasn’t our kind of person at all. Alex wasn’t either.
Nicole: The whole time we were with them, part of me was experiencing it and part of me was working out how I’d frame it the next day at school.
This was big. Bigger than the time Simon Watkins’s dad was on Blockbusters.
Bigger than Eve Anthony having a cousin who was in some indie band who’d toured with Oasis.
In a different league from those things.
Pea: I didn’t know where we were going. I just kept walking, down the High Street, past the shops.
Nicole didn’t say a word to me after that initial question.
I don’t think anyone else noticed AJ, but it didn’t matter because now Nicole knew, it would be everywhere by tomorrow.
I reached for Zak’s hand but he pulled away, and I thought maybe he fancied one of those girls, like everyone at school did.
Zak: It felt like it was all going wrong, sort of slipping away.
We’d been in this little bubble, away from the mania that came with being in AJ Silver’s family, but now I could feel it creeping in.
I wanted to go back to Wildworld, but I knew I had to stay with AJ, keep an eye on him.
I didn’t know, yet, what he was going to do.
Pea: We ended up going down to the river.
There was this bit on the bank where you could sit and we all took our shoes off and paddled a bit.
We were messing about, pushing each other.
I don’t know whether Zak and AJ noticed that Alex and I didn’t talk to the girls and they didn’t talk to us.
At one point, AJ pulled a bag of weed and some papers out of his pocket and started rolling a joint.
Zak said, ‘Fuck, AJ, did you bring that through airport security?’ AJ didn’t answer, just pushed his hair out of his eyes and laughed, reached for his lighter.
Alex: I’d smoked weed a couple of times with my brother.
Never with Pea. She was kind of innocent.
Didn’t drink, or smoke, or really anything like that.
But that day, I wasn’t sure what she’d do when the joint was offered to her.
Nicole and her friends took their turns, but I passed.
I wanted Pea to know that if she didn’t want to do it, she didn’t have to look like the only one.
Pea: When the joint was passed to me, I guess I just thought, Why not?
Alex hadn’t taken it and I saw his eyes on me as I inhaled, felt his silent judgement.
For the first time, I thought that our friendship might not survive this.
It was just a fleeting thought, but I remember acknowledging it, thinking, Huh, I wonder where that came from.
Zak: AJ and I smoked a bit back then, yeah.
But I would never have attempted to take anything on a freakin’ plane.
That was AJ all over, though. It’s common for teenagers to feel invincible, but with AJ it was massively exaggerated by the fame and the money.
Nobody ever told him no, or put any limits in place for him.
Alex: It was a sunny day, and there was no one around but us.
We all lay back in the grass and I felt like I might doze off, but Nicole and Fay kept asking AJ these inane questions and being all giggly.
They pretended they were really stoned, but it was so over the top, they were sort of falling all over the place and shrieking with laughter.
Pea was next to me and she didn’t say anything, but I could tell she was hating it.
But it didn’t feel like it was our place to ask them to go.
AJ had kind of picked them up and he didn’t seem to mind how they were acting.
Zak: I could tell AJ had chosen Nicole long before they disappeared into the long grass.
He was laughing at her stupid jokes, reaching out to touch her arm.
Doing all the things that being AJ Silver meant he didn’t really have to do.
If he wanted, he could just point and say ‘you’ and teenage girls would follow him, hardly able to believe their luck.
But he was like a cat toying with a mouse.
He liked the chase. So I was not in the least bit surprised when things went a bit quiet and I opened my eyes and saw that they were kissing.
Fay: It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming. Nicole and AJ Silver! I could hardly wait for school.
Nicole: I guess I was a bit stoned and we were both flirting and one thing led to another. You know what horny teenagers are like.
Pea: I didn’t know what was going on with me and Zak, so I was mostly thinking about that.
I wanted him to put his arm around me, or kiss me, but since Nicole and her friends had joined us, it was like he didn’t want to know me.
And then AJ got off with Nicole. It shouldn’t really have come as much of a surprise but it did, somehow.
Yes, she was the most fancied girl in our year at school.
But he was famous. Like, properly famous.
I suppose, thinking about it now, he was just a teenage boy who was looking for a bit of fun.
But then, I couldn’t compute them being together like that.
I also couldn’t look away. I had sunglasses on so they wouldn’t have known I was watching.
He’d sort of pulled her onto his lap and they were really going for it, as if they were on their own, and then I heard AJ say, ‘Shall we take this somewhere more private?’ in this breathy voice.
They stood up and disappeared off into the long grass and I looked at Alex, expecting him to be finding it hilarious.
He looked like he was in pain. That’s when I realised he definitely had a crush on AJ.
Alex: I mean, what can I say? I felt like an idiot. And I was angry, too.
Zak: I wanted to take him to one side and say, ‘Dude, you can’t just go around sleeping with girls like this, leaving a trail of broken hearts behind you.
’ But the truth was, he could. No one was going to stop him, and the girls were not in short supply.
So what chance did I have of changing his mind?
At the end of the day, he was a hot-blooded seventeen-year-old guy.
Nicole: No, we didn’t sleep together. Not that day.