Chapter 30
If I didn’t know better, I would say that Felix is completely ignoring me.
Not that I’m looking, of course, it’s just that every time I glance in his direction, he’s deep in conversation with some other girl.
But the thing is, the night is going so well that I can totally live with it, because in every way other than getting direct attention from Felix, my plan is totally working.
I am showing him that I am living, that I am thriving, plus I get to make some money. Bish, bash and indeed bosh.
Or rather, bish, bash, bosh and . . . smash.
It seems someone on the dance floor has got too into the spirit of celebration, and cheers go up around the room as a pint glass makes contact with the hard floor, sending glittering shards spinning off in different directions.
Wonderful. People cluster in little groups, leaving the site of the smash an obvious void that Mark from the union rushes to clear up.
Before long the glass has been collected, the pint has been mopped up and the dance floor is densely packed once again.
I’m bopping away behind the decks, very nonchalantly swaying my hips and trying to remind myself that this isn’t my club night so I can – and more to the point should – play music released since my own birth.
It’s kind of fun to be doing something different, and I tell Tyler as much when they come to check on me and offer me a drink.
‘No, I’m good,’ I tell them.
‘You’re better than good. You’re everything,’ they say, pressing their palms together in prayer and bowing at me. ‘Also, I’m obsessed with your look tonight!’
I glance down at my outfit: a pink denim boiler suit that wouldn’t look out of place on the Pink Ladies from Grease, but paired with a tough pair of gladiator sandals (yes, I am brave enough to do exposed feet in January). Tyler’s right. It’s an outfit worthy of obsession.
I’m just about to ask them if they would mind holding the fort for a second so I can make a quick bathroom trip when they do an abrupt heel turn to the sound of last year’s big hit of the summer and make a beeline towards one of the pretty girls that never seems too far away from Tyler.
Maybe Tyler should have a dating podcast: Romance for the Non-binary Rogue.
I should suggest that. But more urgently, I will absolutely die if I don’t wee soon.
‘Pat!’ I cup my hands and call across the dance floor to where he and his immaculately dressed crew of gorgeous boys are bopping away.
One of them nudges Pat and nods in my direction.
Pat duly spins around and sees me waving at him.
I gesture for him to come over and he approaches, slinking his hips through the crowd.
‘Could you do me a favour? Could you look after the DJ booth while I go to the toilet? You can –’ I take a deep breath – ‘play anything you want, because I know you’re not going to take the piss and ruin the vibe. ’
Patrick places a hand on his chest dramatically. ‘Take the piss and ruin the vibe? Moi? I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he says as we trade places and finally I am released from my duties for the briefest of moments.
‘Sorry,’ I say, grimacing at the girls in the toilet queue, ‘I need to get back to the DJ booth. Is it OK if I . . .’ I ask sweetly, and one by one the line consents to my social faux pas of queue-jumping.
The girl at the front of the queue just happens to be the person Felix has been chatting to all night, so I take extra pleasure in cutting in front of her.
As I’m waiting for a cubicle door to swing open, I’m taken aback that she taps me on the shoulder, and when I turn around, says, ‘This is really fun, you’re doing an awesome job. ’
‘Oh! Thank you! That’s really nice of you.’
She just shrugs and smiles, the interaction over as a cubicle becomes free. I guess the problem was never the girls, was it? It was always just Felix.
Just as I make it back to the decks, when I’m one step away from the little raised area with the DJ booth, I bring up my foot, set it down, and that’s when I feel it.
The pain is instant and overwhelming, and radiates so sharply that I actually let out a gasp.
I look down. There is a shard of glass sticking out of the side of my foot.
It takes all my strength not to faint right there on the spot.
‘Oh my God,’ I murmur, just looking at it. ‘Patrick,’ I say a little louder. ‘Could you keep holding the fort for a while longer? I have a slight . . . situation to deal with . . .’
He gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up and I wonder if I’ll ever get my booth back or if this Quad Media party has turned into an all-night Britney fest.
For a moment I just stand there, looking at it, not sure what else to do, not sure how to deal with this situation, but somehow sure that whatever option I choose will be the wrong one.
‘Mary-Elizabeth?’ comes a voice from over my shoulder. I turn only the top half of my body, too scared to move my legs lest I disrupt the fine balance that’s stopping the glass from going any further into the side of my foot. Laurie.
‘Oh, hello,’ I say, and my voice comes out a little shaky.
‘What’s . . . up?’ he asks, surveying me with intrigue.
‘It appears –’ I begin, feeling a bit cold and clammy – ‘that I’ve trodden on a bit of glass.’ I look down again. Laurie follows my gaze.
‘It does appear that way, doesn’t it?’ he says, his voice lighter and less serious than I’ve heard him before. But it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to make fun of me, or make me feel silly. ‘Would you believe me if I told you I’m not afraid of blood and decently proficient in first aid?’
‘I really, really would believe you,’ I tell him through a weak smile.
‘Let’s get you out of here. It seems like your friend is doing a decent job of covering you already.
’ He nods towards Patrick, who has his hands in the air, and then holds out an arm so I can hop on my uninjured foot towards the back exit, which is being vigilantly policed by a security guard called Mike.
We are absolutely not allowed to use any of the fire escapes outside of an emergency, but Mike takes pity on me and holds the door open for us so I don’t have to hop all the way across the dance floor to the main exit and out through the union building.
On the bench outside the back exit, I can still hear the pulse and buzz of the music from inside.
Everything sounds like it’s under control.
And it’s just me and Laurie. I catch my breath.
First, he gently takes off my shoe and surveys the damage.
‘Doesn’t look like it’s in too deep, so that’s something,’ he says.
‘I’m just going to go back inside and get the first-aid kit.
They should have one behind the bar. Don’t go anywhere. ’ He fixes me with a very serious look.
‘I don’t know how I would, even if I wanted to,’ I reassure him.
‘You just . . . seem like a person who doesn’t like sitting still.’
‘I think I can make an exception for first aid.’
Laurie disappears back into the union building, leaving me alone on the bench, my foot elevated, the shard of glass still . . . disgustingly present. Fortunately, he’s not gone for long, and returns with the green first-aid kit, crouching down at my feet again.
He reaches into his pocket and produces a single green pear. ‘You eat this while I sort your foot out.’
‘Do you . . . do you always carry pears in your pocket?’
‘Er, no, I just . . .’ He clears his throat awkwardly. ‘I just came here from my parents’, and they have a shop and they get these pears from this one specific farm in Kent and they’re always perfect.’
‘Perfect, you say?’ I hold out my hand and he puts the pear into my palm. I feel the slightly rough, scratchy skin and the satisfying weight of it.
‘I’m not saying it’ll cure all your problems, but it certainly won’t hurt.
’ Laurie looks up at me from his seat on the floor.
Maybe it’s the slight vulnerability of his position.
Maybe it’s my vulnerability at being a literal wounded animal.
Maybe it’s the taste of the pear as I bite into it, perfectly and completely ripe, the proof that if you let a pear be a pear in January, rather than trying to make an out-of-season lychee taste good, then you will experience something truly delicious.
Maybe it’s none of those things, but I can’t help feeling .
. . something. Something like my heart fluttering a little bit, something like my stomach flipping over like a pancake, something like that warm, tingly feeling of a crush.
After he’s got all his necessary equipment out of the first-aid kit and I’m merrily nibbling away on my pear, trying not to make too much of a mess, Laurie fixes me with a serious stare.
‘This is going to hurt a bit, but it’ll be over soon,’ he says, his tone calm and reassuring. ‘I’m going to pull out the glass, clean the wound and bandage it up. If it doesn’t feel right tomorrow, please do go to the medical centre because, just to clarify this, I’m not actually a doctor.’
I gasp. ‘What? Really?’
He rolls his eyes at me, a brief glimpse of the Mary-Elizabeth and Laurie who met at that event way back at the start of the autumn term. ‘Do you understand?’ he asks me.
‘I understand,’ I reassure him.
When he pulls out the glass, the pain is possibly worse and more head-spinning than when it went in, maybe because I’m extremely aware of it happening.
I try to keep my breathing deep, but the thought of what’s going on in my body is making me feel nauseous and weak.
If you couldn’t tell, I’m a little bit squeamish.
‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ I murmur as he disinfects the cut, the alcohol stinging so sharply I see stars in front of my eyes.
‘You’re doing really well, I’m nearly finished,’ Laurie says, his voice steady and focused as he doesn’t take his attention off the task at hand.
He neatly wraps a length of bandage around my foot, cutting it and taping it securely.
It actually looks quite stylish, I have to say.
Very respectably done. ‘Wiggle your toes for me?’ he asks, and I do.
‘Great. Does the bandage feel too tight or anything?’
I shake my head, my pink curls bouncing. ‘You should be doing medicine rather than maths,’ I say lightly.
He shrugs as he gets to his feet, dusts off a little bit of gravel from his hands on his trousers. ‘Too expensive.’ He doesn’t look at me as he says this.
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, trying to figure it out.
‘Medical school,’ he says, clearing his throat, bending to pick up the first-aid kit. ‘It’s . . . too many years. Easier to get a maths scholarship.’
‘Oh,’ I say, feeling silly and clueless. ‘Of course, that makes sense. I just mean . . . you have a nice, calm manner.’
His face softens. ‘Thank you.’
‘I suppose I should return to my workstation . . .’ I say reluctantly.
‘Yes, you’re on duty, aren’t you?’
‘Tyler’s paying me big bucks to be here. Can’t let them down.’
Laurie sighs thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know Tyler well but whenever I run into them at a Quad thing they just seem . . . so much happier now than they did last year.’
I nod. ‘I agree.’
He gives me a slight smile. ‘Who knew that being able to be yourself was the key to happiness?’
I finally push myself to my feet, and as I’m hobbling back towards the door to the union, I say lightly, ‘You should put that in one of your columns.’ But Laurie doesn’t reply.
I limp back towards my booth, trying not to put too much pressure on my bandaged foot, and thank Patrick profusely for his hard work. ‘Any time, girl! This DJing thing is fun, isn’t it? Like being in charge of Spotify at a party!’
‘It’s exactly like that,’ I agree, before looking over my shoulder to say goodbye to Laurie.
But when I turn my head, he’s already disappeared.
Over by the bar, however, I catch a glimpse of Felix with his arms around the girl from the toilet queue, and for some reason the sight of him with someone else riles me up that little bit less than it did earlier this evening.
The adrenaline from the injury pulses around my system for the rest of the night and I’m shivering like I’m freezing to death.
I was only gone for – what? – ten minutes between the bathroom trip and the first aid, but everything feels .
. . different now. When I talked it over with my flatmates before Christmas, I thought these slightly unwelcome new feelings for Laurie would pass, but they haven’t.
That’s OK though. I’m a strong, independent girlie and I won’t be distracted by another boy!
I can keep my head in the game, my eyes on the prize!
I don’t have room in my life for another crush. I’m much too busy and important!