Chapter Twenty-Four
Millie
“ T his is impressive work. You've listened to my feedback, and I'm really getting a true sense of you and your life.” Professor Smithson beams at me before she looks back down at her laptop and continues to flick through the photos I've sent her.
I'm standing awkwardly at her side in her office, trying to stop the flush creeping up my neck from feeling so exposed. The small, sweltering room is barely bigger than a cleaning cupboard, and the air is thick with dust and photographic chemicals. A tiny window is letting in the midday sun, scorching my skin.
Mum had been my world for so long that putting together a project of our life together had felt natural and obvious. It was only when Smithson had pointed out that it was Mum's life she was looking at and not mine that I understood where I was going wrong. These new photos were a mixture of shots of myself, Mum, Roisin, and Jackson. A lot of Jackson. My world. There may be a gaping hole in the middle, a wound that may never heal, but I had more in my life than just Mum now. Even if acknowledging it filled me with aching guilt.
“Thanks, Millie. Keep at it, but I'm thrilled with how it's progressing.”
She smiles at me, and I slip out of her office. The hallway is cooler, and I fill my lungs with one great gulp before heading toward the student union. It's lunchtime, so it’s bustling with people in groups eating and laughing at the generic white desks. The walls are anything but bland, though, lined with artwork from students and posters for upcoming events. The smells of food and lingering art materials fill the air.
I slip into the nearest empty desk and open my laptop. I go back to some of my photos taken the night before. It was a typical night, or what had become a typical night for me and Jackson. The two of us walking hand in hand along the river, enjoying the dark, cool January nights. Or laughing and talking together in his flat. He'd even spent a few evenings at Roisin's. After her initial distrust, she was smitten with him now. The few weeks we'd been together had flown by, and being with him was even better than I'd imagined. If there was a niggling part of me hissing in my ear that there was more to learn about Jackson Mort, I was too busy enjoying these hazy days to listen to it.
“They're amazing, Mills. He photographs like a dream.”
I shut the lid and turn to see Chloe standing sheepishly before me. She looks different, more like the Chloe I remember from my childhood. Her blonde hair is around her shoulders, not in tumbling-styled waves but in its natural straightness. Her make-up is all peaches and golds, bringing out the honey of her skin and the ocean blue of her eyes. She looks gorgeous because she is gorgeous, just more like herself than a carbon copy of Marnie.
“Hi,” she says shyly, hugging her sketchbook to her chest. “I know we haven't talked since …”
“What makes you think I want to talk now?” My voice is harsh.
Chloe flinches, but I don't care. Looking at her makes me feel frozen like I did that night. All alone on the floor outside Worship, knowing she'd left me. That I wasn't worth waiting a few extra moments for.
“I know, and I get it. I just …” She sighs and sits down in the seat opposite me.
“I didn't say you could sit down …”
“I feel terrible for what I did, what we did.” She rushes into her excuses before I can say anymore. I look away, but my eyes can't focus on anything else. “And I wanted to apologise ages ago, but I just felt so guilty. And embarrassed. When I saw you before Christmas at the club with that guy again, it just made me realise how stupid I'd been.”
Exhaling, I turn away, avoiding her eyes. Not sure what to say. She sighs and looks around the room, scanning the space, but her watery eyes linger on nothing. When she talks again, there's a crack in her voice.
“You remember who I was at school? I was a nobody. And that felt like the worst thing in the world …”
“Oh … I can think of worse things.” I snap, and she flushes, but her lips tighten stubbornly, and she continues.
“When I started here and met Marnie for the first time, I felt like I was in with the right people. I felt like being Marnie’s friend, being that person was everything. But … I’m so tired of always being of always being what I think I’m supposed to be. It’s exhausting. I’m not a bad person, but I was acting like that because I was afraid. And I'm sorry.”
I stare at her, my jaw clenched painfully. I hadn't expected such raw honesty. A half-assed apology out of guilt, maybe, but not that. She was looking at me with such large, vulnerable eyes that I knew she meant every word.
“You didn't just leave me that night … you left me a long time ago, too.”
She swallows hard and if possible, she looks even smaller, more ashamed. My anger is shifting, turning into something else. Anger I can manage. I know what to do with rage. How to use it. I want to be mad at Chloe. I don't want to show, even to myself, how much she hurt me by leaving me behind.
She looks down at the table, at her hands wringing on the glossy plastic.
“You're right. When your mum got sick … god, we were so young, Mills. And you were so sad and tired all the time. I didn't know what to say, what to talk about. And so it got easier to speak less, to meet less. I didn't mean to leave you behind. I just … I didn't know how to help you, and eventually, it was easier not to try.”
“I just needed you to be there. I never cared what you talked about. It was just nice to hear about something else. To still feel like a person.”
As I speak, I can't look at her. I feel hollow, like my insides have been carved out and dropped bloody on the table. I hate it. How weak it makes me feel. But it's been almost six years since we grew apart, and it has given my bitter words time to grow. They exist almost separately from me now. They needed to be spoken before I could ever let them go.
Chloe's still looking down at her hands. I see tiny wet blotches on the table and the silvery tracks of tears cutting into the make- up on her cheeks. She parts her lips and closes them, doing this over and over as if she's battling to get the words off her tongue.
“I don't want to make excuses. I want to say I was just a kid, but then again, so were you, and look what you had to deal with. So I'll just say the only thing I can say, the only thing worth saying, and I just want you to know how much I mean it. I'm so sorry, Millie. I was a terrible friend. And you deserved better.”
She falls silent, a defiant tilt to her chin. She has said all she can say, and it's up to me what comes next. I stare at her for a moment; the warring factions in my mind rage on. It would be easy to yell, stay angry, and walk away. But the truth is, I don't want to do that. I don't know if we can ever be the friends we were again, but I think I'd like to try.
“I know, and I'm sorry, too. I was so angry back then …” I snort, chuckling to myself, and she looks up in confusion. “I think I still am. Being around me wasn't always easy. I took my anger out on the people around me. People like you. I was jealous. Looking at your life reminded me of what mine used to be.”
“And I knew that, which is why I should have kept trying. I shouldn't have given up so easily.”
“No, maybe not.”
We fall silent for a moment. She's looking at me now, her face softening.
“And going to Worship was a terrible idea. That dream I had …” She shakes her head. “It had seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Subjecting me to Marnie was pretty callous,” I joke, and she giggles. The air between us grows less electrified, less dense. In the surrounding room, the chatting students and scraping chairs and radio music are returning like we'd been in the room all alone for a while.
“I agree. That was just plain cruel of me.” She smiles softly at me. “I should never have left you. That was a terrible thing to do.”
“Yeah … It sucked, but I wasn't ready to go out. I definitely wasn't ready to drink like that. It was too soon after Mum.”
“Which is why I should have been looking out for you because I knew that, really.”
I nod, and we look at each other awkwardly. She tucks a loose blonde strand behind her ear.
“It wasn't all bad. I met Jackson.” I lift the lid off the laptop and turn it so we can both see the screen. She grins at the shot of an eye-rolling Jackson sitting on a bench, sipping a cup of coffee while we are staring out at the river. I click through the photos.
“He's so gorgeous. Isn't he like, one of the owners?” Chloe grins, her body relaxing. For the moment, we're just two girls talking about boys. Just like we used to be.
“Yeah, him and his friends. They bought the building a year ago. Turned it into Worship.”
“But he's like our age, right?”
I turn to her, but there's no cynicism in her voice, just genuine curiosity.
“I can barely finish my dissertation, let alone run a business.”
“He's twenty-one. He's been working in his family's company for a while, though, so I think co-owning a nightclub is not that big a deal for him.”
“Well, it's pretty amazing.”
The latest photo is one Jackson took when he playfully snatched the camera off me. It shows us lying on his settee, my head on his chest, laughing as he teases me over something. It's my favourite photo.
“And you look really happy.”
She smiles at me, but I feel a sharp stab of pain. Being with Jackson makes me happy, but it's happiness tinged with guilt. When Mum died, I didn't feel like I'd ever smile again, let alone feel anything like happiness. Even if I still wake up in tears some mornings, the knowledge that Mum was gone is a weight pressing on my heart.
“He does make me happy. It's new, but … it's real, you know.”
She nods, and we fall into a calm silence.
“I'm with someone,” she blurts out, almost like she feels guilty. “I've known him a while, but Marnie never liked him. Mum doesn't either, actually, but he's sweet, kinda quiet, and he's …” She sighs, and this look of dreaminess passes across her face, making me chuckle, “… great, I can be myself around him. He doesn't want or expect me to be anything else. I feel like I can finally breathe, you know.”
“He sounds perfect. I'm happy for you.” My words are subdued. I'm too cautious for them to be anything else. But I mean them.
“Thanks … I should leave you to it. I just needed to say what I needed to.”
She starts to get up, and I feel a subtle jump in my stomach. I could stay angry; in some ways, I want to. The vulnerable feeling of letting someone in, someone who let me down before, makes me feel foolish and a little scared. I hate that feeling.
“You can stay … if you want.” I shrug casually but realise I'm not breathing after uttering the words. I'm lucky to have Roisin and Jackson, but there's no point pretending I don't want to have friends. And Chloe had been my best friend once.
I move my stuff so I'm no longer taking over the entire table, and she sits down. It's a little strange, and neither of us knows what to say. But then she takes her lunch out of her bag, and I dig out mine. We sit there eating our food in silence. But it's not uncomfortable.
Maybe the pieces of my life are coming together. And the anger, that hot, scathing heat I sometimes feel in the bottom of my stomach, would slowly fade. Maybe one day, losing Mum wouldn't feel like it had the power to tear me apart.
Maybe.