18
I tried to last longer than five minutes in the sauna, but it turns out I’m too weak. I wonder how long Rory and Kevin last in their Sauna Wars, but I’m certain it would put me to shame. Now, sitting with the hot tub water up above my shoulders, I tilt my head back and look at the open sky.
I didn’t notice the first time because it wasn’t dark then, but a trail of fairy lights criss-cross in front of my vision, the bulbs blending into the stars clearly visible above me.
I bet it’s magical at Rory’s treehouse right now, sitting cocooned in one of those fluffy throws, surrounded by the lights that twirl up the steps and staring out at the same star-speckled sky.
I close my eyes and picture myself there.
Rory would be sitting beside me, pointing out different constellations, maybe topping up my mug of cocoa, his fingers lingering on mine as he hands me the cup.
There’s a loud splash, and I’m snapped back to reality and the shifting water of the tub as my friend launches herself in.
Tilly’s head bobs back above the water, and she smooths her hair back with both hands.
‘I’m concerned Meghan’s a supernatural being with how at peace she is in that sweat-dungeon,’ she says, sinking down so she’s mirroring the position I’m in. Both of our knees tucked up to our chests.
Despite the interruption to my peaceful thoughts, I’m glad I’ve got her alone post-massage and sauna session so I can finally get some answers.
Even if I’d been considering letting her odd behaviour over the whole aftershave incident go unquestioned, her suspicious glance with David has left me with no choice but to do some digging.
‘Hey, we never got to finish our conversation this morning about how everything went yesterday after I left.’
I start there, a simple question so I can gauge her reaction.
With our eyelines level, she stares blankly back at me, and I can practically hear the cogs turning in her brain.
Trying to find a way out of this again. I cross my arms, giving her a look that makes it clear I’m not taking another bullshit answer.
No more made-up men, because I’m pretty certain at this point Jason doesn’t exist. No more secrecy.
Something in my eyes must show her that I’m serious. Getting her to open up right now is like drawing blood from a stone, but I don’t retract my stare and eventually she huffs, resigned.
‘Fine, so the truth is…’ Her words break off as she plunges herself down until her head is fully under the water.
‘No! Uh-uh, you’re so annoying. Get back up here!’
I reach my hands under the water, searching until I find her feet, which I furiously tickle. Her head bursts back up, squealing as she wiggles away from me.
‘Ah! Get off me!’
‘Not until you tell me what the hell is going on!’ I say, holding firm.
‘Fine! Now fuck off back to your side.’
I let go, and she uses those feet to push me back to the opposite end of the tub. I wait patiently for her to elaborate, noticing how flustered she is, which is extremely un-Tilly like.
She covers her face with both hands leaving only a little triangle with her nose and mouth exposed. Whatever this is, she really doesn’t want to admit it.
‘I’m going to tell you, but I’m only going to do it if I don’t have to look at you, deal?’
‘Deal,’ I agree, willing to say anything to find out what’s gotten her so worked up.
‘Okay. After you went back to the hotel, Adam felt awful and sped down the rest of the slope before I could grill him, so it was only David and I making our way down the red. I was so nervous thinking I was going to fall too, and I was fully expecting David to take the piss out of me, you know, start meowing and call me a scaredy-cat or something while I told him where to shove it.’
‘Yeah, sounds like you two.’ I nod.
‘Only he didn’t. He stayed a little ahead of me, giving me pointers, and not in a “you’re shit, I’m superior” way, but actually in a really helpful way.
Anyway, I made it to the bottom, and I was so happy and so I pulled him into a hug, but our skis got a little twisted and I sort of fell onto him, and then… well we sort of…’
She trails off, still hiding behind her hands, but I don’t need to see her face to know she’s flushed as red as a raspberry.
‘Oh my god!’ I don’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?! You better finish that sentence!’
‘GOD you’re like a vulture! But YES, okay, yes. We kissed.’
I squeal, repeating my earlier exclamation again and again.
Only she still looks like she has the weight of an elephant resting on her shoulders. And as much as I now know why she was acting weirdly with David this morning, this doesn’t explain why she made up a man with a name like he’s the lead in some Noughties pop band.
‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’
Her lips roll together, face pinched like she’s trying to hold the next words inside her mouth.
‘I don’t know how to say it…’ she starts then stops, lifting her hands to smooth back her hair and press her palms into the sides of her head like she doesn’t want to hear herself talk. But I do. ‘I slept with David.’
‘You WHAT!’
The words burst out of me before I can stop them, my hands slapping the surface of the water and causing droplets to splash across both our faces.
A kiss was already big news, but the two of them sleeping together?
Tilly and I have shared a room every night, and aside from yesterday on the slope, the two of them haven’t had any alone time together that I’ve been aware of.
Bar shagging on the red run itself, I can’t figure out when this could’ve happened.
Thankfully, Tilly doesn’t leave me wondering for long, feeding me small details like the crumbs of the last chocolate Hobnob.
‘It happened four days ago. The same night you met Rory.’
That one sentence is all I need for the puzzle pieces to click into place.
The aftershave. It doesn’t belong to a fictitious man.
It’s David’s. And now that I come to think of it, that smell did feel familiar, but I lumped it in with general boy smells so couldn’t pick it out as his at the time.
And those odd things I thought I might be overthinking, like the way she’d leant back into his touch when he’d brushed past, and the fact she’d texted him our whereabouts. It all makes sense now.
The mystery of what’s happened is revealed, but there’s still something I don’t understand. If all of this started four days ago – why is she only telling me now?
‘Do you hate me?’ Her voice is small, cutting into my thoughts as she mutters, her chin resting low on the water.
‘What? No, of course not, I just…’ don’t understand, I finish in my head.
Of course I don’t hate her, but I am confused as to why she kept such a big thing to herself. More than that, I’m hurt that she not only didn’t tell me, but openly lied about it too.
‘I don’t understand why you lied,’ I admit.
‘I didn’t want to, but you had enough on your plate.
We didn’t have time the day of the flight, and then I thought about telling you, that morning of our first class.
I’d decided I was going to tell you afterwards, but then we’d arrived and Rory was there.
I wanted to give you space to focus on where your own head was at with that, instead of brain-dumping my problems on top. ’
That day was a lot for me, but even so, I wouldn’t have wanted her to hide something like this.
This is her and David we’re talking about.
It’s not like she wanted to rant about the slugs that sometimes eat the herbs on her balcony.
This is something important. Something she’s clearly had a lot of thoughts about and would’ve benefitted from talking through.
‘You know I would’ve wanted to be there for you.’
I can tell she does. She’s hesitating in the exact same way she was only minutes before, when she told me about the kiss but I could tell there was something else.
‘Okay, that’s not the whole reason. I also didn’t tell you because I had no idea what I was going to do. After we’d slept together, I thought the best thing to do was pretend it had never happened. I swore David to secrecy, so don’t be annoyed with him about any of this.’
I had started wondering why he hadn’t said anything about this to me either, but I’m less hurt that he kept it from me than I am that Tilly did.
‘But then yesterday, when we kissed again, and I felt…’ Her hands move in circles, like she’s cycling through words trying to find the right one, before coming up empty.
‘Ugh, I don’t even know what I felt but it was something, I freaked out.
Because I know we shouldn’t go any further, because of the group. We can’t, in case…’
She doesn’t finish her sentence, but she doesn’t have to.
I know what she was going to say. In case they date, then break up, like me and Adam.
In case they risk the fabric of the group, like we have.
And what’s worse, today I wasn’t thinking about the group when I took things further again with Rory.
Wasn’t thinking about Adam, or how he’d react, or whether I was tearing our friendship group apart.
I only thought about myself.
‘No, no, you’re taking that the wrong way.
’ She pushes over to my side, stopping in front of me and forcing me to look at her by guiding my head back up with her hands.
‘You and Adam got together before our friendship group even formed. And I know I’ve said I don’t think you guys fit, but back then, when we were little eighteen-year-olds trying to figure ourselves out, it looked like you might.
‘It’s not your fault that you didn’t, and you’re not doing anything wrong by letting him go, and letting yourself be led by this’ – she rests the pad of her index finger on the left side of my chest – ‘towards someone who makes that spark ignite in your heart again.’