Chapter Six
Six
The one where he dobbed us in
A week before Christmas, ahead of our eighteenth birthdays, Sam cycled over to mine in a hurry and explained he had his mum’s house to himself for New Year while she was abroad in Sydney. And even better, Freddie was going back to university early so literally nobody would even find out.
Sam’s dad had moved out that summer and things were rough in the Harrison household.
Despite being Sam’s best friend, we rarely discussed his family life.
So, although I was there for him and we hung out even more than usual, he never really told me much about it.
Or, I suppose more importantly, how he felt about it. He just wasn’t that kind of person.
But I was aware of two key things. Firstly, Sam no longer spoke to his dad. And secondly, Freddie was talking to their dad and this made him even more despicable than before.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, busy finishing off an art project due in for my assignment the very next day. I couldn’t see beyond this canvas, let alone a fortnight away. My head was in crafting mode – not party mode.
Sam positioned himself next to me, facing the opposite way so I literally couldn’t help but look at him.
“What?!” I demanded. I was stressed. My paints weren’t doing what I wanted them to.
Before moving to Seaford, my art had been all about city animals, squirrels and pigeons and urban foxes.
Now all I could get inspired by was the sea.
And I was trying out different techniques to capture its beauty.
But something about mixing art and exams and qualifications stole the joy from me and all I really felt right in that moment was frustration.
Frustration, because the colours weren’t coming through in the way I was hoping for.
Frustration, because I wanted to do a collage, but my art teacher pushed me to do paints.
Frustration with Sam, because he was distracting me and I only had one sleepless night left before this was due.
And did I need to start it again from scratch!?
Sam took the paint brush out of my hand, dipping it into the wrong water pot, and that was the last straw. I stared at him as I burst into tears.
“What the hell?” he said, blanching at first but then tentatively taking me into his arms and squishing me in that way he did. It was so unromantic, it would make me laugh.
I sighed. “I’m just so tired.”
“Perfect. This is a great opportunity to let your hair down and go a little a wild.”
“I’m always wild.”
Sam stepped back to look me up and down. “Right now, you’re a bit uptight and I’m frightened.”
“I’m just trying to get this done.”
“But hello, party? For our eighteenth birthday? Yeah? Go on, you know you want to.”
“You could do it without me,” I pointed out.
“I can’t, though; it breaks tradition. And besides, you’re the one who has all the friends. They only hang out with me because of you.”
“You have some friends.”
“Yeah, but they’re lame, and you know it.”
I snorted. “Oh, I see. You want me to invite girls.”
“Whaaaat?” Sam objected half-heartedly. “I mean it would be good if there were girls there as well as lads, but I think you’re missing the key point here.”
“And that is?”
“We have the house to ourselves on our birthdays!”
I faux-gasped. “How could I resist?”
“Exactly. So, yes, you’re in?”
I groaned. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there.”
And so, we set about organising the house party of the century, or at least, that’s what we called it. It was an open house for everyone in the sixth form who wanted to let their hair down, and to celebrate our birthdays and see the New Year in in style.
We made some mistakes.
We’d put the event as an open invite on Facebook. Need I say more?
The event invite was shared between friends, and friends and more friends, and cousins, brothers, sisters… eventually getting way out of hand. And we didn’t cotton on to how insanely popular the party would become until around eleven at night, when the house was so full, we could barely move.
Then there was the startling sound of glass smashing.
Sam’s alarmed eyes found mine from across the living room.
He was sporting shorter hair then, styling it to look messier than its natural state, which was saying a lot.
There must’ve been at least 300 people at the party by that point.
Waves of faces and voices and music. All in this massive sensory overload.
Pip, a friend from art class, pushed through the crowd to reach me just as Sam did the same. “Someone’s smashed the back doors in,” she said.
I laughed. “Pardon?”
“The back doors!” she screeched. “There’s glass everywhere!”
Sam looked at me with terror. “Do you think we fucked up?” he asked.
I didn’t have time to answer; instead, I pushed through the crowd, Sam hot on my heels, towards the kitchen at the back of the house.
There was sick on the stairs, blue liquid (I assume some kind of alcopop) thrown all up one wall and a boy curled up on the floor by the downstairs loo. I leant down to check his pulse and…
“Oh, for crying out loud!” I yelled.
“What now?” Pip asked. I hadn’t even notice her follow us. Her mousey features were pinched with worry as she ran her hands through her sleek, dark hair. She was too much of a goody two-shoes for all of this. I could almost hear her vibrating with anxiety.
Sam leant over my shoulder to get a good look as I took my phone out. “No! You can’t call your parents! If they come round and see this, we’re toast.”
“But Dylan’s fucked. Look at him.” Stupid baby cousin. When had he even arrived?
“Why did you invite him? Isn’t he sixteen?”
I scoffed. “Why the hell would I have invited him?”
“He’s here, isn’t he?”
“I didn’t invite him, dickhead.”
“We should watch our language,” Pip said as if me swearing and calling Sam names was going to add more bad luck to this whole scenario.
I leant down again to double check Dylan’s pulse and thanked our lucky stars that he was alive. Sam was right. Better to sober the kid up and take care of him than call the parents.
“Can you watch him for a bit? Maybe try get some water down him while we deal with the other emergencies?” I pleaded with Pip. She nodded, ever the good Samaritan, as Sam carried on past, grabbing my hand and hauling me through the people milling in the hallway.
When we reached the kitchen, our eyes bulged.
“Sam… We’ve really fucked up,” I yelled over the noise. A few school friends we went to gigs with had moved the furniture against a wall and were reenacting an intense mosh pit. Clearly, someone had thrown something through the French doors.
Sam waded his way through the crowd. There was glass everywhere, crunching under our shoes. He tried to open the door that was most broken, and it shattered completely.
“Ah shit balls,” he said.
“We should call someone!” I shouted but Sam shook his head.
“Mum will fucking kill me!”
I waved my arms at the smashed doors, a deranged laugh escaping me at the ridiculousness of it all. I looked around at all the chaos and felt my stomach turn. How the fuck had we managed this? “You’re already dead, you turnip. The house is completely ruined.”
Sam ran a hand through his hair. “How do I get rid of everyone?”
“Turn the electricity off!” I shouted. It was what I’d seen in a soap one time. Probably Hollyoaks. They always had parties that got out of hand.
Sam nodded, storming back through to the hall and stopping at the cupboard under the stairs. Once he’d flicked the switches off at the main switchboard, there was a moment of screaming throughout the house.
Silence followed, before the long, collective groan.
“PARTY’S OVER!” Sam bellowed.
It took a good twenty minutes to clear everyone out.
I spent extra time making sure the drunkest strays were accompanied out the door with a promise of a walk home.
Sam locked the front door, and we collapsed onto the sofa, popcorn and crisps scattered about us.
He popped the electricity back on as people were leaving but made a point of turning all the music off and the big lights on.
Nobody stays at a house party with the big lights on.
Pip was still nursing Dylan in the hallway, but he was conscious again and sipping on the water she was giving him.
“Oh!” Sam said, bouncing up again. “We have fireworks.”
I scrunched my face. “I don’t know if we should do that now. We’ve got about twenty hours of cleaning to do here. And I’ve got to figure out how to get my annoying cousin home.”
He leant forward so he was eye height with me. “Hatter, we’re too drunk right now to do any of that sensibly. We have ten minutes until midnight. You’ll be eighteen! The last year before you’re officially old!”
“I don’t know if that’s strictly true.”
“FIREWORKS! FIREWORKS! FIREWORKS!”
“Finneeee,” I said, hopping up and following him out to the back garden. The sky was a hazy, icy mist and if it wasn’t for the alcohol thick in my veins, I’d probably have felt the chill.
Sam jogged the few steps down the garden where he’d already set up a bucket of sand to plant the fireworks in. Once he’d lit the rocket, he came back and sat on the garden bench with me as we watched it fly up into the mist, exploding and turning the night a soft red.
I snorted. “Well, that was shit.”
The neighbour’s back door opened and slammed. We both looked to our left to see a man in a dressing gown on the phone, yelling.
“Ah crap, Tony’s getting involved,” Sam muttered.
“Fireworks were a really shit idea.”
Sam checked his watch. “Midnight. Happy birthday, my mad hatter.” He placed his warm, bare arm around my neck and squeezed me into him and we sat like that for a while.
It wasn’t until I could finally feel the chill creeping its way over my skin that I looked up at him to find his gaze already on me.
“What’s that look for?”
He semi-shrugged. “You ever wonder if maybe we’re more than friends?”
It had occurred to me, yes. Specifically as I found it so difficult to relate and have fun with any of the guys who looked at me like I was a meal.
I’d not had any luck with boys really and I was worried about going to university without any ‘experience’.
I wondered if Sam hanging around put boys off, or if I was too tall or if my hair was too frizzy.
I wondered if it was my personality. Or because I was freckly and wore ugly glasses when I needed to read anything.
I could be reserved when I wasn’t drunk and too loud when I was.
So, there I was, eighteen and still a virgin with a male best friend who was maybe, just maybe, the answer. Right there all along. He was good looking and sweet and funny and…
“I don’t know. Maybe?” I said.
Sam’s hand found my chin and squeezed lightly, lifting my face towards him. Nervous jitters brushed through me. And as his lips pressed down over mine, we both paused, statue like, right there in his mum’s back garden, freezing our tits off.
He leant back first, a grimace on his face which made me burst out giggling. His gurgled laugh followed next before he was mock gagging and pretending to fall away from me.
“Yeah, we’re not… Whatever the fuck that was,” I said, rising from the bench and striding back towards the house, relieved I could keep my best friend as exactly that.
I stepped into the kitchen and was about to flick the kettle on when a dark, tall figure rounded through the door. My scream was so shrill, I felt it before I heard it.
“What the fuck now?!” Sam yelled, stumbling into the kitchen, glass clattering across the floor.
I held a hand over my heart as the intruder turned the main light on.
His green eyes were alight on me, looking me up and down like he was surprised to see me in a short skirt and crop top.
My tummy dipped. It was him. It was Freddie and he was ever as good looking as before.
He blinked, shaking his head, speechless, before turning to his brother.
“What the fuck is right. Mum got a call from next door saying there was a party.”
“Well, he’s lying,” Sam spat back, still out of breath. “Why do you care anyway? Surprised you even picked up.”
“Sam, I’m not a stupid prick. Don’t treat me like one.”
“Are you going to tell on us?” I asked, my voice pitchy, panicked.
Freddie’s eyes flicked to mine and I swear I recognised something that resembled pity before he turned around and, without another word, placed his phone to his ear.