Chapter 22 #2
‘—while Elle and this guy danced and snogged. I kept thinking to myself, Surely she’ll need the toilet at some point and I can reason with her in there .
But no. They just kept snogging for what felt like hours.
Some of his mates kept hassling me to dance with them, and at one stage Elle and the guy she was with pointed at me and laughed at some inside joke, which is what tipped me over the edge into full-on survival mode.
I just needed to make sure that the two of us got out of there and home in one piece.
Which is, of course, exactly why she’d invited me along in the first place. ’
‘As a safety net?’
‘Always the safety net.’
‘Hmm. So how did you get home?’
‘I found a landline phone on the bar and called my brother. I knew Mum and Dad would still be out at Supper Club and he’d just passed his driving test. I managed to remove Elle from the clutches of the sleazy bloke under the guise of feeling sick and needing some fresh air.
Thankfully, Josh was waiting for us outside at just the right moment and helped me to bundle her into the car.
He’d had to bring Livvie with him, obviously, though she found all the drama thrilling.
’ I smiled, remembering how the night had panned out, Josh and Livvie coming to my rescue.
The three musketeers, helping each other out, just as we’d always done as kids.
‘Elle was furious, mind you, since she’d not managed to get the guy’s number.
I told her that if he wanted to see her again, surely he’d come back into the shop to find her. ’
‘Let me guess, he never did?’
‘Well, if he did I never heard about it. So I’m assuming not. And we never came back here again.’
‘I’m not surprised. And did your parents ever find out about it?’
‘Fuck, no. We got home before them, thank God. Elle didn’t have such luck, though – her mum hadn’t even known she was going out after work and had been frantic with worry. When she got home drunk she was grounded for a month. Elle refused to speak to me for the entire time.’
‘Harsh. So this is your first time in this basement since that night?’
‘Yup.’
‘Ha, way to choose an inappropriate venue for a first date, Brinton.’
Hang on. Hang on . Had he just said the words ‘first date’? Two thoughts immediately competed for attention in my head: firstly, Tom Brinton had confirmed we were on a date . Secondly, he’d specifically said the phrase ‘first date’, which… suggested there’d be more ?!
This silent revelation had taken hold just as I’d spooned a delicious mouthful of dulce de leche mousse into my mouth and, frankly, it was a miracle it hadn’t spluttered out of my nose in excitement. Once I’d successfully swallowed it, I licked my lips and looked up.
We caught each other’s eye and both smiled shyly. I could feel my cheeks burn as he looked down quickly at his own mousse, grinning while stirring it around.
Tom cleared his throat again. I realised it was a thing he did when he was nervous.
‘So… it’s weird that we never really spoke at school, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Is it?’
‘I think it is a bit, yeah. Why didn’t we?’
‘I was quite shy back then, I guess.’
‘Shy?’
‘You didn’t think so?’
‘No. I mean, you weren’t loud or outgoing or anything like that. Just, well, quietly sure of yourself, I guess. And funny.’
‘That’s weird, because that’s exactly how I used to think of you back then. With the exception of “quiet”.’
‘Ha. So why didn’t we ever hang out?’
‘Oh, come on, I think we existed on completely different planes back then. Plus, as much as I’ve appreciated his mechanical support this week, me and the likes of Ryan Seldon aren’t exactly kindred spirits.’
Which reminded me that he might have started work on my car today. Though, right now, I didn’t feel quite the same urge to chase him about it.
‘Fair enough. But you shouldn’t judge someone by the company they keep, you know?’
‘Oh, God, no of course not. I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just that you two seemed to come as a bit of a package back then.’
‘I can see how it looked that way. But so did you and Elle. I never quite understood how the two of you slotted together as mates. Why were you friends with her?’
Huh. I was not expecting that question.
‘Do you mean why am I friends with her?’
‘I… guess so, yeah. It’s just that, well, she always seemed so… different to you. I mean, your Spaghetti Tree story hasn’t exactly covered her in glory. Oh, and there was that weird thing with her and Ryan at school for a while. He was like putty in her hands for a bit, do you remember?’
‘Yeah, he had this massive crush on her in, like, Year Ten, it must’ve been?’
‘Round about that time. He was smitten. But then there was that whole “bad breath” incident after they snogged on that school trip…’
‘That was a cruel thing for her to say. I said as much to her at the time.’
‘But did she ever tell you what happened the weekend before she said that?’
‘Not sure. Tell me what you know.’
‘So they snogged at the wetlands centre and Ryan was on cloud nine and asked her to go to the cinema with him that weekend.’
‘Oh, wow. No, I had no idea about that.’
‘Yeah, and she said yes. So that Saturday they met at Showcase Cinema on the other side of town. She somehow managed to smuggle in a bottle of vodka with her, so by the time the film had finished she was wasted.’
This was all new information to me. I was shocked. She used to tell me every single detail about her non-stop romantic exploits back then – or so I thought.
‘And so was Ryan, I imagine?’
‘No, that’s the thing – Ryan was being really earnest about it all. He’d even arranged for his dad to pick them up after the film and drop her home.’
‘Oh God, I don’t think I like where this is going.’
‘Your trepidation is valid. So, his dad turns up and she’s absolutely steaming, and I reckon Ryan probably endured the most painful twenty minutes of his life.
Apparently, she openly flirted with his dad, made fun of Ryan in the third person as if he wasn’t sat right next to her in the back and to top it all off then proceeded to vomit all over the car. ’
I’d never felt any kind of affinity with Ryan Seldon, but I blushed on his behalf. Poor bloke – no one deserved that. What had Elle been thinking?
‘Shitting hell.’
‘So… she never told you anything about it, then?’
‘No. Nothing. All I know was that they snogged on the school trip, and then on the Monday she said that stuff about his breath. That was it.’
‘Right, that all makes sense now.’ He looked disappointed and relieved at the same time, though I had no idea why.
‘What does?’
‘Ah, nothing, don’t worry. Anyway, I’ve never been able to get my head around why she did it beyond it being some weird power trip for her.
I only heard about this years later, mind.
I think Ryan was too embarrassed to talk about it at the time, but once he and Carly got together in their twenties it all came out one night when we were pissed and reminiscing about our, er, teenage crushes.
So, yeah, I guess I’ve never held her in the highest regard, to be honest.’
Well, it was all coming out tonight, wasn’t it? I could understand why Tom would feel that way about someone who’d hurt his mate, but I had to stand up for my mate, too.
‘What can I say? Other than she’s my best friend. Has been since she moved next door.’
‘Well, sure, but that’s not necessarily a reason to stay friends with someone, is it?’
I poured myself another large glass of crangria, sploshing a not-insignificant amount onto the tablecloth, and breathed out slowly as I did so.
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had delved into my soul like this before.
I had to dig deep for my response, because the roots of mine and Elle’s friendship were sprawling, and always would be.
‘The truth is, Tom, that after everything with Livvie, Elle was the only person I could count on to be by my side. She kept me from crumbling more than once. We became each other’s family – she’s never been that close to hers, and I’ve drifted from mine, as sad as that makes me.
And, no, Elle isn’t perfect and our friendship isn’t as…
reciprocal… as maybe it could be. But I’m far from perfect, myself.
So, yeah, that’s why we’ve stuck together all these years.
She seems convinced writing this article will give my career a boost, and I’m happy to help her whenever I can. ’
‘Her safety net.’
‘Touché.’
‘But who’s your safety net?’
I swallowed and looked down. ‘Oh, I’m pretty self-sufficient. Who’s yours?’
‘My mum, without question.’
‘And do you still see your dad?’
‘A little. It’s hard. But he knows he can’t manipulate us any more, so he mainly leaves us alone.
These days it’s much easier for me to see how some of his behaviours were never conscious choices on his part, but caused by stuff that went on when he was younger that he’s probably never dealt with.
I guess we all have stuff like that dragging us backwards, don’t we? ’
‘Yeah, tell me about it. But Elle’s always been pretty good at dragging me forwards, you know?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, as soon as we got back to uni after Livvie’s funeral she kept taking me out, night after night.
I buried myself in my studies the rest of the time.
Obviously looking back I can see that Elle had thought that hoisting me up onto some kind of carousel of distraction was the right thing to do.
I mean, we were both so young. I think she’d just taken it upon herself to keep my life as “normal” and positive as possible. ’
‘I can see why she might have felt the need to do that, sure,’ he said.
‘Well, what was the alternative?’
‘I dunno. Just let you feel what you needed to feel, maybe?’
‘She was a teenager, not a grief counsellor. Anyway. Enough about all that. A drink for the road?’
‘Absolutely.’