Chapter 31
Ember
Even the sound of those familiar giggles in the kitchen couldn’t lift my spirits. Poppy and Amy had arrived back at the flat about an hour before me and had apparently heard Toby getting, well, cosy with some random girl in his bedroom. The girl’s screams were so vehemently loud that Amy decided to embarrass Toby by purposefully standing directly next to his bedroom door and shouting to Poppy, “Oh my god, call the police I think someone’s being murdered in there!” I think it’s safe to say that Toby wasn’t impressed. They heard the jingle of his belt as he obviously fumbled to put his trousers on and then were greeted with his red-hot anger as he marched out of his bedroom to confront them. Apparently, he yelled at them for coming back so early, (as predictable as ever), and threatened to make their lives a living hell, but as he did, his bedroom door obviously hadn’t been shut properly and swung wide open, revealing a butt-naked girl splayed out on his bed like Rose in the paint me like one of your French girls scene in Titanic. As sorry as they felt for this poor girl, they couldn’t mask their laughter at Toby’s expense.
Usually, I’d love nothing more than to join them on the Toby-busting train, but I couldn’t bring myself to go back into the kitchen as I’d scanned my eyes over the message that had pinged on my phone. I’d pretended that mum was calling me, just as an excuse to get out of there. I didn’t want them to pick up on the fact that I felt like pure shite and start asking questions, I’d already done my fair share of lying through my teeth lately. I thought I’d felt nauseas during Allegra’s lecture to me, but that was child’s play compared to the nausea I felt now as I stared down at my phone.
Arthur: Hi :) not sure if you’re back in Bath yet or not, but I have some news that you’re not going to believe… I JUST WON ￡1,000! It was on a scratch card that I found, can’t actually believe it! Sam was talking about coming to see Poppy in a bit btw, so if you’re about, I could come by. Would be cool to catch up?
I thought this was what I wanted. I mean, it’s exactly what I asked for. If I’d read this text about a month ago, I’d be jumping for joy, peeling my shirt up over my face like a fan at a football game when their team scored, but what I was feeling right now was anything but joyful. It was like I was waiting for the come down. He’d miraculously breezed through the presentation as if he could do it with his eyes closed, he’d received firsts in all of his assignments all in one week, he’d got the job even though they’d previously turned him down, he’d been the 100th customer of the day at the Christmas market and now he’d won an ￡1,000 scratch card? Allegra’s words continued to circle round my brain. The lucky occurrences were all coming in at full force, it was surely only a matter of time now before everything came plummeting back down to earth. I gulped, not even knowing how to respond. I didn’t want to continue to indulge in it and the thought of having to face him was far too much. Opting to just ignore the message for now, I clicked the off button and watched the phone go black.
◆◆◆
I spent the next hour scrambling through dad’s books, just to see if there was anything I could do, anything that could reverse the spell before it all came crumbling down. I know Allegra had said that nothing could be done and the spell would just have to run its course, but I couldn’t accept that. I furiously flicked through pages, groaning with every dead-end. It’s times like these that I’d have a timeout and give Robert some cuddles, I found myself welling up at the thought of his therapeutic purrs and that he was currently miles away living with someone who didn’t even really want him. In a moment of anger, I lobbed the book over the other side of the room, landing with an almighty thud. All I seemed to do at the moment was ruin things, ruined Arthur’s chances at living freely, ruined my trust with Allegra, ruined the already temperamental relationship I had with my mum, and ruined Robert’s once peaceful life by lugging him nearly 50 miles away on public transport to an unfamiliar place that he was now expected to call home. During my minute of crisis, I notice the ding of the lift, followed by a collection of mumbles coming from the landing next to our flat. It was then that I heard the buzz of the key fob against the main door of the flat and the familiar voices that trailed afterwards.
“You should have seen his face,” a familiar Poppy says to someone that I can’t quite make out yet.
“Would have been a picture I imagine,” the voice of Sam replies over a chuckle.
I breathe a sigh of relief, it’s just Poppy and Sam. That’s when I hear an all-too familiar laugh, deep and husky , one that sounds like it’s coming from the pit of their stomach. I anxiously squeeze my palms as the realisation dawned. He’s here. Thankfully, I hear the footsteps continue down the corridor and the dense clunk of the kitchen door as it opens. I audibly exhaled at this earn of extra time, I sure needed it to try and figure out how the hell I was going to keep up a normal fa?ade when he inevitably beams about his new winnings. I hadn’t felt guilt this heavy since I was 8 years old when I was pet-sitting and ended up accidentally killing my friends hamster because I lent right up to the cage and snapped a picture of him on my mum’s phone with the flash. The poor thing died of fright right there and then on the spot. The worst thing was, when I gave him back to her at the end of the day, I told her that he was just sleeping. You don’t have to tell me, I’m a terrible person. Evidently, not much has changed in the ten years since. I couldn’t exactly hide in here all night; everyone would know that something was up. No, I just needed to be normal and nonchalant. Swallowing down my pride and giving myself an internal pep-talk, I stride down the corridor, (read: teetered down the corridor with legs that wobbled like jelly on a plate). As I open the door, I’m greeted with 4 beaming faces in my direction, but just as I anticipated, Arthur’s was the biggest. Perhaps ignorantly, I dart straight past them and over to the kettle, hoping that somehow making a cuppa with my back turned would act as a cloak of invisibility.
Way to be nonchalant Ember.
As if I couldn’t make enough of a mess of this, I still somehow manage to notice the sudden droop of Arthur’s mouth in the corner of my eye as I grab my mug from the cupboard and flick the kettle on.
“Did you hear Arthur’s news Ember?,” Sam excitedly chirps from the behind me. I didn’t even need to look at him to know he most probably had pound signs for eyes right now.
Gently pouring the boiling water over the peppermint tea with a soft glug, I let out a hopefully cool-as-a-cucumber, “yeah I did,” as I swirl the spoon around, “great news.” The volume of the room immediately quietens, as if I just made some casually homophobic comment like a grandpa at a family dinner. I feel a sharp jab on my right shoulder now. Primed with a fat mug of tea, I take a sip as I turn around and face the culprit.
“Uh, hello? ￡1,000 Emb!”, Poppy squeals directly into my face. I step back, pretty sure she might have just spat on my lip where she was hovering so closely.
I nod happily, trying my best to not make eye contact with Arthur. “As I said, great news.” Was I supposed to be dancing on the table and getting the maracas out? What more did they want from me. I felt crap enough about it all and this was honestly about as best a response as I could gather.
Luckily, in her ice-breaking, ease-tensioning fashion, Amy chimes in, “so, what are you going to spend it on? A holiday…car?”
“You could put it towards a house,” Sam interrupts.
“Would probably need another ￡9,000 just for a deposit, but thanks”, Arthur laughs uncomfortably.
“Hence, why I said, put towards,” Sam snorts, “gotta start somewhere.”
As much as I’d love to debate the current housing crisis and drag the government through the mud, I couldn’t deal with this. Listening to everyone excitedly discuss how Arthur could spend the money and seeing their faces just made me feel infinitely worse. I was wrong, I couldn’t do this and needed an out. Impressed by my own quick-thinking, I grabbed a wheat bag from my cupboard and whanged it in the microwave for a few minutes. Watching me, Poppy says with a look of concern, “are you okay?,” eyeing the rotating wheat bag, “I thought something was up.”
“Yeah-uh-it’s just that time of the month,” I whisper, not knowing whether this little white lie made me feel better or worse.
“Oh no!,” Poppy says, rubbing my arm, “well if you need any painkillers, I’ve got loads.”
“And I’ve got a dairy milk bar if you’re in need of some chocolate-induced serotonin,” Amy adds.
Yep. Definitely Worse.
“Jam fountain?,” Toby says with a smirk as he barges into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of Peroni from the fridge.
“Can you stop being a twat for like 5 minutes?”, Amy hisses at him through gritted teeth.
If looks could kill, they wouldn’t be from Amy, but from the ones Arthur is currently sporting in his direction. Clanking the cap open with his teeth, (how he hasn’t broken any is beyond me), he spits it into the bin before giving Arthur a firm nudge on the shoulder as he walks past him, “chill out pal,” and heads back to his room.
As if on perfect cue, the microwave dings. I carefully take it out, hold it to my stomach, avoid all eye contact, and like the horrible little liar that I am, I leave.
I immediately throw the wheat bag onto the floor when I’m in my room. I’d given Pinocchio even more of a run for his money tonight.
I’m just about to stomp up and down and curse the world before I hear a light knock at the door, followed by a soft, “Ember, can I come in?”
For the love of God, I couldn’t catch a break. The world could just swallow me hole right now, I wouldn’t mind. I knew I had to speak to him though and I guess there was no time like the present.
“Yeah sure,” I shout towards the unlocked door.
“Hey,” he says with a smile. That same goofy smile that elicited my stomach flutters when he first came in here and that time at the ice rink. I swear he was doing this on purpose. “Is it okay if I?,” he gestures to the bed. I give him a nod, and he gently plonks himself on the edge.
“So,” he says, ever-so-lightly cracking his knuckles, “I was just wondering if everything was okay? You didn’t reply to my text so I wasn’t sure if I’d done something wrong.” I’d say he could somehow read me like a book, but I didn’t have the best track record for my acting abilities.
“No, you haven’t done anything wrong,” I insist because that was true. He really hadn’t done anything wrong. If anyone was in the wrong, it was me.
He twiddled his thumbs now as he looked down at them, “ah- well I just thought that I might have come off as a bit-I don’t know- arrogant, maybe? I didn’t want you to think I was boasting about the ticket at all. I’m sorry if it sounded like that. I feel like I’ve done nothing but brag to you the past month.” He looked so genuinely concerned. His deep blue irises morphing into the same fearful look that they used to do before the spell. My heart actually hurts. I know it sounds dramatic, but the fact he sat here and thought that he was boasting. Especially for simply being happy, for having something finally work out for him. It made me feel awful. After all, I wasn’t feeling guilty that he received all of this, I was feeling guilty that I didn’t allow it to happen naturally.
Surprising myself, I take his hands in mine and with about the most sincerity I’ve breathed all day, I say, “you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. You haven’t boasted or bragged at all. Arthur, I’m happy for you. You deserve this.” My eyes bore into his as I grip tighter with our interlocked hands, praying that he sees that I’m telling him the truth. He gives me a puzzled look, but I swear I feel the slightest graze of his thumb over mine. Almost as if we’re under an entirely different spell, I gawkily cough before breaking away from him. “Anyway,” I digress, “you never said what you were actually thinking of spending the money on?”
Looking completely dishevelled, he scoots a bit further away from me. “Well actually, that was also something I wanted to talk to you about.” I feel a bubble forming in my throat. “Mum and dad rang me earlier to say that they decided that they wanted to come up to Bath and have a meal with me later this week, to celebrate my results. But I thought that it would be nice for me to pay, considering, you know,” he says shyly, obviously not wanting to ‘boast’ again. “So I was wondering-uh- if you wanted to come along?” Obviously noticing both my eyes and mouth widen, he reiterates, “Sam will be there too! I just wanted to bring a few friends along.”
Friends. He wants to bring his friends along. Because you’re his friend. For god’s sake, the fact that I even needed to remind myself of that was astounding. I must have just got caught up in the heat of the moment earlier. It was the stress of it all, the guilt. Yep, that was definitely it.
Was I also forgetting the fact that he’d literally just asked if I wanted to come to a family dinner. One where they’d inevitably gush about how proud they were and I’d have to watch it firsthand. I knew this was going to be an absolute minefield of guilt, not to mention that I still wasn’t overly pleased about the idea of being around his dad since he berated Arthur in front of tons of people, but as I watched the hopeful look flash over his eyes, my body ached. He wanted me there, and in some way, I feel like he almost needed me there. I’ve made some hefty mistakes lately and this will prove to be up there with some of the worst, but as I look up into his deep blue eyes, I give him a soft smile. “Yeah, of course I will.”