The Worst of Me

  ‘Oh, just women?’ Isobel said, sarcastically. ‘What are the “men” doing, then?’

  ‘Don’t blame me, I’m not the factory manager! I just saw a bunch of them this morning surrounded by enormous spiders and they happened to be girls. Maybe they refused to let the blokes get their hands on their tights.’ Ian turned to me. ‘Your lot are going, aren’t they?’

  ‘My lot?’

  ‘I know that Steve and Dominic have bought tickets ’cause I was there when they did. Dunno about Jonah, I guess.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You’re still going out with him, though?’ Ian said. He stretched with both arms, then let his hands rest on the top of his head.

  Yeah, very casual, I thought, nothing uncomfortable here.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. I sounded defensive. I wished that in loaded conversations like this you could practise the way you said things and choose the ones that sounded the best. I wanted my ‘yeah’ to sound light and innocent.

  ‘Ian,’ Isobel said, ‘just say it if you’re going to say it.’

  ‘Just say what?’ I asked.

  ‘Listen, I’m heading back into school,’ Isobel said. ‘Come and catch me up in a minute, Cass.’

  ‘Isobel,’ I called after her. ‘Well, this is weird!’ I said to Ian, when she’d gone.

  ‘It’s not, don’t worry. I just thought we should have a chat, face to face,’ Ian said. ‘You know I’m rubbish in email.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, smiling as I remembered the arguments we’d had when I used to interpret his emails to mean something incredibly important, and spend days being angry about them. ‘But to be honest, you’re just freaking me out a bit. It’s that brother-sister handover, what was that?’

  ‘I know, sorry,’ Ian said. ‘I just wanted to tell you, the other day when I said Jonah was dodgy, I was really out of order.’ He pressed his lips together in that Ian way. ‘I just wanted you to know that. It’s none of my business. But we’re still friends, aren’t we? So I was a dick, and I think it’s important that you log this one as my dickishness.’

  ‘Oh, Ian, come on. It’s fine.’

  Ian pressed his lips tighter, but he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘He is nice, too, you know?’ I said. ‘I know all that business with him arguing with everyone earlier was a bad start as new boys, but they’re just used to that kind of debating in their old school, they had debating teams. They went to inter-school debating competitions.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ Ian said. ‘Cass, you don’t have to . . .’ He stopped mid-sentence. I looked where he was looking and saw Steve and Lewis, then Dom and Jonah behind them.

  ‘Well, hi, Cassidy!’ Steve said, with a smile. I stood up, then stayed there awkwardly without moving forward as I wondered whether to go and kiss Jonah or something. It was excruciating.

  ‘No, stay, it’s okay,’ Jonah said. ‘I’ll see you later, Cass.’ He gave me a doubtful little half-smile and they walked on, back into school.

  ‘Izzy shouldn’t have left us,’ Ian said, when they’d gone. ‘Sorry if —’

  ‘It’s fine, Ian,’ I said, trying to hide the impatience I felt. ‘I don’t need a chaperone. I’m not a Muslim!’ It was supposed to be a joke about what a racist I was now that I was going out with racists. It seemed to hang there between us, so stupid and heavy and real that I felt I could grab it, but I couldn’t push it away. ‘That was supposed to be funny,’ I said. ‘And not that way. Not the bad way.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Ian said. ‘But there sort of is only a bad way now.’

  Jonah stuck with his pack and there was no way I could get him away from them. I wouldn’t normally approach him at school, so I didn’t now. I was used to him coming to find me, or us both flirtily ignoring each other, throwing occasional sly glances and longing looks.

  So I stood there, close enough for him to see, my eyes pleading this time. Come and talk. I knew he must have known I’d been talking about him with Ian because guilt shows on your face, and I knew that mine had had that guilt-filled gape when I’d spotted him. But he didn’t come over now. It wasn’t a total snub because we were still a fair way apart, it wasn’t like anyone would have noticed him ignoring me. It was a distance we were used to playing with, though, but this wasn’t playing, which meant it was fighting.

  After school I tried to leave quickly and without a fuss, I didn’t want to look for him and be disappointed. But he was waiting for me just outside the gate, leaning with his back to me as I walked towards him, one dark shoulder raised. He turned round to face me when I got close, as if he’d sensed I was there, or maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe he’d seen me from further back and timed it well.

  ‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘What . . . you mean . . . with . . .’

  ‘You and your ex having lunch together and looking like you’d been caught between the sheets. That story.’

  ‘Oh, that was mad,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Not my idea. I thought I was having lunch with Isobel and then Ian turned up, and then Isobel went so that Ian could talk to me alone, so I thought it was going to be some big heavy talk, and then it wasn’t anything after all.’

  ‘So, what was it?’ Jonah asked. My mind went blank. I couldn’t think of a lie, or how to retell what happened and make it sound like nothing, and the more seconds that ticked by without me saying something, the more my brain closed down. I can think of all kinds of lies now. Here’s one: I could have said that I was having lunch with Isobel and Ian came and joined us because he’s her brother and because Soph was organising the sixth-formers’ Halloween party and she’d got him to try to coordinate with the Year 11s now that we were allowed to buy tickets and then Isobel had had to go back into school before us because she’d left something or had to be early for something. Okay, it’s complicated, but it would have bored him out of following it up.

  ‘He wanted to say sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘He got drunk a couple of weeks ago. When we were all at Isobel’s. He lurched in and asked me if I knew what I was doing going out with you, or something like that, but he didn’t get very far because Iso threw him out, and even before that happened all he’d said was something like . . . oh, I can’t remember.’

  ‘You can remember,’ Jonah said. The tone of his voice was light and almost joky, but I knew there was no way he was going to let me get away with leaving it there.

  ‘He literally didn’t say anything bad! I think he was going to tell me about that, you know, like, situation you all got into in general studies or whatever it was, but he didn’t even get around to it because Isobel told him to go away, and then he obviously thought he’d said more and couldn’t remember, and wanted to tell me he shouldn’t have said what he didn’t even say.’

  ‘This would all be okay if you weren’t obviously trying so hard to protect him.’

  I just looked at him. ‘So it’s not okay?’ I finally said. I started walking and he stayed with me.

  ‘He’s a cock.’

  ‘He’s a nice guy. Really,’ I said. ‘This is more of a big deal than it needs to be.’ I rubbed my eyes and face with the flat of my hand. ‘Just don’t . . .’

  ‘Just don’t what?’

  ‘Just don’t say anything.’

  ‘I’m going to say something.’

  ‘Jonah . . .’

  ‘If he’s got a problem with me, he and I should talk about it.’

  ‘He hasn’t got a problem with you.’

  ‘I have a problem with him.’

  We’d reached the top of my street. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘So go.’ He stopped walking with me, but he didn’t walk away, he just stood there watching me walk to my house and go inside, and it felt horrible.

  Chapter 9

  If you’re not talking to someone it can be hard to find out if you’ve broken up. Jonah didn’t phone or email or text. And neither did I. But I’d been the one who walked away, so I h
ad to assume I still had a say in what happened. I wanted to call Ian to tell him there might be a problem, but it was too embarrassing. Maybe Jonah had never intended to talk to Ian. Or, while we were arguing, maybe he thought he would, but then later thought better of it. If I phoned Ian and said, ‘Jonah is mad at you,’ I’d be embarrassing Jonah and sending a message to Ian about the state of my relationship. I’d be doing something worse than that, too: taking sides.

  I was late for school the next day, only persuading myself at the last minute that I had to go. I didn’t have anyone to talk to that I knew for sure would want to talk to me. As soon as I arrived I headed for the loos and waited there till registration – because I lived so close there was only a few minutes to go. I stared at my reflection, glad there was nobody else in there. The strip lighting showed up every flaw, every hair and freckle and spot, the tiny black beetles of flaking mascara under my eyes, my dry, cracking lips. The rough, reddened skin on my cheeks and chin where Jonah’s stubble scratched. I touched my lips with freezing cold fingertips, remembering the kisses and the warmth.

  In registration I sat quietly and pretended to be going through my bag, my books, my pencil case, for some kind of important information. I leaned back with my legs crossed, looking like I didn’t care about anything, but really I was just too shy to talk to anyone. When break came I looked for Jonah, but couldn’t see him. He still hadn’t tried to get in touch.

  After break, I had double English, sitting next to Dee, and I relaxed – she even made me laugh. She asked if I wanted to join her for lunch, but I said I was fine before I even thought about it. I think my subconscious was too worried about her friends knowing me as that girl who went around with those Muslim-hating weirdos and what the hell did she think was she doing here? Besides, I was desperate to be alone because I had nothing to say, I wasn’t interesting, and I was in a crappy mood. Also, I suppose, I was hoping Jonah and I would be working things out then.

  But I didn’t make it easy for him. I went out and bought a pile of junk food, which I ate walking back from the shop, then I stayed miles away from the sixth-form block. I didn’t want anyone to see me lurking around it, looking for him like some idiot kid with a crush, while sixth-formers laughed and told him his stalker was outside.

  It was games in the afternoon and I considered making a run for it, because no one would notice if I was standing in the corner of a football field or not. I could have taken a bus into town, gone to the pictures, found a new messed-up boy to mess me about. I stayed, though, just for the joy of being picked second to last, standing around a lot freezing, and nearly losing all feeling in one ankle when Alison Francis tackled me.

  I got roped into putting some of the stuff away, and when I joined my mates in the changing rooms, I was thinking of how to explain why I’d been invisible all day, and how I’d answer casual questions about how things were going with Jonah. That didn’t quite come up, though. Everyone stopped talking, so I knew I’d been the topic of conversation. I could have ignored this and crawled back under my stone, but I was so in the dark about everything else in my life that for once I was going to demand an explanation.

  ‘Wow, no one’s talking!’ I said. I started to pull off my tracksuit, and added, ‘Weird.’

  ‘Oh, we were just discussing whether your boyfriend was a total psycho,’ Finian said, casually, and a couple of girls laughed.

  ‘What’s he done now?’ I said wearily, as if I was in on the joke. Inside, my heart was going crazy.

  ‘Look, it’s nothing. Most guys would do the same in his position,’ Isobel said.

  ‘What?’ I snapped.

  ‘He had a go at Ian at lunchtime,’ Isobel said. ‘According to Ian. But look, Ian asked for it, didn’t he? That little private meeting he arranged with you, he must have known there was a risk you’d be seen together and he’s your ex. You can hardly blame Jonah.’ She smiled and shrugged at me, half-heartedly.

  ‘I didn’t know anything about this,’ I said. ‘What’s he said?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Isobel said, and it sounded harsh, to both of us, apparently, because she added: ‘I mean, Ian’s pissed off about it, so he’s probably not been entirely fair to him. And Ian couldn’t give a crap, anyway, it’s just blokes, you know.’

  ‘I kind of expected it,’ I said. ‘I told him not to say anything. Is it okay? It’s just blokes?’

  Isobel sighed. ‘Ian said Jonah was . . .’ She stopped. ‘What did I just say? Ian was pissed off because he did it in front of Soph, and whatever he’s said about it he’s not going to be fair to Jonah, so there’s no point you hearing it from me.’

  ‘But I have to hear it from you as well, for the same reason. Look, Isobel, you know I need to know.’

  ‘Ian just said . . . it was pretty intense – threats, swearing, tearing his shirt.’ She looked me in the eye and I was embarrassed that all of our friends were watching, but they must have known more than me already.

  ‘Cool, though, guys fighting over you,’ Finian said.

  I flashed her a horrible look, but . . . had the same thought flashed across my mind? Ian was a nice guy, old-fashioned nice, never really lost his head. Jonah? God knows. I barely knew him. For every moment we’d really connected and seemed like we were meant to be together, there was another when I had no idea what he was thinking about me. I sometimes found that exciting, as if it meant he was too good for me. Did it matter what my mates thought of him when I’d been drifting away from them anyway? But maybe I hadn’t been drifting, so much as being pulled.

  After school I went straight to the park, sitting on the bench near the swings where I’d last been with Sam. There were some other kids from our school there, and I wondered if they knew Jonah or me.

  I took my phone out of my bag and called him.

  ‘I asked you not to talk to Ian,’ I said. There was a silence.

  ‘I talked to Ian.’

  ‘I know.’ Another silence. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘What’s the point of me telling you? You can guess. He had no right. He’s a . . .’ he trailed off, swearing.

  ‘But you know Ian is my friend’s brother.’

  ‘I know Ian is your ex.’

  ‘Yeah, ex,’ I said.

  ‘How happy are you about that?’ Jonah asked.

  ‘I can’t do this any more,’ I said, and shivered. I was aware that there might be no going back, but I needed to push things forward.

  ‘What exactly can’t you do any more?’

  ‘You know. I think we should stop seeing each other.’

  ‘Where are you?’ His voice was already slightly breathless. He was moving. In a sudden flash of paranoia I looked around myself nervously.

  ‘I’m in the park near my house.’

  ‘Stay there. I’ll be over soon,’ he said.

  ‘It’s cold. I’m not staying.’

  ‘You have to let me talk to you.’ His voice cracked, he sounded as if he was crying. ‘You’re not just going to finish with me without letting me talk to you. Where do you want to meet me?’

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ I said.

  * * *

  It took him another twenty minutes or so to get there, and by the time he’d arrived I was freezing cold, blowing on my hands just to feel them. His eyes burned. He was so dark, standing in front of me like a hole someone had torn out of a picture of the park.

  ‘Let’s hear it, then,’ Jonah said.

  I realised I hadn’t planned anything and I had nothing to say. I shrugged and looked around me. ‘It’s got too hard,’ I said.

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Do you?’ I heard the words come out of my mouth, down at the end of the question instead of up, and I sounded so cold. I couldn’t think of a way of undoing it. At the planning stage, if you could call it planning, it hadn’t occurred to me that we would actually break up. I just needed to make a stand and have a fight, find out how I felt about him by forcing him to talk. And as soon as he’d appeared
I knew how I felt. I wanted to be holding him. I wanted to get to the next stage where we were through this and okay and together like before. Now there seemed to be no way of getting there.

  ‘Yes.’ A whisper.

  My heart was beating so fast that I couldn’t breathe over it. ‘But my friends —’

  ‘This is just you and me. Right now, here, this is you and me and how you feel.’

  ‘I don’t know how I feel.’

  ‘Okay.’ He turned away from me. ‘I guess I’m wasting your time.’

  ‘How do you know how you feel?’

  ‘You mean anyone? Or me, how do I specifically know how I feel?’

  ‘I mean you. You specifically,’ I said.

  ‘I know because when I’m around you it’s like I’ve taken a drug that makes me just happy. Just happy. When I’m not around you and I think about you, I start to buzz the same way. When I hold you, when I kiss you, it’s like I’m standing in the sun and everything is great. I just can’t believe it’s all one way. I can’t believe I’m the only one who feels the sun, that we’re not both thinking the same thing. I always felt, right from the start, like you knew me and got me. That you saw the worst of me and didn’t care. But if you did feel like that, you’d know. Believe me.’

  But I didn’t know. I hadn’t known with Ian and I didn’t know now. Maybe I wasn’t capable of love, or that kind of certainty. The love at first sight thing, that was just getting drunk on hormones, like loving ice cream and wanting more, but not really love. It was about wanting them to make you feel good, not the same as caring for them like they were part of you, even when it felt horrible. Maybe if I never saw Jonah again my life would be easier. Things would go back to normal. I would see him around sometimes, but not that much. All the time I was thinking this, the movie of me and Jonah was playing in my head, the moments when it was me and him and no one else mattered, his smile, the way I felt safe when he touched me, the way I couldn’t sleep at night because I couldn’t wait to see him the next day. It was the same. But I couldn’t tell him that.