Tessa in Love

  ‘Matty,’ I said. ‘I called my mum and she’s on her way.’ It wasn’t true, but I could do it any time soon. There was silence from behind the door. I leaned against

  the wall and waited. Jim walked past and asked me if I was OK. I fudged things and said I was just waiting for Matty.

  ‘She’s in there?’ he said. ‘But didn’t Lee go? Is he back?’

  ‘Er . . . I don’t know where she is,’ I said. ‘I’m just waiting here because it’s nice and cool.’

  ‘OK,’ Jim said. He looked as if he didn’t believe me, and he looked sad again. I thought he had been hoping her argument with Lee might give him the chance to comfort her.

  Eventually Matty came out. She was drunk and smelled of smoke.

  ‘Have you been smoking?’ I said.

  ‘Just one,’ Matty said.

  ‘But you hate fags. God, are you drunk?’ I said. ‘You look really drunk. You’re pink and . . .’

  ‘Hardly. Look, Tessa, are you my mother?’

  ‘Matty, what the hell are you doing? Have you been in there with Pete? What about Lee? Where did he go?’

  Matty started crying incredibly loudly and slumped down on the carpet.

  ‘Matty, honey, what’s happened?’

  ‘He’s dumped me. He said he’d met someone else and been out with her a few times, but he still loved me and he was trying to choose between us. I went mental and he said, “Thanks, you’ve made my mind up for me”.’

  ‘Oh my God! What an absolute arse!’

  ‘Yes,’ Matty said, and then cried a lot more. I stroked her hair. Pete came out, looking nervous, and then slipped off downstairs.

  ‘Lee’s a total idiot,’ I said, pretending not to have noticed Pete. ‘Look, my mum’s not coming yet. Come and sit with me in the kitchen, and we’ll make some coffee and you can . . .’

  ‘Tessa, I’m so unhappy,’ Matty sobbed. ‘I love him so much.’

  ‘Well, what were you doing snogging Pete?’ I said.

  ‘Did you see us?’ Matty said. ‘It’s OK. He’s not going out with Kim any more. He said they broke up. That’s why she’s not here.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope that’s true,’ I said. ‘You don’t fancy Pete, do you?’

  ‘No, I want Lee back,’ Matty answered, crying harder again. ‘I just want to go back to where we were.’

  I wanted them to go back to where they’d once been, too. When they first started seeing each other, Matty and Lee had seemed like the perfect couple to me, and to everyone else. He was so cool and good-looking; she was so pretty and brilliant; and, when he asked her out, we were both excited and happy. Matty had shown me some of his e-mails, and he said all the right things, and when they were out together, they really fit. He could be really charming and it was hard not to be swept away by his confidence. But recently, I’d been more worried about her – I think because I was less in awe of him now. I winced sometimes at some of the things he said, and the way she tried too hard to keep him happy. So I didn’t want her to take him back, because it would never have been the same as the way they’d been at the start. Basically, he wasn’t good enough for her. Matty, I think, was in too deep to see him for what he was. When you get your heart broken, you don’t think straight – you just want to stop the hurt. Having everything go back to where it was seemed like the simplest way to do that. I sort of wanted to shake some sense into her, but I put my arm around her instead until she’d stopped crying, and then we fixed her face and called my mum. The party was still noisy with other people laughing and singing, but now it seemed like the most horrible place on earth.

  I woke up on Sunday morning to a bedroom splashed with sunlight, which seemed to dim as the grief of the previous night came back to me. Wolfie rang to make plans for the day, but I was still tired and emotional. Although I knew it was stupid, I was angry with him. I blamed him for not coming out, because when he was with me everything was safe and bad things didn’t happen. And I was still feeling hurt about losing out to a football match. I wanted to see him and know we were fine, but a part of me was sulking and wanted to hurt him back, so I said I had to go round to Matty’s to see how she was feeling. He heard the stiffness in my voice and asked if I was OK, and I said I was just worried about Matty and needed to spend some time with her. After I hung the phone up I felt silly and petulant and wrote him an e-mail full of kisses and expressed relief that he hadn’t had to see his prejudices about Lee confirmed.

  It turned out that Matty was going with her mum to see her granny in Liverpool. I checked the computer and Wolfie had already sent me a sweet, slightly anxious e-mail back, but I made my mind up not to call him even so. I just felt I needed a day off from normal life. Sometimes, even though you know someone will make you feel better, you just want to shrink away and hide and feel miserable and sorry for yourself in a completely self-absorbed way, a way you don’t want other people to see. I spent the day at home, slobbing out, reading the papers and watching rubbish television, while all the time my mind wandered to the people I cared about.

  If the party seemed like bad news, Monday at school was worse. During morning break, Matty and I were sitting near the school goat, talking about Lee. Matty had decided not to take him back, despite spending the rest of Saturday night crying and telling me how much she loved him. Since then, she’d become harder, but more fragile. She said she’d just been drunk and sentimental, and now she saw clearly what an idiot she’d been. I didn’t agree, because I didn’t think it was a good idea to dis your friends’ boyfriends when they’d broken up. For one thing, there was always a chance they’d get back together – this had happened with Matty in the past – and for another thing, you never really knew what things were like between people, or why they were together, so there was nothing you could tell them that they didn’t already know – better than you! – and I-told you-so was no help to the person you’d told so, and anyway, how could you explain why you hadn’t given them the advice at the time, if it was so important? So I watched the goat ambling around its little square and let Matty talk.

  Then, Kim Brannigan, Pete’s girlfriend, came round the corner with a couple of her girl friends, obviously looking for us. She was tall and square with dyed blond hair and was properly scary.

  ‘Did you snog Pete on Saturday night? At that party?’ she said.

  Matty just looked at her, but I could tell she was afraid.

  ‘Did you snog Pete?’ Kim said. ‘He says you did.’

  ‘I . . . he said you’d broken up,’ Matty said. She stood up to face Kim, and I stood up with her.

  ‘We haven’t broken up,’ Kim said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Matty said. ‘He said you had.’

  I didn’t say anything. I was hoping that now the misunderstanding had been cleared up, everyone would just get on with their lives. I knew there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance that would happen.

  ‘You’re a slag,’ Kim said. ‘He said you just started kissing him after your boyfriend walked out. Like five minutes later.’ She waited for Matty to say something, but Matty didn’t. ‘Quick turnaround. Who’s next?’

  Kim’s friends didn’t talk, either. They just glared at Matty, and tutted, or snorted, when Kim spoke.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Matty said. ‘I was drunk and I made a mistake. I thought . . . ’

  ‘Is that supposed to be an excuse?’ Kim said. ‘You’re a drunk slag, so that’s OK.’

  ‘He told her he wasn’t going out with you anymore,’ I said. ‘Do you think Matty forced herself on him?’

  ‘If it’s served up to him on a plate, he’ll take it, won’t he?’ Kim said.

  ‘Maybe you should be a bit more worried about him telling other people that he’s single,’ I said.

  Matty looked at me, her eyes saying, ‘Shhh’.

  ‘This is nothing to do with you,’ Kim snapped. I glared back at her, although I was terrified. I wanted my boyfriend. But this was my fight, my best friend, and I was staying right here. ‘Lee
Kelly’s well shot of you, you slag,’ she said to Matty. She seemed to be running out of ideas, and we had nothing else to say, so finally the three of them went away again, but I knew this wouldn’t be the end of it.

  As the week went on, I spent most of my time with Matty, not Wolfie, because she was so unhappy. Some girls had stopped talking to Matty, but everyone was talking about her. People whispered when she was answering questions in lessons; boys were making jokes about her. It was nasty. We got tired of the awkward silences when we went to join friends at lunch-time, so I took Matty to eat with Wolfie and his mates. Normally, he and I didn’t have lunch together – he and his friends usually went out of school to his favourite veggie cafe, and I hung out with Matty and the girls, and Wolfie and I would occasionally spot each other and smile secretly, and maybe sneak in five minutes of snogging before classes started again. But today I thought Matty and I needed a break from everyone we knew.

  I got it wrong. Wolfie’s friends weren’t very sympathetic, to say the least, and Chunk was even sort of making fun of Matty. When Jane said she was sorry to hear Matty had split up with her boyfriend, Chunk said, ‘Which one was that? It’s quite hard to keep up,’ and there was silence, but Lara smirked a bit and Wolfie didn’t say anything to defend Matty. I said we had to go, and Matty and I went back to sit with the goat.

  ‘Everyone’s being a jerk about this,’ I said. ‘So what if you snogged someone at a party? It’s his fault. He told you he was single, and you were single, so what’s the problem?

  ‘God, it’s a mess,’ Matty said. ‘I’m so screwed.’

  ‘You’re not,’ I said. ‘And I’m so angry!’

  When I got home, I called Wolfie and asked him to explain himself.

  ‘Explain what? What are you talking about?’ he said.

  ‘You and your stupid friends,’ I said. ‘Could they have been any less sensitive?’

  ‘Well, in fairness to us,’ Wolfie said, ‘we don’t actually care that much who your friend is snogging this week.’

  ‘Matty has been going out with Lee for more than a year,’ I shouted. ‘Which is a lot longer than you and me. What’s that supposed to mean: “this week”? Are you just saying the same things about her as everyone else?’

  ‘Of course I’m not,’ Wolfie said. ‘Calm down, Tess. I’m just saying it’s not very important.’

  ‘It’s important to Matty, and it’s important to me,’ I said. ‘No one is talking to her, and she’s incredibly upset. But as far as you’re concerned it’s nothing, because she’s so easy, and you can’t keep count of her one boyfriend in more than a year.’ I was starting to shake with anger.

  ‘You’re really overreacting,’ Wolfie said. ‘I didn’t say anything – it was Chunk.’

  ‘Exactly: you didn’t say anything!’ I said.

  ‘He was joking.’

  ‘She’s my best friend, and enough people are “joking” about her.’

  ‘What do you want me to do about it now?’ Wolfie said. I was silent. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I just wanted him to make it all better, but I didn’t know how, so I didn’t say anything. ‘Is it my fault she got pissed and made a fool of herself?’

  ‘Is that really what you think?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I think she was making a fool of herself going out with that jerk Lee Kelly, but I think the fact she got over him so quickly was actually pretty cool,’ Wolfie said, and I could hear him smiling at me, trying to make things better between us, but it was the wrong joke at the wrong time. We hadn’t really sorted things out after we’d argued about him not coming to the party, and, with this happening so soon afterwards, I couldn’t tell whether I was still hurt about that, and this argument was me still trying to work through it, or whether this was already another thing where we wouldn’t meet each other halfway, and that it meant we had worse, more serious problems.

  ‘I’m really mad with you,’ I said. The thing was, even though I was upset and angry, I wanted to apologise at the same time for shouting at him, but I couldn’t.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about that, is there?’ Wolfie said. He and I held our phones in silence, until finally he said, ‘Anything else?’ and sounded annoyed, and I just stayed silent for ages and ages, and eventually he put the phone down. I hung up and burst into tears, somewhere between angry and hurt.

  ***

  My dad and brother were out that night seeing a band play in Sheffield. I invited Matty round, and told Mum she was depressed, but I didn’t go into things. Mum cooked us a really lovely risotto, and Matty ended up telling her about Lee and Pete and Kim. My mum told us about a boy she’d gone out with when she was our age. She hadn’t slept with him, although he kept asking her to, and he told everyone she was a slag after she broke up with him.

  ‘I hate that word,’ Mum said. ‘For a boy to use it, it’s disgusting enough, but, for a girl to use it against another girl, it really makes me despair. And the only people who’ve behaved badly in all this are the boys.’

  ‘Yeah, well, no one at school sees it like that, unfortunately,’ Matty said.

  ‘I don’t want to sound as if I don’t understand how serious this is,’ my mum said, ‘but I promise you it’ll blow over as soon as it started, Matty.’

  ‘I think she’s right,’ I said. I didn’t tell either of them that it had led to my first serious fight with Wolfie. I still had to work out how I felt about it. He hadn’t done anything properly bad, like Pete or Lee; he’d just stood around and done nothing while his friends had been mean to my friend. It was bad, sure, but did I really need to stop speaking to him over this? Was it unforgivable – a few careless moments? The trouble was, how did I go about getting back to where we’d been? How could we go from being so close and in love to suddenly not knowing what to say to each other or where to go next? I knew I wasn’t angry any more. I just wanted him to have been sorrier and to have promised me nothing like that would happen again. I wanted him to promise over and over and hold me and reassure me until I didn’t care any more. But at the time he’d just acted as if it wasn’t important and tried to get past it. I wanted to be past it too! But with it all fixed, not swept under the carpet.

  My mum, Matty and I carried on talking while we demolished a shop-bought chocolate cake, and I thought about how cool my mum was, and how lucky I was. Matty couldn’t say anything like this to her mum, not just because she was her mum – I would never be able to talk to Matty’s mum about anything except school work. But underneath the common-sense talk, right now, I was in a turmoil of my own. I didn’t know what was going on. This was my first ever romantic fight. I had no idea what he was feeling and how it was going to turn out. And, although I was with people I loved and trusted, I just didn’t want to talk to anyone about Wolfie yet. I kept quiet, because I didn’t want to hear Matty or my mum tell me Wolfie was in the wrong. Or the exact opposite: I was afraid I’d messed up and didn’t want anyone to confirm it.

  No Wolfie e-mails overnight, and none the next morning, Friday – although I wrote drafts of about a hundred and didn’t send them. I made myself late with checking all the time for something from him, compulsively pressing ‘get mail’ ‘get mail’ ‘get mail’ when I was on the computer and jumping when the phone rang. I would have sent him a text: texts are good like that; because of the restricted space, you don’t have to say anything, and you almost can’t say anything. You’re just sending them a sign that you want to talk, which makes it harder to mess up. But bloody Wolfie was living in the last century and refused to get a mobile. Anyway Matty’s social catastrophe was still my offical first concern, and I found that being there for her made me feel better: it was good for me to remember I was not the only one with problems. I confessed to her that Wolfie and I had argued, although I didn’t say it was because of the way his friends had talked to her. I just said it was over something stupid and Matty didn’t ask any more. She just gloomily declared that all boys were a waste of time.

  At lunch
, Matty and I got chips and went to sit alone at the edge of the school field. The weather was starting to be reliably nice and there was hardly any breeze. We weren’t social outcasts, or anything, but our friends spent a lot of time trying to ask us why Matty and Lee, the gorgeous couple, had broken up, and trying to get fresh juice. Matty was still hurting and didn’t feel up to being everyone’s daily entertainment. We thought it best that people knew as little as possible, so they’d have to find someone else to gossip about. Lee had told everyone about the other girl he was seeing, who went to a different school, and that was humiliating for Matty. But, with no chance of getting him back now, she decided to concentrate on work and take advantage of all the extra time she’d have not being with Lee. We lay back on the grass and looked at the clouds, and Matty said that, all things considered, it was an excellent time to break up. But I knew she was still hurting behind the bravado.

  Matty and I went off in different directions when break was nearly over. She had to take back a library book and I wanted to check again for e-mail on one of the computers. When I saw Wolfie outside the science block, I panicked.

  He didn’t see me for a few seconds and when he did he froze. I wanted him to run up and hold me and tell me he was sorry, so that I could tell him it was me who’d overreacted, and that it was my fault we’d rowed, and he could say, no, no, until we met in the middle and everything was OK again. But, unless he made the first move, I was too afraid. If I ran up to him, he might reject me. Our last contact had been him hanging up on me when I stayed silent and nothing since then. He half-smiled and started to approach me. I couldn’t work out his expression at all, and I was suddenly terrified that if I gave him the chance to come and talk, he’d tell me we were history. And I just wasn’t ready to hear it. I turned around, even though I knew he’d seen me see him. I wanted him to come after me. I started to tremble with the anticipation of his touch – his hand on my side, pulling me back. But he didn’t come. He didn’t follow me.