A Quiet Kind of Thunder(87)

Her eyes go wide in an instant. ‘Oh my God!’ she lets out in a burst. I’ve genuinely shocked her. ‘Are you kidding?’

I shake my head.

‘Steffi!’ Her mouth is hanging open. ‘Wow . . .’

‘I know,’ I say.

‘That really explains a lot.’

‘Does it?’ I realize how desperately I want her view on this. On me.

‘Yeah. I mean, I guess I’d put it down to you going to sixth form and getting a boyfriend.’

‘Put what down to that?’

‘Just . . . you. You being more confident and – no, not confident, exactly. Like, more comfortable? Does that make sense? Talking more and doing more things.’

‘I don’t think it’s just because of the meds,’ I say. ‘They help, but they’re not everything. Going to sixth form without you and getting together with Rhys have a lot to do with it too. It’s all the things working together.’

She nods. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, though?’ There’s a sudden sadness in her face. ‘Didn’t you want to?’

‘I did, but . . . I also didn’t. I didn’t want you to be . . . looking for it, you know? Like, if you saw me talking more, I didn’t want you to immediately be, like, “Oh, Steffi, the meds are working!” You know?’

She lifts her shoulders. ‘I guess. Still feels huge, though. Does it for you?’

‘It did. Not so much any more, though. I’m used to it now. Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?’ I ask. I pull my legs up under me and cross them. ‘I am all ears. You have my attention. Undivided and . . . attentive.’

‘Oh, that,’ Tem says. She looks away from me, picks up her toy lemur and starts walking him across her pillow. ‘I’ve calmed down a bit now.’

‘Well, if you want to get worked up again, that’s fine too.’

She smiles. ‘Don’t encourage me. Unless you want me to start yelling at you again?’

‘Nah, you’re all right, thanks.’ There’s a pause. I watch Tem lean back against the wall, her eyes not meeting mine. ‘So what happened?’ I ask gently.

‘Karam,’ she says simply. ‘Karam happened.’

I make a face. ‘Oh dear. What did he do?’

‘Oh, just . . .’ She gives a careless shrug. ‘Just got a girlfriend, you know. A girlfriend who isn’t me.’

‘Oh, Tem,’ I say, agonized for her. I get up and move over to her, reaching out my arms to pull her in for a hug. ‘I’m sorry. How did you find out?’

‘He told me. Said she wanted to make it Facebook official, so he wanted me to know first.’

I hesitate. ‘Well, I guess that’s nice of him.’

‘He must have been seeing her for ages,’ she says, ignoring this comment. ‘I don’t even know how long. I can’t believe he was stringing me along. That’s such a cliché dick move. He hasn’t just dicked me over, he’s clichéd dicked me over. I feel so stupid.’

‘You’re not stupid.’

‘Oh no, I am. I really, really am.’ She takes a breath. I see her press her lips together. ‘I mean . . . really stupid, Stef. Really. Stupid.’

My heart rate starts to pick up. Is she saying . . . ‘Tem,’ I say, like she’s standing on a ledge. ‘Tem . . . you haven’t . . . you didn’t . . . sleep with him?’

She doesn’t say anything. Her eyes flicker up to me and the answer is in them.

‘Tem,’ I say again. I’m so shocked I don’t even know what to do with my face. ‘When?’

She says something, but it’s too quiet for me to hear.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘New Year,’ she says.

Oh. That’s a long time ago. A lot of lies by omission.

‘And . . . well, and quite a few times. Since, I mean.’

My fingers feel all tingly.

‘Oh,’ I say in a very small voice. What am I supposed to say to this? Am I angry? A little. Sad? Yes. But I don’t understand anything I’m feeling or what I should say. I manage, ‘I think you owe me some carnations.’

Tem looks up and our eyes meet. There’s a moment of silence that feels taut as a tightrope, the two of us hovering between OK and not OK. There’s so much between us that we could fight about. A decision that feels almost tangible: mountain or molehill?

And then we’re laughing so hard the bed creaks. There are tears on Tem’s face. She leans over and picks up the carnations she’d put on her desk, then ostentatiously hands them to me. I take a big, overstated sniff, then hand them back.

We stay like that for a while, passing carnations back and forth and hiccupping, until we calm down. And then, finally, we talk. I tell her about Edinburgh and Rhys and sex – at which point she shrieks so loudly it actually hurts my ears – and how perfect it all was until he fell over his own feet. She tells me about Karam, how she’d believed all his reasons for not wanting a girlfriend but still thought that he’d change his mind. How New Year had seemed so perfect – ‘It was perfect’ – until the morning after, when she’d asked him – ‘in bed!’ – if he’d be her boyfriend, and he’d said no.