Conviction(50)

I watch as her hand actually rushes to her chest like she’s been shot or has pain there. It’s almost a theatrical move. Her other hand reaches out for the bar and I instinctively step forward when it looks like her legs might give way. I watch her mouth open and close and I feel myself sway with the rise and fall of her chest.

Without taking her eyes from mine, she steps toward me. I want to move toward her, go to her but my legs refuse to cooperate.

And then suddenly, she’s there, right there in front of me.

My hand suddenly has a mind of its own and starts to reach for her, I ball it into a fist and force it back down to my side.

She’s just how I remember her.

She’s beautiful.

So, f*cking beautiful.

“Meebs,” I thought I was saying it in my head, but somehow my lips move and the sound comes out of my mouth.

Her face crumbles and she lets out a sob. Her hand goes to her mouth and covers it. She shakes her head no while tears run down her cheeks. I don’t know if the room is actually silent or if I just can’t focus on anything but her.

“Don’t. Don’t call me that. I’m not your Amoeba,” she says.

“You’ll always be my Amoeba. Nina Amoeba.”

“I stopped being your anything when you left me in that hospital all on my own,” she almost hisses the words through her gritted teeth.

“What? What hospital room?”

Her shoulders slump and I watch as she completely deflates in front of me. Her eyes meet mine and she looks so sad, so f*cking sad and broken.

“You didn’t come, after all the things you said, all the promises you made and when I needed you the most, you didn’t come for me. You left me, Conner. You left me.”

Sophie’s there, and without warning flies at me. “What did you say? What the f*ck did you say to her?”

I look between the two of them. My mouth opens, then closes, but I can’t seem to make a sound. I start to feel the first bubbling of a panic attack in my toes and my belly. I close my eyes and concentrate on nothing, but getting one breath in and then slowly let one breath out.

I can hear Lawson asking what’s going on. Then Tyler’s voice is in my ear.

Where the f*ck did he come from?

“Breathe Conner, just breathe through it. Do it the way Dad showed you.”

I open my eyes and look into my brother’s worried face.

“You got this?”

I nod. Feeling calmer.

“I got this. You called me, Conner. You never call me, Conner.”

He smiles. My dad’s Conner or Con, and somehow I’d ended up being known as Reed to save confusion. My brothers called me Reed, so when I went to school everyone else called me Reed. It just stuck.

Everything slowly comes back into focus, sound and smell. The room stops spinning and starts coming back into view.

“Fuck,” is the only other thing I can think of saying.

Tyler passes me a bottle of water and I unscrew the cap and take a few big gulps.

“Where’d she go?” I look from side to side around the room, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

“Where did she go, Ty? Where the f*ck did she go?”

Fuck, I need to get a grip.

“She’s here. Someone took her to the office so she could sit down. Sophie and Jenna went with her.” He looks over my face with his eyebrows drawn together.

“What happened? Why’s she here?” he asks.

“I don’t know… She’s with Sophie. Josh probably got them tickets,” I tell him.

“Well, a heads up from Josh would’ve been handy.”

“Tell me about it,” I reply.

Lawson reappears, walking down a corridor from beside the bar. A lot of the top bands are making their appearances now and the crowd has thinned out. The majority of people choosing to watch from the balcony that runs all around the upper level, rather than on the big screens in the VIP bar.

“What the f*ck was that all about? Who is she?” Laws asks.

“She’s my…” I struggle to find a word to use to describe what Meebs is to me.

“She’s the gravy on his roast,” Tyler tells Lawson. His mouth drops open.

“That’s her? That’s… Whatever that name is that he calls her?” he asks Ty like I’m not even here.

“Amoeba,” we both say together.

“What the f*ck sort of name is Amoeba?” Lawson asks.

I can’t help but smile as I remember how it came about.

“I’ve known her for years, we went to the same infant and primary school. She’s always been really tiny. Little, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Everyone was always calling her titch and shorty, things like that. When me and Josh went up to secondary school, we were in biology and there was a drawing on the chalkboard. It sort of looked like a fried egg, but with a blue middle, instead of yellow. Written above it, it said, ‘Amoeba – small, single-celled organism.’ Josh and I looked at each other and at the same time and said, ‘Nina’.” I look between them both and shrug my shoulders. “And that was it, Nina Amoeba. We were about thirteen and a complete pair of arseholes. We couldn’t wait to get to his house and terrorise the shit out of her. She would’ve been about eleven at the time and I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.” I take another swig of my water, totally aware of the fact that I must sound like a complete cunt. “We thought the new nickname would piss her off. Instead, she smiled and said, ‘I love it. In fact, when I grow up and have a daughter, I might actually call her Amoeba, I like it so much’.”