The Reading List(60)
‘Guys!’ Mia called out to everyone, ‘Aleisha’s working in the Harrow Road Library!’
Aleisha felt her face blanch. Some people cackled; mostly, no one looked up.
‘I thought they were shutting it down?’ Rahul said, winking at her, trying to draw himself into her conversation.
Aleisha didn’t say anything. She wanted this to end – she had nothing else to say anyway.
She spent the evening trying to act like there wasn’t a massive gulf between her and Mia, friends who were now nothing but strangers who moved in the same circles, lived in the same place, yet knew nothing of the detail of each other’s lives. Rahul kept looking over at her, looking for any opportunity to start chatting, so right now Mia was her only protection. She kept her eyes fixed on Mia as she swigged back the bottle of summer fruit cider, pretending to care about her family summer holiday and the weed she smoked with her dad and brother. Wild.
By 11 p.m., people had already started dropping off. They all wanted to go home early – this was the third night out they’d had this week. It was just a chilled one. Aleisha hadn’t left Mia’s side all night. Out of nowhere, Mia threw her head back and laughed, nearly toppling over and taking Aleisha with her. Aleisha anchored them to the floor. She had clocked some of the guys looking at Mia, watching her get drunker by the second, louder, happier.
‘Mee, shall we go home now?’
Mia shook her head, put her wobbly drunk arm up in the air, singing along to the tinny music playing out of someone’s phone. The barbecue was now forgotten, and the group had marked out their territory with a ring of discarded bottles and tin cans.
Aleisha tried to pull Mia to her feet, but she was determined to lie back down on the floor, looking up at the sky, singing into the breeze.
Suddenly, Rahul was by Aleisha’s side.
‘Let me help you,’ he said.
‘No, I’m fine,’ Mia spoke for Aleisha, from the ground.
‘Okay,’ Aleisha nodded to him. She couldn’t do it alone.
Rahul didn’t say any more. He bent down to Mia, sitting on his heels. ‘Mee,’ he said, softly, ‘I think we should go now. It’s late, everyone’s going home.’
Mia shook her head dramatically. ‘No one’s going home,’ she said, her words suddenly crisp and clear. ‘Aleisha’s here, we have to make the most of it. We might never see her again.’
Between the two of them, they had enough strength and determination to lift Mia off the ground, carrying her with an arm on each of their shoulders. Even when Mia picked her feet up, floating between her two friends, they carried on. Mia said her goodbyes, complaining about her shepherd and chaperone, and wandered out of the park.
Aleisha was pissed off, but tried hard to conceal it. Aidan always said he could read her like a book – she hoped no one else could. She didn’t want the night to end this way. She wished her friend wasn’t so pissed. She wished Rahul wasn’t there.
Mia still lived in the house she’d grown up in, on the other side of Wembley to Aleisha. She hoped she’d be able to get a bus back. It was still early, so she knew Aidan would be up. He’d probably be watching something on YouTube, which was how she usually found him at this time in the evening, in the dark living room, the computer screen illuminating his face, giving him a deathly green glow. She should text him. But she knew it would be like admitting defeat – that she couldn’t have fun, no matter how much she forced it. It would prove to him that she wasn’t as good as her big brother. She kept her phone firmly in her pocket.
On Mia’s road, Aleisha recognized the houses and muscle memory took her the rest of the way.
When they got to the door, all the curtains were closed, the windows black. It was midnight, the street was quiet, Aleisha didn’t dare ring the doorbell. Rahul shrugged. Mia wasn’t sober enough to find her keys in her bag, so Aleisha went to help, following the sound of the jangling. Finally, she opened the door for her friend, who waltzed over the step, and shut the door on Aleisha and Rahul without a word. They heard a few more clatters, crashes and bangs. They shouldn’t have worried about waking up the house – Mia was doing the job anyway.
‘So,’ Rahul whispered. ‘I’ll walk you to yours, yeah?’
Aleisha shook her head. ‘No, it’s fine.’
Rahul insisted, but Aleisha got her phone out. It was time to put up that white flag. She called Aidan.
They waited outside Mia’s house, Aleisha was freezing cold, suddenly aware she was wearing shorts and a stupid strappy top. She hugged herself, avoiding Rahul’s eye in case he offered her something to keep her warm. The wait felt like for ever. She wanted to talk to Rahul, tell him what had been going on at home, about the old man she’d made friends with at the library. Would he laugh, or think it was stupid, or maybe tell her it was a nice thing to do, to keep a lonely old man company? She wanted someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t Aidan, who didn’t know what it was like to look after your mum when she couldn’t look after herself, but who might try to understand.
At one point, she opened her mouth to start talking. But she stopped herself. There was no point. It was probably the little bit she told Rahul about her mum that ended up scaring him away in the first place. It wasn’t something teenagers were used to talking about. She’d told Mr P some stuff, that was enough. She had Aidan, they were in this together.