Loveless(89)

‘We just want you to come back to the Shakespeare Soc,’ said Rooney, but this was, again, definitely the wrong thing to say.

Pip laughed. ‘Oh my God! I should have guessed. This isn’t even about me – you just need your fifth member for the fucking Shakespeare Society. Oh my God.’

‘No, that’s not what –’

‘I have no idea why you care so much about your stupid play but why the fuck would I put myself through that with someone who made me think there was the tiniest chance she liked me back, and then decided to get off with my best friend?’ Pip shook her head. ‘I was right all along. You just hate me.’

I waited for Rooney’s inevitable comeback, but it didn’t arrive.

She blinked several times. I turned to look at her properly, and realised she was about to cry.

‘I did like –’ she began to say, but stopped, and her face just crumpled. Tears started falling from her eyes, and before she could say anything else, she turned abruptly and walked away.

Pip and I watched her disappear round the corner.

‘Shit, I … I didn’t mean to make her cry,’ Pip mumbled.

I had no idea what to say now. I almost felt like crying too.

‘We really are sorry,’ I said. ‘We – I’m sorry. I meant everything I said in my message. It was just a weird, drunk mistake. Neither of us like each other like that. And I’ve apologised to Jason too.’

‘You talked to Jason?’

‘Yeah, we … we talked about everything. I think we’re OK now.’

Pip said nothing to that. She just looked down at the floor.

‘I really don’t care if you don’t want to come back to the Shakespeare Soc,’ I said. ‘I just … I just want us to be friends again.’

‘I need some time to think.’ Pip went to shut the door, but before she did, she said, ‘Thanks for bringing my jacket back.’





Rooney had stopped crying by the time I returned to our room.

Instead, she was changing into going-out clothes.

‘You’re going out?’ I asked, shutting the door behind me and flicking the light switch. She hadn’t even bothered to turn the light on.

‘Yeah,’ she said, pulling a bardot top over her head.

‘Why?’

‘Because if I stay here,’ she snapped, ‘then I’ll have to sit and think about everything all night, and I can’t do that. I can’t just sit and be with my thoughts.’

‘Who do you even go out with?’

‘Just people in college. I have other friends.’

Friends who don’t ever stop by for tea, or come over for movie nights and pizza, or check in with you when you’re feeling rough?

That’s what I wanted to say.

‘OK,’ I said.

Her normal bullshit, was what I’d been telling myself. That was how I justified it all, really. The skipped lectures. The sleeping in until the afternoon. The clubbing every night.

I didn’t take any of it seriously, really seriously, until that night, when I woke up at 5 a.m. to a message reading: Rooney Bach

can your let me in im outside coellge

Forgotmy key

It had been sent at 3.24 a.m. The college doors were locked between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. – you needed your key to get back into the main building.

I often woke up in the early hours and checked my phone, before very quickly going back to sleep. But this panicked me so much that I leapt out of bed and immediately called Rooney.

She didn’t pick up.

I put on my glasses, dressing gown and slippers, grabbed my keys, and ran out of the door, my mind suddenly filled with visions of her dead in a ditch, choked on her own vomit, or drowned in the river. She had to be fine. She did stupid stuff all the time, but she was always fine.

The main reception hall was dark and empty as I thundered through it, unlocked the door, and ran out into the dark.

The street was empty, apart from a figure sitting on a low brick wall a little way ahead, huddled into herself.

Rooney.

Alive. Thank God. Thank God.

I ran up to her. She was just wearing the bardot top and a skirt, despite the fact that it had to be like five degrees outside.

‘What – what are you doing?’ I said, feeling inexplicably angry at her.

She looked up at me. ‘Oh. Good. Finally.’

‘You … Have you just been sitting here all night?’

She stood up, attempting to be nonchalant, but I could see the way she was clutching her arms, trying to control her violent shivering. ‘Only a couple of hours.’

I wrenched off my dressing gown and gave it to her. She wrapped it round herself without question.

‘Couldn’t you have called someone else – one of your other friends?’ I asked. ‘Surely someone was awake.’

She shook her head. ‘No one was awake. Well, a couple of people read my messages, but … they must have ignored them. And then my phone died.’

I was so alarmed by this that I couldn’t even think of anything else to say. I just let us back into college and we walked to our room in silence.

‘You can’t just … You need to be more careful,’ I said as we entered the room. ‘It’s not safe to be out there on your own at that time.’