One Day in December(30)

‘Let’s be kind to each other about this,’ I said to her afterwards. ‘It shouldn’t have happened and it doesn’t have to mean anything.’

Of all of the things I’ve ever said, that ranks up there amongst the most crass. But what else was I supposed to say? That I felt as if she’d just kissed fucking stardust into my mouth; that of course I saw her on that bus after all?

I knock back the contents of my glass and refill it. It’s no good. I need to speak to Laurie.





Laurie


I knew I couldn’t avoid Jack for ever. God knows I’d like to, but this is my complicated, messed-up life, and I’ve just come in from a late shift to find him sitting at my kitchen table in the dark.

‘Where’s Sarah?’ I say, dispensing with any form of greeting because I’m knackered and I’ve lost the art of talking to him about inconsequential things.

‘In bed.’ He’s nursing a tumbler – water or vodka, I’m not sure.

‘Shouldn’t you be too?’ I glance up at the kitchen clock. Three in the morning isn’t a healthy time to be drinking alone.

‘Couldn’t sleep.’

I don’t quite believe him. This is only the third time I’ve seen him since that afternoon we … I don’t even like to repeat in my own head what we did – and it’s the first time I’ve been alone with him since then, by both of our choices, I think. He scrubs his hand over the stubble on his jawline, backwards and forwards again, a nervous tick. If I had stubble, I’d probably do the same.

I pour myself a glass of water. ‘I’m going to call it a night.’

He reaches for my wrist as I pass him. ‘Please, Laurie. I need to talk to you.’

I want to tell him that it won’t help, but the bleak look in his eyes softens my resolve, so I sit down wearily at the table, taking in his tired face and his rumpled T-shirt.

‘Is that what you were doing? Waiting up for me?’

He doesn’t do me the disservice of lying.

‘I feel like the world’s biggest shit, Lu. I don’t know how to get past it.’

I cup my hands round my glass. I don’t know how to help him. What am I supposed to say, that it gets easier? So trite, and not even especially true. Why is he doing this, anyway? Because he thinks I’m the more practised liar and wants some tips? I’ve turned our conversation from that day over and over in my head. Jack doesn’t remember me from the bus stop. He has no recollection of me before Sarah introduced us to each other. It’s crushing, because I’ve spent months and years being defined by that moment, and yet it’s freeing too, because it’s as if he’s rubber-stamped the fact that I need to let it go now. And that’s what I’m trying my hardest to do.

‘It was a really awful mistake, Jack,’ I whisper, staring at my hands. ‘More my fault than yours, if it helps.’

‘Fuck that,’ he says, sharp, loud enough for me to cast a warning look towards the doorway. ‘Don’t you dare do that to yourself. I’m the one who’s been unfaithful here.’

‘Sarah’s my best friend,’ I say pointedly. ‘She’s like a sister to me. However unfaithful you feel, trust me, I’m up there with you on the feeling lousy scale.’ I swallow a mouthful of water. ‘There isn’t a pecking order for guilt here. We were both wrong.’

He falls quiet and takes a sip of his drink. From the smell wafting my way, I’m guessing it isn’t water.

‘Do you know what I hate most of all about what happened, Laurie?’

I don’t want him to tell me, because if it’s the same thing that I hate about it, then we’re both only going to feel worse for acknowledging it.

‘I hate that I can’t forget it,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Was it?’ I’m glad he doesn’t raise his eyes from his drink as he speaks, hollow, too emotional. ‘Did it … did it mean anything to you?’

His quiet, explosive question hangs there, and I swallow hard. For a while I can’t look at him, because he’ll see the truth all over my face. I know what I have to do. I’ve lied to Sarah for two years straight now. Lying to Jack shouldn’t be as difficult. It shouldn’t be, but it is. Excruciatingly so.

‘Look,’ I say, finally meeting his troubled, beautiful eyes full on. ‘I was upset and horribly low, and you were kind and lovely, because that’s who you are. We’re friends, aren’t we?’ I break off to swallow the painful tears in my throat, and he nods, his hand pressed against his mouth as I speak. ‘We’re really, really good friends, we had too much to drink, and it was Christmas, and we stupidly blurred the lines between friendship and something else. But we stopped and we both knew it was awful, and it’s done now and it can’t be undone. What good can come of letting it rip Sarah apart too? You’re sorry, God knows I’m more sorry than I’ve ever been about anything in my life, and it’ll never, ever happen again. I don’t think of you in that way and I’m damn sure you don’t harbour secret fantasies about me, either. If we tell Sarah, it’ll only be to salve our guilt. And do you think that’s a good enough reason?’

He’s been shaking his head slowly all the time I’ve been talking, his hand still over his mouth as if he feels nauseous.