I Was Born for This(25)

I leave a voicemail.

‘Hey, it’s Angel. Just wondered where you guys are and whether you wanted to go home yet, or … yeah! Call me back pleeeease.’

Two minutes later, I don’t get a call back, but I do get a Facebook message.

Juliet Schwartz

Hi sorry!!!! We left a bit early. We felt like checking out a couple of other nearby bars!! Hope that’s okay!! You were chatting to some other people so we didn’t wanna interrupt!! Nan will let you in if you wanna go back to mine, or you can come join us?

I read the message, and my stomach sort of drops.

They just left without me.

Juliet just left with Mac. Without me.

I mean, okay.

Guess it was sort of my fault. I was talking to other people. Didn’t really talk to Juliet at all this evening.

Angel Rahimi

Ah, no worries!! I’m not really into the drinking scene so I’ll just go back to yours :) Have fun!

I consider turning round and saying goodbye to the people I’ve met in real life this evening – Pops and TJ and all the others – but … no. They’re all drunk. And I’m tired. I just want to leave now.

When I sit down alone on the tube, I reread the message from Juliet. She hasn’t seen the message from me at all. I thought she was starting to see through Mac and his lies. I thought she wanted to spend time with me.

Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to Bliss for so long. Maybe I’m just disappointing in real life.

When the tube leaves Leicester Square and my internet connection goes, I put my headphones in and listen to The Ark and try to just stop thinking about everything, anything. I had a good night. I spoke to people. I had a good night. Hard to think that way, maybe, when you’re sitting alone on a London tube train at half eleven on a Tuesday. I wonder why I feel sad. All that talk about the future and careers and stuff? Why would that make me sad? I just don’t like thinking about it. So what. Who cares. Don’t need to think about it. Everyone seems like they have it together except me. Silly. I’m fine. I have it together. I’m going to uni. Just me being negative. Just negative. I can stop. Need to stop listening to a sad song. Change track. This one’s better. This one will make me feel better. My boys always make me feel better.

When I see them on Thursday, everything will be better.

I’m brought out of my thoughts by a light tap on my arm.

I glance up, ripping my headphones from my ears. Who the hell is talking to me at half eleven at night on the London Underground?

An old woman is sitting next to me.

‘Whatever it is,’ she says, ‘it’s all God’s plan, and He knows what He’s doing.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, smiling. ‘Did I look sad?’

‘You look like it’s the end of the world, my love,’ she says.

I like to think God does have a plan for everyone. But I also think there’s too much shit in the world for all these plans to be perfect ones. Or maybe God doesn’t have time to write a plan for everyone. And some of us are just trying our best and getting it a bit wrong.

‘Definitely not that serious,’ I say.

‘Serious is relative,’ she says. ‘That is for the Lord to decide.’

She points upwards, and I sort of follow her hand and look up at the ceiling, but just find myself looking at the faulty, flashing light bar of the tube carriage.





Our bathroom light won’t stop flashing. Could be worse, I guess. I mostly thought we’d get back and find that someone had broken in and stolen everything we own, or there would be a fire and we’d get back and there wouldn’t even be an apartment any more. I was so worried about it that I bought a very expensive and very large theftproof/fireproof safe before we went. As soon as we walk through the door, I run straight towards the safe and open it. Everything’s still there, though. My journals, my guitar, my main laptop, my childhood teddy bear, and the knife that Grandad gave me when I was sixteen.

That’s what I grab first. The knife.

It’s a family heirloom. It was passed down from my great-grandfather to Grandad, and then to me. Grandad gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. He didn’t say it was an heirloom that had been passed down only through the men of the family, but I’m pretty sure that’s why he gave it to me. Kind of a sexist concept, but still. It meant a lot.

‘To remind you of who you are,’ he said with a smile, ‘and where you’re from.’

It’d be useless as an actual weapon, since it’s completely blunt – you can run your finger along the edge and not even get a scratch. But it does make me feel safer when I’ve got it with me. Like I’ve got a little piece of home with me wherever I go.

Rowan obviously thinks it’s ridiculous and wishes I would just put it in a drawer and never take it anywhere. When I walk out of my bedroom with the knife in my hands, he gives me an eye-roll from the hallway.

I search thoroughly round the place to check no one’s been in here. We’ve got this pretty spacious three-storey apartment – five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a big open-plan living room/kitchen, a gym room that only Rowan uses, a cinema room that only I use, and an office that no one uses. All high up in London. We bought it as soon as we all turned eighteen. Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here, though. All my Blu-Rays are still scattered over the cinema room floor. Whiplash is open on top of the Blu-Ray player.