I Was Born for This(48)

I stay silent.

‘No,’ he says. ‘You don’t. Because you didn’t have to worry about money before all this started. I did. Me and my mum were this close to being on the street. And now you’re telling me off for actually enjoying having money and being happy. You’re just getting angry at me.’

‘I’m not angry—’

‘I’m fucking tired of you and Rowan thinking you’re so much more mature and sensible than me. You think you’ve got it all sorted but you don’t! You’re just the same as me. You’re both just as bad as I am. So, stop fucking acting like you’ve got the higher ground.’

I don’t say anything.

He steps forward, edging me back so I’m pressed against the sinks. ‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you. I’m just tired.’ He puts the near-empty bottle down on the sink next to me, and then pats me gently on the cheek. ‘Hey. Jimmy. Sorry.’ Then he wraps his arms round my shoulders and hugs me tightly. ‘Sorry for always being shit.’

I still don’t say anything. I don’t really know what to say. I can’t even follow his thought processes.

I pat him gently on the back.

‘You’re an alcoholic,’ I tell him, realising this properly for the first time. I wonder whether anyone’s told him that before.

He snorts. ‘I know, right?’ He thinks I’m joking.

He moves back so he can look me in the eyes. He stares at me for a moment.

‘Hey …’ He’s blinking slower than normal. He brings up a hand and runs his fingers along the neck of my jumper. ‘Do you want to …?’

He doesn’t finish the question. He just leans in and kisses me.

My stomach lurches. Not because I’m excited, but because I’m shocked and I’m getting flashbacks of the last time I did this. Never my idea, is it? I want to, I want to kiss a boy in some dramatic way but I don’t too, not when it doesn’t feel right. It’s never the way it should be, the way it looks in the movies. That sort of starlight romance doesn’t exist for me.

He doesn’t taste good and he pulls me against him by the waist and holds me there and I freeze, both because I don’t know what to do and he’s taller and stronger than me, and even though he’s gentle, and important to me, I don’t … I’ve never thought of him that way … have I?

And even though I could kiss him just because he’s attractive, even though I could kiss him because I so badly want to feel wanted, wanted in a good way, not how the fans want me, not how everyone else wants me, even though I lean into it for a brief second, suddenly high on the feeling of being with someone who knows me, the real me …

I don’t … I just …

I can’t.

I lean back, pulling away, with a startled, ‘Don’t, don’t do that.’

‘Oh …’ He gazes at me, unmoving. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

Then he hugs me. And it feels real. Despite the alcohol.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, and he sounds like he’s apologising for humanity itself. ‘I … that’s not … I didn’t want to do it like that.’

‘Do … do what?’ My voice is little more than a hoarse whisper.

‘Tell you,’ he says.

My stomach lurches again. This can’t be happening now. This is the wrong time. He’s never … I’d never have guessed— ‘You don’t have to … like me back,’ he says, and his voice breaks but I can’t tell whether he’s laughing or trying not to cry. ‘But please don’t hate me.’

‘I-I don’t hate you,’ I say, because I can’t get out what I really want to say, which is that I love him, but not really in that way, I mean, not right now at least, and I want to help him, I don’t want him to keep drinking all the time, but we’re all dealing with shit, and I don’t know anything about the world, and I thought the three of us would be friends forever. I can’t deal with these unsaid feelings. I don’t want to know about them. I don’t want to think about them.

Eventually he pulls back and steps away from me, releasing me from where I’m trapped against the sinks. He turns away from me without another word and starts walking towards the door.

‘Only one more show! Then we can rest in peace!’ He sounds cheerful but I’m still reeling from what just happened and ‘rest in peace’ keeps ringing around my brain, again, and again, and again.





‘I’m gonna die,’ I say again, as we’re walking out of the tube station towards the O2 arena. ‘I’m gonna die. I’m literally gonna die.’

‘Wouldn’t recommend that,’ says Juliet, as if she’s been on a two-week holiday to Death and gave it two out of five on TripAdvisor.

There are The Ark fans all around us, also walking towards the O2. Though we may be typecast as screaming twelve-year-olds, The Ark fans are in fact a hugely diverse crowd of people. There are tweens wearing Ark T-shirts and face paint and holding big handmade signs saying ‘I LOVE YOU, LISTER’ and ‘ROWAN, JIMMY, LISTER’ in a big heart. There are teens with coloured hair, wearing all black, thick biker boots and ripped skinny jeans and denim jackets. There are older teens dressed like they’re going out to a club, make-up sharp and edgy, wearing heels and holding sparkly clutches. And there are even adults – younger adults, sure, but adults nonetheless – here because the love for The Ark still burns in their hearts, because they still scream along in the car when The Ark are on the radio, because, like all of us, they don’t care what other people think; they’re just here to be happy.