I Was Born for This(82)

‘We needed to talk, didn’t we?’ says Bliss. She sounds resigned.

‘But why now? Why avoid me all week and then turn up now?’

‘I needed some time to think.’

‘Well, thanks for leaving me to deal with it by myself,’ Rowan snaps.

‘I was dealing with it by myself as well.’

‘You didn’t have to. We could have dealt with it together.’

‘No, we couldn’t,’ says Bliss. There’s a pause. ‘No, we couldn’t. We can’t do anything good together any more, Rowan.’

I watch Jimmy’s expression. At Bliss’s words, Jimmy’s eyes widen, and he starts pulling on his collar.

‘You’re right,’ says Rowan after a moment. ‘Ha. You’re actually right. We just snap at each other all the time.’

There’s a longer pause this time.

‘You know I love you,’ says Bliss. ‘I care about you a lot.’

‘Yeah,’ says Rowan.

‘But it’s not … a romantic sort of feeling any more.’

‘Oh.’

‘And … I think … you being in The Ark … the fame and the fans and the paparazzi … it’s not the life I want.’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s all I wanted to say.’

There’s a sniffing sound. Someone’s crying. I can’t tell who.

‘You were the only person apart from Jimmy and Lister who saw me as normal,’ says Rowan. Oh. It’s him. ‘I want to make it work.’

‘You know that’s not a good foundation for a relationship. And you know we can’t.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know.’ Rowan sniffs again. ‘Sorry. Sorry for everything.’

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about,’ says Bliss. ‘I had a fucking blast, mate.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Got to hang around with you and your crazy life for all this time, didn’t I? But I can’t do this forever. I want to be more than this. I am more than this.’

‘You are. You always were.’

Little more is said. After a few moments Jimmy nods a little to himself and wanders into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the corridor.

I am about to join him when my phone suddenly rings. I scramble to pick it up, not bothering to look at who’s calling. It must be Mum.

‘Hello?’

‘Angel? It’s Juliet. I’m at Rochester station.’





‘What … why are you here?’ says Angel from the corridor, which strikes me as odd, because who would she be asking that to?

I head back out to see what she’s doing, only to find her on the phone, with a look of mild fear on her face. A parent, maybe? Surely her parents must be wondering where she is by now.

There’s a long pause while the person on the other end speaks.

‘I’m fine, I’m – I’m still with Jimmy,’ Angel stammers.

There’s another long pause.

‘No … no, I don’t think that’s a good idea … there are lots of people here already, everything’s a bit … everything’s a bit messy …’

A short pause. Angel grimaces.

‘No, don’t do that,’ she says.

Who the hell is she talking to? It doesn’t sound like she’s talking to an adult.

‘No, wait, hang on, I—’ Angel swallows. ‘Fine. Fine. I’ll ask the address. I’ll message it to you.’

The person she’s talking to appears to hang up very quickly, because Angel listens for a moment, then removes the phone from her ear and looks at it in confusion.

‘Who was that?’ I ask out of sheer curiosity.

‘Er … that was my friend Juliet,’ says Angel. There’s a pause before she elaborates. ‘I was staying with her in London when … when I came to meet you. She’s come to Rochester to find me.’ Angel looks up at me. ‘Would it be all right if she came here?’

Juliet. I don’t know anything about Juliet. Never even heard of her. Is she a fan of The Ark? If I gave her our address, would she spread it around? Why does she want to come here anyway? Does she just want to meet us? Take pictures?

‘If not,’ continues Angel, nervously, ‘I … I’d better go and meet her at the station. She’s already there. In Rochester.’

I don’t want Angel to leave. Not while things are like this. She’s literally the only one who understands my side of the argument.

‘I swear to you she-she’d never share the address. She won’t be weird. She just wants to see me. She doesn’t even know Rowan and Lister are here.’

The weird thing is, I actually trust Angel.

I trust everything she says.

‘Okay,’ I say, and then tell her the address.





It’s nearing two o’clock by the time Juliet gets here. I wouldn’t have let her come, but she threatened to call the police and accuse Jimmy of kidnapping me. Not sure how that would have stood up in a court of law, but she sounded serious so I gave her the address.

I open the door to her, having been watching and waiting out of the living room window. She puts up her umbrella as she steps out of the taxi, though she already looks relatively dishevelled – her hair is damp, and she’s just wearing a hoodie and jeans.