I’ve gone very still. “What? What did you do?”
“It was just after you broke up. I don’t like her. I’ll make that clear. I didn’t like her when you dated. I don’t like her now.”
“What happened?” I ask. I want to know. And I don’t want to know.
“I was out in a club with a couple of guys from work,” he starts. “You’d finished things with her about a month earlier. She came up to me and ground herself into me. She wasn’t even drinking. She was driving. I should have sensed that she was probably hurting from you. But I was too out of my head to know which way was up.”
“O…K. Is that it?” I mean, so far it’s not great, but…
He shakes his head. “No. We kissed. A lot. In the club. And then somehow we were kissing out in the parking lot. And then in her car. She made it clear we were going to her car for…reasons.”
I stare at him. I don’t know what I feel. Shock. I’m shocked. My best friend. And my girlfriend. Or ex, but…still. That’s a violation of every code there’s ever been.
Grant’s not talking and so I do. “And so you slept with her?”
“No. We kind of fooled around a bit.”
I wince. Look away.
“Her hands were just…everywhere, you know?” he continues.
I do know, but I’m not going to say it.
“And then we’re in the back of her car. And we’re kissing and—” He looks away again. “And we’re doing…stuff…and I was trashed.”
“Nice,” I say, feeling very sick. I close my eyes. “And then what happened?” Why do I even want to know this?
“We would have”—he shrugs—“only…I threw up.”
This surprises me. “Huh? You threw up? In her car?”
A tiny smile flickers at the edge of his mouth, and then Grant remembers we’re in the middle of an almighty argument and he adopts a serious expression. “A little bit. Yeah. Actually quite a lot. Dealing with that cleanup was no more than she deserved, now that I think about it. Charlotte coming on to me like that: it was a revenge move. I was too drunk to see it then. But I worked it out pretty fast the next day. She homed in on me in that club—her ex-boyfriend’s best friend. I was drunk. She was stone-cold sober. I shouldn’t have kissed her, let her kiss me. I shouldn’t have let her get so…handsy, but that girl is very persuasive. She is bad news. She is bad for you. I realize now that you will never be my friend again, but I don’t want you anywhere near her. She wastoxic then. She’s toxic now. She’s a grenade waiting to explode. She’s—”
“I get it,” I say. This conversation has exhausted me. I feel I could sleep for a hundred years. “I get it,” I say listlessly.
“I’m sorry you’re tired, man. But I have to keep going before you kick me out and it’s game over for our friendship, which I suspect it is already, but anyway…You need to have that chemo,” he says. “You need to think. This isn’t about you.”
“No? I kinda thought it was.”
“No. It’s about your parents. It’s about me. What will I do without you? No one else will be my best friend,” he says and I can’t help but laugh.
“I won’t die.”
“You will,” he says. “I’ve researched. You need three rounds of chemo. It’s spread into your chest. It’s traveling through your lymph nodes. Next stop, your brain, lungs, liver.”
“Stop,” I tell him.
“You think it’s gone, with two rounds. It’s not. It’ll creep back in. Youhaveto do this. You have to be a superhero.”
“I’m not a superhero. I’m exhausted. I need you to go.”
“Because of Charlotte.”
For the first time in I don’t know how long I shout. I roar at my friend. “This is not about Charlotte! I don’t give a fuck about what you and Charlotte did. I don’t have the energy to care. This isn’t about you. Or my parents. This is about me wanting to get on with my life, to have control of it again!”
He stares at me. Nods. “Then I have no choice,” he says cryptically, turns from the room. “I love you, man,” he throws over his shoulder. “You’ll thank me for this later.”
“Thank you for what?” I shout after him.
