‘You need to be careful,’ Cee-Cee said, after a while.
Not interested in another row, I pretended to be dozing.
‘Closing your eyes and trying to ignore it won’t help.’ She snorted. ‘A Christmas miracle! Next he’ll be setting you and Sean up on dates and some such nonsense.’
I groaned. ‘Joey has no illusions about me and Sean.’
‘Wise up, Amelia. And Joey won’t be the only one getting his hopes up if you carry on indulging his game of happy families.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘You’re being naïve.’
‘Please remember it’s none of your business.’
‘Just don’t get sucked into something without realising it.’ She sighed, adjusting her position on the sofa. ‘He’s not as terrible as I remembered. It might be more tempting than you think.’
If I hadn’t been quite so annoyed, I might have paid more attention.
* * *
It was later on, when we were trying to stuff cheese and crackers into stomachs still bloated with dinner, that I was startled into wondering if Cee-Cee might be right. Joey was badgering us for stories about when we first met, and I remembered faking a hair appointment for a magazine photo shoot while I was actually with Sean, my parents then pretending to like the dreadful hack-job he’d done.
‘I did wonder, once the horror of my butchering skills began to emerge, whether to just shave it all off and make something up about aerodynamics.’ Sean couldn’t stop laughing.
‘I overheard Mum and Dad arguing about it when they thought I was getting my make-up done. She wanted to sue the hairdresser, but Dad insisted it must be some new noughties trend they didn’t know about. She was all, “Gareth, if ugly, backward mullets with random chunks of hair missing had suddenly become fashionable, I would have one by now.”’
And then it happened again. A repeat of when we’d been watching Joey train together. Our eyes met, and a spark of warmth, camaraderie and shared history flashed between us. Instantly, the distant memory of first love, the intensity of summer nights drenched in passion and promise felt a whole lot less far away. I hastily looked down, shovelling a cracker in my mouth. But I could still feel Sean’s gaze on me, lighting up every nerve ending on my skin.
Get a grip, Amy!I berated myself later, once Cee-Cee and Sean had left.Stop acting like a hormone-riddled teenager who’s been locked up in a basement for thirteen years, snarfing up crumbs of attention from the first two men to pay her any attention. Actually, forget about getting a grip, how about getting some standards?
It was a relief to realise I might not be falling for Nathan after all. Unless I was also having legitimate feelings for Sean. Which made me want to rip off my own skin and prise out my heart with a carving knife, so probably not.
44
Stop Being a Loser Programme
Day One Hundred and Twelve
During the twixtmas funk, fuelled by leftovers, chocolate and way too much slobbing around with nothing to do, I repeatedly came back to one thought: ploughing on with the Programme, forcing myself outside was not enough. At some point, I had to confront the root of it all. I would have loved to talk to Nathan about it – to get an outside opinion from someone who knew who I was, but he was in the Alps with a crowd of adventurous, fun and attractive women (okay, so some men too, but it was the women in his Instagram pictures that I noticed – an excellent reminder of the off-duty Nathan’s world and the kind of people he had things in common with).
In the end, I just picked up the phone.
‘Mum. It’s me.’
A horrible silence. ‘One moment please.’Was this her, or her voice-double now employed as a secretary?I then heard my mother, the one who had publicly disowned me at eighteen years old during the middle of an emotional crisis and privately rejected my weeping, pregnant, homeless self a few months later, frantically whispering to my dad: ‘It’s her! On the phone! What do you mean, who? Amelia! Here. You deal with it.’
A broken, stuttering heartbeat away from hanging up, I heard my dad take the phone. ‘Amelia?’
‘Yes.’ It took everything to get that one word out.
‘How… Is everything all right?’
I pressed my free hand to my forehead, trying to stop my brain from trembling. Was there even an answer to that question? ‘Yes.’
‘I mean, you’re not… ill, or anything?’
Does raging nausea, cramped lungs and a shattered heart count?
