Matt just threw me a look, downing the inch of wine he’d glugged into a glass with a relieved sigh. ‘I had no idea the politics involved in planning a wedding. Personally, I don’t see the point in a seating chart. Why can’t everyone just sit where they like?’
Alice and I both winced, sucking air audibly between our teeth.
‘Alyssa had the same reaction,’ Matt said, letting an exasperated hand fall against his left thigh. ‘I mean, we’re just the bride and groom,’ he added, with the speed of someone who’d clearly been biting his tongue for the best part of an hour. ‘Don’t mind us – let’s make sure the whole day revolves around Alyssa’s uncle’s cousin twice removed who got drunk one Christmas and told everyone how much he hates them, so now can’t sit next to anyone. But apparently, he must come because not inviting him would be astatement.’ He waggled both index fingers in the air, a baffled expression on his face.
‘Ah, nothing like planning a wedding to make you want to punch every single person you’ve ever met in the face,’ I mused, nudging my hip against Matt’s side with a grin.
‘Careful, or I’ll sit you next to Alyssa’s cousin Rufus,’ Matt warned.
‘What’s wrong with cousin Rufus?’ Alice asked.
‘Nothing, if an evening of casual racism and not-so-casual misogyny is your thing.’
I grimaced. ‘Hard pass.’
Matt’s phone chirped in his back pocket. He fished it out, his face softening in a manner that immediately told me it was from Alyssa. I missed that. That warmth deep in the pit of my belly that smouldered whenever I saw a text from Joe, my heart fluttering as though it were about to take flight whenever his name and that ridiculous picture of him with the Snapchat dog filter on flashed up on the screen. I turned away, buffing an already spotless pint glass as I tried to decipher what this feeling was. This chill sweeping over me, like a storm blowing in over the ocean. Sadness? Jealousy? All of the above?
‘Sorry to interrupt this fun little pow-wow, but that candle on my table has been unlit for the past three-and-a-half minutes.’I turned to see Jacob leaning unimpressed against the end of the bar, gesturing to said table, where a thin wisp of smoke was twirling from the wick of the snuffed-out tea light. ‘Honestly, the service in here is really going downhill.’
‘What happened to your date?’ Alice asked, eyeing the abandoned wine glass in front of the empty chair where baseball-cap guy had previously been sitting. ‘Misplace him already?’
‘No, I didn’tmisplace him,’ Jacob snarked, doing a poor, high-pitched imitation of his sister. ‘His friend called. Something to do with a broken-down car? Which is weird come to think of it, because I swear he said he couldn’t drive – I mean, what self-respecting 35-year-old can’t drive? Red flag number one – so I’m not sure how much help he’s going to be.’
Three pairs of blinking eyes stared back at him, the silence stretching on as we waited for the dots to be joined. Jacob’s mouth fell open in horror.
‘Oh. My. God. Did he just bail onmeusing a meticulously planned fake phone call? Iinventedthe meticulously planned fake phone call!’
‘Mate, I’ve been out of the dating game since the Ice Age and even I know he bailed on you.’ Matt grimaced, patting Jacob’s arm sympathetically before retreating down the hallway. He turned as he reached the door, pretending to fall to his knees, wine glasses clinking together as he clasped both hands in front of his chest and mouthedsave me!I smiled at his dramatics, knowing it was purely for my benefit. A show for the sole purpose of making me smile. And it did – especially when Alyssa opened the door at that exact moment and almost fell over my kneeling brother.
‘Ah, it’s good to hear you laughing again, sweetheart.’
I turned to see Mum descending the stairs from the flat, a giant metal loop of keys jangling against her midriff. I manageda smile. Despite the ache rippling through my chest, its edges jagged and sharp as it tore through me, I managed a smile. I knew how desperately she wanted her Jenny back. The version of me that whistled as she walked and washed her hair twice a week. But there was no going back. And the insinuation, albeit well-intentioned, that I was somehow moving forward, moving on in this world without Joe, made me feel sick.
‘You head up if you like, love? I’ll do last orders,’ Mum offered, registering the shift on my face as I struggled to hold it all together. I nodded, grabbing the orchid and hugging the ceramic pot tightly against my chest as I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. Placing it on my bedside table, I collapsed onto the bed with a sigh, my eyes falling on several of Joe’s framed photographs. They were still leaning against the wall, a thin layer of greying dust collecting atop the slim, black frames. Hanging them here felt wrong somehow. They didn’t belong in my childhood bedroom, with its too-small single bed and one of everything. One bedside table. One lamp. One toothbrush in the old plastic beaker beside the sink in the corner. And neither did I.
‘You know I had a bet going with Alice on how long it would take you to kill that.’
I didn’t need to glance over my shoulder to know that Joe was stood in the middle of the room; I could just feel his presence. Sense the atoms in the room shifting. But I did so anyway, his face illuminated by the dim glow of the streetlight in the car park below.
‘Your confidence in me is touching, as always.’
‘Hey, I’ll have you know that Alice bet one week. I – your loving, supportive, loyal fiancé – bet two.’ He grinned cheekily. The normally squeaky springs stayed disturbingly silent as he perched on the end of the bed. ‘She owes me £20.’
‘Well, I’ll be sure to remind her.’ I yawned, resting my headagainst the pillow. I wanted to stay up and talk, to stretch out this precious time together as long as possible. But I could feel the inevitability of sleep calling to me, my eyelids heavy. The world took on that strange haziness as I drifted in and out of consciousness, my thoughts and dreams all knotting together, making it impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
‘Alice was right, you know,’ I heard Joe whisper. Or maybe I was already dreaming.
‘Hmm?’
‘The love it represents will never die.’
I smiled sleepily, the silhouette of the orchid the last thing I saw before my eyes closed completely.
I glanced at my watch, the end of my biro tapping noisily against the spiral top of my notebook. I was waiting for Luca. Or rather, he was making me wait. It was 17:35, which meant the Wednesday session at the community centre had officially ended five minutes ago, and yet all I had to show for it was a poorly executed doodle of a saxophone in the bottom right corner of an otherwise blank page.
Luca had been avoiding me all day. All week actually. This in itself was not unusual. We generally did a pretty good job at staying out of each other’s way, orbiting around the musty old hall like two opposing planets. But unfortunately, conducting an interview required us to be in the same vicinity as each other for at least fifteen minutes, something that Luca had purposefully gone out of his way to avoid. On Friday, it was a leak in the roof that apparently required his immediate attention. On Monday, he’d left as soon as the class was over, almost tripping over the metal bucket on the floor – that he’d deemed the solution to the leak problem – in the process. A washed-out image of me queueing in the rain outside Hove Job Centre floated aroundmy head when I considered what might happen if I didn’t have something to show Derek tomorrow. No. I was not about to let Luca Patel be the reason that another part of my life was ripped away from me.
He looked up from where he was collecting sheet music, hitching an eyebrow in surprise at seeing me still sat on the edge of the stage. He scratched at his jaw, a deep scowl of annoyance darkening his face. I was surprised he didn’t have more wrinkles on that smooth forehead of his, considering how often it was scrunched in displeasure. I raised a hand in the air, beckoning him over, but he turned away, changing direction so fast that he lost his balance and collided with an unsuspecting Terry. He tried to style it out, giving Terry a jovial punch to the bicep as he launched into an animated conversation about something.Oh no you don’t.I strode purposefully across the hall, the heels of my boots click-clacking determinedly against the warped flooring as I went.
