Today’s the day. I don’t even get a choice in what today’s new thing will be. A-level results have been thrust upon me by the universe.
Cassie’s parents have reshuffled some staff around so we can have today and tomorrow off, and even though I don’t have to wake up to go to work, I’m awake even earlier than I would normally be. Daisy’s sleeping next to me, and I stare at the ceiling in her bedroom, thinking how perverse it is that I’m anxious about getting the grades I need to go to uni, rather than not getting them.
I know Daisy’s been up half the night, I could tell by her breathing, worried that she won’t get the grades to do her physics degree. You know, like a normal person. Not like me, feeling backed into a corner and heading towards a future I hadn’t really thought through. It’s not like I didn’t choose this. That’s the problem here. I’m the architect of all of this, and now I want some hand to descend from the heavens and rearrange all the pieces on the weird chessboard of my life. And my best chance of that is if I just don’t get the grades to do my course. Or even the grades to get into my insurance choice, which is also miles away. At least today is the end of it. Today’s the day when I need to accept that the future is really happening, and maybe when I get confirmation, it won’t be as bad as I think it will be? The existential dread pressing on my chest seems to think otherwise.
College at 9, yeah?
Cassie. She’s decided to do an art foundation course, work, keep making art and see what she wants to do the next time UCAS applications open. A novel approach and one I should probably have considered myself, rather than feeling pressured into going down the academic route because my sister and I are meant to be clever. I send Cassie back a GIF that’s appropriately terror-filled, and once it feels like a reasonable time to get up, I nudge Daisy.
‘You awake?’ I ask.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think yes.’
‘You think correct.’
‘Let’s have breakfast then head out?’ I ask. ‘You can accompany me as far as the bus stop on your walk.’ We’re going to two different places – me to college and her to our old school where she stayed on for sixth form.
‘Urgh, I don’t know if I can manage breakfast …’ she groans.
‘But it’s the special-occasion special!’ I protest.
She sighs. ‘I guess.’
In our pyjamas, we head downstairs where our mum is plating up smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. The elusive special-occasion special. Usually only seen on birthdays and Christmas, but clearly A-level results day has been designated an important enough event in the calendar of Lily and Daisy Rose to warrant it.
‘I was just about to wake you up!’
‘As if we were asleep,’ says Daisy, rolling her eyes and plonking herself down in her usual seat at the table.
‘I’m just glad to see you two have got over whatever was bothering you for the last couple of weeks,’ Mum says, turning to the table with our breakfasts. ‘I came to check on you last night to make sure you were okay and you were sleeping in the same bed like when you were kids – it’s too much! But honestly, Daisy, I don’t know what you think you have to worry about – I saw how hard you worked all throughout your A levels. You’re going to do just fine. You too, Lily.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ I mumble. We eat our breakfasts in relative quiet except for the insistent mewling of Princess who’s been temporarily shut in the living room because the smell of the smoked salmon is making her so crazy. Very cute but very annoying. Then we head upstairs to get dressed for the Big Day.
‘I’m so sorry I can’t come with you …’ Mum’s standing at the doorway, biting her lip regretfully.
‘You literally have a job to do, Mum,’ I say.
‘The animals of Weston Bay won’t thank you if you skip work to come get our results with us,’ says Daisy. ‘Think of all the little cats and dogs and hamsters and snakes. And we’ll text you straight away, won’t we?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, waving goodbye and heading up the path with Daisy. We walk together as far as the bus stop, where I pull her into a tight hug. ‘You’ve got this in the bag. You’re the best person in the whole world, and Bristol would be stupid not to take you.’
We pull apart and she smiles at me. ‘Well, I mean, that’s one hundred per cent true. And with my awesomeness, I’ll pray that you don’t get the grades to go to Leeds. But even if you do, we’ll figure it out.’
I have to remind myself to breathe on the bus because it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest, and it’s only when I get off that I realize I’ve been grinding my teeth the whole time.
Cassie is waiting for me outside college in a purple sundress and a bleached denim jacket. Her brown legs are so well-moisturized they almost look like they’re glowing. I feel weird for looking at them now, as if I haven’t seen them hundreds of times before. I try to shake off the guilt – I have enough to deal with today.
‘Have you been in already?’ I ask.
‘No way! I’m waiting for you!’
‘That’s very nice of you, I don’t know if I could resist my curiosity that long.’
We turn to face the building and she resolutely holds out a hand. I look down at it, wondering if she wants me to shake it. But then I realize she wants me to hold it and I pause for a moment, but finally I do, my palm slick with sweat not only about my results but about the fact that this feels like flying too close to the sun somehow. It doesn’t seem right to hold her hand with everything that’s going on inside my head. Can she feel my feelings through my skin?
We walk into college and head towards the long trestle table where large brown envelopes are laid out in alphabetical order by surname. As Palmer and Rose, Cassie and I are heading for the same end of the table, sidestepping classmates who we would ordinarily stop to chat to, but who are today in a world of their own.
‘Godspeed,’ says Cassie, dropping my hand and reaching out for the envelope with her name on it.
I pick up mine, turn it over in my hands. It feels like a lead weight. I just have to accept my fate. I decided it all, anyway. I made all these choices, whether or not I think it’s fair that we’re expected to make the exact right choice when we’re seventeen. It was still my choice. And whatever is on the inside of this envelope, I’ll have to come to terms with it.
I swallow hard, breathe deeply, and open it, sliding out the white sheet of A4 paper with my subjects and grades printed at the top. The spiky peaks of the As jump out at me. This is it. This is it. It’s all really happening. I’m really leaving. I’m really going to university. I’m really going hundreds of miles away. Even though I knew this was coming, I’m completely unprepared for this moment and wildly ill-equipped for what’s just around the corner. But as I stand there, dry-mouthed, in the corridor at college, I wonder for the first time if it’s actually a good thing. If leaving for another city means that I don’t have to deal with my feelings for Cassie. It could be the perfect time for a fresh start. A clean break. But it would also mean not seeing Cassie and I’m not sure that’s an option for me anymore.
I thought that by now I would have tried so many new things that the familiar things wouldn’t seem so important, but … but … even though I’ve had loads of fun, I can’t help feeling like it was all a distraction from the real problem. Nothing important has changed. I don’t want to go. I just don’t.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. ‘So?!’ Cassie asks, excitedly, gripping her own envelope.
‘Yeah, I did it.’ I smile weakly. ‘How about you?’
‘Somehow I managed to do, like, really well?!’
‘Maybe that’s because you’re a genius?’ I suggest. We’re interrupted by a couple of former teachers who have come in to congratulate, commiserate and guide the ones who need the commiserations through the UCAS Clearing process. But I’m not really listening to anything. I’m in my own little bubble. Self-preservation. Trying not to engage with anything or anyone because I don’t know what I want to say. I remember to text Daisy to find out how she did, even though I know she’s smashed it. I remember to text my mum to tell her that I got the grades to go to university.
As we’re trudging down the long corridor, Cassie grabs me by the arm. ‘This is where I first saw you! With your bleeding ankles!’
I smile at her, glad for her sentimental streak. It makes me feel a little bit safer in how much I love her. ‘It feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it?’
‘Feels like yesterday.’
‘Don’t you think you’ve changed since then?’
‘Not really,’ she says. ‘Why, do you?’
I bite my lip. I wonder if I’ve changed or if everything I feel now was in me all along. Did I know when I applied to universities that I didn’t really want to go? That I just felt like I should apply because that’s what everyone else was doing? Was I always bi? Or is that something that was only ever going to reveal itself to me by knowing Cassie? I can never know. All I can do is sit with all of this knowledge and try to make better decisions in the future. ‘I don’t know.’
Finally, we walk out of the building for the last time.
‘So … what do we do now?’ Cassie asks.
‘Yeah … I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.’
‘I feel like we should … drink? Something?’
‘Yeah, I guess so …’ I say. I really do want a drink. Or four.
‘But also it’s, like …’ She looks at her phone. ‘Quarter past nine. Shall we just go back to mine and watch films until it’s an appropriate drinking hour?’
‘Yeah, that sounds good,’ I say. I’m relieved to see a text pop up on my screen from Daisy which is just a line of party-popper emojis. Not a huge surprise, but reassuring none the less. Great success in the Rose household. The soon-to-be-empty Rose household.
We walk to Cassie’s house half a mile away towards the centre of town. Every so often Cassie leaps in the air and clicks her heels together like she’s in a musical.
‘I thought your grades didn’t matter?’ I ask.
Cassie frowns at me. ‘Just because I’m not going to uni this year doesn’t mean they don’t matter to me. I mean, I want to do well, but also … I am going to go eventually. I think. I don’t know. It’s nice to have options, right? And my parents will be delighted.’ I’m lagging behind a bit and she looks over her shoulder at me.
‘Yeah … I guess.’
We arrive at Cassie’s house via the corner shop where we buy a variety of delights, before installing ourselves in front of the TV and scrolling until we find a channel that plays back-to-back episodes of Kardashian-flavoured shows.
‘I’m obsessed with Scott’s career in property development! This is how you celebrate,’ Cassie says, before tipping crisp scraps into her open mouth, as on the TV they contemplate another multimillion-dollar purchase.
‘Truly, this is the life,’ I say. I’m joking, obviously, but there aren’t many places I would rather be. It’s a place to hide from real life. And a place where I get to be with Cassie. It’s hard to look at her now. It almost breaks my heart. I sneak glances at her when we’re watching TV, out of the corner of my eye.
‘What?!’ Cassie catches me.
‘Nothing!’ I say, insistently. Cassie smiles slyly but doesn’t say anything. ‘Oh! I’d better text Cal …’ I see he’s already texted me to ask me how it’s all gone, which is annoying even though it’s nice, because I wanted to get there first for once in my life. Cal is another person who makes me feel guilty. I wish things could’ve stayed uncomplicated with me and him. I wish I could have kept feeling the way I felt towards him at the beginning. But whatever I felt for Cal was always mixed up with my issues with Daisy, and now it’s all mixed up with how I feel about Cassie. I got into something with him because I wanted him, and I liked feeling wanted. I needed to know what it felt like to have something that other people wanted – that my sister wanted. I stayed in it because he’s so kind and thoughtful. He made me feel so sure of myself. But those are all the reasons why he deserves something better than what he’s got with me. He doesn’t deserve to be stuck in a relationship with me, now I know that I love Cassie, not him. I should have broken up with him a week ago, I know it. But he feels like a soft blanket, comforting and warm and a safe place to be while I’m so uncertain about what’s actually going on with me.
No, I remind myself, I need to break up with him. I need to tell him not to stay in Weston Bay just for me.
That’s amazing! Btw I just walked past someone taking a photo with one of your posters!
‘Cassie!’ I look up from my phone. ‘Cal says he just saw someone posing with one of our posters! How wild is that?!’
‘On the one hand extremely wild, on the other, they are perfect works of art, so not surprising at all.’
‘It was an honour and a privilege to work on it with you,’ I say. She beams and then wriggles along the sofa and rests her head on my shoulder, her hair tickling my neck. I breathe in the smell of coconut oil and the warm scent of her body. I sit very still, as if she’s a bird that’ll fly away if I move too suddenly. My arm feels dead and achy but I don’t want to lose this moment. And then I feel like I hate myself again. The guilt is back. That feeling like I’m doing something wrong by feeling like this around her without her knowing won’t leave my brain. I’m a mess.
Sometimes I let myself think about how the conversation would go: how I would bring it up if I could. How it would play out. And all I can ever see it ending with is hurt and confusion. She’ll think about all the time we’ve spent together and how I was looking at her through a different lens. The fact that I’d been fancying her all this time would colour all of her memories of the time we’d spent together. She’ll say that we were never really on the same page at all and then she’ll never speak to me again. I can’t put us through that. It’s not worth it, just to get it off my chest. All for my own benefit. I can’t lose my best friend.
It comes as a relief when Cassie leaps up to go to the bathroom and I reposition myself on the sofa. When she returns and sits back down, my body is facing away from her.
Halfway through the fifth episode, Cassie and I simultaneously get texts from Ines in our A-level art class, telling us that everyone’s going to the Crown tonight and then taking the bus to the one shitty club in Seaforth. I’m surprised she thought of me, but it makes sense for Cassie to have been invited. She was always a bit more outgoing than me. I guess Ines knew we came as a pair. For now, anyway.
‘Shall we?’ Cassie asks.
‘Yeah, why not.’ I shrug. I’ll finally get to have a drink and take some pressure off for a few hours. I’m trying not to think too much about the big Going Away situation. I just want to take a day off from the whole thing. ‘Except,’ I say, biting my lip regretfully, ‘I look a bit of a mess, don’t I?’
‘I mean, I don’t think so,’ says Cassie with a shrug, ‘but there’s no reason why I can’t loan you something from the Cassie Palmer archives …’ She hoists herself off the sofa and disappears upstairs.
I’m about to call after her to remind her that we’re simply not the same size, but then she’s back, holding an oversized cocoon dress in a paisley printed cotton. ‘Try it on!’ Cassie urges. ‘This one’s actually made from fabric from, like, a roll, rather than a recycled pillowcase. That’s how you know you’re special.’
I go out in the hall and try it on, delighted when it fits. It’s beautiful: short and flirty and I feel kind of hot in it. The magic of Cassie Palmer. I return, twirling as I enter the living room, and Cassie gasps. ‘My god, I’m a genius.’
Our plan for the evening set, we nip back to the corner shop for some booze and drink a couple of cans while Cassie does my eye make-up. I try not to think about how close she is to my face or how warm she is. I definitely do not think about what would happen if I cupped her face in my hands and brought her lips to mine. Damn – I’m out of beer.
We agree on one more drink so we can finish watching the run of episodes we’ve become weirdly invested in while only half paying attention. Even now, Cassie’s on her phone, flicking between watching Insta stories with the sound off and scrolling through her main feed. Suddenly she yelps, ‘Oh my god, look at this!’ and holds the phone up to my face. ‘It’s our poster!’
She’s right. It is our poster. Under the railway bridge, photographed in broad daylight by Taylor, a pretty, gentle boy with long blond hair, who hardly ever spoke in our politics class but ended up always saying the most interesting things when he did feel emboldened to contribute. The only caption is a yellow emoji fist of solidarity.
‘It feels funny knowing they’re out there and people are seeing them, right?’ I ask, smiling.
‘Yeah! I’m so hyped that people are responding to them!’ Cassie’s beaming. ‘I know, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much. But it was something.’
When we get to the Crown that evening, a large group of people from college are already congregated around a booth. Many are halfway through a drink already.
‘You came!’ Ines says, extending her arms to us. She’s all big eyes and charmingly gappy front teeth and seems genuinely pleased to see us. ‘I didn’t think you would!’
‘Why’s that?’ I ask.
‘You two hardly ever came anywhere! Highly party-avoidant.’
‘We came to parties sometimes!’ Cassie says, refusing to accept Ines’s assessment.
‘Sure,’ Ines says. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Anyway, we’re here now,’ I say with a shrug. ‘Cassie, do you want a drink?’ But she’s already been pulled into a conversation with Taylor. I wonder if she’s telling him we were behind the posters. I walk up to the bar and order a glass of wine for myself and a pint for Cassie. I set it down in front of her but accept she’s temporarily lost to me. I feel pathetically untethered. I stand around for a moment, sipping my wine, when Ines reappears at my side.
‘So, what are you up to next year?’ she asks. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘I’m, uh …’ I swallow hard. It still feels strange to say it, especially now it’s actual reality. ‘I’m going to do art history at Leeds.’
‘That’s amazing!’ Ines says. ‘That’ll be so interesting, you’ll love it. You always were more knowledgeable about the background and the theory. The rest of us were just good at making things.’ It feels nice to hear her say that. To know that I stood out to her in some way.
‘Thanks for this,’ Cassie says, grabbing my wrist to attract my attention and holding up the pint in the other hand. She turns back to Taylor. I guess we have been hanging out all day so I can’t feel too rejected. What did I expect, that she would just stay with me all night long and I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone except her? I really need to be less pathetic if I’m going to survive in the real world. Which I now know is completely unavoidable. I down my wine in rapid gulps and go to the bar to buy another. Naomi from my AS-level history class appears next to me and I let her pull me into her group of friends without worrying too much what she thinks of me or if I’m saying something stupid.
I drink some more and then some more and before I know it we’re on the bus to Seaforth. I can barely keep my eyes open but it’s OK because I’m sitting next to Cassie and I want so badly to put my arms around her and lean my head on her shoulder and just fall asleep there. I want to tell her how I feel about her, then disappear so I don’t have to deal with any of the fallout. I don’t want to stick around for the confusion or the mistrust. I just want to press pause on everything and not have to keep moving relentlessly into the future and away from everything I know and love.
I barely know what I’m talking about with Cassie, but before long we’re all piling off the bus into the warm evening air, cut through with a cooling sea breeze. The group of us, probably about eight or nine now, but I feel too drunk to count, head to the Vault: the dark and dingy club in Seaforth which is open late-late rather than just late. It turns out that everyone else from college had the same idea as us and I pinball between people I vaguely know, drinking a mysterious blue cocktail which is suspiciously cheap.
I’m trying to force my drunk mind not to think about Cassie at all. But I find that what I think I’m doing and what I’m actually doing aren’t exactly the same. Drunk minds have a way of doing what they want. I have short but enthusiastic conversations with what feels like a vast array of people who I didn’t really speak to at college, but tonight the alcoholic haze and shared emotional academic trauma makes them seem like the best people in the world. Ines’s boyfriend Harry has some kind of surprisingly rich family, which we find out because he produces a flash-looking debit card with a flourish and proceeds to buy us a tray of shots.
Through it all, I am hyperaware of where Cassie is in the room. It’s like she’s the only source of light and my flickering gaze follows her like a moth to a flame. She’s giggling loosely with Taylor on the edge of the dance floor, her back leaning against a high table. What are they talking about? What is she feeling? I can’t live like this. Someone, maybe Zahra from my English class, pulls me onto the dance floor and we drunkenly sway to the music as I down yet another drink, drowning my fears and feelings. I can’t remember the last time I drank this much – I don’t know if I’ve ever drunk this much. But it’s the night for it, right?
Cassie throws her head back, laughs, and touches Taylor’s shoulder.
I just want to forget and suppress and forget and suppress.
But what if I didn’t.
What if I just let myself shake off all my inhibitions? What if I just went for it? Would it really be so bad? Maybe it’s the shots talking but … maybe I should just do it. I start to move towards Cassie then stop in my tracks.
It’s very clear that any minute now, Cassie and Taylor are going to start making out. There’s a fist grabbing at my insides. This is just going to be how it goes, I guess. I’d better get used to it. What am I expecting, that she never goes out with anyone for the rest of her life? What right do I have to feel any of this?
I’m going out of my mind on the dance floor in this dingy club. I turn away, grab another drink and dance and dance around our group until I’m suddenly possessed with the need to talk to Cassie. I can’t stay away from her.
She’s still deep in conversation with Taylor when I reach out and touch her shoulder. They haven’t kissed.
‘Finally!’ Cassie says emphatically, her head rolling slightly. At least it’s not just me that’s feeling messy. Within seconds, Taylor has already wandered off. ‘I thought I wasn’t going to get to dance with you!’
We dance together, giggling delightedly at the goodness of the pop – ‘How Will I Know’ by Whitney Houston – the very best. I feel softer already, melting into the moment. Maybe things aren’t so bad. Maybe I can live with the fact I struggle to look my own best friend in the face, the fact that I don’t want to go to university, let alone one so far away, and the fact that I’ve essentially been leading on lovely Cal all summer. Maybe I can live with it all.
Cassie grabs me by the hand and lazily spins me around. I kind of lose my balance and she reaches out a hand to steady me but instead I fall forward into her and she puts her arms around me and holds me tight. She presses her cheek against mine and I feel her breathing.
‘I love you, Lily,’ she says.
‘I love you, too,’ I say, a little awkwardly. The lights overhead are flashing blue and moving fast.
‘No, I really love you …’ Cassie says insistently, like it’s a competition. As if I don’t mean it enough. I tilt my head back to look at her and she’s so beautiful even under these flashing blue disco lights, and now I’ve let myself feel that raw, real love for her big brown eyes and her heavy, black eyebrows and her soft, brown skin and her big thighs and her huge smile and her perfect lips—
And all of a sudden I kiss her. It happens. It really happens. My arms are around her waist and I can feel that strip of soft skin in the cut out on her purple sundress and her hands are in my hair and I can smell her face cream up close. Everything’s all familiar but I’m seeing it in a new light, from a new angle, so much closer, and it’s the best, scariest feeling I’ve ever felt.
We’re kissing right here in the middle of the dance floor and we don’t stop for what feels like an eternity and a split second at the same time, but when we eventually pull apart she looks at me with something like horror, runs up the stairs and out of the club.
SHIT.