Through the traditional means of a twenty-first-century group chat, Betty managed to call us all together to one bar, at one time. She cautioned us privately though – in another group chat, minus Molly – that it would be best if we didn’t mention what Betty was referring to as, ‘the fuck-boy situation’. It was inevitable, though, that Molly would get drunk enough to confess all, so we knew it was only a matter of timing. We were five drinks in – apart from Lily, who was seven in, despite her protests – when Molly started to slur her worries and disappointments. Betty interjected now and then with a correction, as the only person to have received this original story earlier in the day as it unfolded – in the harsh light of sobriety, too. But Molly looked to largely keep to the script of what had happened.
She and Patrick had been sleeping together and dating – Molly thought – exclusively. Only Patrick thought he and Molly had been sleeping together in the non-exclusive way. Jesus, what is it with Rowan and his friends? I threw down enough wine in one go to make my throat burn. Faith squeezed my knee and asked for the fourth time if I was okay and for the fourth time I lied and said I was. Horrible as it felt to admit, the situation with Molly was at least a good distraction.
‘Like, were there loads of girls or one other girl?’ Cora asked, her words clanging together. She gestured to nothing at all with her beer bottle as she spoke. ‘Because it might be just the one.’
‘Does that make it better?’ Betty snapped back.
Lily laughed. ‘If anything, doesn’t it make it worse?’
‘Fucking hell!’ Cora threw her hands into a defensive gesture. ‘I only asked.’
‘There were other girls,’ Molly started, then stalled and placed a hand flat on her chest plate. She took two deep breaths, universal drunk speak for, I might be about to vomit … but then she picked up, ‘He said it’s just lads being lads. Some fucking, I don’t know, some disgusting competition with him and someone. I think he said one of the others. But then—’
‘Moll, wait,’ I interrupted her. ‘What do you mean a competition?’
‘Boys being ratbag, arsehole boys,’ Betty answered. ‘He said something to her about being quids in on a bet with a friend about, I don’t know, being a fuck-boy?’ She waved away anything more, as though what she’d said were a complete explanation of something. Oh, but there’s so much more to this now, I thought, as I leaned back in my own chair and gulped air down like it were shots of something stronger. Because Patrick might be Player One/Two.
‘But it’s the latest of them all that I saw him with,’ Molly picked up. ‘Then he goes, he goes, I didn’t even sleep with that one!’ She lowered her voice to match Patrick’s tone in a way that would have been comedic under other circumstances. But despite us all being three sheets to the wind, we knew there was nothing funny about it. ‘I saw him and her, cosied up, talking like they went back bloody years, while he was out with a group of the others.’
‘Babes …’ Lily leaned over to hug her.
‘I bet she wasn’t even anything special,’ Cora added, and I saw Lily throw her a warning shot. It was one of Lily’s least favourite things: one woman taking it out on another. But Cora wasn’t taking it back. She shrugged. ‘I’m just saying.’
‘She was beautiful,’ Molly said. ‘Beautiful, with one of those pretentious, glamorous artsy names.’ She exhaled slowly while Lily rubbed the spot between her shoulder blades. ‘Fucking Grass or Cloud or—’
‘Skye?’
Molly looked at me. ‘That was it.’ She tried to click her fingers. ‘Skye.’
*
When I asked Lily for a cigarette, that’s when my cover was blown. She said, ‘Course, babes, I’ll come with you …’ and led me into the smoking area, with Faith close behind. They even went as far as letting me spark up and inhale a blissful drag before Lily snatched the cigarette away.
‘Right, that’s your fill.’ She pulled on it herself. ‘What’s going on?’
My kneejerk was to continue in my protests, but Faith held up a finger. ‘Be. Honest.’
‘Rowan and I had a massive shitty discussion about the whole shitty situation with dating other people. He’s been sleeping with other people already and, fuck, I don’t even care about that because we agreed it. But he’s telling the boys bullshit about how long this is all going to last and I hate it now; I hate who this is making him; I hate how easy it is for him to be sleeping with other people and for him to welcome, so fucking freely, more time to be doing that. Do you know?’ I looked from Lily to Faith and back again. ‘Do you get it?’
Lily pulled me into a hug. ‘I know, babes.’
‘Who is Skye?’
I pushed away from Lily and shot Faith a look that would worry Death. ‘What?’
‘Skye. The woman Patrick didn’t sleep with. Who is she?’
‘How should I know?’ I looked to Lily for support but she shook her head.
‘No, Edi, I saw your face, too.’ She rubbed my shoulder. ‘I’m just too nice to ask.’
Faith snorted. ‘Sure, okay. But who is she, Edi?’
‘Belly breath, babes, a big belly breath and then—’
‘Rowan slept with her.’
‘Ewwww.’ Faith recoiled.
But Lily guessed. ‘You don’t mean recently.’
I shook my head. ‘A couple of years ago. He told me soon after it happened. I told him we’d work through it, which we did.’
‘Edi, babes, why didn’t you tell us?’ Lily pulled me into a one-armed hug so she could be close but also search my face for an answer. I could feel the weight of Faith’s stare, too.
‘I didn’t want you to think badly of him.’
‘Oh, beautiful girl.’ She pulled me tighter then. ‘I have always thought badly of him.’
I spluttered a laugh into her chest before I righted myself to talk to them again. ‘But, I don’t know, now Patrick might be hanging around with this woman and – is it a coincidence?’
Lily guessed again. ‘Or has Rowan been hanging around with her, which is how Patrick ended up hanging around with …’
‘Exactly. I didn’t want to push Molly but did she say anything, to either of you, I mean? She mentioned the guys being all together but she didn’t say whether Rowan was one of the group she saw and now … Do I push this? Do I leave it, what?’
‘Edi …’ Faith rubbed at her forehead. ‘You know you deserve better than this.’
It wasn’t a question, I knew, but I tried to muster a nod all the same. ‘I think I thought it would be harder for him. Or maybe he’d at least see that meeting people and dating them isn’t exactly how he thought … Fuck it, I don’t know. I just thought he’d realise he had it good already.’
‘Textbook.’
Faith backhanded Lily’s arm. ‘Don’t bring your feminist textbook bullshit into this.’
‘Okay, but when this isn’t as raw as it is now, we’re going to have a serious discussion ab—’
‘Lily,’ I cut across her. ‘We can have a serious discussion whenever you want. As long as it isn’t right now.’ I felt tears prickling behind my eyes and I wondered whether she could see them, given the speed at which she backed down. ‘Fuck it, maybe I should drunk-dial Fred and booty call her or something.’
Lily laughed, but Faith was outraged. ‘You absolutely cannot do that.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I agreed, but I pushed away from Lily and pulled my phone out all the same. ‘I know I’m only doing what I’m berating Rowan for doing, yada yada.’
Faith snatched my phone. ‘I don’t give a hoot about Rowan.’ Lily snapped her fingers in agreement. ‘You can stroll right in there, meet a man and take him home if that’s going to ease some of this. But so help me, Edi Parcell, the first time you have sex with a woman is going to blow your fucking mind and I will not let you be drunk for it.’
None of us had noticed Betty filter out to meet us.
‘Oh.’
I felt my stomach clench as she shifted eyes from me to Faith and then Lily, before settling on me again. There was a cigarette dangling from her mouth and a lighter clasped between half-raised hands. And I felt the prickle of tears even more so then.
‘Betty …’ I started, but she closed the gap between us and kissed my cheek.
‘Literally could not give less of a shit.’ She leaned back and sparked up. ‘Who’s the girl?’
The tears poured out of me, then, but they were paired with fierce laughter. I sobbed against Faith’s shoulder – a little with sadness but mostly with joy – and fenced questions from Betty – ‘Big knockers?’ – that I knew she was only asking to lighten the load of … everything! When I’d finished, Faith unleashed me into Betty’s clutches for a full cuddle and as she pressed her hands flat against my back to pull me to her, she whispered, ‘You deserve better than where you’re at right now, babe, that’s all I’m going to say.’ And I found that I was crying again. The arrival of Cora and Molly halted the share-time, though, and we flocked to tending to Molly’s every need for all of ten minutes.
Cora was the one to break the tension between us. ‘What did we miss?’
Betty winked at me and exhaled a stream of smoke. ‘Edi is thinking of shagging a woman.’
‘No bloody wonder.’ Molly rubbed at her bare arms and made a show of shivering. ‘Any chance the non-smokers can migrate towards the dance floor and the smokers can join us when they’ve finished with their …’ She waved her hand in Lily’s direction. ‘Vice.’
Lily tilted her head back and released a plume of smoke over us. ‘Everyone has something.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ Cora pushed through the group to link arms with me. ‘Mine happens to be booze, though, and it’s Edi’s round, so if I just steer you …’
‘That’s it?’ I stood rooted and looked around the group. ‘That’s actually it?’
‘What, do you want a flag rolled out?’ Molly joked.
Lily exhaled hard again. ‘They actually have a flag.’ Her voice was still thick with smoke.
Faith snorted. ‘They?’
‘I feel like we’re getting off-topic here,’ Betty added, and Faith threw her a look of surprise. For Betty to steer a conversation towards where it was meant to be, was nearly unheard of. Unless there was something she really wanted to say. ‘Babe, if you mean, that’s it, about the woman thing … I can’t speak for the others, mind you—’
‘Although you often do.’
Betty nodded. ‘Sure, what Lil said. I can’t speak for them now, but I genuinely couldn’t give less of a shit if I tried. And I say that with sincerity and love.’
Cora squeezed my arm. ‘What she said. Now will you buy me a drink?’
I looked around at their stunned expressions. They seemed less surprised about the woman reveal, and more surprised at my worry about the woman reveal. Since the first date with Fred, I’d drafted a hundred different conversations – Cora keeping her distance, Betty assuming I wanted to sleep with her – where I explained my feelings and fenced their questions, most likely of all the real tough nut of: ‘So, does this make you gay now?’ A question I’d asked myself at least once a day since I met Fred; twice a day since she’d walked me home.
But, among the questioning glances that bounced back from my friends’ faces, there wasn’t even a flicker of something that looked like judgement. They were all face-value women; never in our friendship’s lifetime had I known Betty or Lily not say what they meant, or what they happened to be thinking (to a fault). So here they were, then, making a literal safe circle around me – and whatever it was I was going through – and despite the shit of the day beforehand, with them, all I felt then was love.