chapter thirty-three

Slip Up

‘Hi, it’s Ceri, isn’t it?’

I kept my head down as I nodded. I so did not want to talk to this person. Of all the people on earth, I did not want to talk to him. I’d spotted him across the bar in Leeds City Centre that I was doing my marking in and hadn’t got my stuff together fast enough to make a run for it.

That’ll learn me to get everything out on the table. Just have what you need out, the rest of the stuff should be piled up, ready to be hoisted into my arms, so I could peg it at a moment’s notice. (Some Fugitive/Incredible Hulk type person I was. I couldn’t even get out of a pub in under thirty seconds. Imagine if I really had the police and a reporter after me, I’d be done for.)

‘Do you mind if I join you?’ he asked, sitting down anyway.

He, who? He whose name was not to be mentioned in our house. He who slept with the fishes (and every other form of aquatic life for all I knew). He who was named Terry at birth but had been renamed The Git by me. Him, Jake’s man. Or not, as the case was. I’d seen pictures of him. I’d even been introduced to him once long ago at a party Jake, Ed and I went to. Now he was sitting opposite me as I said, ‘I’m a bit busy right now.’ Even though it’d been a week and a bit into my no life contact, I still hadn’t managed the art of being outright rude, but I didn’t look at him as I told him I wasn’t free to chat.

‘Right,’ he replied and sat there anyway. ‘You’re Jake’s flat-mate, aren’t you?’

‘We live in a house,’ I replied. I could probably get a bit more frost into my voice, but not much.

The Git laughed.

‘Jake talks about you all the time. You and Ed, you’re like his family. I guess it comes from him being an only child. You and Ed are like his brother and sister.’

‘Really,’ I said. Yup, I could crowbar more frost into my voice and there it was – icicles were hanging off that one word.

The Git leant forwards over the table, obscuring my papers with his elbows. The world revolved around him, clearly. I sat back, focused on his bare elbows. I couldn’t look him in the face without scowling.

‘I’m glad we’ve met up,’ he said.

‘No, we didn’t meet up, you came over and disturbed me,’ I said. ‘I’m in the middle of marking.’

‘OK, I’m glad I’ve seen you, then. I’m really worried about Jake.’

I raised my eyes to him then. Oh no! Jake. My heart sprinted, my breath came in short bursts. I’d been shutting him and everyone else out. Had something hideous happened while I was doing that? ‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘I rang him the other day, he sounded really down. I asked him if he was OK and he said he was at college and he’d call me back. And he hasn’t. That’s just not like him. He always calls me back when he says he will.’

‘Do you always call him back when you say you will?’ I asked.

He frowned, thought about it. ‘No.’

Well then, my face said. I looked back down at the work I was marking, raised my pen.

‘No,’ he put his hand between my pen and paper, ‘but I’m busy. And then I forget. It’s not like I do it on purpose. I’m just busy.’

‘And Jake isn’t?’ I asked.

‘But Jake’s just always been there. For him to not call me back something must’ve happened. I’m really worried.’

I slammed the pen down, raised my eyes again to him. ‘Do you know, Terry, I try not to judge people. Mainly, because of the “let she who is without sin cast the first stone” thing and also because I hate it when people judge me but, BUT, I really think you’re the most odious type of person. You’re an arrogant, self-serving little prig and I can’t even bring myself to think that you’re a nice person who does bad things because you’re not, are you?’ I paused. ‘You treat Jake like dirt then you’re surprised when he cuts you out of his life. In fact, you have the audacity to be hurt.’

‘You know nothing about it,’ he retorted.

‘No, I don’t, so why did you come sit over here? Why? Because you want me to do your dirty work for you, so you just wandered over here and decided to charm me so I’d get Jake to talk to you.

‘Mate, and I use that word because that’s how I speak, not because you are in any way a friend of mine, I’ve only heard Jake’s side of the story, but the fact you’ve come worming around me just proves what a git you are.

‘Jake opened his heart to you. He asked you to tell him how you felt, he wasn’t asking you to leave your boyfriend or for you to say you loved him. All he wanted was for you to tell him if you had any feelings for him because you’ve spent seven years sending him mixed messages, not to mention having sex with him. All he wanted was for you to say something like “I don’t think of you in that way” or “I love you like a mate” so he could let go and move on. He did not expect you to sit there and say “I do not love you. I’ve always known how you felt and I kind of hoped if I ignored it you’d go away. And, by the way, everyone you know has known how you felt and – while they’ve all been laughing at you – they’ve tried to convince me to go out with you but y’know, I couldn’t face it. Because you know what, you’re funny, and gorgeous and clever, but you’re missing that certain something that makes you lovable. And, you know all those times I’ve shagged you, well, it was out of friendship, not cos I’ve felt anything, despite all those mixed messages I’ve been sending and how I’ve reacted in the past when you’ve gone out with other people. Oh, yes, there was also that night when I told you that if you loved someone, then you should tell them how you feel but when you tell me I just piss on your emotions.” So, buddy, do not sit there and tell me I know nothing.

‘You’ve known Jake for so long, you know how sensitive he is, you know how hard it is for him to open up and admit how he feels and you still, still, couldn’t even afford him the luxury of being patronisingly nice. Anyone who could do that to a friend is a freak.

‘Now, please go away and if you can manage it in your egocentric world, stay away from Jake until you find a way to treat him with some respect.’

The Git stared at me and my newly-vented spleen. He’d probably never been told about himself before. Everyone tiptoed around him because he was so gorgeous and did a good impression of being a nice bloke. Everyone around him thought he was a good bloke, a nice lad, really great. The only people who saw the real side of him were the ones who, like Jake, loved him and wanted to be with him. They were the ones who got screwed over because they were stupid enough to fall completely for the nice-guy act. And, well, people like me had to pick up the pieces. Really pick up the pieces. Everyone else just got sick of hearing about it and started to tell the ones like Jake to just put him behind them. To ‘get over it’. While I, I felt it. I had to feel for Jake and pick up the pieces and want to cry and feel his pain and understand and fret about it. I was the one who got to understand how even when Jake said it was OK he was just putting a brave face on it because he was so humiliated that all his friends knew and had tried to talk The Git into going for it. And all his friends probably sat there discussing it and pitying and wishing he could get a grip. I was the one who knew he was so humiliated because if The Git hadn’t said anything, he’d never have been any wiser and in some cases ignorance was bliss; what you didn’t know really couldn’t upset you.

I glanced up, The Git was still there. ‘No, really, I mean it. FUCK! OFF!’

A few people in the pub looked around as he, still wearing that wounded face, got up and walked away. He even left his drink on the table, left a short glass with orange juice and melting ice cubes to dribble condensation on the table as he left the pub.

I watched his back leave the pub. Then it smacked me in the face. Hard. So hard I had to drop my head into my hands.

I’ve done it again. I’ve only gone and done it again. I’ve gotten involved. I’ve broken my silence. I’ve behaved like BLOODY, TWATTING Cupid again.

Oh well, just this one thing couldn’t hurt. Could it?