Lobsters (16 page)

Finally the crowd parted and he was right there in front of us. Only, he wasn't alone.

‘Toilet Bo—' Grace's face dropped. ‘Oh …'

There was Sam, covered in mud but looking fitter than ever, pulling a red-headed girl in bright yellow hot pants.

Grace turned to me, her eyes bulging. ‘I'm sorry, Han – he wasn't … doing that a minute ago.'

Before I could say anything, Stella rolled her eyes and stepped forward. ‘Grace, you idiot – that's not Toilet Boy. That's just Sam. Hey Sam.' She said it loudly, in a slightly bored-by-it-all-now
voice

Hearing his name, Sam removed his tongue from Miss Yellow Hot Pants' mouth and turned round. His eyes flicked from me to Stella and back to me again. Grace pinched Stella's waist and whispered, ‘Stella, seriously, that's Toilet Boy.'

‘Wait! Hang on,' said Tilly. ‘That's the boy who was smoking weed in your cupboard.'

Grace and Stella stared at her.

There was no way out. It was going to happen. No lie I could tell would cover it up. I looked round for an escape route but there were people squeezing me in on all sides.

Stella turned to me. ‘What the fuck is going on, Han?' she demanded.

I could feel myself shaking. Everybody was staring right at me now: Stella, Grace, Tilly, Yellow Hot Pants. And Sam.

Sam

I should have know it would happen at some point – me bumping into Hannah again, that is. I guess I should have hoped that if it did, I wouldn't be drunk, stoned and being groped by a girl called Panda, and she wouldn't be surrounded by a load of mates who were all referring to me as ‘Toilet Boy'.

Why ‘Toilet Boy' anyway? That makes me sound awful. Surely ‘Bathroom Boy' works better? It has alliteration going for it and everything.

I knew it was a mistake to go to the main stage. But, once
Panda and her mates suggested it, Robin, Ben and Chris were hardly going to say no.

Thankfully, that horrible moment where we were just stood staring at each other in front of everybody was interrupted almost immediately by a conga line that was making its way through the crowd. Chris, Robin and Ben, who weren't yet aware of the monumentally awkward situation unfolding next to them, latched on to the back, and we – me, Hannah, Hannah's mates and Panda's lot – all got dragged along too. As more people joined, the line became increasingly chaotic. Within a minute, I had lost sight of everyone I knew.

When I was finally spat out of the heaving crowd, I saw Hannah, on her own, brushing herself down after having been spat out nearby too. There was a split second where she hadn't seen me and I knew I could have walked away, but I really wanted to talk her again. I didn't care if it was awkward.

‘Hey,' I said, approaching her. ‘That was a bit mental, wasn't it?'

She flashed me a nervous smile. ‘Yeah. Sorry, we didn't mean to, erm, interrupt you. Stella just saw you and we thought we'd say hi.'

‘Oh no, it's cool', I said. ‘I was just…'

I was just pulling a girl called Miranda who calls herself Panda because she loves pandas so much. A girl who isn't you.

‘I was just … not doing very much, really.' I couldn't think of anything better than that. She'd clearly seen me with my tongue down Panda's throat.

‘Cool,' she said, kicking vacantly at a bit of loose turf on the ground.

‘Who else are you here with?' I asked, feeling my heartbeat quicken just a touch as a follow-up question formed in my head and made its way down on to my tongue. ‘Is your, er, boyfriend here too?'

She jabbed harder at the loose turf, and it broke apart under her wellies. ‘Erm … No. He couldn't make it. He's got stuff on.'

‘Oh. Cool.' What sort of stuff, I wondered? Probably shopping for more waistcoats.

A little silence fell between us as we both took it in turns to prod a new piece of loose turf with our feet. She unfurled a few strands of hair from her ponytail and started chewing on them. I felt a sudden urge from out of nowhere to grab her and kiss her. I channelled my frustration at having to repress this desire into kicking aimlessly at the damp soil.

Finally, she said, ‘Look, I should try and find Stella and the rest of them now.'

‘Oh yeah,' I murmured. ‘I need to get back to my lot too. But I guess I'll see you around?'

We had bumped into each other twice already, so there was no way we wouldn't bump into each other again. Or at least, that's what I told myself.

‘Yeah, definitely. See you, then.'

She smiled and walked away. I noticed the sun had brought her freckles out even more.

As I watched her push her way back into the crowd, I stood
there cursing her boyfriend, whoever he was, and realizing once again just how much I fancied her.

Hannah

I didn't even bother trying to find them again – I just headed straight back and got into my sleeping bag. The tent was hot and airless. Somewhere, in one of the fields, I knew they were all talking about me. I felt like a freak. A fraud.

Stella and me hadn't had it out yet. This whole summer. Maybe now it was coming. I knew they would have to come back eventually. After a while I sort of wanted them to come but they didn't. They were all out having fun without me. Maybe Stella was getting off with Robin by now. They were probably talking about what an insane compulsive liar I was.

Lying in a tent listening to everyone around you having fun is probably one of the loneliest things you can do.

After what seemed like days, I heard the three of them outside, their voices getting louder as they got closer. It took Stella ages to figure out how to unzip the tent. I picked up
Vogue
and pretended to read. The silence between us felt real. Neither of us had anything to say. Maybe this is it. Maybe friendships actually end when neither of you has anything to say any more.

‘I'm really sorry, Han. This is so awkward. I kind of get why everything has been so weird between us now. It all makes sense.
I wish you had told me.'

It was real. I think. Real in that she thought everything was because of her pulling Sam. Real because she was sorry things had turned to shit between us. Real because she doesn't think about anything on any deeper level. All she sees is the headline news. Real because she never actually says anything real and this felt like it was.

‘I feel like such a dick,' I said. ‘I should have told you at the cinema.'

‘You don't look like a dick. Promise. Anyway, now we've kissed three of the same people, so it's all good.'

‘I haven't kissed Sam.'

She smiled at me as she got her make-up bag out of her rucksack.

‘Haven't kissed Sam
yet …'

The tent conversation wasn't really the whole truth. So much more had happened to cause the rift between us. But I let it be so we could feel like us again. Actually, that's not true. I let it be because I'm weak. Stella had all the explanation she needed to put the whole thing behind us. To her, it was just something that had happened. But to me, the whole summer felt like way more than that.

As Stella wriggled down into her sleeping bag beside me, I thought about Sam and how fit he looked. Even wearing Sainsbury's bags round his feet, he looked hot.

‘How will I ever kiss him, Stell?' I whispered as we were dropping off to sleep, thinking about the yellow hot pants girl. ‘He's clearly with someone.'

From the depths of her sleeping bag, I heard Stella murmur, ‘Not for long.'

Sam

After nearly an hour of muddy trampling, I finally found Ben and Robin back in the dance arena. They weren't dancing, of course. They were standing next to the DJ booth, nodding their approval at each new tune. Chris was still AWOL. Maybe he'd conga'd his way back to London.

‘Where the fuck have you been?' yelled Robin, bear hugging me.

I couldn't contain it any longer. My excitement at seeing Hannah and remembering how much I liked her got the better of me. I told him everything – about meeting her in the bathroom at Stella's party, the double date, the fact that I was Toilet Boy.

‘Fuck. Ing. Hell,' Robin yelled over the ear-splitting techno. ‘So that whole time at Westfield, that Ribena bloke Stella was talking about was
you
?'

I nodded, managing to feel simultaneously proud and embarrassed.

‘No wonder Hannah was so weird. You just sat there in silence while Stella told us how much she loved you!'

Hearing Robin say it made it suddenly seem real, and I felt a surge of excitement pulse through me.

‘What else could I do?' I shouted. ‘I couldn't have owned up while we were all sat round that table – it would have been even
more embarrassing for Hannah if you and Stella had known the truth. And I was supposed to be on a date with
Stella
, anyway.'

Robin shook his head. ‘You are never allowed to complain about girls not fancying you again.'

We suddenly spotted Chris bounding towards us through the swaying crowd. He was wild-eyed, shirtless and sporting freshly-inked tribal-style henna tattoos on his arm.

‘What the fuck happened to you?'

‘I'm not sure,' he said, grinning madly. ‘I stayed with the conga line. We went to some weird places. I think I got married to a mannequin at one point.'

‘I love this tune!' yelled Ben, as the DJ dropped an abrasive techno song that sounded exactly the same as every other abrasive techno song he'd played previously. We danced until we were too tired to stand up. Then we stomped back to the tents, muddy, drunk and happy.

The next day, we awoke to throbbing hangovers and unbearable heat. The walls of the tent felt like they were on fire. Robin kicked himself out of his sleeping bag, gasping and holding his head in his hands.

‘Fresh air …' he croaked. ‘Water …'

I unzipped the door and squinted out into the blinding daylight. The previous night's monsoon seemed to have washed the sky clean and the sun was blazing down intensely across the fields, baking the mud rock solid.

Ben and Chris went to get bacon sandwiches to remedy our hangovers. Robin stretched himself out on the damp grass, clutching our two litre water bottle to his chest.

‘So, what's the plan today?' he yawned. ‘You're going to see Hannah again, right?'

‘I hope so. I think I really like her.'

Robin raised an eyebrow. ‘You thought you really liked Jo. And she turned out to be an absolute knob.'

It was true. But something about Hannah felt different. Liking Jo had always come with nagging, unsettling doubts. I couldn't think of one thing I disliked about Hannah. Except the fact she had a boyfriend, of course.

‘There's one problem, though,' I said. ‘She's got a boyfriend.'

‘Fuck him. He's probably an idiot'. He took a swig from the water bottle and dried his lips on the sleeve of his T-shirt. ‘Hang on – if she's got a boyfriend, what was she doing on that double date?'

‘I guess she just came along to be Stella's wingman.'