Remix (23 page)

“You haven’t.” But we both know she has.

“You don’t get to choose how you feel about someone, right?”

I worry anew about what happened with Stu, but there’s time enough for that later. “I should go and see Tom. Sort things out.”

“What kind of things?”

“I’ll tell you later.” I give her a hug. “Promise.”

Tom’s left a voicemail:
“Meet me down by the coffee stalls at the bottom of the hill – wherever you are, you can’t be far away. We need to talk sooner rather than later. Before … well, before we see each other in the arena.”

I’m confused, but then I notice the message I’ve got from Lauren.

Thank you so much for taking care of me yesterday! Can’t wait to see you later and get the gossip on Sebastian! xxx

I wonder whether she’s told Tom? Not that it’s any of his business.

After dropping Ruby’s phone off at the charging tent, I go and meet him.

He’s sitting at one of the picnic tables set up by the largest cluster of food vans. For a second, I pause and look at him. Tom has been the person I’ve wanted for so long that it’s hard to see what he really looks like sometimes. In my mind, everything I like about him is enhanced, the bits I’m not so convinced of glossed over and forgotten: the trousers that Naomi and Ruby find so hilarious that show half-an-inch too much of his socks; the way one corner of his permanently popped collar always wilts over; his habit of biting his cuticles until they bleed. He’s doing it now and at the sight of it my nose wrinkles.

I think of Sebastian’s calloused fingers, strong and slender, and the ease with which he slid them between mine.

When Tom turns this way the automatic assumption that I love him no longer feels true.

“I got you a coffee,” he says when he sees me.

I take a sip and nearly dribble it back into the cup. “Is there sugar in this?” He nods and I frown. “When have I ever taken—”

Both of us realize at the same time that this is how Lauren takes her coffee and I carry it to the nearest bin and drop it in, not caring one little bit that Tom will hate to see it wasted.

We walk along the path until we’re in the quiet of the woods, where the air is heavier and more stifling and we sit, side by side, on a fallen log. There’s room for another person between us, even if she isn’t here.

Tom starts. “Thank you for yesterday.”

I wait, but he doesn’t appear to have anything more to say.

“Is that it?” I say, for once sounding as outraged as I feel.

Tom is unprepared for this – it’s nothing like the Kaz I’ve been so far. “I’ve said thanks. What more do you want?”

“Are you for real, Thomas?” I sound like his mum. Or my sister. “How about an apology?”

“For what?”

“For
everything
? For lying to me, for having sex with me, for having the nerve yesterday to ask me to look after your new girlfriend?”

“You could have said no.”

“You could have told me you had a girlfriend!” Our voices are getting louder with every retort.

“You could have asked!”

“Why would I need to? You’re
Tom
. Don’t you understand? You’re the boy I’ve been half in love with since I was ten. I’m not supposed to need to ask that Tom the truth. He’s supposed to tell me.”

“I did.” His voice has dropped and he has the good grace to look uncomfortable.

“Too late.” That’s it. My anger has burned itself out. “Everything. All of it. It’s too late.”

He’d asked for the weekend to make it right and told me that I’m the one he wants, but there is nothing that can make this right and I do not want him. Not any more.

“So what now?” He’s looking at his hands; his cuticles are ragged and sore-looking, as if he’s done nothing but bite them for the last twenty-four hours.

“I don’t know, Tom.”

“So you don’t want me to break up with her?”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“Not even to be friends?”

“Not right now, no.” Only when he looks at me, I don’t see my ex-boyfriend. I see the boy whose house I lived in the summer my parents got divorced, who made room for me, made time for me, who heard me singing in the spare bedroom and told me I sounded like Karen Carpenter because he knew it would cheer me up. “But I’m sure we can find our way back there. Eventually.”

There’s a long silence in which I strain to hear the sounds of the campsite and Tom sips from what must now be a cold cup of tea.

“I’m sorry, Kaz,” he says.

It’s been a long time coming, but those words make all the difference and when he looks at me, I give him what must be an encouraging smile, because he reaches over and hugs me. The feel of him, the smell, no longer thrills me. It just makes me sad.

I’m the first to let go.

“What about Lauren?” I ask.

Tom looks shifty and I know now what I should have known from the start: he is not going to break up with her.

“You’re not going to tell her, are you?” I say.

But Tom doesn’t quite answer. “Are you?”

Not so long ago, I believed that the truth was enough to make things right, but it’s hard to see how it will now.

“I don’t want Lauren to know what happened.” I feel terrible for saying it.

“Me neither.”

“If you cheat on her again…” I say, but what threat am I really making?

“I would
never
.” Tom is vehement, but then, he would have been before. “I really do like her. She doesn’t deserve any of this.”

“Lauren deserves a lot better.” The way he avoids looking at me, Tom knows I mean better than him. Soon we’ll make our way back to our camps and when I see him later (and I will, because how can I avoid the pair of them in the arena without it looking suspicious?), I don’t want this to have been our goodbye. We need to behave like friends, not like a mistake.

When we stand to leave, I bump him gently and smile, trying to make it right, to make it light. “I’m not sure it matters, but your new girlfriend has my seal of approval.”

“It matters,” he says, and for a second he looks at me like he wishes it didn’t. “Bye, Kaz.”

He walks quickly towards the path leading across Three-Tree Field and I want to call him back, to ask him the one question that’s been plaguing me, burrowing into my brain.

Did you sleep with her before you slept with me?

But I don’t. It’s hard to see how the truth will make that right either.

It’s oddly peaceful here in the tent and I feel better for having had a shower. On the way back to the tent, my gut twisted when I passed a girl wearing a Gold’ntone T-shirt. The realization that I will never be able to listen to their music again rips me a new one. I will
never
be able to hear “Tonight Too Soon” ever again.

I shouldn’t have let Kaz believe this was Stu’s fault, but I cannot tell her –
anyone
– the truth. Memories fade with time, but words spoken out loud become facts.

I can’t face these facts. Not now. Not ever.

“Ruby. Can I come in?” It’s Lee, outside the tent.

I don’t say anything.

“I know you’re in there. Please, Ruby.”

I crawl out of the tent, wrapping my arms around myself, rumpling the whimsical unicorn vest that I bought when I felt distinctly more whimsical.

“What?” I can barely look at him.

“Not here…” He casts a glance to where Owen and Anna are cooking breakfast.

When Lee turns to walk away, I follow. His neck is sunburned and I imagine flicking it hard enough to make him howl. When we reach the path, Lee keeps pausing to let me fall in step with him, but since that is what I’m specifically avoiding doing, I fall out as soon as he starts up again.

It is very satisfying.

Eventually, we reach a quiet patch of the campsite where the tents thin out towards the car park and Lee sits down.

“Are you going to sit with me, or stay standing there like Christ the Redeemer?” he says.

“Why do you do that?” I snap, wanting a fight.

“What?”

“Make a reference to something you know I won’t understand. You used to hate it when Callum did that and now you’re doing it to me. Showing off doesn’t make you special.”

“I’m not showing off. This is just how I talk.”

“Frankly, Mr Shankly, you sound a bit wanky.” But he’s not going to take the bait.

“I know that’s some music reference you think I won’t get.” Lee sighs and lies back on the ground. “Call it even and sit down.”

I do as I’m told.

Lee says, “You didn’t tell Owen.” Not a question, so I don’t give an answer. “Thank you for that.”

This galls. “As if I’d inflict that kind of pain on someone I love so much.”

“Stop being so angry with me. Not everything you see is black and white, you know.”

“Was the man in the van Owen? No. Enough said.”

“Actually” – Lee sits up and pulls my arm so I’m twisted to face him – “not enough said. Owen and I broke up. On Friday.”

“Friday?”

“After I behaved like a dick about him singing—”

“But I thought…” I’d seen them hugging outside their tent, but then every time I’ve seen them together since then, at camp, on the hill, the photo he texted of them in the crowd … I realize I saw no kisses. No hand-holding. No glances or touches. I carried on seeing what I wanted to, even when it wasn’t there. That hug I saw was one of breaking-up, not making-up.

“We thought it would make things awkward for everyone else and that wouldn’t be fair,” Lee says quietly, pulling tufts of shrivelled grass from the ground.

“But you
love
him.”

Lee looks at me with such misery that I can’t help but soften towards him. “You think I was the one who did it? I’m not the strong one. I’m the coward who’d rather spend a summer spoiling for a fight than face telling the person I love the truth.”

“But
Owen
loves you—”

“Love isn’t enough, Ruby. Not to survive me moving half a world away. I can’t be the boyfriend Owen deserves and he knows it.”

His eyes shine with unshed tears, the deep blue that circles the skies of his irises more marked, as if his eyes were drawn, then filled in.

“I don’t want to leave him.” Tears spill out and he sniffs. “But I can’t take him with me and I can’t do long distance and all that would happen is that I’d hurt him even more.” Lee’s crying properly now, shaking as he talks, the words sputtering on breaths he can’t quite take in.

“I love him so much, but I’m so weak that I can’t even do my own dirty work. He told me that if it would stop me from trying to hurt him, then we should end things now, because …”

He stops and sucks in a breath, and I can’t help but reach over and wipe away his tears. I wish I could help fix him, but it’s him that’s doing the breaking.

“… because he still wants to love me, even if we’re not together. Even if we can’t be … because I…” Lee breaks down and I hold him as close as I can. “Why did I do this, Ruby? What’s wrong with me that I have to push away the one person I want to be with?”

I hold him, saying nothing because there is nothing I can say.

Maybe I did grow up to be like my brother after all.

In the haze of euphoria that comes with finally doing something right, I do something completely out of character.

“Why are you ringing me?” my sister asks when she picks up the call.

“Hi, Naomi, how lovely to hear your voice.”

“It’s ten in the morning. Your voice is ruining my lie-in.”

“I thought you’d be halfway down Oxford Street by now.”

“Sunday. Shops don’t open till later. Plus Dad’s demanded a break, the lame ass. How’s your crappy festival?”

“You don’t really care, do you?”

“Not at all, but I’m weirded out by you ringing me. It’s making me come over all polite.”

Which is her way of showing concern, I suppose. “You were right.”

“Always. Be more specific.”

“About Tom. About me deserving better.”

“That doesn’t sound like something I’d say…”

But we both know she did.

“Whatever we had, it’s over now. I don’t want him back any more.” Saying it sets me free.

“You don’t
sound
like you’re a pathetic, weeping, wailing blob of snot…”

“Charming.” I laugh. “That’s because I know it’s the right thing this time.”

“It was the right thing last time.”

“All right, no need to be smart about it. I just wanted to tell” – I was going to say “someone”, but – “you.”

Silence. My sister doesn’t really know how to handle me being nice to her. I wouldn’t either, if the situation was reversed.

“So now I’ve woken you up, can you do me a favour?” My tone makes it clear the conversation is back to normal.

So is Naomi’s. “Probably not.”

“Ring Mum. Ask her about her date last night – it’s not just me she wants to gossip with.”

As I end the call, I’m level with the charging tent and I collect Ruby’s phone, before turning back towards our camp. My thoughts drift to Sebastian and I smile at the thought of telling Ruby about all the good things that have happened this weekend, as well as the bad. Because I’m going to tell her everything now – as Ruby said, she and I don’t do secrets.

I’m distracted as Ruby’s phone starts to vibrate and a message flashes up.

Hey, Ruby, on the off chance you’ve charged your phone… I’m at your camp. Where are you? Stu

After a while Lee asks me how he looks.

“Puffy” is my answer.

“But in a cute way, right?”

“If you find blotches and snot cute, then sure, why not?”

He hauls me up off the floor and we walk back side by side. I don’t know what my brother is thinking about, but for the most part I’m thinking that Lee has only partially explained what happened last night and for all I want to be able to leave it as it is, I can’t.

“Lee?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you do it?”

He doesn’t ask what I mean – he knows I mean the boy he was with, the not-Owen whose shorts Lee had been unzipping. “I told you, Ruby, I’m weak. And I thought it would make me feel better to know I could be with someone I didn’t love.”