The Art of Letting Go (The Uni Files) (16 page)

I am starting to get a bit annoyed. One of the irritating boys from down the road is circling at the end of the driveway watching our little exchange play out with great interest.

“Oh, you know, dear. For ruining your career, ruining your life by breaking poor John's heart for some awful singer.” She gives her head a shake, a movement hindered by the killer-sized thorns right next to her cheekbone.

“What?” I am completely astounded. “What are you talking about? I split up with John because I was not in love with him, for no other reason.” I am glaring at her and have crossed my arms resolutely over my chest. Being near my parents always makes me revert back to being a teenager, although normally it takes a little longer than this.

Mum raises an eyebrow. It occurs to me that this must be where Tristan inherited the infuriating habit from. It makes me mad.

“Well, maybe Daddy Dearest should come out here and talk to me like a grown-up,” I shout as loud I can. I am sure the rest of the cul-de-sac loves this little show Jeremy Kyle style.

“No, Lilah. He doesn’t want to see you.” Mum has the good grace to look a little sheepish.

“And are you okay with this?”

“No, of course not, but I know which side my bread is buttered on. Something that you obviously don’t.”

I cannot believe she just said that.

She leans forward as far as the bush and thorns will allow, a conspiratorial expression on her face, and adds, “I have been working on softening him a little for you. I’m sure that if you agree to stop Uni at the end of this year and get a job back at the bank, he will soon forget all this nastiness ever happened.”

I stare at her in shock. She has got to be joking, right? It doesn't seem like it. She looks at me like she has just offered me the world’s longest olive branch.

“Mum, that's not going to happen. I will see you around, I guess,” I respond as I turn and head back down the drive to Deathtrap Cooper.

“Oh, Lilah?” she calls after me. “Your father is also putting the Putney flat on the market at the beginning of July.”

I don’t bother to respond. I just wave my hands loosely over my shoulder. It may or may not have been a rude gesture.

Great. So not only is my dad never going to speak to me again—what is he like five or something?—Tristan is now going to lose his home as well. All because of me.

I seethed the whole way home, cranking Deathtrap Cooper to its absolute max, 66 miles an hour.

7.00 p.m.

Tristan is remarkably calm about the whole thing, considering our family has just effectively exploded apart at the seams.

“Don’t worry about it, Lil, he’ll never sell. That flat is too much of an investment for him.”

This is what Tristan does, though. He ducks and dives his way out of all sorts of trouble with our parents. Once, when they went away for the weekend, he and his stoned buddies set light to the priceless Turkish rug in the lounge. Instead of owning up, he doused the whole thing in water and then blamed it on a random bolt of lightning that magically shot through the window setting fire only to the rug.

Mum and dad had practically fallen at his feet praising him for saving their house and possessions. Mum had then turned on me and said, “Where were you, Lilah, whilst all this was happening and your brother was being a hero? In your room, no doubt, reading.”

My brother walks on water and shoots balls of fire out of his arse and all sorts of amazing things. I just remembered that this is why we have not been friends for years.

I glare at him, unable to put any words together. Ben is sitting on the end of my bed rubbing my feet. I love the fact that he does things like this even though we are not together. Like sometimes he just absentmindedly catches my hand and holds it for a few moments, not saying a word.

Hold on! I am supposed to be glaring at Tristan not dribbling over Ben.

“Well, don’t you think it is all a little bit over the top? I mean, really? I can’t believe that he is going to all this effort just because you dumped someone,” says Goth Chick.

I haven’t the foggiest why she is in my room or when she became part of our gang.

“Ugh, let’s not think about it now,” I plead, throwing myself back on my pillows. It’s all too much for me to contemplate right now.

“Anyway,” I continue. “Ben has a gig tonight. You guys are all going, aren’t you?”

There is a chorus of yeses and nods.

“Are you not coming?” The blues stare at me intently.

“I don’t want to be a kill joy and I am not really in the party mood,” I say, although I actually am in the party mood, or, more specifically, I am desperate for a drink. But I do not want to be defeated. It is only the 12th of January. I cannot give in yet.

“Well, I would prefer it if you were there,” he says quietly, just for me.

The blues make me melt a little as do the crinkled freckles when he senses that I have given in.

“Oh, okay,” I sigh. “I’ll come. But I should warn you that sober fan girls are notoriously boring.”

He just laughs and gives my big toe a tug as he eases out from under my feet. “I doubt that very much, Miss McCannon.”

The way he says it makes my heart go a pitter-patter.

Sober Fan Girls Are Not That Boring

The gig is fantastic, and I manage to stay sober the whole way through. It is kind of sweet, really, when I see Ben decline numerous offers for drinks. I try not to notice just how cute it is that he isn’t drinking just because I’m not, but things like that are hard to ignore.

Despite Mum and Dad’s freaky crazy behaviour earlier in the day, I completely let my hair down. In fact, I have the best time in ages standing at the front of the crowd dancing away—without the aid of alcohol, I might add!—watching Sound Box, who are jaw-droppingly good. Ben, with his voice of honey over gravel, licks goose bumps up and down my spine.

These guys deserve to be huge, and I really hope (with every ounce of hopeful thoughts I can muster) that they make it. I think they will.

The whole time they are on stage and I prance about like a pony, I know that he is watching me. I can feel the blues on me no matter where I am. It’s great, although there is a moment when some strange guys approach me and I think we may be about to have a repeat of the ‘James/Fez Strop Off,’ but Ben just winks at me and plays on. He’s damn hot up there standing centre stage. There is a raw magnetism about him. It reminds me of when I first saw him at the Fresher's Ball. I thought he was amazing straight away and that was before I even knew him. Before I knew all the little things about him that I know now: the cooking, the coffee in the morning, the absent-minded palm tracing and the way he makes me feel when he looks at me with his intent blues. Like I am the only person that exists.

When their set finishes, the band troupes offstage, all but one of them clutch a beer  as they pass through the crowd and head towards us. Ben slides his hands around me from behind and leans his chin on my shoulder. He smells and feels warm and sweaty in a good way, a very sexy way. I lean back just a fraction to get closer.

“I thought I was going to have to use my guitar as a weapon for a few moments there,” he whispers in my ear, his hot breath sliding down my neck.

I turn to look at him, but his arms don’t release me. They stay tight around my waist. I stand in the circle of his arms looking up at him, the stage lights bounce off his pale skin turning him a mixture of crazy colours. It would be so easy, really, really easy to lean forward that extra inch and fix my lips to his.

And it is.

His hands slide down my spine, thumbs along my ribs, pulling me even closer by my slightly exposed hips.

“It’s always better when you are here,” he murmurs in my ear, our bodies still touching in various strategic places.

“I don’t know how I will play when you are not in front of me anymore,” he adds, his blues taking me in.

He looks so beautiful standing there all sharp cheekbone angles, his face a contrast in shadows and light. I could easily crumble, with his hands hot and firm on me. It would be so simple for me to say four little words now that will change us forever.

Let’s go for it.

How easy would that be? But just because it is simple does not make it right. It would be simple for him to choose me over the band and their big break. Meredith is right, he would never go if I told him how I felt, how much I wanted him.

But the truth is that I want him to have so much more, so much more than being stuck with some plump girl heading towards thirty who has no idea what she wants from life. He deserves more.

So instead I say, "Let’s go home."

And we do. I am aware that I am going to pay for it. I am going to be paying for it for the next month as I go back to being without him again. But I don’t care. I just grab his hand.

It’s a typical Ben and Lilah trip home: black cab, inappropriate hands, and bursting through the door to the dormitory like a gale force wind. There is no hesitation as we fall through the door to his room, him carrying me, my legs wrapped around his waist, literally tearing at each other’s clothes, mouths hot hungry and demanding.

Taylor Swift is singing "Fearless."

13th January

The wake-up.

It’s official. I can’t resist Ben.

I can resist alcohol, cigarettes, and junk food, but I cannot in any way resist anything to do with Ben. It feels like he has become some sort of integral part of my being, and it really hurts knowing that once again I have done the unspeakable and let us overstep  our boundaries, because it kills me to get over this every time. Trying to force the memory of his touch and hands from my mind makes it so much more painful and even harder to forget. Standing next to him every day and talking to him like we are just buddies makes me want to yank my tongue out. I could almost tell him the truth just because I do not want to go through that again.

Then I smack myself on the forehead and think about the band, and just how amazing they were last night and how they deserve to get their big break. Ugh! This is horrible, and I do not even have a hangover to distract me from the mental pain.

“Why are you hitting yourself on the forehead?” he asks.

“No reason.”

He wiggles himself up close to me, one leg slung over mine, one arm over my stomach.

Oh, god, this is going to cause pain like never before.

“What are you worried about?” he asks.

I open my mouth to answer.

“And don’t say ‘nothing’, because I can read you like a book.” He giggles a little in my ear.

Oh, god, I love his giggle. It is completely ridiculous coming from someone so frickin’ hot. It makes me giggle, too.

“I am trying to work out how to go on from here.”

There. Honesty is the best approach, especially when naked and enclosed in someone’s arms. I am sure that is in a rulebook somewhere.

“What do you mean?”

I don’t think he has his eyes open yet. His nose is skimming my jawline. My heart is doing crazy things.

“I mean, I don’t know how to do this anymore. It’s not working, the whole ignoring each other and being friends, because we just end up having sex and making everything confused again.”

“I am not confused.”

“You’re not?”

Why isn’t he confused?

“Not really. I know what I want. I am just not getting anywhere with it.” He kisses the corner of my mouth, which twitches in response. “So I’m just accepting anything that I can get.”

I am about to heave myself up and be offended when he starts giggling again.

“Calm down, Delilah. Jeez you are so short-tempered!” He kisses me again, which is making it hard to be short-tempered about anything.

“I’m leaving in a few short months, and you have made it clear that you want me to go.”

Oooh, that hurts!

“So I am just going to enjoy being with you. I know you have things to sort out yourself, and I respect that. It doesn’t change how I feel.”

My mouth has gone so dry I can barely swallow.

“How do you feel?” I manage to whisper.

“You know how I feel. I love you. But I made a silly mistake and I am paying the price for it. I do love you, though.” He kisses around my lips again just to make his point.

“Mmm,” I say back.

SERIOUSLY! The man of my dreams has just told me, naked, in bed, that he loves me and I have replied, "Mmm." I must need locking up.

It’s probably a good thing. If I said the words back then he would know and would never leave for his big opportunity.

Maybe he is right, though, maybe we should just get what we can and then let it go when the time comes. I think about this as he moves his kisses further down my body, until eventually I cannot think at all.

Later.

“You know I am not your girlfriend, right?”

“Yeah. You know I am not your boyfriend, right?”

This time it is me giggling as I move myself over him.

“Good. Just so long as we are clear on that,” I say using my best stern schoolteacher voice, pulling the duvet up over my head.

Let’s be all romantic and pretend this is real.

Ben came up with the idea. I had been about to get up and head back to my guinea cage when he had grabbed my hand and pulled me back.

“Don’t go,” he had pleaded, fluttering his ridiculously long lashes.

“Come on, Ben, you know this is not good.”

Damn it, I hate being the grown-up!

He is undeterred, tugging me back onto the rumpled sheets.

“What have you got to lose? Just give me one day, just one day of relaxing and being with you the way I want.”