Undeniable (6 page)

We pass the doorway under the stairs that still has the music thumping out, as well as strobe lights.

‘That’s the rave dungeon,’ says Sam, casually, like everyone has a rave dungeon under the stairs.

We weave around people in the living room. No celebrities, but Spencer has still got loads of people at his party.
And
it’s the summer holidays!

Rosie and I make our way through to the kitchen, leaving Nish to faff about what to do with her expensive coat – she says it’s well known that students can’t afford nice
clothes.

‘So what’s the deal with this Spencer person?’ says Rosie.

At that moment the fridge door, which was open when we came in, swings shut to reveal a grinning face.

‘Hello, hello.’ Spencer nods at me. ‘Thank you for the texts.’ Then he folds his arms and looks seriously at us. ‘So what
is
the deal with this Spencer
person?’

I open my mouth to speak, but there are actually no words in my brain. ‘He’s . . .’ I start.

Spencer waits, clearly enjoying every moment.

‘He’s a boy . . .’

‘Chum?’ says Spencer.

I nod.

‘That’s me,’ he says to Nish and Rosie. ‘Boy chum, London tour guide and provider of drinks.’ He gestures to the fridge. ‘Help yourselves, ladies.’

Spencer is a hit. Rosie thinks he’s lovely and Nish says he’s ‘charming, for a boy’. For some reason my first thought is that they never said anything
like that about Max.

Max always made loads of effort to get on with them. He burnt all of his episodes of
Game of Thrones
onto discs for Rosie after I told him how much she liked it.

I think I’m still feeling guilty about that text.

Nish went to find the loo and we’d already lost Rosie to a crowd of excited men, so I’m left standing opposite Spencer. He’s about to say something when some girls who have
just arrived grab him. He hugs both of them and kisses them on the cheek. Then he’s offering them drinks and asking them if they’ve missed him since the end of term. When one of them
says no, he pokes her on the arm and says, ‘Don’t lie’ and does his crooked eyebrow thing.

He’s obviously just a massive flirt with everyone. I don’t know why I’ve been getting so wound up.

I go to look for Nish to suggest some crazy dancing in the rave dungeon. I find her asking someone if there is a safe here, so I pop her coat in a nearby drawer and drag her down the steps.

Our hair-flicking creates a nice circle of space around us. I try not to, but I can’t stop getting a slight twinge of jealousy at the sight of Nish’s perfect figure. Her body is
amazing – boobs and bum all in proportion, even if she’s throwing herself around like a madwoman and flinging her long, black hair everywhere. Better than being all boob. That must be
the first thing people notice when they look at me. It’s why when I’m dancing I usually do something mad, like jiggle them around or flash my bra. A bit like I’m saying,
‘Yes, I do realise I look ridiculous.’ And because it’s funny.

In the middle of a get-low competition, which is no contest really with my low knees and Nish’s long legs, Nish gives a look of surprise as her phone vibrates in her pocket. She pulls it
out as we stand up. The name on the screen is
Effie
. Nish pauses and looks at me as if she’s not sure whether she should go off to answer it or not and I give her a shove towards the
door.

‘Don’t you feel bad about being all happy and in love – it’s my fault I’m not any more,’ I tell her.

She fixes me with a look. ‘Now, we’ll not have self-pity,’ she says, then throws her arm round my neck and gives me a squeeze and a kiss on the head. She’s like that,
Nish – all practical and sarcastic, but she always lets you know how much she cares.

I see her pass Spencer on the cellar stairs and she points over to me, probably telling him I need someone to dance with now. That’s not strictly true as I would happily dance on my own,
but wondering if he’s going to come over gives me a thrill.

He’s making a beeline for me and when he reaches me he leans in so I’ll hear him over the music. His stubbly cheek grazes the side of my face.

‘I’ve heard you’re a crazy dancer.’

My response, obviously, is to bust out some moves. Spencer gives as good as he gets and soon we’re both going for it and keep cracking up as the dance moves get more and more ridiculous. I
challenge him to a get-low competition as well and it turns out he can get pretty low, despite being a bit lanky. We end up with his knee between my legs and mine between his and at the same moment
we both give way and end up on the floor, our legs tangled together.

We clumsily get to our feet and when we stand up our bodies are pressed together as well. I can feel the thump of the bass vibrating through his chest. I see his Adam’s apple move as he
swallows and then he tilts his face round to mine. Our lips are almost touching.

The vibrations of sound are going right through my body, setting off an excited, tingly feeling. Then he moves towards me, decisively, and puts his hand behind my head.

‘Wait,’ I swallow and nod over to the corner. It’s in the shadow of the cellar stairs and completely out of sight. I move over there and he follows. I don’t want to stop
and think, just to be in the moment. I turn towards him with my back to the wall. He looks at me and grins, then he leans in. Our lips brush together and as they do, I pull his shirt, so he’s
pressing me into the wall. It feels all wild and new and uncertain, not knowing what it will be like to kiss someone else. And finally I kiss him.

It’s like a note strikes off-key. I suddenly feel cold. The pulsing excitement that made me pull him closer has dissolved into fear and I feel like I can’t breathe. I twist my head
away and push him backwards. He takes a moment to realise what’s going on and then drops his arms away from me, his eyes widened and confused.

I run round to the other side of the steps and then lunge up them two at a time. In the hallway upstairs I barge past people to get to the front door and then I’m out on to the street. The
chilly night air is a relief and I gulp it in, feeling space all around me. In the front window I think I see a couple of people looking out at me, so I walk over to a tree that hangs over the
pavement and crouch behind it so I can’t be seen.

I get my phone out and call Mia. There’s some funny dialling tone and I remember that she’s in France and hang up. I see Nish has sent me a text asking where I am, so I reply. She
must have gone back down to the cellar after her phone call.

Almost immediately there’s the sound of the front door opening and footsteps on the path. That was bloody quick. I peer around the tree. But it’s not Nish; it’s Rosie. She
comes out of the gate and sits on the wall. She has her phone to her ear. I don’t know who she’d be talking to at this time of night. Although after her ‘wild willies’
comment on the train I’ve suspected she might have a secret boyfriend. I don’t know why she’d want to keep it a secret anyway. Unless he’s weird. Or a criminal. I
can’t really imagine her going out with a criminal. When we tried to get her into a pub once it all got too much for her and when the barman came near us, she shouted, ‘WE AREN’T
SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.’

Before I can go to her, the front door swings open again and it’s still not Nish. It’s Spencer. He sees me and heads out through the gate. As he heads over, Rosie looks up and has a
panicky expression when she sees me. She tells the person on the phone she has to go and fumbles with the phone.

But by this point Spencer is standing between us.

‘Hey,’ he says, frowning. ‘Are you okay?’

I stare up at him, wishing I didn’t have to explain.

‘I told you I was mental.’

His eyebrows are raised but he sounds amused. ‘Am I that bad a kisser?’

At that moment I catch Rosie’s eye as she comes up behind him. She ends the call and has a very different expression to the panicked one she had a few moments ago.

But I can’t really process it and my brain must be all over the place because I thought the name disappearing from her phone screen said
Max
.

I swallow and look back to Spencer, standing there with his thumbs in his back pockets and just waiting for my explanation. He looks concerned, but he must just be wondering what the hell is
wrong with me. I bet other girls he’s kissed at parties don’t freak out and run off. Kissing people is supposed to the fun.

In my head, I tell him everything. That I was with someone for three years. That I’d never kissed anybody except him. How it’s all I know. And that all I could think about as we held
each other under the stairs was how Spencer doesn’t know me at all.

I thought Max would be the only person I kissed in my whole life.

Thinking that makes a big lump form in my throat that stops any words I want to say from passing my lips.

But just then, the front door opens again and Nish stomps out in her massive heels.

‘Where have you been?’ I shout, finding myself suddenly able to speak the moment I tear my gaze away from Spencer. I can feel his eyes still fixed on me. Then I notice Nish has got
mud on her dress and a twig in her hair. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Running round the back garden in the pitch black.’

That’s quite a weird thing to do. Maybe she’s drunk.

‘Next time,’ she says, removing the twig, ‘can you be more specific than
I’m outside by a tree
?’

I have a massive panic when I wake up at three a.m. in a random bed, before I remember that we crashed in one of Spencer’s housemate’s rooms. Granny said it was
fine to stay as long as there were no men in the room. I texted her before we went to bed letting her know it was a man-free zone. She replied,
Lock the door – they sneak
in.
I don’t really want to know how she knows that.

Nish is sleeping face down as usual. I am sure it’s not normal and I don’t know how she breathes, but Effie says she always does it. Tonight she has her arms by her sides so it looks
even weirder. Like she fell and knocked herself out. She also talks in her sleep and apparently used to really freak everyone out at sleepovers. Once Nish texted me in her sleep in the middle of
the night. It was quite terrifying to wake up to a message saying,
I can see you.

I sit up in the bed and peer over to where Rosie is sleeping on an inflatable mattress. Her phone is poking out of the top of her bag. I could creep over and just check if it
was
Max she
was talking to, but that’s a bit mental, even for me. It’s just that the idea that there could be something going on between Max and Rosie has made me feel like I’m fourteen again
and panicking that Max will definitely fancy my prettier friends more than me.

But, at the same time, I
want
there to be something going on. At least it would mean that Max had done something a bit wrong as well. Each other’s friends are totally off limits,
even if I’m the one who ended it. If he’d gone there it wouldn’t be all on me, who broke his heart and made him cry while I didn’t cry at all.

The sad feeling swells up again. It’s a cold sensation that makes me feel like my body is just an empty shell. Because I hurt the person who I was closest to. I swallow to force the sad
feeling back down. My eyes hurt, but still I haven’t cried. Everyone thinks I’m heartless.

The temptation just to sneak a quick peek at Rosie’s phone is too much. I just need to know. I slip out of the bed and creep forward, staring at Rosie, although I can only half see her in
the shadows, as if I will be able to somehow read in her face what is going on. She moves her head – and her eyes open and look right at me. She’s woken up and seems terrified! To be
fair, I must look quite scary looming over her like this. I decide to make it look like I’m sleepwalking and slowly turn and walk back to my bed.

Thinking about it, this probably looks even more frightening.

I lie on my side, closing my eyes but feeling all hot and panicky. What am I doing, being mental to Rosie? These guys were all here for me when I broke up with Max. When it happened Mia was
having a weekend in Wales with Jamie and she made him drive her straight back. She brought round an Indian takeaway and we sat in my room all day while she put on films that had Ryan Gosling with
his top off in them.

Mia let the others know, and when I got into college on Monday they’d made a Cheering Up Gabi brunch, because they know I don’t eat properly when I am sad. Rosie had made cupcakes.
She’s the one who’s good at hugs and saying lovely things. Nish gives practical advice like, ‘You should sack off men and be a lesbian.’ You wouldn’t think we’d
only been a gang for a year.

About an hour later I wake up again. It’s four now and I can still hear raving going on downstairs. I wonder if Spencer is still here. When Nish came out, I just ran over to her and
didn’t say anything to him. He called to me to wait, but I pretended not to hear.

I tried to tell Nish and Rosie that nothing was wrong, but they dragged me off and barricaded me in a toilet, so I told them that I kissed Spencer and it made me feel sick.

Nish said that was to be expected. When she and Effie went on a break, Nish got with some girl at a party to make Effie jealous and apparently when it came to it, she completely freaked out.

When she mentioned the jealous bit, I caught Rosie’s eye in the mirror and got a squeeze in my chest because it made me think of her phone call. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask
her about it.

We vowed to go back out and enjoy the party, just the three of us, and went back down for more dancing.

Spencer was there, dancing with some girl. Maybe that’s how it is for these uni types – one girl freaks out and runs away so they shrug and move on to the next one.

I kept looking over at them and may have accidentally evilled the girl. Spencer saw me looking a couple of times and had a curious expression, like he was trying to work me out.

Lying here and absentmindedly stroking Nish’s hair – it’s very soft – I realise two things properly: one – Spencer was looking over at me too, and two – right
now, I really need the loo.