I shrugged, not giving him the pleasure. I would never give him the pleasure again. Stop it, brain, stop it, stop it, stop it.
Smiling and shaking his head in disbelief once more, he turned towards the checkout. My mind objected whilst my legs followed. Of course, they did. I’d followed him all the way to Australia – unbeknownst to me, but still. He looked over his shoulder to check I was still there. I desperately wished I wasn’t – not looking or feeling like this.
‘Yeah, so we’ll head back to mine,’ Sam repeated as if trying to convince himself it was a good idea. ‘Then you can get dry. I assume you have a change of clothes in there?’ He raised a mocking eyebrow at my supersized rucksack, trying to make light of the situation.
‘Nope. Just the body of the last guy who mocked my backpack.’ I smiled sweetly, trying to quip back the control I could feel quickly tumbling away. Sam laughed out loud and with one hand pulled the rucksack off my back and slung it over a single shoulder, disposing of my umbrella-stick at the same time.
‘Sound good?’ he asked again, my mouth still closed, my mind working on overdrive to make sense of the scenes playing before me. ‘It’s about a ten-minute walk away?’
‘Oh, I…’ I began, remembering for a moment that this wasn’t a dream. It was too weird. Why was he here? And why did he want me to come back to his? Back to Sam’s usually ended one way. And, as much as that familiar thought still sent shivers down my rain-soaked legs, did I really want to fall back into bed with the one man I knew for a fact could break my heart? Well, yes. I did. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I had come to Sydney for a new life, not my old one. But here it was, staring me in the face, randomly finding me one unbought bottle away from a breakdown. It was impossible, yet undeniable. Yes, I had promised Zoe this trip was about me moving forwards, moving on, just like when she’d helped me block him post break-up. But she’d also made her promises in return. I promise you, Jess; her words circled around my mind as I studied Sam’s expression mere inches before me. If you and Sam are meant to be together, you’ll find a way back to each other – and it won’t be through ruddy fucking Facebook. Well, she was right about that. And here he was. Surely, that had to mean something?
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ I couldn’t help but ask. This is your chance, Sam. Your opportunity to steer us both back in the right direction, because I sure as hell don’t know which way that is. ‘We could raincheck…’ I tried to give him, give us, an out, not meaning to make him laugh in the process. He always did find me funny. ‘If you already have plans, we could just…’
‘Jess. It’s you.’ Sam smiled, saying the words I had so longed to hear. ‘Here, now,’ he continued, laughing at the hilarity of it all. ‘I’d cancel my plans if I had any.’
‘In that case…’ I smiled, ready to surrender, but he had already started to lead the way. I followed, my heart thudding and mind tumbling with memories I had tried my best to lock away.
9 September 2012 – Nottingham, England
Three thuds shocked me from sleep; three more saw me struggle to my feet. I skirted around the pint of water I had placed strategically by my bed, stumbling into the pile of papers yet to find their place in my room. Shit. My head throbbed like the bassline in the club we had been in only hours ago as I staggered to the light switch on the other side of the room – and here I was thinking our student fees would stretch to a bedside lamp. The mirror threatened me with my reflection: last night’s make-up scrawled across my off-white face. Thud, thud, thud. There was no time to rectify it now. At least I had come home earlier than the rest of them, muttering every excuse other than the truth: I can’t wait to get to the studio again. I swung open the door to see clenched knuckles raised, preparing for the next knock.
My eyes narrowed as the harsh fluorescent light from the corridor flooded into my room, the fist lowering as the face behind it emerged: stubbled and strong, the angles of his jawline mirrored in the contours of his wedged shoulders, pulling his top taut. Blinking slowly, I searched his green eyes for answers, but they were too busy scanning my oversized T-shirt, emblazoned with whatever beer they were pushing to freshers, as I pulled it further over my bare legs.
‘Tell me you’re Jess.’ His forehead crinkled, his expression caught between cross and concerned.
‘I’m Jess.’ I nodded. I’d crack quickly under torture – especially if the perpetrator looked like him. I spared one hand from my hemline to salvage my hair.
‘Thank fuck,’ he sighed, somewhere between exuberance and exacerbation. Even his appearance seemed in conflict – his floppy fringe frivolous, rich-boy boat shoes tied tight. He turned to leave, my body knowing to follow. Seconds later he pointed to a pile of sequins, hair and impossibly long legs, concertinaed into a ball against the wall.
‘I think she belongs to you.’
I looked at the figure. I couldn’t see her face but it was impossible not to recognise that dress. It was the one she had tried to get me to wear as she’d invited herself to get ready in my room – the one she’d taken her scissors to just to shorten the hemline. I’d told her it made me look like a prostitute. She’d told me I looked like a call girl. Two very different things, apparently. I looked from him to her as I forced my shirt further down my legs. Right now, I look like a prostitute. The tramp, the princess and the boat-boy. It wasn’t quite the tangle I had expected for my first night at uni.
‘You are Jess, right?’ he pressed on, his broad stature making him look older than the drink-stains on his T-shirt betrayed him to be.
‘I am.’ I nodded again. ‘And you are?’
‘Good.’ He dismissed my question, looking back to our bundle. ‘She stumbled into my room’ – he pointed a few doors down – ‘looking for you. Claims she’s drunk.’ He raised his eyebrows at her slumped figure. I couldn’t help but laugh. I think she might be on to something.
‘She said that you’ll look after her… that you’re her best friend.’
I looked down at her, pretty and passed-out. We’d known each other for a minute. But she was cool and intelligent and messy and feisty. I could think of worse friends to have.
‘Do you even know her? Or is she just some crazy girl off her tits?’
‘Yes.’ I smiled again. ‘And yes.’ Then, rolling my eyes, ‘Her name is Zoe.’
He laughed, softening a little now his mission was complete. Well, almost. ‘Need help getting her inside?’ He grinned, arms folded as he watched me try to navigate her limbs whilst trying not to expose either of us in the process. Reaching his arms underneath her legs, he lifted, as she folded against him. I held my breath as he entered my room – messy and unfinished but awash with colour, my paintings and sketches stuck to the bare white walls. Charcoal ladies danced across parchment in lines and motion, early sketches of rolling sand dunes and swirling waves sending us somewhere sunny.
‘Woah.’ His eyes scanned the walls, fixing on the yellows and blues of a landscape not yet formed, as I kicked a rogue pair of knickers under the bed. ‘You picked these?’ He looked to me, seemingly unaware of the woman still in his arms.