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“Are you certain? You earned your place at that college, Lola. I mentioned your name to them but you got in on your own merit. You know that this opportunity won’t come again. The deadline is this Saturday.”
“I’m certain.” Iwascertain. I was.
He straightened, and that displeased look returned to his face, reminding me that Mark Tafferty had two very different sides—one where he was happy with you and one where he wasn’t.
“Very well. The board won’t be happy with mywastedrecommendation but I’m sure they’ll get over it.” His gaze wandered to my neck and humiliation clenched in my gut. I knew he was seeing the marks Alfie had left there. His lips thinned in disgust. “You should cover those, they’re unprofessional.” With that, he turned and walked out.
Mark Tafferty was a man I’d admired for years. I’d spent this last year hoping for his good opinion and respect. It turns out, I’d had it all along and in one fell swoop, I’d lost it.
And I had no one to blame but myself.
Sixty-Five
“So, I guess Mark isn’t a total dick after all.” I’d just finished filling Keira in on the conversation I’d had with Mark today. Not all of it, just the discovery that Mark had recommended me for a place at my dream college. She’d been interested when I’d needed her, but now, much to my amusement, she was barely paying attention. Keira’s face was flushed a soft pink, partly because of the wine and partly because of the ‘burly guys’ sent to us courtesy of Alfie, who were currently loading an armchair into my van. We sat on the old bench in her front garden and watched the guys work.
“Mmm, I guess,” she mumbled, sounding distracted. I looked over at my friend just in time to see an eyebrow arch wickedly as one of the guys lifted his shirt to wipe sweat from his face, giving us a generous flash of his tanned abdomen.
“Hello? You alive in there?” I flicked her arm playfully, and she nudged me back but didn’t take her eyes off the men. I decided to wait it out and sure enough, a few minutes later, Keira abandoned me and I was left to enjoy the show. The guys didn’t stand a chance as she sauntered over to them and began flirting.
Half an hour later, when both guys had left with her number, I got her attention back. We moved onto her front step and Keira lit up a cigarette.
“You’re smoking again?”
“Stress smoking,” she answered and I noticed for the first time the tension in her face. Her almost-empty family home echoed behind us. Her stuff was nearly all packed up and she’d already decided where she’d be living in London. I’d looked at the pictures of her new tiny bedroom in a three-person flat-share and had felt a twinge of jealousy, which was ridiculous considering the kind of luxury I was going to be living in. Yet it bothered me.
“You scared?”
“No,” she said and then gave me a small smile that told me she was terrified. “You figured out what you’re going to do yet? I’d be less scared if you were coming with me.” She took another drag on her cigarette and looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
“Yeah, I know what I’m going to do.”
“Why do I feel like you’re about to let me down?” She blew out smoke and I watched it plume into the open air. “Have you told Alfie about college?”
“No, I decided that he didn’t need to know,” I said and she snorted.
“You don’t think it’s weird that you’ve told everyone except him?” I opened my mouth to answer but again she cut me off. “So, you’re leaving with him then?” She turned her gaze on me again, her eyes searching mine. I took a breath and straightened up. I needed to just tell her and get it over with.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Why?”Why?I racked my brain, sorting recent events into boxes, things I could tell her and things I couldn’t. I didn’t knowwhen I’d started doing that, but it had become a constant habit when I spoke to people now.
“We just…we talked about it and we decided it was the right decision.” That wasn’t a lie, I was just omitting a whole lot of information. And she knew it. She stared at me. Waiting. “We had a fight and I just realised that I’d rather be with him than anywhere else.”
“Is that right? So what was this fight about?”
There was no point lying to her. “I kissed Bradley. Or, rather, he kissed me.” Her eyebrows raised slightly but she didn’t speak. “I told Alfie. We talked and decided that I should leave with him. That he’s where I want to be.” I wanted her to be happy for me, but more than that, I wanted her to believe me. Ineededher to believe me.
“I bet he was thrilled.” She looked away, staring at nothing in particular as she sipped her wine.
“Yeah, he was pretty happy,” I said, remembering the look on his face this morning when I’d told him I was still in.
“I meant about Bradley,” she snapped. “I mean, it’s kind of perfect if you think about it. He wants you to leave with him, you’re on the fence, and then this perfect piece of leverage falls right into his lap. He must have been over the moon.” She gave a dry laugh and I stared at her, trying to wrap my head around what she was implying. “Why did you even tell him about Bradley in the first place?”
“We’d had a fight about me lying. I’d lost my pills again and hadn’t told him and then?—”
“You’ve been losing your pills?” She laughed. “Jesus, Lo.”
“I know, I’m an idiot.” By some miracle though, I'd been smart enough to remember to take it during our weekend screw-a-thon. I wasn't sure I'd taken it at the right times, but if I peered through the fuck-fog I could remember popping that tiny pill.