Page 30 of Our Song

I launched into the ferociously choppy, poppy riff that opened the song, then Tadhg started singing and I threw myself into the music like I was going into battle.

I turned and caught Tadhg’s eye and for a moment it was just the two of us, playing together, facing each other, looking at each other as if we were the only two people on earth.

We played the last notes, Brian gave a cymbal a final, thunderous smash, and the audience applauded and roared so loudly I felt dizzy.

The four of us stared back at the crowd, a little shellshocked.

We’d done it. We’d played our first proper gig. And every second of it had been magnificent .

Then, as we were walking off the stage, still in a daze, Jess ran up and gave Tadhg a huge hug.

‘Tim!’ she cried. ‘Oh my God, you were so good! That was incredible.’ She turned to me and beamed. ‘You were amazing, Laura. Tim never said you could play like that!’

Hours later, when I was in bed trying and failing to get to sleep, this was one of the sentences that kept replaying in my head. He’d never told her I was good in the band. Of course he hadn’t. Why would he ever talk to her about me?

Then Katie was flinging her arms around me and Sarah was congratulating me and the two of them were dragging me off to the bar.

‘Jesus,’ Katie whispered in my ear, ‘when you were playing that last song I thought he was going to start shifting you right there on stage, seriously.’

That sentence went round in my head later that night too.

The next two hours were a bit of a blur.

People kept coming up to me and saying how amazing we’d been, how cool I’d been.

People were buying me drinks, more drinks than I could consume.

It was dizzying. Ruairí invited us all back to a party in his house.

There was a febrile end-of-term mood in the air, as if anything might happen and any of us could do anything.

I don’t remember a single second of Shatner’s and Sourpuss’s sets.

I just knew that I mostly lost sight of Tadhg, apart from glimpses across the crowded venue of him talking to various friends and classmates. Including Jess.

Then, when I was on my way back from the loo after Sourpuss left the stage, he was suddenly in front of me.

‘There you are!’ he said, smiling down at me. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

‘Hey!’ I said, beaming back at him. ‘That was deadly, wasn’t it? Playing up there?’

‘That,’ he said, ‘was fucking brilliant.’

‘We need to do it again.’

‘We will,’ he said.

‘Ruairí’s having a thing later back in his house,’ I said. ‘He’s got a free gaff. What do you think?’

Tadhg hesitated and then said, ‘Well actually, Jess asked me back to her flat in Fitzwilliam Square for a drink.’

‘Oh, right!’ I said. ‘Okay. Cool.’

Back to her flat.

‘But if there’s, like, a big post-gig thing in Ruairí’s I can see if she wants to go …’

Don’t beg him to go to the party. Don’t show him how much you don’t want him to go to Jess’s flat.

‘Tadhg!’ I said, in a mock-scolding voice. ‘You can’t do that to Jess. If she’s invited you back to her place she won’t be up for Ruairí’s house with a huge crowd instead.’

‘Tim!’ And here was Jess, right between us. ‘Sorry, Laura, mind if I steal your bandmate for a minute?’

I plastered on a big smile. ‘He’s all yours!’

Back to her flat, back to her flat. He was going back to her flat. But maybe it was just a friendly thing. Maybe it was a party with all of their classmates. Maybe he wouldn’t go.

‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this,’ said a voice behind me.

I turned round. ‘ Fiachra? ’

There he was, the library crush who’d chatted me up after my last gig, the man I lost my virginity to, the man responsible for my first orgasm, the first person I was truly, if briefly, in love with.

‘You really were great on stage earlier,’ he said.

‘I think you might actually say that to all the girls,’ I said.

‘Only to you,’ he said with a grin.

I noted, in an almost detached way, that he was still very, very cute. He was almost as tall as Tadhg, though his dark hair was shorter and his style was still more Mo’ Wax DJ than shaggy retro indie boy.

‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

‘Paul from Shatner is in my psychology class,’ said Fiachra. ‘You know, I hoped the Laura on the posters would be you.’

‘Did you now?’ I said. I glanced over to the back of the room and saw Jess and Tadhg standing very close together. She said something and he laughed.

I made myself turn back to Fiachra and moved a little closer to him.

‘And why did you hope that?’ I said, raising my eyebrows.

‘Because you look really fucking hot when you’re playing the guitar,’ he said.

‘Oh yeah?’ I said. And despite myself, despite the fact that this was classic Fiachra – he was always incredibly flirty both while and after we were together, and whenever I flirted back even a little he pushed it with me as far as he could go – I felt a little thrill.

See, someone definitely finds me attractive!

‘You still look pretty hot now, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ he said. ‘All … tousled.’

I looked towards the back of the room. Jess’s hand was resting on Tadhg’s arm now as she laughed up at him. And he was smiling down at her as if she was the best thing he’d ever seen.

Fuck it, I thought. Fuck them. Mind if I steal your bandmate for a minute?

I looked up at Fiachra. ‘I don’t mind you saying so.’

He held my gaze for a long moment that was suddenly, genuinely, full of tension. Then he kissed me. And I kissed him back. Hard.

Fiachra was always a really good kisser.

See? I thought. See? I’m not just sitting around while Tadhg flirts with Jess.

I bit gently on Fiachra’s bottom lip and he pulled me closer to him, letting out a low growl of a breath.

His hands spanned my waist, something he always used to do when we were together, and it was very hot and familiar at the same time and I let myself go with it, I just kept kissing him and for a while I forgot about why I’d started doing it.

And then I remembered, and pulled back from him a little.

‘Wow,’ said Fiachra. ‘I should come to your gigs more often.’

I looked over at Tadhg and Jess.

He was cupping her face in his hands and kissing her like she was the love of his life.

Even though I thought I knew it was coming, even though I had just kissed Fiachra because I knew it was coming, I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. I literally couldn’t breathe.

‘Laura?’ said Fiachra. ‘You okay?’

‘I’ll be right back,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

I blindly pushed my way through the crowd and through the door to the tiny backstage dressing-room area.

Then I stumbled into the loo, slammed the door behind me, sat on the toilet seat and let out a keening noise that I had never made before.

An animal sound. I put my fists to my eyes as if that could stop the hot tears from coming.

I thought I had braced myself for seeing him with Jess but I clearly hadn’t done enough bracing because this felt worse than I could have imagined, this was terrible, this was unbearable …

‘Lol?’

It was Katie.

‘I saw them. I saw all of it. Fuck, Lol, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

I dragged myself to my feet, wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, opened the toilet door and stepped into the dressing room.

‘Are they still—?’

‘Don’t go out there,’ said Katie quickly.

So they were.

‘I need to go home,’ I said. ‘I can’t … I can’t be here.’

‘Okay,’ said Katie. ‘What’ll I say if he asks where you are?’

‘He won’t ask,’ I said. I looked in the dressing-room mirror.

My eyeliner was all smudged, but it had been a little smudged since I got off stage – it had been so hot and sweaty under the lights.

My eyes and nose were red. My mouth looked swollen but that was partly from crying and partly from kissing Fiachra.

‘I can’t go out looking like this. He can’t know I’ve been crying about him. ’

‘Just give it a minute,’ said Katie. ‘You can go soon.’

‘I was with Fiachra,’ I said.

‘I saw that too,’ said Katie. ‘Don’t worry about it. I know why you did it. Go on, splash a bit of cold water on your face and then powder your nose to take the shine off.’

I did all these things, feeling like a robot. Tadhg was with Jess. Tadhg was with Jess. I saw them together. I saw him kiss her like he loved her. Maybe he did love her.

He’s all yours!

‘There you go,’ said Katie. ‘You look grand now.’ She handed me my coat and I put it on.

And then the door of the dressing room opened and Tadhg and Jess came in, laughing.

For a moment Tadhg and I stared at each other. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I was terrified that he might be able to tell what I was thinking. I couldn’t go home straight away now. It would look like I was running away. Which was exactly what I wanted to do.

‘Hi!’ I said. My voice was way too high. I sounded unhinged.

Jess was glowing. She was so happy . She was as happy as I’d have been if Tadhg had kissed me like that. ‘Well!’ she said. ‘It looks like you met a fan tonight!’

It took me a moment to realise what she meant. And some supernatural strength I didn’t know I possessed must have overtaken me because I somehow managed to laugh and say, ‘Oh yeah, that was Fiachra. We, um, have a bit of history.’

‘Ooh, really? Good for you!’ said Jess. She was radiant.

She was clearly just waiting to get Tadhg back to her posh flat so she could have sex with him.

Oh God, that was actually going to happen tonight.

He was going to have sex with her. The thought was so extravagantly, outrageously painful I almost laughed.

This was ridiculous. How was this happening?

How was I just standing there smiling at them like a normal human being?

I wanted to run back into that manky toilet cubicle and howl like a dog.

I looked at Jess. She didn’t look at all uncomfortable to see me because, I realised, it had clearly never crossed her mind that I could be any sort of romantic competition.

I couldn’t meet Tadhg’s eye.

‘We’re actually going to head,’ he said. ‘I just came in here to get my guitar. Um, are you going to Ruairí’s party?’

I said, ‘I’ll check with Fiachra.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Tadhg. He picked up his guitar from the corner where we’d all dumped our stuff earlier. ‘Well, have a great night.’

‘You too!’ I chirped.

And then I watched Tadhg and Jess walk out of the room, hand in hand. Oh God, it hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt.