Page 40

Chapter Thirty-six

Francesca

I must have dozed off, because the next thing I know, there’s a sound that’s half a shout and half a grunt, and my eyes are snapping open. They’re bleary, crusted with sleep, and it takes me several seconds to get my bearings.

We’re sat on the airport floor, an almost-empty pizza box and half-eaten tube of Pringles in front of us.

Leon is leaning against me, snoring quietly in gentle little snuffling sounds, and I’ve been resting against him.

On his other side, just across from me, Gemma has startled herself awake – she’s the one who made that sound in her sleep, and blinks as she looks around.

It’s only when she squints at me and pats the top of her head that I remember Leon took her glasses off for her. I hand them over, trying not to jostle too much so I don’t wake him up.

‘Thanks,’ Gemma mumbles, voice thick and slow, and she smacks her lips before yawning widely. It sets me off, too. She looks up at the board and groans. ‘How is it barely even four o’clock? We’ve still got ages till our flight leaves!’

‘Oh, I don’t know, an hour and a half is nothing when we’ve been here for ten already.’

And, God, do I feel like I’ve spent ten hours in an airport.

My whole body is stiff and aching, there’s a disgusting taste in my mouth – I can’t have brushed my teeth since breakfast-time yesterday – and there’s a slightly fuzzy, disconnected feeling between my brain and body that hints at either still being a little bit drunk or else the beginnings of a hangover.

I’d give anything to have a hot bath and then burrow down into a big, soft, lovely bed, wrapped up in a terrycloth robe.

The wedding is in a little over six hours.

In six hours, I will know whether Marcus has chosen me or not.

Will I know if I want him to choose me, by then?

Gemma is pulling faces, running her tongue over her teeth, massaging a crick in her neck, and lifting up an arm to shamelessly sniff her armpit.

‘Reckon they’ve got any showers around here?’

‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ I say.

But she gets up anyway, groaning as she stretches. ‘There’s got to be a lounge or something around here somewhere …’ She looks down at me. ‘You coming? I’ve got some under-eye masks if you want to borrow them.’

Which, presumably, means I could do with using them. My face does feel puffy; I can only imagine the state I must be in. Even if I weren’t planning a romantic confession to Marcus, I can hardly show up at the wedding smelling of stale booze and looking a mess.

I consider letting Gemma go to look and report back.

I don’t want to be caught snooping around the wrong part of an airport, where they’re so tight on security.

Although after the carnage of this overnight stay – the obstacle-course games, the fist-fighting dads, sneaking into a shut-up restaurant …

What the hell?

‘What about Leon?’ I ask.

‘Oh, he’s a big boy, he’ll be fine.’

But Gemma helps me manoeuvre him gently around so that instead of leaning on me, he’s curled up on his suitcase much like she just was.

We pillow his head with his satchel – I’m not sure how comfy it is, but at least if someone tries to steal it, it will wake him up – and take our own bags into the bathroom.

The food and drinks we leave behind with Leon.

‘Minesweeping is a bold move at the best of times, but in an airport ?’ Gemma says, and sucks her teeth before saying, ‘Oof, wouldn’t want to chance it. Might be anything in those bottles. Could be some kind of chemical explosive.’

‘Gemma!’ I hiss, horrified, looking around as if a SWAT team is already sprinting our way to tackle us. ‘You can’t say things like that in an airport!’

She rolls her eyes, and I smother a giggle into my hand.

The two of us scout out the nooks and crannies of the airport terminal, searching down corridors between closed-for-the-night shops, trying doors just in case.

A slightly rumpled man in a suit walks past us, carrying a briefcase, and Gemma’s face lights up. ‘The diplomats! Duh! They’re bound to have better facilities where all the staff and ambassadors cut through, right?’

‘Um …’

But as she chases off down the path where the man just came from, we come face to face with a burly, grey-haired security guard with a thick moustache.

He’s the very opposite of an Inspector Clouseau type: I’m intimidated enough to try to hide behind Gemma a little bit.

But then he quirks an eyebrow at Gemma, as if not surprised to see her in the least, and she says something in rapid French.

I only catch the word ‘ douche ’, and the security guard laughs.

He replies, and although Gemma tries again, she obviously fails because she turns back to me with a sigh.

‘Apparently I’ve used up my “free pass to sneak into prohibited areas” already. Whoops. Oh well, pit wash in the sink it is.’

When we get to the loos, it’s instantly clear that while Gemma merely looks worn out and rumpled, I am an absolute wreck .

There’s mascara smeared all around my eyes and my hair is somehow equal parts matted and frizzy.

There are huge, dark shadows under my eyes – which are also red and puffy, and that’s quite the feat, even if it is also a bit of a disaster.

Just as well we won’t board for at least another hour! It might take me the better part of a week to put myself back to rights.

We set up with our suitcases open on the floor.

Gemma peels off her shirt to stand there in just her bra, using hand soap and splashing water over herself.

I hesitate for a minute before following suit, deciding I’d rather be clean than modest – it’s not that different to being in a changing room at the gym, I reason, just with a little bit less dignity.

When Gemma flings a scoop of water up to her arm, it splashes all over me and I yelp, jumping away.

‘Oops,’ she says, not sounding very sorry at all.

I splash her back.

‘Oi!’ she shouts. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose!’

I splash her again, and she tries to run for cover before doubling back to flick some more water over me. We’re both laughing, though, and there’s a childish abandon about the whole thing that has me still grinning to myself even after we both go back to our awkward sink-washes.

We dry off with bunched-up wads of rough toilet paper. Gemma borrows my little travel-bottle of body wash, and lends me her dry shampoo and a pack of eye masks, which she applies for me.

‘It feels like a sleepover,’ I say. ‘Like we’ll do sparkly eyeshadow and silly hairstyles next.’

She smiles. ‘God, I miss a good sleepover like that. We didn’t know what we had when we were kids, huh? Now, you stay over with a friend, and it’s all about having the good guest towels and making those pretentious little baskets of travel-minis for them to use.’

I must look at her blankly, because then she adds, ‘Well. Maybe that’s a bit of a Kayleigh thing.’

‘I can’t say any of my friends do that,’ I tell her carefully, ‘but it sounds nice.’

She snorts, but says, ‘So what are your friends like? Are they totally Team Marcus, supporting women’s rights and wrongs when it comes to their delulu bestie chasing an engaged man?’

I cringe. ‘Actually, they … They don’t know. Nobody does, except you and Leon.’

Gemma’s eyes bug wide. ‘Shut the front door. As if!’

‘Well I told them everything when he stayed the night and after I rejected him, and it was all so humiliating and upsetting that afterwards, I just … They’d tried to bolster me back up by saying he wasn’t worth it, and I didn’t know how to tell them.

They’d have only told me the truth, and I suppose I knew I didn’t really want to hear it. ’

‘Oh, Fran.’ Gemma’s face crumples in sympathy, but that only makes me feel worse – guilty , suddenly, not because of Marcus, but because of all I’ve been keeping from my nearest and dearest. They’ll forgive me, I know that, and we’ll laugh about it later down the line – but I also know it’ll hurt them to find out the whole truth.

Loving Marcus has made me selfish in a way I don’t recognise, and don’t like.

‘They’re not like your gang from school,’ I say softly to Gemma.

‘There’s six of us. We all lived together through uni and completely bonded.

We’ve been there for each other’s milestone moments – new jobs, moving house, getting a dog or getting pregnant or getting engaged …

We share everything with each other. We’re always there for each other. ’

‘Except about Marcus.’

I nod.

‘Wasn’t that kind of a red flag? If your friends are so great, I mean, wasn’t that a sign, that they’d disapprove of this whole thing?’

‘Yes, but it’s a running joke with us how I pick rubbish boyfriends and always get my heart broken. I think I just … needed to believe this time it was different.’

Her head cocks to the side as she studies my face, her eyes soft and serious all at once. Gemma sets a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘Do you still believe that?’

I don’t know. I wish I did, but I’ve romanticised too much of my relationship with Marcus, and coupled with him leading me on and all the little white lies I’ve told my friends and family, all the horrible truths I’ve learned tonight …

Is it too late to turn back? Or is the only way out through ?

When I don’t answer, Gemma just gives me a small smile and squeezes my shoulder. ‘Well, if anybody’s got this, it’s you. I believe in you, babe.’

My heart swells as she turns away. Whatever Gemma believes about herself, I really don’t think she is a bad person.

I do think, maybe, it’s something she’s heard enough that it’s the part she thinks she has to play, which is such a sad thought.

I watch her bend awkwardly next to the sink to wash her feet and I say, ‘You know, Leon said something to me earlier that I’m …

It rang a bit true, and it’s something I think maybe you need to hear as well. ’

‘Oh yeah?’ It comes out blasé but there’s tension in her shoulders.

‘He said that he wished I could see I was worth more. And … tonight, I’ve realised maybe that’s true. That I’ve been accepting the bare minimum and thinking it’s enough, and not knowing that I’m worth more – and deserve more – than that.’

Gemma scoffs, and lifts a playful eyebrow at me. ‘I could’ve told you that, Fran. I think I did , in fact, when I pointed out that he was breadcrumbing you with those texts.’

‘Well, you deserve more, too. And you’re worth more.

Your so-called best friend took the apartment you found, manipulated you out of a job that you created, even swanned in and stole the boy you were messaging before you could meet him.

I know your relationship with Kayleigh goes back a long time, and there’s more to it than just those things – and maybe that used to be the case, but it doesn’t sound like it is anymore.

When you talk about her, you don’t sound happy, or like you’re talking about someone you love so you accept them, faults and all.

I think you should see that you’re worth more, too. ’

I think, for a moment, that I’ve gone too far. Gemma’s teeth are gritted, and she’s refusing to look at me.

Then she sighs, and it all starts spilling out.

‘Yeah,’ she begins, ‘but Fran, if I don’t have Kayleigh, I don’t have anyone .’

She tells me about how her dad walked out when she was little and her mum blamed her for it; how her mum was busier dating than looking after Gemma, so Kayleigh was her lifeline; how, when they left for uni, that was the end of her relationship with her mum and she and Kayleigh both had their sights set on a bigger, better, more glamorous future than the one they’d had growing up.

She tells me that while she craved success because it meant stability , Kayleigh just wanted a swanky lifestyle, resentful of the ‘small’ life she’d had growing up – which Gemma always envied, and which Kayleigh was too materialistic to ever really appreciate.

‘As if the latest trendy top in River Island or the cool new bag from Topshop that was in Cosmo that month was worth more than having your mum there to pick you up from netball practice, or a dad around to take you to the cinema on the weekend,’ she snipes, wiping away a tear.

She tells me that she and Kayleigh built their glamorous new lives like they dreamed of and Kayleigh was always there with her, so did it really matter if they weren’t good for each other?

And she tells me about Brittney, the ex who said she wanted all the things Gemma did – a home, a partner, a life together with some cats or maybe a dog, and a nice holiday every now and then, and no kids …

And called her ‘exhausting’ and ‘clingy’ and broke up with her, when Gemma thought it was going so well.

‘I probably was exhausting and clingy,’ she tells me with a crooked grin. ‘I am very hard work. I’m kind of a lot, I know. And FYI, I do not need the psychoanalysis work of you telling me I don’t want kids because my childhood was so rough, thank you very much.’

‘Oh! I wasn’t going to.’ It hadn’t even crossed my mind.

Gemma blinks in shock, and I can see a pre-prepared rant dying on her lips.

‘Right. Okay. Well. Sorry, it’s just – I’m used to …

’ She swallows. ‘The girls always say I’ll change my mind when I’m older or it’s just that I haven’t met the right person to make me want kids, and Kayleigh likes to point out it’s my “childhood trauma” that prevents me from ever being a mother.

Like it’s a personal failing or whatever.

And not like I just think kids are kind of gross and a lot of hard work and, like, you know, I’m hard enough work on my own, thanks. It’s not for me.’

‘They do have very sticky hands,’ I say, and Gemma laughs.

‘Right? Thank you! Why are they always so sticky? Why? What are they doing? I don’t want to know.’ She fidgets a bit. ‘I, uh … I do realise that it’s a toxic friendship. For the record. And I know the obvious answer is to walk away.’

‘But it’s not that easy. I know.’

I think it’s about time to take off the eye masks; I peel them away to rub in the left-behind serum, and am astonished at how well they’ve worked. I look halfway human again. It’s a miracle.

I study my reflection, and it’s hard to recognise myself in it. I no longer look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, but I do look like I’ve been through something – in a way that’s squared my shoulders, has me standing a little bit taller, steadies my gaze.

This girl – she’s someone who looks like she’s worth more, and knows it.