The Worst of Me (6 page)

Jonah:
Damn, I was aiming for ‘impossible’. Do you want me to come and pick you up at your house or meet you somewhere further away? What’s easiest?

I leaned back from the keyboard and looked guiltily around. Would it be safe for Jonah to come to my place, or would Paul be lurking when I left the house, ready to spring out and start trying to shake hands with him?

Another email appeared:
Cassie – pizza night tonight at Iso’s, what do you reckon? Unless you have another hot date! Finian xoxox

I did! It would have been lovely to hang out with the girls when I had really juicy news for them. But sometimes it’s better to make the news than to report it.

Then one more email popped into the box:
Feeling lonely. Cheer me up? Sam x

So I wrote to Sam, taking my time. I had good things
to tell, but I didn’t want to sound smug when he was blue, so I threw in a couple of my own problems, then found myself opening up about all my insecurities and worries, telling him everything I wanted to say to everyone else, all the sad stuff about my mum and dad that I was already worried I’d overhassled Jonah with, and I asked him tons of questions about how men thought. By the end of it, the email that had been supposed to make Sam feel better made me feel better: I often found a way of turning trying to be nice into being quite selfish. At the bottom, I added:
Want to hang out tonight?

And it wasn’t just being nice: I would have loved an evening with Sam. I almost
needed
to fit one in before I saw Jonah, it would help me get my head together and play things the right way. But obviously part of me was also hoping Sam would say no. He did:
There’s literally no way I’m tagging along on a date where I’m not one of the romantic leads, looking like your comedy sidekick. But it’s nice to be asked. As a reward I will analyse your new romance as much as you like and give you brilliant advice. Full report when you get home, please.

I sent a short reply to Finian, turning down pizza night. It felt good to let them know I hadn’t needed them after all – not to gloat, but to get back from feeling like the saddo who hadn’t been invited to the best party.
But Jonah being my boyfriend wouldn’t feel real until he and my friends had met. I told Jonah I’d meet him outside the shops round the corner from my house, and asked him to stay in touch by text now because I’d probably be offline for the rest of the day. Then I put the computer to sleep, having been typing solidly for two hours. I had to think of something to wear. I held off showering, too, it seemed stupid to have one too early as I’d have started to wilt by the time I left – but if I stayed in my PJs I knew my mum would come back from the shops and complain about me lazing around all day. I put some jeans and a white T-shirt on and brushed my hair back into a tight ponytail. As I heard her car coming up the drive, I put the kettle on. I didn’t want to fight.

She was alone. Paul played football on Saturdays, she’d have dropped him off. She had a car full of supermarket food and I helped her in with it.

‘Are you feeling better today?’ she said, which made me bristle, because it seemed to say I’d been the unreasonable one the night before.

‘I wasn’t in a bad mood yesterday,’ I said.

‘Well . . .’ my mum said, and then, infuriatingly, acted as if she was trying to silence herself because it would be unwise to fight with me over this, like I’d go crazy ‘again’. I didn’t want to fight. But there was no point making things worse.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I really wasn’t.’ And I even put some comedy sulkiness into my voice, on purpose, as if maybe there
had
been a bit of that, me being a teenager, all difficult and angry.

‘It’s hard for Paul to know how to talk to you,’ Mum said. She made herself busy filling the fridge, and she didn’t look at me once. ‘He’s afraid of coming on too much. He knows he’s not your dad.’

‘He doesn’t have to try to be,’ I said. My mum shoved at an overstuffed freezer drawer and the noise it made was like fingernails down a blackboard.

‘Do you want to talk about this new boy?’ she said.

I laughed. ‘No!’

She turned away, looking hurt.

‘Well what do you want to know? I told you his name, where he’s from, what he looks like. That he’s nice. That it’s really early days!’

‘I don’t know how I should talk to you about boys,’ she said, and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I didn’t have a mother at your age. I don’t know what everyone else is doing. What is everyone else doing?’

I poured her a cup of tea and sat down too. She sipped the tea quietly.

‘I think they do it the same way you do,’ I said. ‘It’s like you said, it’s hard when Paul talks to me.’

‘Are you seeing him again tonight?’

‘Yes.’

‘You haven’t even asked me if you can!’

I felt the rage rising in me again. It was the way she made it like a game, and only she knew the rules. Sometimes we were grown up and talking together like friends, then in an instant things changed and I had to remember that we were not equal at all.

‘You asked me if I was seeing him again tonight. I should have said that I
wanted
to see him again tonight. Will that be okay?’

‘What’s his name again?’

‘Jonah.’

‘I know that. Jonah what?’

‘Jonah Brooks. Are you going to google him?’ Every time I made a joke I knew she might take it the wrong way – but I kept trying, because I wanted her to loosen up.

‘I probably will, actually,’ she said, not making a joke, but aware that it sounded like one. The older I got, the more I understood my mum’s sense of humour. She hardly ever laughed but she often said funny things, knowing they were funny to other people, and liked it when they laughed. ‘Do you want to bring him round? You can sit downstairs with him, I’ll stay upstairs. I won’t embarrass you.’

‘We’re meeting up with his friends,’ I said. ‘I can’t bring them all round here.’

‘Hmm,’ my mum said. ‘All boys again?’

‘Probably.’

‘Just be careful with boys. When they’re all together, they make their own rules.’

‘I don’t know what that means,’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’

She sighed, as if I was wearing her down. ‘It just means, be careful.’

I was feeling triumphant when I called her later that evening. The five of us: me, Steve, Lewis and Dom, and Jonah, had opted to go to Jonah’s house. A big house, on a street full of big houses, quiet outside, posh and lovely inside. We were drinking red wine with his parents while his ten-year-old sister, Lucy, made everyone laugh by insulting her big brother and doing impressions of him. Jonah’s dad said he’d give me a lift home, and his mum asked if I wanted to let my mum know because she might let me stay out later.

‘We’ll all talk loudly in the background when she picks up,’ Jonah’s mum said. ‘So she’ll know it’s true and you’re safe, and not necking in a park with a bottle of alcopops.’

I must have blushed, because she said sorry and smiled even more. She wasn’t very like my mum – she was warm and confident, but scary too.

My mum answered her phone and agreed to letting me stay till midnight, asking about five times if that would be okay with Jonah’s dad. She sounded very
timid, as if she could tell I was with posh people just from the way her phone had rung.

‘Which film are you going to watch, anyway?’ Jonah’s dad said. ‘I could let you have something that will actually change your lives, something genuinely good, you know?’

‘We’re always very grateful for your recommendations, Mr B,’ Steve said. ‘But I don’t think we should watch porn when Cassidy’s here.’

They all laughed, Jonah’s dad the loudest. ‘Don’t pay any attention to him, Cassidy,’ he bellowed. ‘I’m talking about Godard, maybe
The Godfather
. Something that will educate these hoodies. I’m afraid you’re not likely to get anything improving from them.’

‘Actually, we met Cassidy at a clever film,’ Jonah said.

‘Go in by mistake, did you?’ his dad said. He turned to me. ‘You probably had to explain the plot to them.’ I paused, starting to smile, while the guys exploded with laughter around me. ‘You did?’ Jonah’s dad said. ‘Ha-haaaa!’

It was nice, genuinely funny, but in some ways the friendliness was as full-on as Paul’s awkward, forced strictness was at my house, and I could have done with less attention. I was relieved when the guys moved into a room they called the den, leaving the grown-ups and cute little sis behind. There was a massive telly and Blu-ray in
there, and Jonah’s mum had given us plates of bread and cheese, olives and ham and sausagey things to eat. There were two sofas making an L-shape in one corner. Jonah and I took one, Steve and Dom took another, and Lewis sat on the floor in front of them, leaning against their sofa. Jonah put his arm round me straight away, and maybe no one noticed or maybe no one cared. Dom put a horror film on and there was silence for the first twenty minutes. Then Steve said something funny, then Jonah said something funny, and after that they all commented most of the time. I was happy for them to talk over the film because it was really scary, and I was glad I wasn’t getting a bus home.

We sneaked in a couple of cheeky little snogs at the most gory moments, but mostly we just held hands and joined in with the joking. There was a lovely mellow vibe. It made me feel like part of a long-standing couple, the way things had been at Isobel’s house when Ian joined me and my mates. Better, though. These people were letting me pretend to be someone I’d never been before, someone quicker and braver and prettier and better. I even seemed to be getting away with it.

‘So what’s with the Cinderella story?’ Sam said. ‘The last time I talked to you you were moping around, not being invited to the ball.’

Hmm, freaky! Jonah had called me Cinderella because I had to go home too early. This was a sign, or something. ‘I know,’ I said.

‘These plastic chairs are really uncomfortable.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that.’ I’d taken Sam to the café in the record shop where Jonah and I had gone on our first proper date. ‘I’ve only just discovered this place, I thought it was cute.’ I noticed that the cake was dry and the coffee had been brought to the table already cold. Things were always worse when you recommended them to other people.

‘I’ve been here before,’ Sam said. ‘With a guy I thought might be straight and confused, but wasn’t: he
was definitely gay. And definitely didn’t want me. Did you come here with Jonah?’

‘Oh, Sam,’ I said. He always skimmed over his romantic failures, and if I pressed him about them, he made a joke and changed the subject. ‘And yes, Jonah brought me here on Friday. I’ve never been in before, I thought it was just a record shop.’

‘So he’s a bit of an indie kid?’

‘No, you definitely wouldn’t say that if you saw him.’

‘What is he, then?’

‘Not everyone belongs to some kind of tribal category,’ I said, comedy-scolding him. ‘I think Jonah’s really too mature to be put into —’

Sam laughed.

‘All right, when I say mature, I just mean . . . he talks about real things, you know, the world, politics, not just —’

‘But
you
don’t!’ Sam said. ‘What are you talking about when he’s talking about the world and politics?’

‘Oh shut up!’ I laughed. ‘I’m
listening
. He’s good for me.’

‘Do you really like him? Or are you just trying to improve yourself while you’re getting over Ian?’

I thought about Jonah. His sexy, gorgeous, film-star face, the way he seemed to have been designed for me to hold, to walk with, exactly the right shape and size
for me. My head got light and fizzy, like lemonade sparkling in sunshine, and my lips pulled back in a smile so silly and wide that I tried to fight it.

‘OK, you don’t have to look so
happy
,’ Sam said. ‘I had about ten minutes of you being my fellow sad single friend, it’s not fair.’

‘You had all summer!’

He talked over me. ‘I don’t want to hear it. Don’t tell me. But I do want to meet him. You said he’s got rugger-bugger mates, though – aren’t they usually homophobic? The kind of homophobic who take naked showers together, wear each others pants on their faces and call me a shirtlifter?’

‘I said Dom
looked
like a rugby player, I don’t know if he plays it, though. Look, Jonah’s got sweary, liberal parents, they gave us wine to drink, they’re the kind of people my mum’s boyfriend would be terrified by. I think the one thing I can count on Jonah being is politically correct.’ My phone beeped with a text. I glanced at it. Fron Jonah. I tried not to smile.

Sam rolled his eyes. ‘Ughh, don’t show me, don’t tell me, I don’t want to see it. What’s he saying? Miss you already? Ooh you’re such a good kisser? I heart you?’

I grinned and said nothing. He glanced at me and I rolled my eyes.

Sam laughed. ‘Let me see.’

* * *

Monday morning was the next test. We were definitely a couple now, and that was never an easy thing to debut in a school setting. I was eating breakfast in the kitchen, distractedly watching telly programmes made for tiny kids. The same ad for hideous sparkly pink shoes had appeared in every single break, and its weird little jingle was starting to feel like part of my brain tissue. My mobile rang in the living room. My mum didn’t seem to hear it, she was eating toast and reading the
Daily Mail
.

‘How about,’ said Jonah’s voice, ‘meeting up now-ish, and we can get each other out of our systems before we have to go into school and mostly ignore each other?’

Happy, sad, amused, confused. Oh, and lustful. But if I was going to meet Jonah before school I wasn’t going to waste time getting clarification on the phone. I didn’t have any make-up on yet.

‘Mum, I’m gonna set off now and get in early,’ I called. I drew hasty kohl lines around my eyes, then added lipstick, blotted with my fingers and rubbed the excess on my cheeks. A smudged coat of mascara. The light in the living room was flattering, it looked good enough.

My mum came in. ‘How come?’ she said.

‘That was Isobel on the phone, she left her jotter in her locker, she hasn’t done her physics homework,’ I said. ‘She needs to borrow my notes, so she can try and do it before first period. I’m gonna go and meet her for a coffee.’