Page 35 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

The guy says, ‘Do you have any weed?’

‘Sorry, I don’t smoke,’ I answer politely.

‘Pills?’

‘I do have Smints somewhere.’ I pat my pockets.

The girl with the pool has a best friend called Megan; she’s a bit older than us, greasy and rude with a real actual weekday job at the front desk of a Holiday Inn, and she is a slimy serpent. She shakes a bag of little white pills and that’s all it takes – Lowe is off with her, getting fucked up in the big house. This is where he can escape to a dark place I don’t and can’t understand. A locked part of him that I will never find a key for. And I didn’t get an invite.

I can’t take it any more.

‘Have you kissed that druggy Megan?’ I ask him, in a tone only my mother would use.

‘No!’ But there’s a smile to his voice. Sickening.

‘So what, do you like love drugs now?’ I make sure to sound as judgmental as possible.

‘No, I don’t love drugs. I’ve tried drugs, that’s all.’

‘Well, I feel like because you think I’m – you know – anti-drugs’ – OK, I’m making myself sound like I camp outside the Houses of Parliament with anti-drug flags – ‘well, I’m not like anti-drugs but yeah, I do think they’re the worst thing on the planet. Anyway, I feel like you’re, like, leaving me out.’

‘I just know you don’t like them, Ella, so I’m trying to be respectful by not rubbing it in your face.’

‘Being respectful would be not doing them because they’re dangerous.’ And I have future life plans for us so could do without you depreciating your insides as I really don’t want to be a widow and die alone. ‘People like die and stuff.’

‘You think it’s worse than it is; it’s not like that baby scene in Trainspotting. Look, why don’t you come hang with us one time?’ No, not hang. ‘You don’t have to do anything. Megan’s friend’s got a heated pool, innit, so just bring your swimming costume or whatever?’

Innit, really?

‘Hm. I reckon I’ll be busy.’

This is mostly because I don’t want anybody to see me in a bikini.

‘I haven’t even said when yet?’

‘I already know I’ll be busy, ta.’

Dad has moved from Brian’s and has his own place – a one bed next to Brixton prison: ‘But at least I’m not inside it, am I right, kids?’ he jokes. ‘Safest place in the world here – gotta be pretty stupid to commit a crime outside a prison now, dontchu?’ He thumbs-up at his neighbours behind the barred windows; one thumbs-up back.

Violet thinks Dad’s seeing someone: ‘Cos, not being funny, unless Dad’s wearing knickers these days, there are lacies in the laundry basket.’ I feel sick. ‘Sexy ones.’

‘Violet!’

‘Dad, man, what a rascal.’ Violet shakes her head cheekily, teeth clattering on the lolly of her Strawberry Dip Dab.

Later, when we’re tucked up on the pull-out sofa in Dad’s bare sitting room, with nothing to do except sleep and David Attenborough is soothingly murmuring about whales in the background, I try to talk the situation through with my little sister (well, as much as you can with a thirteen-year-old who devotes their entire purpose on the planet to experimenting with how many different types of treat they can dip into a chocolate fountain with a skewer – that is her entire life). But I’ve got no other options. I can’t talk to any of my friends about Lowe being off with me because then the love rumour mill will once again grind.

‘Sounds to me like he’s got himself a girlfriend,’ Violet says, matter of fact.

‘A girlfriend? How did I miss this?’

I am HORRIFIED.

‘Take a hint, Ella. He invited you to his mum’s funeral to be his friend, not to be his wife. Stop making it about yourself and move on.’

What she’s asking of me is genuinely impossible. ‘How?’

‘Just go and get a boyfriend of your own, duh?’

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