Page 72 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

‘But, Ella, how am I going to bring a guy back to that?’ Aoife whispers to me. And I don’t have the answer to that question.

When we get to the festival, we follow an ant-trail of very cool people, heaving our bags to the tropical campsite, the best on the map. We track through the dust to find the perfect spot, overhearing some know-it-all saying, ‘Close to the bathrooms but not too close, sun spots but mostly shade, good ground … ’ Aoife takes the piss, stomping her Havaianas on the floor like she knows what she’s doing, when in reality we’re copying their every move. That is until their tents pop up and they run off to the bar. Meanwhile we have to resurrect the skeleton of what may as well be a diplodocus. This can’t be real. We’re sweating; every pole is like lifting a log and it doesn’t even have a zip, but—

‘Oh, hell no, not toggles.’

Toggles aren’t going to stop us getting attacked – oh no actually they might. We start laughing crazily; people stop and stare at us and that makes us laugh more.

Done and dusted – no literally, it is like we’ve deliberately rolled in dust, and we’re so sweaty everything seems to stick to us – we take a cool shower in the communal block and then, finally, arm in arm, we plod down the dry crumbling brown sugar dirt hill to buy a pack of cold beers and a massive bag of delicious holiday crisps.

With the festival not beginning until tomorrow, we want to save our energy. We lie on the ground, outside our tent, close to the stars. I feel like I’m in that book Where The Wild Things Are, and feel a sense of bravery and pride. But also, the distance gives me a chance to reflect. For a year, since Lowe, I’ve been motoring along, trusting that my brain is processing the heartbreak, the rejection; I hoped it was filing the thoughts and taking care of itself without me actively caring for it. But maybe the wave is hitting me now?

‘You OK, Elbs?’ Aoife asks.

‘Yeah, why?’

‘Quiet, that’s all.’

So much happened when Aoife was away. Only now am I made aware of how much my friends don’t know; could not sharing such a big part of my life with them be holding our friendship back? Could it be costing us our bond? We’ve been friends our whole lives. What a relief it would be to get it off my chest. To tell Aoife everything about Lowe and me from the start. My heart clutches but even in the night air the prick of shame engulfs me and I’m unable.

‘Sorry, yeah, I’m fine.’

The new morning at the campsite reveals new horrors; there’s an ambulance treating kids with sunstroke or who’ve been found fitting in the showers. Hydrating with cheap spirit. Eating too many pills and not enough food. The sun’s damage rips skin red raw, peels boobs, blisters noses and makes nostrils bleed. Aoife and I whack on as much sun cream as we can find and wander down to the local village where we sit at a paper-cloth table with toothpicks and grains of rice in the salt pot and order bread and tuna salad, which we drown in oil, vinegar and dusty grey pepper. The Diet Cokes here taste sensational – ice cold with lemon in slim cylinder glasses. We float the little shops, admire the ornaments and wave to the locals who are utterly perplexed as to why all these parentless kids are trudging round their hometown like they own it. The festival starts at night when the air cools, when the floor isn’t melted lava and the pebbles aren’t hot coals, when the molten sun slips away behind the hills and leaves a tang over the landscape. Soon the music will come to life.

When we get to the site there is such a buzz. We can all feel it. It’s so incredible to be at a festival without anoraks and wellie boots. Here we come with nothing but beer money crunched up in our pockets and bras. We stand by the ginormous blue fans that spritz a mist of water and cold air at the same time and we all spread out like starfishes and coo like babies. The bar’s already packed with beautiful people: braids, flowers, ribbons, feathers, glitter, face paint, open shirts and bikini tops. I hardly know where to look. I fancy everyone except for the fucked-up kids with the rolling back eyes heaped in corners, who have peaked too soon. Here, next to the warm rub of bare flesh and cups of beer, I feel excited; all those times I’d hunted for boys as a teenager and asked myself where the hell they were hiding – well, turns out they were here, at this festival.

We all gather to hear the opening act, the kick-drum, the feedback scoring a line through the sky, and thousands of hands rattle, stirring a tidal wave as the lead singer says coyly, ‘Hello’ and the song opens up. We howl like animals. Strangers share cigarettes and beer. My heart skips a beat. Friends jump on shoulders, bare thighs around necks, a sea of hands, surfing into nowhere, and we all scream as paper cups are thrown and plastic bottles land on our bare feet; the hands and elbows of others are comforting and close. When we sing, it’s like a whale song, a frequency. We move like a swarm of bees, in ripples. I feel beautiful and happy and young and carefree.

Until a rumour starts that the headline act, Weekend Plans, have pulled out. Gutted. We’re having such a nice time it shouldn’t be a big deal but of course it is.

‘I’m demanding a refund,’ Aoife states. She loves Weekend Plans.

‘Hold on, let’s see who the replacement is first?’ I ask. I’m actually enjoying myself now.

We think about asking someone but we don’t want to look anxious or annoying or desperate. Like we care. And we’re not about to go and ask the INFORMATION desk like losers.

‘I’ll get my brother to look online.’ Aoife texts her brother, Sean. That text will cost about a fiver to send.

We share a bag of sugary churros in the shade and wait for Aoife’s brother to reply. We watch a really horrible electronic band on a small stage, a boy on pills dancing to a song no one else can hear.

Eventually Sean texts back.

‘SHUT UP!’ Aoife screams and reads the message out:

Forums are guessing true love?

Stop.

‘SICK! How great is that?’

True Love? Impossible. No way. What does that mean? That Lowe is coming here? As in TODAY? As in he could be here now? Well, that’s my holiday over then. Buh-bye. That’s my free spirit chained.

‘You’re right!’ I change my tune. ‘Who organized this shitshow of a festival? We should demand a refund and go home.’

‘Ahaha!’ Aoife thinks I’m joking, head still down in her phone. ‘Has Lowe said anything to you about it, Elbie?’

Once upon a time, I’d be the point of contact.

Instead, I’m over here, privately bleeding, his name a dagger in my chest. A dagger that turns when our names are said in the same breath like wedding vows. God, Aoife really has no idea, does she? Is this what it’s like having an affair, hiding a whole other side of your life?

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