Page 57 of The Fall-Out

That’s not cool, Zee. You know it’s not. You should tell him. Or just end it. If you’re shagging other people, it can’t be working with him.

Even as I pressed Send, I felt a stab of guilt – Yeah, you want her to end it, don’t you, Naomi? And why might that be?

Zara:

It is working though. I need him. He’s the only good thing in my life right now – apart from you, obviously. I’m such a terrible person and I don’t deserve anyone to love me but he does, and I need that.

Naomi:

If he loves you, he’ll forgive you.

Even as I typed, I doubted it – and a selfish part of me hoped it wasn’t true.

Zara:

Why should he? Come on, Nome. But if I never do it again, it might be like it never happened.

Again, before I could find words to answer her, another message flashed on to my screen.

Zara:

When you see him again – he’s in London this weekend, right? – can you talk to him? Like, sound him out. Maybe he’s been seeing someone else too and that would kind of cancel it out. Will you? I promise I’ll never ask you another favour again as long as I live. And whatever you do, don’t tell anyone.

So, reluctantly, I’d said I would try my best.

‘What a mess,’ Amina said, when I’d finished pouring out the story to her.

She didn’t count, I told myself. She didn’t know Patch or Zara and she’d never tell anyone anyway. She was a solicitor and probably bound by some code of confidentiality or something.

‘It’s grim,’ I agreed. ‘So I’m seeing him tonight and I don’t know what to do. It feels all kinds of wrong.’

‘You know what my advice is?’

‘What?’

‘Stay out of it. Don’t tell him anything. And don’t ask about his love life either. Tell her you didn’t get a chance, or whatever. It’s not your fuck-up to fix, it’s hers.’

Feeling like a burden had been lifted, I said, ‘You really think so?’

‘I honestly do. Now take yourself and your ridiculous hair off and have a fun night.’

‘I’ll try. Thanks. And, Amina…?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Can I borrow your leather jacket?’

As it happened, I couldn’t have asked Patch anything even if I’d wanted to. By the time I arrived at the pub, a cavernous space by the canal near Camden Market, the gig was already in full swing and I could barely hear him when he asked if I wanted a beer. For the next three hours, we communicated mostly in hand signals, when we weren’t dancing, singing along to our favourite tunes, or admiring the outfits around us, most of which were even more outlandish than my own.

Patch himself was wearing black jeans, a faded black T-shirt with a Bauhaus logo on it (kudos to him, I thought – he’d either had it for years or hit the jackpot in an Aberdeen charity shop), and eyeliner. I had thought his eyes looked larger and more luminous than usual. I imagined him walking out of his mother’s house wearing it, getting on the Tube, not caring what people thought of him. It was a side of him I’d never seen before, and a side I realised I liked very much – probably too much.

But I didn’t want to think about liking him, because that would immediately lead to thoughts about Zara. I wanted to drink beer after beer, sing along as loud as I could to Just Like Heaven, join the moshing crowd by the stage, and forget my troubles.

And it worked. By the time the band finished at almost two in the morning, my throat was raw from singing, I was lightheaded from drinking and my hair was sticky with sweat as well as gel. Patch put his arm round my shoulder to guide me through the press of people towards the exit, and the cold, damp night air filled my lungs as we stepped outside.

‘That was pretty awesome, right?’ he asked.

‘Totally awesome. The best time. God, I’m actually quite pissed.’

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