Page 20 of The Reunion

‘Most Likely to Become Famous’

I don’t know why I was so worried about saving face in front of these people I haven’t seen for ten years, because honestly, some of them are doing an absolutely terrible job of it.

Absolute amateur hour. It’s laughable. Like, genuinely, laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

Because, I’m sorry, do they honestly think they can straight-up contradict the things they’ve put on social media? I cannot be the only one who did a digital stalk of old classmates before tonight – although, admittedly, mine was probably the most in-depth, since I had the list of everyone’s names and emails to send out the evite for tonight and the whole ‘yearbook’ presentation update project.

Do they really think they can get away with it?

I mean, I know I can’t talk, but really. It’s one thing to be – selective – with the truth, and imply certain things, but to tell barefaced lies? Like, we know you got engaged two years ago, we all congratulated you on Facebook, and we know you suddenly changed your profile pics to stop including them and changed your status to ‘single’. Don’t pretend they just couldn’t make it tonight. And you’re just not climbing the corporate ladder at an unprecedented rate, are you, we can all see that your current job title on LinkedIn includes the word ‘junior’.

It’s unstoppable, the urge to correct them, to point it out. Like Paul and his job at a failed start-up, or Tommy saying he runs a fitness company when he’s a PT and not even actually working for himself (I’ve seen the gym branding on his polo shirt in a selfie he posted on Instagram). Or worst of all, when Morgan was showing off about her boyfriend she met at the hospital, making out he was a doctor like she is when actually he’s an accountant and they met when he came into A&E with a skateboarding injury.

I don’t know why she lied about it. An accountant who skateboards is arguably a much cooler story. And she even brought him along! Any of us could ask him and find out the truth.

I ignore the bright red flush creeping down Morgan’s neck right now and smooth a hand over the leg of my jumpsuit. Some of the sequins have tilted out of place near my hip as I’ve been wandering around.

‘Isn’t he part of a group? Skateboarding, I mean.’

Josh sneers. ‘What, like a hobby? God. That’s a bit childish, isn’t it, Morg?’

The look on her face says she thinks so too, which is a bit sad. I bet the boyfriend is definitely cooler than she is. Just because she resents having to become a doctor because that’s the path her parents steered her down …

I arch an eyebrow at Josh, though. ‘Didn’t you take up rollerblading during lockdown?’

He baulks, and fidgets. Hassan starts laughing, joking around because he didn’t know that, how sly of Josh to not tell him. Well, that’s what he gets for using his old MSN handle on TikTok. Like I said: amateurs. He mutters, ‘The girl I was with at the time got into it when it started going viral and stuff.’

Hassan cracks up, gleeful. ‘Mate, that’s hilarious. Do you have videos of it? As if you took up rollerblading!’

Morgan adds in a suddenly lofty tone, ‘Yes, well, Alfie’s part of a local community group and participates in competitions. It’s all quite serious, actually.’

‘Yeah, real daredevil on the half-pipe, I bet,’ Josh snipes.

‘He is, actually.’

I smother my laugh and take a drink, rolling my eyes. They got themselves into this mess, really, but I fight the teacher-y urge to tell them to grow up already. Seriously, did they learn nothing after I had to call Elise out for her totally not-authentic Chanel bag she brought to school, and all the lies she tried to spin to explain why the lining didn’t look the same in her cheap dupe as on the Chanel website? Clearly, everyone’s gotten too comfortable without somebody around to call them on their bullshit.

I catch Hayden, on the edge of the group, frowning at me. His high forehead furrows underneath the messy spray of ginger hair, nose crinkling and pushing his wiry glasses further up. He looks at me like I’m a particularly nasty equation and he’s been called up to solve it in front of the class on the whiteboard.

There’s a sort of accusatory edge to it, and if Hayden wasn’t the kind to keep so much to himself, I’d worry that he might have done as much research into people as I had, and knows all my secrets. My pulse picks up, sweat starting to slick the palms of my hands.

‘What?’ I ask him, careless and bold. Every bit as accusatory as the expression on his face.

Hayden’s expression clears, but he ducks his head. ‘Nothing. Sorry.’

I stick around for another minute or so, listening to the boys bicker and Morgan trying to pretend she’s not a judgemental snob about her boyfriend’s hobby, but only so that I don’t let Hayden put a chink in my carefully honed armour. As if I’m going to let the most introverted, nerdiest kid in the year take me down. This kid used to go to Doctor Who conventions on the weekends, for crying out loud.

I count down the seconds, glad when my heart rate calms, and then move on to mingle with some other people. I notice Steph lurking near the drinks table with some of her old mates, looking unusually quiet and detached, but her fiancé, Curtis, has his arm around her and she’s tucked neatly, cosily, into his side; maybe she’s just tired. She does have a lot on, between her nine-to-five and studying part time on top of that. I scan the room for Ashleigh, who’s standing with …

Oh, Jesus. She’s with Freddie Loughton.

Hand on his bicep, laughing at something he’s saying, standing with Freddie bloody Loughton. He tosses his heavily styled hair as I watch, looking like someone who loves himself a little too much. I’m pretty sure he’s got a long-term girlfriend, but – then again, this is Freddie, and there was definitely a point in the last couple of years where he was dating three girls at once, if his Instagram is anything to go by. Not to mention, I know from experience that he’s just not worth the effort.

Should I tell her? I’d think she needed saving if she didn’t look like she was flirting right back and had him wrapped around her little finger.

Ah, it’s fine. Let her have her fun. From what I hear, her recent relationships have been pretty short-lived and her current dating life is fairly non-existent – she’s too career focused, or whatever. God knows she spent long enough at school being so highly strung that she deserves to let her hair down for a night. Indulge in who teenage her could have been.

Even if it is with a prat like Freddie Loughton.

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