Page 34 of The Reunion

I jab a finger at the glass door, where there’s a photo of our rugby team when I was in Year Twelve and we won the regional championship. I’m front and centre, man of the match as well as team captain. The trophy is there with everyone’s names engraved, and then there’s even a separate photo of me in my jersey from my days as a pro, which is a nice surprise. I always wondered if the coaches and PE teachers here would say to kids on the school team, ‘You could make it, one day – like Ryan Lawal!’

‘See?’ I tell Ashleigh and she scowls – not at the photos, but at my finger leaving a smudge on the glass. I don’t remove it. ‘Told ya. So where’s yours, Ash? Were your school-girl achievements worth holding onto?’

I’m pretty sure I already know the answer, but she gives me a cool smile and points at the top shelves. ‘Even better,’ she says, and when I look, there’s a whole host of framed certificates crowded together – all from recent years, but all for essay competitions or awards for languages or science projects.

She doesn’t bother to rub it in the way I did, because we both know we’re looking at her legacy, a lasting change she made. How many Ashleighs are showcased here, because she demanded they should be? It’s probably a better mark of success than my old trophy and a photo from a career I had to give up, as much a relic here as those class photos from the eighties.

Not, of course, that I’ll ever say that out loud to her.

The two of us stand in silence, looking at the accolades on display, taking it all in, and I find my gaze drifting to Ashleigh. To the freckles on her bare shoulders. Her reflection in the glass and her mouth, parted just slightly, and that smudge of lipstick.

My mind immediately goes back to Freddie dancing with her. Flirting with her. Hands on her.

She’s entitled to kiss him. Obviously. I’m not his keeper.

Ashleigh breathes in. Holds it a second or two, like she wants to say something. Breathes out.

It’s fucking astonishing, that she has this way of sucking all the attention in the room and making it focus on her. I never understood how she did it back at school – when she was dorky and brash and too serious and not even very good-looking. She never cared about being popular or cool or pretty or even nice, half the time, and somehow everyone still listened to her.

I remember in Year Eleven, when Ms Potts was teaching us about electromagnetic fields in physics and someone made a joke that Ashleigh and I were north and south poles on a magnet because we drew people in but were so opposite. And Ms Potts laughed and said we were more like two north poles: completely repellent of and to each other, while drawing everyone else towards us. Even our own damn teachers understood that.

It’s why they made us Head Boy and Head Girl. Although I think they probably came to regret it, based on how bad we were at working together.

Now, though, I think maybe Ms Potts was wrong because Ashleigh is just standing there, quiet and still, and everything in me is acutely tuned towards her.

‘So why’d you do it?’ she asks, the question rushing out of her in a soft rush, like she’s almost afraid of being overheard. She straightens up, turns towards me – and I’m closer than either of us realised. I can feel her breath, warm and sweet, against my face. Her blue eyes dart between mine. Flicker down to my mouth – once. Fleetingly. Provoking some wild, unthinking urge to run my thumb over the blush on her cheek, feel the heat of it spreading down to her neck, see if her shoulders are as soft as they look.

I shake off the urge and find her eyes still boring into mine with that new, unfamiliar twist on a look I’m so used to, and – yes, it was better when she wouldn’t look at me.

This time, it’s me who has to look away first. That’s new and unfamiliar, too.

My fingers unfurl from the fists they bunched into at some point. I slide them into my pockets instead.

‘Do what?’ I ask, my voice just as quiet as hers.

‘Go into politics. You could’ve – I don’t know. Been an influencer. Become a rugby coach or managed a team. Gone on reality programmes and quiz shows and stuff. Made a living out of that chipper attitude without getting your hands dirty.’

‘Ah. There she is.’

‘What?’

‘Little Miss Judgemental. You’ve got a shitty opinion of politicians, haven’t you?’

‘I’ve dealt with enough of them putting up roadblocks for our funding and research and belittling the work we’re doing to know. Sometimes it’s not all about the “big picture” stuff, you know. Sometimes it’s all the hard work on the ground adding up to that, that matters.’

‘You know, I don’t think you can take the moral high ground when you’re the one who’s been eavesdropping.’

She huffs a sigh. ‘Please. Don’t act like you weren’t doing it on purpose, or like you weren’t listening in on my conversations, too.’

‘Hard not to, when you were so loud and lording your life over everyone like you’ve always done. Always had to make sure everybody knew what you were doing and just how good you were doing it, didn’t you?’

‘I don’t—’

‘And you’ve always liked making sure I look bad in the process.’ I flash her a grin, but even I know it must look stiff and bitter. Even though this isn’t new for us – we’ve always bickered and tried to one-up each other – it feels twisted now; it’s something I don’t want to be saying, but can’t seem to stop myself. This woman brings out the worst in me; she always has. Ashleigh pales a little bit, just as the smile drops off my face and I shake my head. ‘Good to see you haven’t changed a bit, Easton.’

‘Excuse me?’ she exclaims, and the words bounce off the walls, the ceilings, fill the space so much that I have to grit my teeth.

‘Forget it,’ I mutter. I move away from the trophy cabinet. Maybe we are the same pole of a magnet after all, because suddenly, I can’t get far enough away from her – from this conversation, from who I am around her. ‘Let’s just go back to the party.’

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