Page 58 of The Reunion

I push my glasses up my nose, remembering the pair that broke clean in half when one dodgeball hit me square in the face. (Ryan, to his credit, had apologised profusely, and had honestly believed I would’ve moved out of the way. Ashleigh tried to make me send him the bill for the replacement pair.)

‘Do you do a lot of sport now?’ Bryony asks, then smirks at her own joke as she teases me. ‘Hone those shitty reflexes with some Wii Tennis, maybe?’

‘No. Years of picking up Margot and Skye as they run around pell-mell, before they can fall over and scrape their knees, that’s all.’

‘Oh.’ Her smile turns awkward, then vanishes altogether. ‘Sure, right, yeah. That too, I guess.’

Bryony and I both turn our attention to flashing our phone torches around the room to search for the fuse box, rather than return to our previous conversation. I don’t know if she can sense my newfound anger or if she’s too wrapped up in her own world to notice it, but I decide that I don’t care if she is.

I was used to flying under the radar at school. Preferred it, in fact, when I did.

I’m mad because, if it weren’t so much my comfort zone, maybe I would’ve fucking done something with my life.

And I’m mad because this feral, furious thing howling inside my ribcage is not me. Or, I think, I don’t want to admit that it is, and the idea that it is me is so grotesque and uncomfortable I want to wish it away. Ignore it into nonexistence like so much of the rest of me. The me I know would try to gently prompt Bryony to say more about the things upsetting her so much, encourage her to apologise to the other people she’s hurt tonight and maybe, also, if she seemed to need it, encourage her to pursue her acting dreams with a bit more vigour.

The fact that I have suddenly decided to not care is as frightening as this sudden anger.

Has this me always existed? Is it one that I can pack away and squash down and leave lurking in the shadows out of harm’s way, or will it refuse to go now that it’s been unleashed?

And – I don’t know that I want it to go away.

It’s the closest thing I’ve felt to that old passion that used to drive me, in a long while. Fierce and full-on. Something to harness and put to work, to turn into something greater, pushing myself to some imagined goal in pure exhilaration.

I’ve already lost that once, without realising.

Is it worse for it to slip quietly away over time, or to actively decide to dispel it?

‘Is that it, d’you think?’ Bryony asks, pulling me out of my fury and fear for a moment. Her torch illuminates a box in the top corner of the room behind the desk. The front is clear, showing rows and rows of switches.

‘Do I think that thing that looks exactly like a fuse box, is a fuse box?’ I say, and it comes out in a cutting, sardonic drawl that I don’t recognise. ‘I don’t know, Bryony, what do you think?’

She pulls a face, nose scrunching up. ‘Alright, Mr Moody-Pants, I’m just saying.’

I sigh, nudging my glasses out of the way so I can pinch the bridge of my nose. I try to concentrate on breathing. In, out, for five. It used to be a coping mechanism for the anxiety that flared up during term-time at school; more recently, it’s been a habit when Margot or Skye do something naughty or break something, so I can centre myself rather than react immediately.

But now it’s me who needs the telling-off and the time-out, and it’s only when I hear the rattle of a wheely chair moving along the floor that I stop berating myself for being such a dick to Bryony so needlessly, and open my eyes to find her climbing up in those ridiculous heels onto the office chair so she can reach the fuse box. She sets her phone torch-up on the caretaker’s desk so she has both hands free to climb with.

As soon as she lifts her other leg off the ground, of course, the chair begins to swing wildly beneath her, and her arms flail, bracing against the wall for purchase. I lunge around the desk, and she’s laughing.

‘Whoo! Close one!’

‘B, get down before you break your neck.’

‘It’s fine. Hold the chair still, will you?’

‘This is not—’

I never get the rest of the words out, though, because she makes a wild, wide lean for the fuse box and the chair lurches beneath her, so of course I throw my arms out to hold it. I end up with my legs braced around the chair and hands holding the back of it to keep it in place, with the back of Bryony’s thigh pressed into my shoulder.

She nudges me with her leg, and I have to fight the chair from swinging around again while she just laughs. ‘Normally I’d make a guy buy me dinner before he ends up with his head between my legs.’

I grit my teeth. ‘Bryony, I swear to God—’

‘Oh, relax, will you?’ She wobbles as she leans back to the fuse box. ‘Which one d’you think it is? Can you shine your torch up a bit? I can’t read the labels properly.’

‘No, Bryony, I can’t shine my torch up there because if I let you go, you’re liable to fall off this fucking chair.’

‘I don’t see you coming up with a better idea. I’m fine. Look, just – this hand, here.’ She pats the top of my right arm. ‘Move around a bit so if I do fall, I’ll end up against your left shoulder. So your arm’s kind of around me, you know? Then this one’s free to hold your torch.’

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