Page 82 of The Reunion

Something beeps a few times and the door flies open. Ryan’s hand slips from my cheek, but it squeezes my fingers briefly before he lets go, while I’m still clinging to him, too overwhelmed for my brain to react in real time. He’s already turning, laughing and saying, ‘About damn time!’ while I blink and try to get my head around that word.

Bryony lets out a horrified scream. ‘What did you guys do? Look at this place! Ohmigod. Oh my God, I’m so fired.’

‘I swear, this wasn’t our fault. The sprinklers went off with the fire alarm,’ Ryan says. ‘I’ll cut a cheque for the textbooks, if it’s a problem. Alright, Hayden? Thanks for the rescue, team. Hope we didn’t put you out too much.’

Bryony is too busy staring at something across the room to answer and instead says, ‘Is that a bra hanging off the lights?’

We all look up. The long, fluorescent bulbs are suspended by wires from the ceiling to give a snazzy industrial look, and there, draped over one in the middle of the room, is the very bra Ryan flung away earlier and which neither of us could locate afterwards.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck, this is just what I need – for Bryony, my new-bestie-turned-frenemy for the night to find out what happened and go blab about it to everybody like the inexorable gossip that she is before I’ve even had chance to get my head around it all.

It could be, you know.

I tuck the fire blanket a bit tighter around myself and bite my tongue.

Next to me, Ryan snickers, and masks it with a cough.

‘What’s been going on?’ he asks quickly, and – God, I thought I’d rue the day I ever needed him to come to my rescue, but I almost melt with relief now. ‘What happened with the power and everything?’

‘Blown fuse,’ Bryony says absently, still staring up at my bra dangling from the ceiling in confusion. She waves a hand. ‘Hayden fixed it.’

‘What happened to you two?’ Hayden asks us, less concerned with the rogue underwear and more the bedraggled state both of us are in. ‘You guys look like … Like …’

Ryan is laughing in response. ‘Like a wet T-shirt contest, I know.’

‘You look like you’ve been shagging,’ Hayden says accusingly.

Romantic.

‘Shut up!’ screams Bryony. ‘Ohmigod! They so have! You so did. Didn’t you? Ohmigod, Ashleigh, don’t you dare try to tell me that isn’t your bra now!’ With a peal of laughter, she reaches to try and pull the fire blanket away from me to prove it, but Ryan steps in between us with a laugh, slinging an arm around her shoulder and steering her out of the door – like I’m not even there at all. Kind of like Bryony did to me in the hall with Freddie.

‘Ah, come on, Bryony – you know me, never one to kiss and tell. Would I do a thing like that? Better question: would Ashleigh? C’mon, don’t we have a party to get back to?’

And he’s leaving. Walking out, cracking a joke about the power cut, and I’m left huddled in the fire blanket, my clothes clinging to my damp skin and dripping cold water onto the floor, still reeling as Hayden asks if I’m okay.

With the other two gone, I suck it up and climb on the desk to retrieve my wet bra from the lights, turning my back to Hayden as I wrangle it on beneath my top. My best friend gives me my privacy and doesn’t say anything, but once we’re following after Ryan and Bryony and their noisy chatter and laughter, he nudges my arm with his and gives me a small, reassuring smile. I try to return it, and fail miserably.

If you wanted.

I wish I had the chance to answer Ryan.

But it feels too late, now. Like those people who opened up and apologised and kissed … They’re ghosts of our past, left behind, and we go right back to being who we were ten years ago and two hours ago.

Like, in the cold light of day, this version of me could never say yes.

Chapter Forty-One

Bryony

‘Most Likely to Become Famous’

Considering the absolute state of the last couple of hours and the years it’s robbed from my life, the final hour of my epic ten-year school-reunion party flies by in a blur. The ragtag comeback one-night-only performance of the school band play a couple more pieces – and I do in fact absolutely slay my old Swan Lake solo.

They don’t need to know I occasionally practise it.

And after that, we turn the music back up, the last of the fruit punch and pizza is consumed, and everybody throws themselves wholeheartedly into making the most of the night. I even agree to lead a little tour party up to the old common room when enough people pester me that they want to go see it; nobody tries to sneak out now they know I could be fired for their fuck-ups, and I finally feel myself relax a little, only just realising how much I was on high alert at the start of the night.

Ryan regales everybody with a tale of being stuck in a chemistry classroom with the sprinklers going off, his damp shirt plastered to him and drawing a few ogling eyes, even as he stands around with his jacket slung over his shoulder like this is an intentional fashion choice. I notice that before coming back into the hall, he cleaned off the distinct red smudge around his mouth that looked suspiciously the same colour as Ashleigh’s lipstick.

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