Page 47 of The Reunion

Is Steph worth that risk?

It’s a little unnerving, how quickly and surely I can answer that question. How easy it is to imagine that life – the wedding, the house, the kids, the family holidays and Christmases and everything else – with Steph in that picture, instead of Aisha.

Interrupting their silent exchange, I ask Priya, ‘What’re you doing out here anyway?’

She waggles a lighter I hadn’t noticed her holding. ‘Nipped out for a quick cig. But I left my phone inside and the fire door out of the hall shut behind me. Sod’s law, isn’t it? Lucky for me to find you two out here, really.’

The words feel weighted, and I don’t know if they’re a threat or a warning or if I’m just making it all up. Steph’s friends would always go to bat for her; I’m really hoping that’s not changed.

‘We’ll be back inside soon,’ Steph promises, and I feel some of the tension in my shoulders unfurl. She doesn’t want to leave yet, doesn’t want this to end too soon either.

Priya nods and squeezes Steph’s arm on the way past.

I breathe a sigh of relief as Priya pulls the door to the stairwell closed behind her, muttering to herself, ‘These bloody lights, ugh. Why’s it so dark in here? Of all the times to not have my phone …’

The previous tension between us now well and truly broken, Steph tosses me an easy smile before taking a seat at the top of the steps again.

The scent that teases my nostrils as she moves is one I can’t put my finger on. Floral, I think? It’s not the vanilla-y, sweet scent I’m used to Aisha wearing, and I’ve never learnt enough about flowers or perfume to know now – all I can say with any certainty is that it’s not the smell I’d associate with Steph. Not the British Rose perfume from The Body Shop I used to buy her gift sets of at Christmastime – something lighter, more … dainty.

Not that I would’ve expected her, at twenty-eight, to still be wearing the perfume she picked out as a teenager. Steph is an adult with sophisticated taste (judging by the home décor photos she posts online every so often), so of course she’d have found a new perfume to match that.

Still, it’s jarring enough that when I look at her, I don’t see the girl I used to know better than anybody else. Just for that split second, she’s a stranger, as new and unfamiliar to me as that building that replaced the old language demountables out the front of the school. Like, if I walked past her in the street, I wouldn’t look or think twice, because – well, why would I? She’s just … somebody. She’s nothing to me, and in no way mine.

But I blink, and the moment’s gone.

And not for the first time tonight, I find myself longing for things to be just the way they were ten years ago.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hayden

‘Most Likely to Succeed’

MS ADAMS, the handwritten label on the door declares in a chunky, swishy script in a bright fuchsia Sharpie. The colour matches Bryony’s nails, and I wonder if it’s her signature. Having a signature colour feels like a very Bryony thing to do.

I pause in front of the door and she lets out a noisy, terse sigh to let me know just how much she hates this whole thing before slapping a flat palm against the door and pushing her way in, bumping me roughly with her elbow as she goes past. I almost laugh, because the huff reminds me so much of Margot when she’s in a mood, but I don’t think Bryony would appreciate that right now. In fact, I think she might shout at me.

I watch as she flips the light switch on – muscle memory – then grumbles to herself because, of course, the power is out. Her phone hangs at her side and she makes her way across the room to her desk with the ease of someone who has walked that exact path a thousand times or more, and roots around in her desk in the darkness with sure hands. Keys jangle as she yanks a lanyard out of a drawer, and I see her glower at me when she comes back to the door.

‘Come on, then,’ Bryony snaps, and pushes past me again. This grumpy, sullen creature is a far cry from the exuberant personality she was showing off earlier – the one we all remember from school. Is she really that angry I figured it out?

‘It’s not anything to be ashamed about, you know,’ I tell her, following as she storms towards the staircase to go up to the staffroom on the second floor. A couple of stray sequins flutter to the floor in her wake. ‘Being a teacher.’

‘Shut up, Hayden.’

‘It’s not, though. I had to deal with Margot being home-schooled during lockdown, and that was a bit of a peek behind the curtain. It’s a lot of hard work, and I imagine it can be a bit of a thankless job sometimes. You really don’t—’

‘I said, shut up.’ She whips around, ponytail almost smacking me in the face. ‘If you tell anyone—’

Bryony cuts herself off because, of course, it’s an empty threat, but the fury emanates off her in waves and she is practically vibrating with it. Her hands bunch into trembling fists at her sides and I don’t think it’s just the glare of the phone torch making her look so pale beneath her makeup all of a sudden.

I didn’t think it was possible to ever feel sorry for Bryony, but yet here I am.

When we were teenagers, she was always so melodramatic and shallow; I didn’t really stop to consider that might have been a front, a bit like when Ashleigh used to hold her head high whenever people (mainly Ryan and his cronies) said something cutting. Bryony was all crocodile tears and dramatics, but this anger doesn’t feel like any of that. It’s not for show or attention, and I feel bad for her being so genuinely upset. My brain and body still feel a little sluggish, and now I fight through the haze to try to shake it off, sober up a bit in order to actually deal with whatever this is. It feels wrong to give up and walk away, and leave her like this.

I reach for her arm on instinct and she jerks away from me, continuing to stomp up the stairs.

‘You know what, Hayden?’ Bryony barks, her voice bouncing off the stairwell. ‘You can’t talk. You’re a failure, too. You were meant to go off and do all those impressive things and make shedloads of money and be some successful genius, but you’re not. All that potential, wasted. Now you’re just a sad, stay-at-home dad, who threw his life away. So you don’t get to talk to me like that, okay?’

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