Chapter 41

41

The party is becoming more raucous as I quietly slip away and hail a cab to Ladbroke Grove. When I reach the house, my throat tightens as a montage of memories comes tumbling back. Not the awful memories, but the earlier, happier ones. The ones of sitting on the grass in this front garden playing with Barbies, making up dance routines, talking about what we would be when we grew up (me an artist, her Rihanna). As soon as she answers the door, the happy thoughts are replaced by nerves and anger and fear. Everything in my body wants to turn around and run away. But I stand firm. I’m not at school anymore. I’m a grown woman. With friends. I have friends now. New friends, starter friends, but still. People who like me. Who like what is good and right and funny and true, not what is loudest or scariest or prettiest and meanest.

It’s late in the afternoon, but Gen is dressed in a fleecy dressing gown.

“What do you want?” she asks, her voice flat.

“Can I come in?” I say. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

She hesitates before rolling her eyes and inviting me in. While the interior design of the place has been updated in what is clearly a tasteful way, there are kids’ toys and stacks of bills and piles of clothes strewn everywhere.

“Where are your children?” I ask curiously.

“Park. With Ryan,” she says, plonking down onto her cream sofa and vaguely indicating that I should sit. “He’s just always around…you know? Since school he’s just always been there. A girl needs a little break sometimes is all.”

She picks up an almost empty glass of wine from the coffee table in front of her and takes a sip. “You want some?”

I shake my head no.

She gives a mirthless laugh.

Gen takes another sip of her drink. “So have you come to apologise? You threw champagne at me. You ruined my gown, you know. Cost four hundred pounds that did.” She chuckles. “Didn’t think you had it in you, I’ll be honest.”

I tamp down the anger that starts to crowd my chest. “You deserved it,” I say evenly. “Using my experiences—trauma you caused—to lie for your own gain? That was really fucking horrible. I thought maybe you’d have grown up.”

Gen shrugs and finishes the rest of her wine before pouring herself another glass.

I open my mouth to ask her what I came here to ask her, but a different question pops out.

“Did you really forget about me?” I ask. Because after everything, that’s what I can’t get my head around. Even if she hadn’t made my life a misery, we were so tight as kids.

Gen meets my eyes and shakes her head. “No. I didn’t forget. When you wouldn’t accept my apology, I wanted to make you feel bad.”

I nod. “You’re very good at it.”

Gen sits forward. “Do you remember when you cut the hair off my Barbie because we didn’t have a Ken and your mum went mad?”

I instinctively laugh at the memory before clamping my hand over my mouth.

“Why did you hate me?” I ask, the question blurting out more desperately than I intended. “We used to have so much fun.”

Gen bites her lip, a little hiccup escaping her. “I hated you because you hated me first.”

“What? Why on earth do you think that?”

“You just stopped inviting me round to yours. You knew my parents were always at work. How I had no-one at home. I practically lived with you, and you just cut it off because you were jealous.”

“Jealous? Of what?”

“How close I was to your mum.”

I think of back then. Of Gen, Mum, and me singing and playing and cooking and gossiping together. How Mum and Gen did seem to get along so easily. Like a couple of grown-ups.

I look down at my feet. “Maybe I was a little jealous. But that wasn’t the reason I stopped inviting you over. My mum was…”

“What?”

“My dad left and then my mum fully lost it. She was drinking and crying all the time. I didn’t want you to witness that. I was embarrassed.”

Gen shakes her head. “Jesus, Delphie. I would have helped you! You didn’t tell me.”

“I…I…didn’t. You’re right. But you were…You fucking took me out, Gen.”

Gen sighs and runs a hand through her hair before making eye contact with me. “I’m sorry, okay?”

A tear spills over onto my cheek. I wipe it away with my fist.

“I need to find Jonah,” I say, glancing at the clock on her wall. “As soon as possible. I need you to give me his address.”

Gen’s face screws up. “What is that all about? Jonah said he’d never met you before. But you were acting so weird around him. Was he lying? Do you know him?”

I nod. “Yeah, but not in the way you think. I…I can’t explain why I need to see him, because, well, it’s ridiculous. But I need you to give me his details. His number, his address. You owe me.”

“Are you going to try to kiss him again?” Gen asks with a grimace. “Because—no offence—you scared the shit out of him. He’s usually such a cool customer.”

She stares at me for a moment longer before getting up and padding over to a large mahogany dresser. She opens a drawer and pulls out a piece of paper and a pen, scribbling on it before handing it to me. “It’s Jonah’s number and his address. Don’t tell him I gave it to you.”

I exhale. Finally. I’m gonna do this.

As I leave down the garden path, Gen calls after me.

“Hey, Delph?”

I spin around. “What?”

“Are you fucking R. L. Cooper?”

I nod. “All the time.”

“Nice.” She leans against the doorway and shrugs a shoulder. “Do you…do you want to hang out sometime? Grab a drink?”

I look down at my feet before meeting her eyes. A flicker of understanding passes between us. But it’s not enough. “Absolutely not,” I say. I hold the piece of paper aloft. “Thanks for this, though!” I add, before breaking into a run.