Chapter Twelve

Steph

Most Likely to End Up Together

There you are, sweetie, I was just - oh! It s It s you.

Too startled to do anything but stare, I feel a blush creep over my cheeks at my mix-up. It wouldn t be so awkward if I d mistaken anybody else here tonight for Curtis, but

Shaun s hand stays where it is, his cool fingers on my bare elbow sending sparks shooting through my veins and making it all the more obvious to me how my skin seems to be burning all of a sudden. Can he tell? Surely he can feel the sprint of my pulse beneath his fingertips.

His eyes remain locked on mine; there s something agonisingly still about him, and I m not even sure if he s breathing. His normally smiling mouth is drawn into something straighter and more serious than I m used to, the upwards arch of his eyebrows giving his expression a plaintive quality that I know will triumph over any resistance I have. The look takes me back to the last summer before university, and his gentle, hopeful question about how we d try long-distance, wouldn t we? And the quickness of my response - yes, yes, of course, how could he think otherwise ? This was us; we would make it work. Breaking up just because we were going to universities four hours apart was never even up for consideration, as far as I was concerned.

Now, though, Shaun says, I don t suppose you d fancy going somewhere for a chat?

If my blush was starting to recede, his words bring it back with a vengeance. My entire face feels like it s on fire and Shaun s eyes widen immediately as he hears his own words. He snatches his hand from my arm, and goosebumps rise there.

Go for a chat , we always used to say, when we were among friends and wanted a few quiet minutes of privacy to share a kiss or lean into each other without everybody else s eyes on us. We both had our limits when it came to PDA.

The words conjure up memories of slipping away to deserted corridors on rainy lunchtime breaks while everybody else was huddled around the good radiator, Shaun s arms slipping around my waist and my hands sliding inside his blazer, chasing his body heat, my head tilting up to his to accept a deep, dizzying kiss.

I wonder which particular memory it brings to Shaun s mind, and take a little comfort in the simple fact he shares in my awkwardness right now. He laughs, and some of the tension in my shoulders unfurls.

Not like that , he clarifies, rolling his eyes at himself. I just meant - maybe we could have a proper catch-up, somewhere a bit less noisy? Away from all this.

The hand that was just on my arm gestures widely around us and I instinctively follow it, glancing around the hall. Bryony is talking loudly and emphatically about a community theatre project she helped out with a little while ago, positioned in the path of one of the little light-boxes so that the pink strobe hits her sequinned outfit and casts a sparkling display. Some people have started dancing near the stage; Hayden and Ashleigh are doing some odd, coordinated dance that people are clapping along to, and Freddie Loughton is loitering nearby. The rest of the rugby lads are sprawled on some chairs by the windows; Ryan is with them, sat bent forward on his knees and nodding intently, apparently listening to something Tommy is saying, but he seems to be looking over to the dance floor instead. Morgan, Priya and the others are standing a little way off, giggling and chattering animatedly in a way that makes me itch to join them - I can see myself going over and Thea slipping an arm around my waist as I m drawn in, and everybody pitching together to update me on whatever story I ve missed, just like old times.

But the pull towards Shaun is stronger, and I keep my eyes on the hall a beat longer, even as I m acutely aware of him sucking in a sharp breath, waiting for my response, and the way his hands begin to fidget.

On a cluster of chairs in the corner between the doors and the windows, Curtis is sat with a few people. Morgan s boyfriend is there, and Hiro from the rugby team and Shaun s friend Josh. Everybody looks relaxed, with plates of half-eaten pizza on their laps or a drink in hand, engaged even if they re less energetic (possibly simply less drunk ) than some of the other people in the room.

I lost Curtis about fifteen minutes ago as the groups we were talking to had migrated around the hall, but didn t think very much of it. Curtis is good at getting on with people and - while I might be a bit biased - I think he s the sort of guy that s instantly likeable. He ll find common ground, listen attentively and ask thoughtful, interesting questions. It s one of the things I find most endearing about him.

And we ve never been one of those couples that are completely co-dependent and only come as a package deal. Working in the same office, we set some boundaries very early on; we didn t want to make ourselves the subject of workplace gossip or drama by making it so obvious we were together, attached at the hip and never seen apart. So while I don t feel obliged to go and join him now, or that he ll worry, it seems wrong, somehow, if I were to vanish altogether.

With my ex-boyfriend. The first great love of my life.

How would I feel, in his shoes? If he were to sneak off with his ex, away from prying eyes and ears, leaving me at a party where I know nobody?

But - no, that s not fair. I trust Curtis, and I know what kind of man he is. If he were seeing his first proper girlfriend for the first time in ten years - someone he dated as a teenager - then I wouldn t begrudge him a quiet catch-up. It s the natural thing to want to do, and I d probably think it was quite sweet. I wouldn t be worried about him sneaking off to snog someone he hasn t seen in almost a decade, for goodness sake.

He trusts me, too. And - and, well, Shaun s got a fianc e. He means it in all innocence, I know that. We re adults, now, we re going for a mature conversation, not to steal a kiss between classes.

We re not doing anything wrong .

I m just being silly, that s all.

I draw a breath and turn back to Shaun with a smile I hope reaches my eyes. Alright then.

There s a flicker in his eyes, and I don t recognise it. Uncertainty, perhaps, or it could be resolution. It s gone before I can pinpoint it, though, and he nods before gesturing towards the doors in an after you motion.

I m too aware of each step I take; it feels like I m running, fleeing, even as it happens in slow motion, the hall bending and warping around me and the doors looming large but never quite getting closer like in a bad dream. The music and laughter and voices become muffled, the only clear sound my heart beating in my ears and the click of my heels on the floor.

And then I m at the doors and my eyes are focused only on Curtis. I m directly in his eyeline and I freeze, my fingers on the cold metal handle, my entire body vibrating as I wait for him to notice me, to ask me what I m doing.

To put a stop to this mad, selfish, innocent impulse.

But he throws his head back, laughing at something, and the spell is broken.

Nobody notices as we leave; I m sure of it, because I brace myself for the playful jeers that I know some of our old friends and classmates haven t quite grown out of - jokes they d make about us leaving together and the chorus of Oo-oo-ooh! s.

But there s nothing, and the doors swing shut behind Shaun, and the silence of the school corridor envelops us. A fluorescent lightbulb buzzes noisily overhead, and, for a moment, we stand facing each other, and I wonder if he feels as uncomfortable in his skin as I do right now.

Because while we aren t doing anything wrong, I realise what feels so off about all this, and it s me - as if my body is suddenly no longer mine, should be smaller and skinnier and younger. As if there s too much in my mind, a life that doesn t belong to me and feels just out of reach now. It could belong to a character from a book I spent all day reading avidly, or a dream, instead.

It s like stepping back through the wardrobe and out of Narnia.

Looking up at Shaun, I don t feel like the paralegal with her put-together life and wedding-venue booking and council-tax bills.

I m seventeen years old, and know these corridors and classrooms like I know my own house, and my heart is too big for my chest.

Where should we go? I ask, and it is like I m a teenager again, because the whole world feels so big - so open.

Shaun moves as if he s about to take my hand, then thinks better of it, but the smile he gives me is warm and bright.

I think I know just the place.

We fall into step easily and Shaun turns into the darkened hallway that leads to the maths and geography departments. The lights flicker on as we pass, bulbs humming to life overhead. I smile at the long radiator beneath a window that looks out into the little courtyard in the centre of the school; me and the girls would sit up on the windowsill, legs dangling over it, in the winter. It was our spot, and became Shaun and his friends spot after we started going out, too. In the window above it, I see the outline of some wooden picnic benches, which are new.

I point them out to Shaun and say, They must not have PE lessons out there anymore.

Huh. Guess not. It s just dark enough outside that, with the lights on, our reflections are clearly visible in the window, and I see the nostalgic quality that Shaun s face takes on. It s a little bit sad. Bryony mentioned they ve got new tennis courts and stuff, too, and the old gym has been renovated. They ve got stationary bikes and stuff now, too. And rowing machines.

Bloody hell.

He smirks. I bet they re still using the same grotty old copies of An Inspector Calls in English, though.

Probably. How did Bryony know about that? The gym and stuff, I mean.

Shaun shrugs. Probably did a full tour of the building when she called up the head teacher to ask about hosting the reunion here.

The mental picture makes me laugh, if only because it s all too easy to imagine. Given the impressive extent she s gone to with the decorations, I can absolutely see Bryony waltzing through the entire school before agreeing to use the hall - as if she were doing the school a favour, not the other way around. I wonder if it was as strange for her to come back as it is for some of us, when her reality must be so far removed.

We walk slowly, neither of us in a rush, and both too busy taking in the school to strike up conversation. There s a faint musty smell that clings to the air - old books and damp and dust and too much disinfectant; the sort of smell we d grow used to, but notice anew every time we came back from a half-term break or summer holiday. The classroom doors are still the same shade of cobalt with the little glass pane set at an adult s eye level and covered in a black criss-cross pattern, but the nameplates on the doors are new. I don t recognise most of them, and the names that should have been there from my school years scratch at the back of my memory, too far away to recall with any real clarity.

The maths rooms wind around the corner and I think about having to queue up in the corridor and wait for the teachers to let us in, or that one time I came back from a dentist appointment late in Year Ten. Mrs Macarthur made me stand out in the hall until she was ready and told me off for disrupting the class and being late and disrespectful, which had made me cry because I didn t mean to be late, and I had a note, and I wasn t the type of girl to get in trouble with her teachers.

Thinking about it now, I wonder if she was just having a bad day.

I say, Do you remember how weird it used to be to see a teacher outside of school? When you d spot them out in the supermarket or something like that, and suddenly remember that they had whole lives outside of this place?

Shaun s chuckle reverberates off the walls, reminding me of the awful acoustics that made it feel so noisy between classes, which in turn always made you talk louder to your friends to be heard over the noise. Yeah. Like they weren t quite human, somehow. It s the same way that parents never used to seem exactly like people , until

He trails off with a faraway look on his face and I make a soft noise of agreement. I don t know when I started to think of my parents as people in that sense, either.

It just feels strange, I say. Like everything used to be so insular, back then, and it s jarring to realise it wasn t ever really like that.

Yeah, he says, and some of the unease and strangeness at this whole thing falls away. But I still feel like I m going to get in trouble.

My stomach plummets to the ground and I picture Curtis charging after us to have a go at Shaun, even though I know he d never do something like that.

What do you mean?

If Shaun notices the rasp of my voice and the nerves in it, he s polite enough to ignore it. He shrugs and explains, Wandering around the school like this. Unsupervised, after hours. Makes me feel like I m skiving off class or like I ve snuck in on some dare and one of the teachers is going to leap out at me to tell me off and put me in detention - and remind me to tuck my shirt in properly while they re at it.

He throws me a smile before looking down, abashed, and scuffing the toe of his shoe against the floor. I can t help but laugh, a lightness blooming through my chest to chase away the last of my unease. There s something so innocent and boyish about both the confession and the shoe-scuff that I can only see him as the boy I fell so madly in love with, not a stranger I haven t seen in ten years.

Shaun s grin widens and he shakes his head at me, then turns off to the back stairs beyond the maths rooms. There s still a strip of tape running down the centre, splitting off the up and down routes, and, battered and dirty and broken as it is, I know it s probably been re-laid several times since we were students.

Where are we going? I ask, wondering if he means to go upstairs to the RE rooms or history department, if there s some new secret he s learnt from Bryony s chatter about the school, maybe some new set of benches somewhere Or there s the common room up on the second floor; I wonder if it still has the large, sunken brown leather sofa that we all loved so well - even if you did need someone to give you a hand back up, because you d sink so far into it.

As much as I m suddenly intrigued to see what the common room is like these days (maybe they finally put some computers in there like Ashleigh petitioned for so hard), the idea of sinking into that battered sofa with Shaun, the shoddy springs and gravity forcing us to sit close together, makes me nervous.

I m relieved when he continues up the stairs instead of making his way out to the common room. The lights in the second-floor corridor flicker to life, activated by some hidden motion sensor, and I realise only after Shaun heads for one particular door where he s leading me.

The library?

Fingers resting on the door handle, he glances back over his shoulder at me with a grin. Yeah.

But

Doesn t he remember all the times he d hide in the stacks and text me to abandon my coursework or friends for a few minutes? And I d tiptoe around looking for him like a scavenger hunt, to kiss him in front of the outdated encyclopedias?

Doesn t he remember that copy of Wuthering Heights I mentioned I was going to check out and read, so he hid a note inside it asking if I wanted to go to the cinema with him (the check yes or no kind), which I answered and hid inside his locker afterwards? I had to sneak into the boys cloakroom to do it, running back to Morgan and Priya and Thea, all of us blushing and giggling over the romance of it all.

But, it s too late, because he s already opening the door and walking inside, and I m already following, smiling to myself at the sweetness of the memory.