Don't Ask (16 page)

‘Thanksch.’ I drank the glass of water down in one. I’d had no idea how thirsty I was.

As I sat guzzling, I noticed a strange buzzing sensation in my hip. It took me a while to compute that the vibrations were coming from my mobile phone, which was inside my clutch bag. I fumbled
for it, with hands that didn’t feel like they belonged to me. When I took it out, it was flashing,
J calling.
Jack! I felt a dull, slow panic rising in my chest. Why was Jack calling
me now? What should I do?

‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ asked Alex.

‘Yeshh, no, I dunno,’ I slurred.

‘Is it Jared?’

‘Umm, yesssh.’

‘You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to.’ She put her arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. ‘Call him back when you’re ready to talk – and
when you’re sober is probably a good idea. Make him sweat.’

I pressed reject.
You have seven missed calls
read the display on my phone (at least I think it did – it may have been one or eleven – I was seeing double). Funny, I
hadn’t heard it ring once. I stared at the message for a minute, wondering what to do next. Then, because I wasn’t thinking clearly, I switched the phone off and put it back inside my
bag.

‘Are you coming back in with me?’

‘In a few minish.’

‘OK, but I’m coming out to get you if you don’t come back in soon. You’ll freeze out here.’

‘Thanksch Lau-ra,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘Silly. You’re Laura, I’m Alex, remember.’

‘Oh yesch. I’m Lau-ra. Lau-ra Tschompson.’

‘That’s right.’ She gave me a sympathetic glance, like she’d decided there was no hope for me, and went back inside.

The cold and the food did help to sober me up, although when I realised how close I’d come to giving the game away I almost wished I were out of it again. Maybe, I thought, subconsciously,
I want Alex to know the truth. But not like that; she couldn’t find out like that. I gathered myself together, smoothing down my dress and combing my hair with my fingers. I could see my
faint reflection in the patio doors. I looked a fright: most of my make-up had melted off and my eye liner had smudged under my eyes.

The party I went back into was the not same one I’d left. The food and drinks table had been desecrated and there were crisps and bits of cupcake spread across the carpet, which were
gradually being kneaded into the fibres under people’s shoes. In every corner couples were snogging and a few people had slumped asleep against the wall. I felt like a spare part. If I
hadn’t been staying at Alex’s, this would have been the time to leave. But I couldn’t leave. Where was she?

I saw her across the room. She was sitting with a group of people, holding hands with Ben, her head on his shoulder. Good for her, I thought. Perhaps I should make my excuses and go to bed?
Before I could, she spotted me.

‘Laura,’ she called out. ‘Come over here.’ She beckoned to me. ‘A few of us are going to play spin the bottle with one of the champagne bottles my parents gave me.
Why don’t you join us?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. Spin the bottle usually spelled trouble.

Jessica sidled up to me. ‘Oh, go on. It will be fun.’ She had a mischievous look in her eye.

Alex looked at me, wide-eyed. ‘Please, Laura. Play with me. It is my birthday after all.’

What could I say? ‘OK then.’

I wouldn’t have agreed so readily had I known in advance that Dave was one of the players. He seemed very pleased indeed when I sat down in the circle opposite him.

‘I think we should play the Truth or Dare version,’ said Jessica. ‘Here goes . . .’ She spun the bottle hard, so that it revolved six or seven times before coming to rest
with its thin end pointing in the direction of a plump girl named Sarah. ‘Truth or dare?’ she asked.

‘Truth,’ said Sarah, without hesitation. Evidently, she wasn’t the adventurous type.

‘OK. Do you fancy Robbie?’

Sarah went bright red. Clearly she did. ‘Umm, er, yes,’ she admitted. She tried, bashfully, to catch Robbie’s gaze but he looked away and rolled his eyes at the girl sitting
next to him. Poor Sarah.

‘Hah!’ said Jessica. ‘I knew it! Your go to spin.’

Sarah’s spin sent the bottle careering out of the circle. On her second attempt, it ended its journey at Alex, who chose ‘dare’.

‘I dare you to snog Ben,’ said Sarah. Jessica groaned. It wasn’t much of a dare, given that Alex and Ben had clearly been joined at the lips for most of the party. Alex was
only too happy to oblige.

‘Get a room, guys,’ said Jessica. ‘In normal circumstances, I’d make Sarah give you another dare, but as it’s your party, I’ll allow it. Just this
once.’

Eventually, Alex pulled herself away from Ben and took her turn at spinning. The bottle pointed at a boy called Carl, who was dared to run around the garden in his boxers. Having done so, he
spun and the bottle came to a stop right in front of me.

‘Truth or dare?’ he said.

I hesitated. Of course, you must be thinking that it’s obvious what I did next. Why, you’d even put money on the fact that I said, ‘Truth.’ It makes no odds what the
question might have been: given that my whole persona was a lie, I should easily have been able to tell another, and tell it well. But I couldn’t do it. Why not? Because some stupid
superstition, some idiotic belief that there’s a higher morality at work when playing spin the bottle, made me unable to risk answering a question I couldn’t answer honestly. It was
just like when I was a kid and someone asked me to swear on my mother’s life that what I claimed was true. I simply couldn’t do it, just in case I really did condemn her to a terrible
end.

So I said, ‘Dare.’

‘But I don’t know you,’ said Carl. ‘Someone else should come up with the dare.’

‘I know . . .’ volunteered Jessica. ‘This is a good one. Laura, I dare you to snog Dave.’

I tried not to show my horror. Alex must have told Jessica that Dave liked me; she’d probably also told her that I’d just broken up with my boyfriend and was feeling very vulnerable.
Now the cow was playing games with me. I wanted to say, ‘I’d rather run round the garden naked,’ but I didn’t want to hurt Dave’s feelings. I looked at Alex, my eyes
pleading.

‘Can’t you make her do something else?’ asked Alex. ‘No offence to you Dave, but like I told you, Laura’s literally just broken up with someone.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Jessica. ‘The boy from the band, wasn’t it? No, I’m sorry. Rules are rules. And if they’ve broken up, she’s free and single and she can
snog anyone she likes.’

Dave grinned at me, nervously. He looked like someone who knows they’ve won the lottery but can’t find their winning ticket. ‘Come on, just a quickie,’ he said. ‘I
don’t bite. Well, not usually.’

I could feel tears beginning to well up in my eyes. Despite all my lies, the one line I’d never crossed was cheating on Jack. Everything I’d done was for our relationship; well, it
started off that way, at least. How could I kiss another guy, even if it was just for a dare? Jack was very clear on what he considered cheating, and kissing someone else was a no go. If he found
out, he’d never forgive me. I didn’t even
want
to kiss anyone but Jack. But how could I get out of it? I couldn’t say, ‘Actually, I didn’t split up with my
boyfriend at all,’ because then everyone would know I’d been dishonest. I couldn’t tell the truth without exposing all my lies.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’ I breathed deeply and tried to imagine that I – no Laura – was a spy on a treacherous mission, forced to seduce an evil man
in order to save her lover’s life. Then I crawled over to Dave, grabbed him by the shoulders and, as quickly as I could, gave him a hard smack of a kiss on the mouth. No tongues. No soft
lips. Barely any contact. When I pulled back Dave looked dazed and a little annoyed.

‘That’s not a snog,’ Jessica griped.

‘Leave her alone, Jess,’ said Alex, her tone concerned. She could see how upset I looked. That only made me feel worse.

‘I think I’m going to go to bed now,’ I said, clambering up from the floor, before anyone could argue with my decision. ‘Goodnight everyone.’

I managed to leave the room and make it halfway up the stairs before bursting into tears. About ten minutes later, Alex came up to see if I was all right, but I pretended I was already
asleep.

I lay awake for what felt like hours, staring into the dark, my mind racing. I heard the front door slam several times as people left, and there were low murmured voices when Alex’s
parents arrived home. At some point Alex came to bed and, exhausted, fell asleep almost at once.

At about three a.m., I remembered that I’d turned off my mobile phone hours earlier, without listening to my voicemail. I tiptoed into the bathroom and switched it back on, hoping that it
wouldn’t wake Alex. There was a text from Katie, three message alerts and about a dozen missed calls. Katie’s text read
Cl me now!!!
She hadn’t ended it with kisses,
which was unusual and rather an ominous sign. She was probably still annoyed with me. I glanced at my watch. It was far too late to call. I’d have to wait until the morning.

Next, I called my voicemail. Jack had left all three messages. It felt both weird and duplicitous to be listening to his voice in Alex’s house. Alex had lived there all her life. He must
have stood in that bathroom, he’d probably used that toilet and that sink. I wondered if rooms remembered sounds, if they absorbed voices. They do in those ghost-hunting shows on TV; you can
buy special equipment which records the ghostly voices captured within the plaster.

The tone of Jack’s first message was warm and friendly: ‘Hi Lily, it’s me. I know you’re with Katie tonight but I wanted to ask you about something. Hope you’re
having a brilliant time. Give me a call when you get a sec.’

In the second message, recorded about an hour later, he sounded irritated: ‘Why aren’t you answering your phone, Lil? I must have rung about six times. Have you put it on silent?
Please call me back.’

The last message made my stomach lurch, horribly: ‘I’m worried now,’ said Jack, his voice a mixture of anxiety and barely contained anger. ‘You’ve switched your
phone off and it’s going straight to voicemail. Is everything OK? I’m going to call Katie.’

Alex and I both awoke early on Sunday morning, despite having had very little sleep. I think Alex was still high on adrenalin from her party and excited about Ben. I
couldn’t rest for all the competing thoughts in my head: thoughts about what had happened the night before, about having to deceive Alex and, most pressing of all, about Jack. Why had Jack
rung Katie and, more worrying, what had she told him? When could I get away to call her?

I didn’t feel comfortable lying (in both senses of the word) in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar bedroom. I looked over at Alex and acknowledged how little I knew her, and how she
didn’t know me at all, and it made me sad. When you sleep alongside another person it creates a sense of intimacy, and this only served to make me feel more of a fake than ever. Pretending to
be someone else is a lonely job, even though you do have two voices competing in your head. I wanted to be at home, in my own bed, where I could be Lily, just plain Lily.

‘Laura?’ Alex said quietly, when she noticed me stirring. A tiny chink of light was peeking through the curtains and I could just make out her face, her new hairstyle messed up and
sticking to her cheeks.

‘Uh-huh?’

‘I’m sorry about last night.’

‘It’s OK, it wasn’t your fault.’

‘Well, I knew you were upset about Jared. I shouldn’t have made you play with us.’

‘Honestly, it’s OK.’ Stop being so nice, I thought, I don’t deserve it.

‘Did you enjoy yourself, apart from that?’

‘Yes, it was a great party. Did you?’

She grinned. ‘Absolutely. I had a fantastic time. I’m not looking forward to clearing up, though.’

Please don’t ask me to stay and help, I thought. I want to get out of here. I need to get out of here. What I said was, ‘Well, I can help for a bit,’ and hoped for once that
she could tell I didn’t mean it. ‘I promised Mum and Dad I’d come home and do my coursework.’

‘Hey, no, you’re a guest. I don’t expect you to. Jess and a few other people are coming back later to help – it’s all arranged.’

‘OK, cool. So, what’s with you and Ben . . .’

‘Me and Ben, what?’

‘You know what I mean! So what’s the score? Are you seeing each other now?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, wistfully. ‘I guess we’ll have to see what happens.’

‘But you like him?’

‘I think so. Yes.’

‘He seems nice. I didn’t get to talk to him much, but I think he’s cute and I can tell he’s into you.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I’m still not sure if I want a relationship.’

‘But it’s been well over a year since you and Jack split up.’

She paused. Her brow furrowed and I thought that she gave me a weirdly intense stare, although maybe it was just the way the shaft of light was hitting her face. ‘True,’ she said,
eventually. ‘But you know what it’s like when you really love someone. It’s not that easy to get them out of your head.’