Undeniable (20 page)

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘You knew it was coming out?’

‘My agent told me yesterday. She said it would up my profile to have a few stories on gossip sites. But I swear I didn’t know it was going to be that. It’s a stupid article
about nothing – no one will even spend two seconds reading it.’

‘That’s not the point, Spencer.’

‘Come on – most people who read it won’t know you and won’t care.’

‘I said it’s not the point! You let it happen. I should never have trusted you.’

‘So you just expect me to trust you then? Even though you haven’t bothered to mention that you went out with someone for three years and only broke up with him two months
ago?’

His eyes are flashing angrily and his face is red.

‘How did you know that?’

‘You’re not exactly private with what you put up on your Facebook. And while we’re there, you’ve written a load of stuff about wanting to stalk people from
The
Halls
, so you might want to watch that.’

I barge past him and hear him drop everything as I go through the door. It would look all dramatic and like a film, I think, if the flowers weren’t mixed up with bacon.

I walk around for ages feeling like I’m going out of my mind. Hours pass, and I even forget all about lunch.

I end up on the bridge over the Thames right next to the London Eye. So I find a bench near it and sit down. I try calling Mia but it won’t connect. My thumb hovers over Nish’s and
then Rosie’s name, but I haven’t spoken to either of them since the picnic.

I know the one person I want to call. But I can’t.

So I call Granny.

I’m alone again for a while and then I feel him sit down beside me.

‘Hey.’

‘Max?’

I swallow. I feel like I’ve got a rock in my throat again. My eyes hurt.

‘Your granny called me.’

He puts his arm around me. I only have to move my head a bit to the side and it fits in the crook of his shoulder like it always did. He squeezes my arm and stands up, pulling me with him.

‘Come on,’ he says gently, ‘we’re eating.’

‘I can’t at the moment.’

‘Don’t be an idiot. Let’s go.’

We’re in a Chinese buffet having dinner and I go to pick up my fork but get the sick feeling again and put my hand back down. Max already has a forkful of noodles and he
points it at me as he talks.

‘I’ve seen you eat, Gab. You’d usually hoover this down and then start on mine.’

I breathe in to try to speak and then stop because I can feel that my voice is going to come out all high and weird.

‘What’s stopping you?’ he says softly.

I swallow again. It hurts. Stupid rock. ‘Just . . . worries.’

Usually words fall out of my mouth before I’ve had the chance to think about them. But now they’re locked in. I meet Max’s big brown eyes.

I’m thinking about how the same thoughts go round and round in my head and they trap me and I can’t ignore them long enough to do anything normal, like just talking to people. And
I’m thinking about how the thoughts are circling my stomach and squeezing it so I can’t eat. Or speak.

He’s just waiting. That’s what he’s like – no pressure. He lets me be me and just waits. I take a deep breath.

‘I worry that I’ll end up losing control like Dad did. And I’ll push everyone away.’

He looks at me steadily. ‘You don’t have to worry about me. You never will.’

I look down at the plate.

‘I’ll always be around,’he continues. ‘Even when you get bored and run away to London.’

I look up then and he’s smiling. I grin back and a couple of hot tears drip over my lip and into my mouth. I’ve started crying. I never do this. I blink rapidly to try to get rid of
them.

‘You can always come back and hang out. As friends or as whatever. Just as us.’ He hands me a tissue. ‘But maybe when you’re a bit less snotty.’

As if on cue, I give a large sniff.

‘So . . . What’s been going on?’ he asks.

He wants me to tell him about Spencer and when I ask if he’s sure he wants to know, he takes a deep breath in.

‘Hit me. I can take it.’

I tell him about how I never know where I am with Spencer, and how at first it was exciting, but at the same time I don’t know how much I can be myself.

‘Maybe I just need to grow up,’ I say miserably.

‘Please don’t,’ says Max. ‘I want you to always be the girl who interrupted a wedding by laughing when the priest said “loin”.’

‘Ha, and when he said “sexual union”, putting loads of emphasis on
sexual
.’

‘My cousin was so not happy about you laughing at her wedding.’ Max smiles.

‘She should have done the registry office one then – they don’t say loin or sexual in that one!’ I tell him.

Our laughter is interrupted by my phone going off in my bag.

I have fifteen missed calls from Spencer and a text. When I open the message a whole load of writing comes up and it looks like the longest text in the world. While I read it, Max sits there and
looks at his plate.

Max looks up.

‘Well?’

‘He’s . . . he’s waiting at the London eye with a glass of champagne. Like in the show.’

Max manages a sort of smile and nods. ‘He’s good.’

The bill comes, which breaks the tension for a moment and soon we are back outside again. The London Eye looms in the distance on the other side of the river.

‘So, you probably need some time to think,’ says Max. ‘I’ll . . . head off. But, you know, if you need anything . . .’

I want to tell him that I don’t want time to think. I want him to chat to me and to not have to think at all. There’s a pause when we don’t know whether to hug. Then Max puts
his arm out to do a fistbump instead. We laugh and then I grab him and hug him. I cling on, burying my face in his chest, and then we break apart.

As I watch him walk away, I get a sad pang when I notice he’s wearing the hat I got him. I wish I’d got him the one he really wanted.

Going along the bridge, it feels like everyone else is coming the other way. They’re walking lazily in the afterglow of a hot day and it seems like everyone I pass is in a group of
friends, chatting and laughing. I thought that’s what I’d get from the summer, but it hasn’t really turned out like that. Because I’ve been focused too much on Spencer?

But this is a person I could have adventures with.

I see Spencer in the queue for the Eye, wearing a suit and trying to open the champagne bottle at the same time as holding the glasses. People keep looking over and pointing at him, maybe
wondering if he is proposing to someone. Or perhaps they’ve seen
The Halls
.

In the show, Harry was dressed similarly and got into a pod, looking at his watch as the music got more dramatic. Then he saw Jen, standing on the grass. She shook her head and the pod moved off
and the credits rolled. And it was such a shock, because you’d seen her running and you really thought she would go to him.

It makes me decide. I do the same. I run.

I get there only just in time. He was about to go. I grab the back of his arm and he turns around. He looks surprised.

‘Look, would you come back with me?’ I ask him. ‘I just want someone to be with me and listen to all the crap I talk and just hang out.’

Max laughs. ‘Sounds amazing.’

Granny has gone out for dinner, so I lead Max over to the ladder to go up to my bedroom. He follows me up without saying anything.

In the bedroom, I get into my pyjamas and walk over to the bed. He takes off his T-shirt and then starts undoing his jeans. Then he looks up at me.

‘Oi! No peeking – face the wall.’

I smile at him and turn around.

My phone lights up in my bag. I told Spencer I would explain in the morning. I don’t know if he’ll want to see me. I don’t know what I’m going to say. I read his reply.
It says, Okay
.

Max and I slide under the covers and lie side by side.

‘I love you,’ he says, looking up at the ceiling.

‘I love you, too.’

And I know, whatever kind of love it is, we do love each other.

I don’t need to be in his arms to feel that he’s there for me. I turn my head to the side and so does he. And I talk about everything.

It’s such a relief to be honest with him. When all the stuff happened with Grandpa dying, and with Dad, I just used Max to distract me. I wanted everything to be the
same. I went out most nights and spent as little time at home as possible. And everyone was saying how well I was doing – how it was great I didn’t let things get me down. But I felt
like I’d turned into a joke. I was doing what everyone expected of me – getting drunk, just saying stuff without thinking, getting engaged too young – and they thought that was
all I was. I thought everyone was laughing at me and Max behind my back, just like they were laughing at my dad. And I started blaming Max for how I felt people saw us.

‘I never thought you’d be bothered about stuff like that,’ Max says when I tell him.

‘Neither did I,’ I say, my voice going squeaky and tears
still
streaming down my face. I think because I don’t cry very often, when I do, I unleash a flood. Mostly snot,
it seems. ‘I just wanted to prove to people I could do things on my own and that I wasn’t stupid, so I came to London on work experience.’

‘No one thinks you’re stupid, Gabi.’

‘Your parents do. When they go on about you going to uni and being a musical genius and how I’m holding you back.’

‘Well . . . my dad’s a dick.’

‘Yeah, he is.’

I feel Max’s stomach tensing as he laughs. It’s nice to be this close to him again.

‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘you’re the only one out of all of us with the prospect of an actual job. You’re Julia’s favourite waitress, and that’s pretty
special – she’s sacked most of the others.’

‘But, Max, you should have seen how they were all looking at me. They kept telling me I could take the rest of the shift off or take a break. Even when I got things wrong, I didn’t
get told off.’

Max is quiet for a while. Then he shifts on the bed and clears his throat. ‘This summer you’ve done things on your own. Come and lived here. Done the work placement. Done the hot new
TV hunk . . .’

I elbow him sharply in the ribs. ‘Shhh you.’

‘What? Are you embarrassed to be one half of a hot new celeb couple?’

‘I was embarrassed when I went to a posh hotel, threw wine over him then woke up in the middle of the night and hallucinated a dead bird. But I don’t need to worry about that any
more. I’m not so sure we are a hot celeb couple now.’

I feel his arm sliding away from me.

‘Max . . .’ I warn.

‘What?’

‘Do
not
do the get-in dance!’

Too late.

‘Max!’ I try to hold down his arms, but I can’t stop laughing. Eventually I biff him on the side of the head. ‘Anyway, what have you been up to – hanging out with
Rosie?’

He stops the dance and frowns at me. ‘Huh? Rosie’s going out with my brother.’

‘WHAT? No!’

‘Yeah, they met at this party just after you’d left. But she was really worried about telling you, I think – because she’s been round our house loads. It was nice getting
to know her a little better – felt like a link to you.’

‘I thought you two were having a steamy affair!’

‘No steamy affairs for me,’ he says, ‘but you should have seen some of their messages!’ He stops when he realises that sounds weird. ‘Cal lost his phone again, so I
said he could use mine.’

Once the big stuff’s out of the way, we chat for hours. The same silly things we always talked about. Eventually our responses get slower and start making less sense and
at some point we fall asleep.

In the morning he gets ready to go before I wake up. He knows I’m meeting Spencer. There’s a moment before he leaves when we don’t know whether to hug or not. Then he grabs me
and gives me one of his bear hugs.

‘Best friends?’ he says.

‘Best friends,’ I reply, my voice all muffled in his hoodie. ‘Well, equal to—’

‘Equal to Mia. I know my place.’

Spencer leaves me waiting for about ten minutes in the coffee shop, which is only fair I suppose.

He sits down and there’s an awkward pause.

‘Things got a bit mental for a bit there,’ I say.

‘To put it mildly.’ He nods.

Then we catch each other’s eye and can’t help a smile.

‘Oh dear,’ he says.

‘Oh dear,’ I agree.

There’s another silence, less awkward this time, and I start to speak.

‘I should have told you about Max. But I won’t even let myself think about him. He knows me so well and he saw me struggling through all the stuff with my dad and barely coping. He
was the one person who knew what scared me most – that I would have a breakdown like Dad. I liked you being someone who didn’t know any of that.’

‘So you kept me at a distance,’ he says in a low voice. ‘You could give me a chance to get to know you as well as he does.’

‘It’s not just Max, it’s all of them,’ I say, finally speaking out loud the thought that came to me and when I saw Max sit down next to me on the bench. ‘All the
people that know me and helped me through. My best friends. I need them at the moment and I need them to know how grateful I am. I know at some point there will be room for a new relationship. But
for now it’s them I need.’