The Best Thing I Never Had (10 page)

She hadn’t seen Adam for hours, so when he loped past where she was sat it was a bit of a physical shock. He looked as drunk as she felt, and was as dark and brooding as a storm cloud. She heard a glassy chinking as he presumably tossed something into the recycling crate in the back porch, before walking back through the kitchen to the fridge, where Johnny was excavating its depths for the final few beers.

Leigha immediately disengaged from her conversation and floated over to join the two boys. She touched her fingers to the small of Adam’s back for his attention as she spoke. Adam laughed at whatever it was that she’d said, slinging his arm drunkenly around her shoulder. Johnny straightened, handing Adam a beer with a neutral expression on his face.

Harriet Shaw, 03.11

Are you asleep? x

Adam Chadwick, 03.12

No. Thinking.

Harriet Shaw, 03.12

What about? x

Adam Chadwick, 03.14

Dan’s stupid cap :)

Harriet Shaw, 03.14

I miss you.

Adam Chadwick, 03.15

xxx

Adam Chadwick, 03.16

I will be round tomorrow lunchtime, I’ll pick up some stuff from the little shop on way. If I can’t give u a good morning kiss at least I can give u a bacon sandwich xxx

Harriet Shaw, 03.17

You are literally the best. I am a lucky girl :)

Leigha’s breathing as she slept was deep and even. It was almost hypnotic.

Johnny’s side was going numb, he was going to have to shift positions. Taking excruciating care not to shift the covers more than necessary, he inched onto his back. Leigha slept on.

April 2007

Adam thought that it was time to tell everyone.

‘Nobody gives a fuck that Johnny spent the night in Leigha’s bed the other week,’ he pointed out, doodling absent-mindedly in black pen on the skin of Harriet’s calf.

Harriet rolled her eyes. ‘Trust me, a massive fuck is given,’ she assured him. ‘Nicky’s actually really cross with her, I don’t think she’s actually spoken to her since she found out. And Sukie gave her usual lecture. She told Leigha,’ her eyes flashed mischievously, ‘that she was messing Johnny around WORSE than you did her…’

‘Coming from Sukie, that’s one hell of a reprimand,’ Adam laughed, re-angling Harriet’s leg on his lap to continue his drawing.

‘She said that it was only a drunken kiss and that they didn’t do anything in bed but pass out,’ Harriet continued.

‘Which Johnny corroborates,’ Adam nodded.

‘Yeah, but, I’ve never known a man to enter Leigha’s bed and come out unscathed!’ Harriet laughed. ‘You had a lucky escape.’

‘I really did.’ Adam leant forward to give Harriet a kiss. Her face was hesitant when he pulled away.

‘What?’ he asked, concerned.

‘It was… just a kiss, wasn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Just that one kiss on New Year’s Eve? There weren’t… any other kisses that I should know about, were there? Or anything… more?’

Adam dropped the pen into his lap and reached out to her face. ‘God, Harry, of course not, I would have told you. You know that.’

‘I know.’ Harriet was flushed and fidgety with embarrassment. ‘It’s just… like I said. You’d be the exception, not the rule.’ She shrugged. Adam kissed her again.

‘Exactly. I’m the exception,’ he swore.

Harriet tensed as she heard the front door open.

‘I’m home!’ came the cry.

Sukie was back a couple of hours earlier than she’d said she’d be; luckily, Adam had left twenty minutes before. Leaving her duffel bag parked at the foot of the stairs, Sukie came straight through to investigate who was home.

‘Hey,’ she said, perching on the free sofa to kick off her shoes. ‘When did you get back?’

Harriet shifted uncomfortably inside her duvet cocoon. She was feeling awful – both figuratively and literally. She’d actually been back at Dell Road for the last five days, cutting her Easter holiday at home with her parents short in order to spend a little uninterruptable, guilt-free time with Adam whilst the house was empty.

‘This morning,’ she lied. ‘My brother drove me back on his way into London. Jumped at the offer… I don’t feel so well, couldn’t face slogging here on the train.’

Sukie leant forwards with her elbows on her knees, scrutinising Harriet’s face. ‘Yeah, you don’t look so hot,’ she agreed. ‘Do you want something?’ She stood and moved towards the kitchen.

Harriet swallowed laboriously; her throat felt raw and puffy. ‘Something hot to drink would be nice, my throat’s really sore,’ she admitted. Sukie looked at her with renewed concern.

‘I think I’ve got some Lemsip or something in my room,’ she said. ‘Hang on.’ She took the opportunity to drag her bag upstairs; Harriet winced as her headache pulsed in tandem with the thump, thump, thump of the bag hitting the stair lips. She burrowed further into the warmth and softness of the duvet. She imagined she could still smell Adam on the cotton of the sheets.

‘Boots’ own brand will have to do!’ Sukie announced cheerfully, reappearing in the kitchen with a handful of sachets and busying herself with the kettle. Harriet watched her friend as she moved from cupboard to drawer, collecting mugs and spoons. Hey, she wanted to say, I’ve got something to tell you. She imagined just blurting it all out. How would she start? You know that thing I said I wouldn’t do…

After five days of playing house together things with Adam were growing even more serious. Nothing like cooking your daily meals and waking up every morning with someone to put paid to the pretence that you’re not a real couple …  The knowledge that she’d be alone in her bed tonight – as opposed to tangled up amongst Adam’s arms and legs – made Harriet feel a little adrift.

Matters had definitely escalated. And what had she told herself when this all started? The minute she knew it was for real, she’d talk to Leigha…

‘Here you go.’ Sukie held out a steaming mug, interrupting her thoughts.

‘Oh, thank you!’ Harriet strenuously pulled herself up to a sitting position and reached out with both hands for the mug.

Sukie gasped. ‘Shit, Harry!’ she squealed. ‘You’re all swollen!’

Drawing her hands back, Harriet placed them under her chin. Her skin felt as puffy and hot as the inside of her throat did. She winced. ‘Is it bad?’ she asked.

The ever capable Sukie snapped into mother mode, thrusting the mug towards her. ‘Drink this. Stay there,’ she commanded, a little unnecessarily, as Harriet felt like she had lead weights on all of her limbs. ‘I’m calling NHS Direct.’

‘You’ve got the what?’ Adam asked, voice rising in alarm.

‘
We’ve
got the mumps,’ Harriet croaked down the phone.

‘Shit! Thought I felt rough.’

‘Exactly. So, fluids, fluids, fluids. And stay in bed,’ Harriet advised.

‘Hmmm, sounds like what caused the problem in the first place,’ Adam laughed quietly, voice low and suggestive. Harriet groaned fondly. ‘So, how are we playing this then?’ Adam continued. ‘We were both opposite sides of the country, at home with our folks, and independently return for term with the mumps?’

‘There’s probably a national epidemic or something,’ Harriet said, straight-faced.

‘No doubt,’ Adam agreed, sarcastically.

‘You sure you don’t mind being left here alone, mate?’ Johnny asked from the doorway to the lounge, his concern genuine. Adam’s flushed and swollen face peered out at him from the duvet that was pulled up to his chin.

‘I’m fine,’ he rasped, sounding extremely wretched. ‘Get out of here. Enjoy your takeaway. What are you getting?’

Johnny rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. ‘Chinese.’

Adam shot him a look. ‘You hate Chinese.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Johnny shrugged. ‘It’s the girls’ favourite and it’s not so bad.’

‘Is it the ‘girls’’ favourite or is it specifically Leigha’s favourite?’ Adam asked, irritated.

‘Whatever, mate – it’s not like it matters,’ Johnny snapped. Adam sunk into a frowning silence. ‘Are you sure you don’t need anything before I go over?’ Johnny asked again.

‘No, I said, I’m fine! Go. You might as well spend as much time over there as possible, stop you catching this lurgy off me.’

‘Well, that would be pointless, being as Harriet’s contaminating the girls’ house,’ Johnny scoffed. ‘The two of you – couldn’t even have the courtesy to only infect one of the houses!’ he laughed. ‘We should throw Harriet in here to live with you and board up the doors and windows, like for plague victims.’

And as he said it, he noticed that strange look again, tight between Adam’s eyes, the one that made him wonder what it was his best friend wasn’t saying. But, before he could examine his misgivings more closely, his mobile buzzed dully against his thigh, distracting him.

Leigha Webster, 18.12

HUNGRY!! xx

Adam leant back rather precariously on his chair and pondered the wall planner tacked up above his desk. He tapped the end of his biro against his teeth thoughtfully.

It was April 15
^th
. Adam’s eyes were drawn along the columns to where Harriet had filled in a date box in yellow highlighter pen; June 15
^th
. He now officially had only two months to churn out ten thousand words of a passable quality. Still just about doable, but he really had to knuckle down today and at least pick the genre, if not the specific subject and title of the dissertation. He solemnly avowed that he would go no further than the bathroom until that task was complete.

After checking his emails and Facebook account, Adam opened up the Google search engine and confidently typed in: ‘what should I do my English dissertation on?’ Within half a second he had more than three million results, a veritable wealth of instruction and advice. Feeling rather pleased with himself, Adam decided he’d earned a fortifying tea break before continuing on.

A mug of builders’ tea and half an hour of Pro Evo with Johnny later, Adam returned to the results list and started to sift through.

Focus on a topic that you genuinely like and are interested in.

Adam rolled his eyes. Well, obviously. He just needed help discovering what that was.

Choose novels that are more complex and have a higher word count; this way, if you decided to change your focus partway through the process, the book should have enough scope to allow fresh ideas and approaches.

Adam rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn’t quite sure he liked the idea of a lengthy and complicated book, not least because it might be a squeeze to fit in both the reading of it and the actual writing of the thesis on it. Poetry, then, maybe? He typed ‘poetry’ into Google and was rewarded with 300 million results. He sighed impatiently. This really was not helpful in narrowing his options. He do with another cup of tea…Deciding Poetry.com was as good a place as any to start, well, looking at some poetry, Adam clicked onto the site and started to skim read at random. After a wasted hour glazed over as he read Renaissance verse, he found some more modern stuff he quite liked.

‘It’s quite good, isn’t it mate?’ he asked Johnny, as he read one of the poems Adam had kept tabbed open on his screen. ‘Sort of like song lyrics, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah, I guess,’ Johnny said, uncertainly. ‘But, what are you going to say about them?’

‘Ah, you know,’ Adam shrugged. ‘The usual shit. Theme. Tone. Er, the structure.’

Johnny raised his eyebrows. ‘The structure?’

‘Yeah, you know. How many lines it has. If it rhymes. You know, structure.’

‘You won’t get ten thousand words out of that though, mate.’

‘Well obviously I’ll write about more than just the one poem,’ Adam told him, scornfully. Johnny’s eyebrows were still arched rather doubtfully.

‘Okay, I guess,’ he said. ‘Good work then, mate. Pro Evo break?’

Feeling very virtuous, Adam took his laptop into bed with him that night, continuing to trawl through the archive on Poetry.com, this time with the filter ‘Modern’ in play. Harriet had sent through her habitual sweet goodnight text and Adam was looking for a piece of suitable love poetry to impress.

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud

and your form and colour are the way I love them.

You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips

and in your life my infinite dreams live.

He revolved his mobile in his hand as he used the other to click in and out of other poems by the same writer, satisfaction growing as he realised he found them quite accessible and that – potentially – he’d found a direction for his dissertation. He’d run it past Harriet when he met up with her in the library tomorrow, see what she thought of its prospects. It was the first time they were going to see one another since they’d recovered from the mumps; shame it had to be the flipping library, but – he guessed she was right, they
had
missed out on ten days of study in the final ever term of their degree.

There was a little bittersweet part of him that almost wished they hadn’t had the week or so alone together in her house. It was making all the subterfuge and being apart that much harder, being together 24/7 reduced to texting sappy poetry in the dead of night. Adam laughed to himself. If you’d told him six months ago he’d been mooning over love poetry on the internet – much less texting it on to a girl – he’d have said you were barking.

He’d used to tell Lauren that he loved her, not often, and more as an automatic response to her saying it first. He probably wrote it more often in cards than he’d ever said it out loud. Not for the first time recently, he felt a twinge of guilt at how he’d treated the girl. He hoped she’d find someone who would text her love poetry in the middle of the night.

Harriet had responded, very appreciative of both the content and the intent of his text. Adam thumbed onto the Reply screen and, as he had a lot that week, toyed almost absent-mindedly with the idea of texting: I love you.