The Best Thing I Never Had (16 page)

On reflex he scooped up his mobile phone, eager to text Leigha with the news. He glanced over at Adam who was staring at his screen with a glazed expression, his fingers motionless on the keys.

‘You’re still planning on moving into London, aren’t you?’ Johnny asked. Adam roused himself, blinking.

‘Yeah, of course. ASAP mate, ASA bloody P.’

‘We should get a flat together. You know, like, rent one,’ Johnny said, making it sound as if the idea had just occurred to him. Adam looked doubtful.

‘Of course, mate, I’d love to keep living with you – but I’ll probably be set up by the time your thing up north is over – it’s a year, isn’t it? But of course … ’ Johnny shook his head, looking doleful.

‘It’s not happening mate,’ he told Adam. ‘It’s not come off. I’m going to check out internships in London after exams are over.’

‘I thought you had it though,’ Adam said slowly, suspiciously. Johnny just shook his head again.

‘Hasn’t come off,’ he repeated.

‘Well, that’s shit for you but great for me,’ Adam said, breaking into a grin. ‘And both Harry and Leigha’s parents live in the suburbs so they’re both nearby until they move out themselves. Can’t see us getting a house the four of us though, not any time soon!’ Adam smiled apologetically at the weakness of his joke. ‘Wow, cool. Everything’s coming together. The end of childhood is nigh.’

‘Yeah, unless you fail your dissertation because it’s four thousand words short and have to re-sit this year,’ Johnny said, nodding his head at Adam’s laptop. ‘Stop slacking.’

‘Hey, you’re the one distracting me!’ Adam protested.

‘Yeah, well, you should be working in your room,’ Johnny grumbled, starting on his text to Leigha.

The Facebook group was the straw that broke Harriet’s back.

‘You fucking bitch,’ she snarled as she stormed down the corridor from the stairs to the living room. Leigha froze, startled, gently steaming mug of tea held halfway to her mouth. Against the far wall the TV was tuned to a music video channel, blaring out an inappropriately upbeat song. Johnny rose immediately from where he sat on the sofa beside Leigha, frowning.

‘Harriet,’ he started, reaching his hand out in a ‘stop’ motion to still her. Harriet contemptuously ignored him, swerving round him to Leigha, who drew her feet closer to her in alarm.

‘Why can’t you just… leave me alone?’ The anger that had propelled Harriet off her desk chair and down the stairs was already dissipating, the misery creeping back in. Her limbs felt cold. Only one sentence out and already she was regretting this.

‘Ummm,’ Leigha said, exaggerating confusion, ‘I
am
leaving you alone. I was under the impression that I have absolutely nothing to do with your nasty self.’ She sipped her tea delicately. ‘So why don’t you just calm down and go crawl back into your little den up there.’ There it was, the ghost of a smile on those glossed lips. The double-entendre was not lost on Harriet; the anger reignited in her stomach.

‘Since when do people create Facebook groups about people they are having nothing to do with?’ she spat. Leigha’s eyes glittered apprehensively.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she answered, taking another defiant sip of her tea.

‘The hell you don’t,’ Harriet sneered.

‘And what Facebook group is this, anyway?’ Leigha asked her mug of tea conversationally. She had studiously avoided looking full on at Harriet since she’d walked into the room. Johnny looked mildly panic-stricken, standing there with his arm still pointlessly outstretched.

‘The one about me being a dog,’ Harriet answered through gritted teeth.

‘I created a Facebook group about dogs,’ Leigha agreed, her tone excessively innocent. ‘Nothing to do with you though. Guilty conscience?’

‘It’s not exactly subtle,’ Harriet frowned. ‘
The Group Against Referring to Slutty Women as Dogs or Bitches because it’s Not Fair on Real Dogs
?’ she quoted, disdainfully. ‘I get it. Okay? I get that you hate that Adam loves me and not you and that that makes me a “bitch” and a “dog” and a “slut”.’ She made mocking quotation marks with her fingers in the air as she spoke. ‘You know very well that I can hear you guys talking when you
stand outside my bedroom door
calling me a dog in heat
.
I see your Facebook statues with stupid little passive aggressive comments about bitches. I hear you humming “Beware of the Dog” when I
dare
come down to the kitchen to grab some food or make a cup of tea. I get it. I get that you hate me now and that you’re a totally different person, but why did you have to make a stupid Facebook Group and invite everyone we know to join it? Everyone from school, even? God.’ Harriet’s voice was wobbling dangerously so she broke off and took a deep breath to steady herself. ‘Why are you being such a bitch to me? What on earth did I ever do to you?’

Leigha’s eyes flashed; she placed her mug down carefully on the coffee table.

‘You slept with my boyfriend.’

Hearing the very sentence that she wanted to yell at Leigha directed at herself took the remaining wind out of Harriet’s sails. She turned on her heel and left without another word.

‘Harry?’ Nicky stood in her bedroom doorframe, voice questioning. Harriet shot her a mute look as she rounded the bottom of the stairs.

As if on cue, the television began to play the music video for Jamelia’s
Beware of the Dog
. Leigha’s delighted laughter followed Harriet all the way up the stairs. Even the slamming of her bedroom door didn’t quite shut it out.

Harriet almost jumped out of her skin as the heavy security doors were beeped open, hissing as they pulled apart. Hurriedly she composed herself and stared back at the computer monitor hoping that, whoever this nocturnal student was, they wouldn’t try to engage her in small talk.

‘What the hell are you playing at?’

Adam was framed against the closing doors, his face pinched, slipping the student card that he’d just used to access the computer lab back into his jeans pocket.

‘What do you mean, what am I playing at? I couldn’t sleep so I’m working.’

‘Working on what, Harriet, you’ve
finished
your dissertation and all of your coursework.’

‘I’m just editing,’ Harriet amended.

‘And you couldn’t do that at home?’

‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘That’s utter bullshit, Harriet. It’s three in the morning and you can’t sleep so you randomly decide to leave me in bed and walk to campus in the rain and stare at your completed dissertation?’

‘I left you a note in case you woke up and wondered where I was,’ Harriet pointed out, defensively.

‘Yeah, and that’s another thing, your note said that you were in the computer lab.’

‘Yes. And I am.’ Harriet gestured around sardonically at the banks of computers.

‘This isn’t
the
computer lab, this is the English postgrad students’ computer lab,’ Adam shouted. ‘Were you hoping I wouldn’t think to look here, when I couldn’t find you in the
actual
computer lab?’

‘I thought this one would be more private,’ Harriet hissed. ‘Nice and quiet,’ she added, sarcastically. Adam scowled.

‘Come on,’ he said, at a more reasonable volume. ‘Log off. I’m taking you home.’ Harriet stared at him. ‘Harriet, come on,’ Adam repeated, impatiently. ‘I’m bloody exhausted.’

‘You go home,’ Harriet retorted. ‘I’m staying here. I can’t… I can’t work in that house.’

‘It’s three in the morning!’

‘I am aware,’ Harriet snapped, caustically. ‘I told you, I’m staying here.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Adam asked, incredulously.

‘What’s wrong with
me
?’ Harriet repeated, in a tone just as incredulous, before finally cracking and breaking into tears that felt unbearably hot against her cheeks. Adam reached for her in alarm but she was out of the chair in an instant and backing away from him, blotting at her wet face with her sleeves.’

Did you have sex with Leigha?’ she asked.

Adam looked as if she’d just slapped him. ‘What? When? Of course not,’ he flustered, just like she’d imagined he would. Harriet closed her eyes; the disappointment was like an ache.

‘In January. She says you did.’

‘She’s a dirty, fucking liar.’ Adam was angry now and reaching for her again. ‘You don’t believe her, do you?’ When Harriet didn’t answer right away his expression darkened. ‘Do you?’ he repeated, urgently.

‘Why would she lie?’ Harriet said, finally.

‘Because she wants to hurt you. She doesn’t want us to be together,’ Adam answered immediately.

‘She knows about your birthmark,’ Harriet said, miserably. Adam’s expression knotted.

‘She’s lying,’ he repeated, but his voice was quieter, somehow nervous.

‘But then how would she know?’ Harriet yelled, balling her hands into fists so tight that she could feel the little crescents of her fingernails puncturing her palm.

‘I don’t know!’ Adam yelled back. ‘All I know is that she’s
lying
. How long have you been thinking this, huh?’ he asked. ‘Is that why you’ve gotten so weird with me lately? Is that why you’ve been acting so different?’

‘I’ve been acting so different because I
am
so different,’ Harriet shot back, resting heavily against a desk. ‘I don’t know who I am any more. You’ve got to give me a break. The people I trusted most in the whole world have spent the last few weeks making my life into a total hell. Is it any wonder, really, that I can’t trust you, when you say that nothing happened between you and Leigha?’

‘Nothing happened between me and Leigha!’ Adam shouted again. ‘I can’t believe you don’t believe me. I thought that you loved me?’ Harriet put her face in her hands to avoid a response. Yes, she was in love with him, but she didn’t want to be any more.

‘I loved
them,
and that didn’t stop them from hurting me,’ was all she said.

Adam stared at her in disbelief. ‘I know what this is really about,’ he said, slowly. ‘You
blame
me.’ Harriet shot him a look loaded with warning, but the denial he so obviously wanted was stuck, curled in her throat. ‘It’s easier to blame me than to blame yourself.’

‘Well, you have come out of this all rather well,’ she managed, finally. ‘You’ve lost no friendships. You’re not being deadbolted out of your own house, with songs and Facebook groups being made up about you. You haven’t lost anything.’ Adam had been shaking his head in disagreement as she spoke.

‘I’ve lost the girl I fell in love with,’ he told her, matter-of-factly. ‘Because apparently that girl defined herself as Leigha’s lackey, a sidekick with no worth on her own.’

‘You’re over-simplifying,’ Harriet snapped, furious.

‘You can’t just take it out on me. I wanted to tell everyone from the off.’ Adam jabbed his finger at her. ‘You’ve made this bed and you can’t un-do the decisions you made and what’s happened, but you don’t have to just hide in your room, wailing that you’re a victim, letting those bitches walk all over you and
sabotaging
your relationship with me.’

‘And what exactly do you suggest I do instead?’ Harriet asked, tone icy. Adam flung up his hands in exasperation.

‘Something! Anything! Walk up to Leigha and tell her she is a gigantic bitch and that she needs to back the hell off.’

‘I tried that!’ Harriet yelled. ‘It didn’t work. Nothing’s going to change. I just need to see out these last few weeks of term and then get the hell out of here. That’s all I want so stop trying to make it more bloody difficult for me. Head down, eyes forward, that’s all I’m trying to do. And, yeah, maybe it was a bad call for me to decide not to be honest with everyone from the get go, but that
doesn’t
excuse you lying to me. I can’t – I can’t even bear to look at you. Can you please just go?’

‘I’m not lying to you!’ Adam bellowed; his neck was flushed a dark, frustrated red.

‘She knew about the birthmark,’ Harriet reiterated.

‘If so, then you must have told her at some point.’

‘When the hell would I have told her something like that?’

‘I don’t know!’

Neither of them had anything more to say. They had been answering one another so quickly, so loudly, that the quiet of the pause was jarring. Harriet thought that the sound of Adam’s angry breathing was louder even than their voices had been.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Adam said, more to himself, practically under his breath.

‘What is?’ Harriet asked, sharply.

Adam gestured vaguely. ‘This. Everything. You.’ Harriet scowled at him; her tears were dry on her face now, the skin there felt tight and thin. ‘Why are you being like this?’

‘I’m not being like anything,’ Harriet answered, wearily. ‘I’m just trying to get through this.’

‘Then why are you pushing away the
one good thing
to come out of all of this? Are you punishing yourself? Is that it? Emotional self-harm? Huh? Or is it that you don’t want to love me, because you need to blame me instead, make me the scapegoat for all this? Or maybe you actually think that if you dump me, Leigha and Sukie will want to be your friends again?’

‘No, no, no,’ Harriet had repeated emphatically whilst he’d been talking. ‘No, it’s nothing like that at all. Stop making this all about
you
.’

‘I think it is,’ Adam said, resignedly. ‘I think it’s a mix of all of the above. Oh, Harriet.’

‘Stop being so fucking patronising,’ Harriet snapped, standing straight from where she had been slouched against the rear bank of desks. ‘This isn’t about you,’ she repeated.

‘Of course it’s about me,’ Adam said. ‘I may not be getting …  bullied the way that you are, but anything that upsets my girlfriend upsets me. And the way that you’ve been acting, the way you’ve spoken to me tonight, that upsets me too, Harriet. Don’t do this. Please.’

‘I don’t need you on my case like this, making me feel like shit too. I get enough of that at home.’

Adam reached for her again, and this time he caught her, pinning her arms between his, pulling their torsos together, reaching to hold her face in his hands. From this close she could see that his eyelashes looked damp, his rims reddened by the effort not to cry.