The Deepest Cut (20 page)

‘I'm not ditching our plans, I told you my mum didn't leave the money.' He was almost shouting. ‘And I don't know what your problem is with Danny, both of you. I'm getting sick of it.'

‘Erm, aren't we forgetting him getting arrested?' I asked.

Nobody said anything. Nathan sat back down on the bench and got his phone out. The tension was huge. It was believable Nathan's parents might have forgotten, but there was something inside me that didn't buy his story.

‘You're a sly bastard,' Jake said.

‘Don't fucking start,' Nathan said. ‘Look, whatever, come if you want, or not – you lot are pissing me off. I'm gone.' Nathan picked up his ball from under Jake's foot and stormed off.

Jake sat down next to me and neither of us said anything for a while. I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. I really thought that we'd heard the last of Danny, but clearly not. It was starting again. I didn't like it.

‘What we gonna do?' Jake asked.

‘I think we should go,' I said.

‘Because you wanna prove a point to Nath, or because you actually wanna spend New Year's Eve at Danny's shit-hole having your eardrums ruptured by his shit music?'

‘No, because I want to spend New Year's Eve with Nathan, like we do every year,' I said, and it was the truth. I was furious but I reckoned the best thing to do would be to go, make an effort, try and all get along. It was the only way we'd be able to see the new year in together.

It'd been three hours since we'd left the park, and Jake was still harping on like an old woman about how we'd been duped by Nathan. I wanted to take the pillow out from behind my back and smother him with it, because I thought it was the only thing that would shut him up.

‘He's such a slimy arse. I don't believe him, you know, I don't believe him one bit that his mum and dad didn't leave him the money for the tickets,' he said.

‘I know, you've said a thousand times already.'

We were playing FIFA on the Xbox and I knew how pissed off he was, because I was winning. I'd never won a game of FIFA in all our sixteen years.

‘I reckon he just wanted to go to Danny's party, you know, but he didn't have the balls to say it.'

‘Just chill out, man. It'll be OK, we'll have a good time.'

‘Your attitude has changed,' he said, taking the giant bag of crisps off my lap. ‘You actually want to go to this party?'

‘If he's gonna be friends with Danny, he's gonna be friends with Danny, right?'

‘Yeah, but that doesn't mean we have to be friends with Danny.' Jake made a face.

‘No, but if we wanna spend New Year with Nathan, we have to go.'

‘To Danny's house party? Ad, you know how much I hate house parties.'

I laughed.

‘Why you laughing?'

‘One bad experience and it puts you off for life.'

He threw the Xbox controller down on the bed and put his hands on his head.

‘I really wanted to go to The Shed for New Year's, man. There was gonna be some fitness there, you know, I could feel it in my bones.'

‘There might be at Danny's? What about Lucy? You know how she feels about you,' I couldn't hold back my laughter.

Jake exhaled about four lungs worth of air in one go. ‘Apparently, I'm gonna regret the day I was rude to her or something.'

‘Dinner,' Debbie's voice came shouting up the stairs.

‘Come on, let's eat and get ready. We wanna spend New Year with Nathan, don't we?' I asked.

‘S'pose,' he said.

Jake wouldn't snap out of his strop the whole way there, even though I was trying to cheer him up. I felt nervous as we walked over to Danny's, like we were about to walk into a lion's den or something. It didn't help that Polly had told me I was mental for wanting to go, and finished the phone call by telling me good luck. She'd gone up north, under duress, with her mum and dad and Ed for New Year. If she was around, I would have made her come with us just to make things a bit easier. She seemed to have a knack with Danny. She didn't take his attitude.

When we got there, the front door was open and I made Jake go in first.

‘Just go and find Nathan,' I said when he hesitated.

The place was packed and the music was blaring. The atmosphere was the complete opposite of Ed's party. It wasn't friendly. I wanted to turn and run the other way, admit defeat, and let Nathan get on with it with Danny.

Nathan was in the kitchen.

‘Came then?' He asked in a pissed-off tone. He wasn't pleased to see us.

‘Looks like it,' Jake said in his properly sarcastic voice.

‘No need to be sarky.'

‘No need to be an arsehole.'

‘You two are doing my head in already,' I said. ‘Stop it; let's just have fun, yeah? Is Sarah alright?' I asked. It was the only thing I could think of that would lighten the mood.

Nathan looked out into the big room off the kitchen. She stood next to Danny at a mixing deck in the corner. She was all dressed up and looked really nice.

‘Yeah, she's fiiiine,' he said. He smiled at her and I waved.

Jake didn't move or say anything. His face was like stone.

‘Go home if you don't like it,' Nathan said to him.

‘I just don't know what you see in these people?'

‘Fuck off, Jake, these are my friends.'

‘No, we are your friends,' he said.

Nathan laughed. ‘I can't help it if you're getting jealous of my new life. I can't hang around with you losers forever, can I?' He patted Jake on the back.

‘Nath, man,' I said.

He stopped laughing. ‘I'm kidding alright. Keep your tits on, and try and have a good time,' he said. He walked over to Sarah and gave her a kiss.

‘Wanker,' Jake said when he was gone.

‘Look, man, I know you love him but just leave off a bit tonight, yeah?' I asked.

‘Why should I? He's being a dick.'

‘I just don't want it kicking off, I hate it when we argue, can't we just be nice?' I smiled my cheesiest smile at him.

He didn't smile back.

‘To be honest, Ad, I feel well out of place. I'd rather be at home drinking tea with my mum and watching bloody
Eastenders,
and that's saying something.'

I laughed; then stopped because Danny was next to Jake. He'd appeared out of nowhere.

‘Nobody asked you to come,' he said. His face was cold and hard.

Neither of us said anything. I tried to remember what Polly had told me about him – that he just thinks he's hard, and that he's harmless really.

‘What? Cat got your tongue?' He asked.

‘Thanks for the invite, Danny,' Jake said and held his drink up to him in a mock toast.

‘I didn't invite you, Nathan did.'

He was making me nervous.

‘Oh well,' Jake said. I wanted him to stop being sarcastic and just leave it. ‘Thanks to Nathan, then.' Jake raised his glass in Nathan's direction.

‘Bit of advice,' Danny said.

Oh God. ‘Go on,' I said.

‘Stop being such losers. Nath is cool and you're holding him back.'

Jake's back straightened and his chest puffed out. I knew something bad was about to come out of his mouth and I braced myself for it.

‘Fuck you,' he said. A bit of spit came out of his mouth.

I wanted to run and hide under the table, but I was brave.

‘Look, we're all friends here,' I said.

Danny looked at me but his face didn't move. ‘No we're not,' he said. He turned to Jake. ‘I heard about you shouting off in the park about me, and about you disrespecting my friend Lucy. It's stuff like that I don't like.' He held Jake's gaze for what felt like a lifetime, then he went back off into his party, leaving me to wonder if I had actually just shat myself.

Before I could say or do anything else, Jake stormed off, and I followed him out of the front door, into the bitter night air.

We were on our park bench. It was freezing cold and drizzling. I was fed up. It was half eleven and we had nowhere to be for midnight. I was annoyed with Jake. All I'd been trying to do was keep the peace, to try and get everyone to relax and have fun, but it had completely backfired and our evening was ruined. I was getting to the point where I was sure the only option left was to stop fighting for Nathan. I was thinking that maybe, the more you fight, the more you end up pushing them away. Maybe we just had to let him go.

Jake sighed.

‘What?'

‘Fed up, man, this is shit. Let's just go.'

‘Where?'

‘Yours, 'cause my mum's in.'

‘My dad's in.'

‘Fuck's sake,' he said, and crossed his arms, sulking like a little toddler.

‘I don't know why you had to start,' I said to him. I couldn't hold it in. ‘I don't get why you couldn't have just left it?'

‘So it's my fault now?'

‘Did I say that?'

‘Sounds like it.'

‘Jeez, you can be such a woman sometimes.'

‘Shut up,' he said, and I did because otherwise we'd just get into a big argument.

I knew he didn't want to lose Nathan either but I was pissed off with him for not keeping his mouth shut. If he had we might still have been there, maybe even enjoying ourselves a bit, and not sitting on our bench, on our lonesome, in the rain, freezing our bollocks off with nowhere to go.

I heard the park gate creek open in the distance.

I squinted over to see what looked like a crowd of people coming over our way.

I sat up straight on the bench and leant forwards to try and see more clearly through the darkness.

‘Who's that?' Jake asked, leaning forwards too.

‘Dunno,' I said. ‘Looks like they're coming over.'

When they crossed one of the paths lit by street lamps, I saw it was Nathan and Danny. Sarah and Lucy were there too, and a load of others.

I stood up straight away. So did Jake.

‘What the fuck?' He said.

Something didn't feel right.

When they got close enough for me to see Nathan's face, my stomach jumped because he looked so angry.

I took a step towards him but he walked straight past me, straight up to Jake and got straight in his face.

‘Where's my fucking phone?' he spat.

‘Don't let him take the piss, Nath, teach him,' Danny said.

‘What? Nathan? Jake?' The words were coming out of my mouth, but they weren't listening to me.

They were squared up to each other. Staring into each other's eyes.

Sarah came out of the crowd with wide eyes. She grabbed Nathan's arm and tried to pull him away. He brushed her off.

‘I said, where's my fucking phone?'

‘Look, just calm down, yeah? What's going on?' I asked.

Sarah tried to pull Nathan away again. ‘I think we should just leave it. I don't want you to fight.'

‘Just stay out of it,' Danny said.

Lucy appeared and pulled Sarah away. ‘Yeah, leave them, man,' she said. ‘If they wanna fight like little kids, let them do it.'

They weren't going to fight. It was just a stupid misunderstanding. They were friends. It was ridiculous.

They were staring at each other. Their gazes steady. The crowd was circling.

My heart raced. ‘Nathan, what the hell is going on?'

‘This twat has nicked my phone,' he said to me, still staring at Jake. ‘She saw him with it.' He was pointing at Lucy.

‘Whoa,' Lucy said. ‘I didn't say he definitely had it, I just said–'

‘Why you back tracking?' Danny cut in.

‘I'm not, I'm just saying.'

‘Just stay out of it, yeah. It's between him and Jake.'

My head darted from Danny, to Lucy, to Jake, to Nathan.

‘Nath?'

‘Leave it,' Danny warned me.

I tried to grab Nathan and pull him away. Danny stepped between us and spun me around by the shoulders. His cold gaze didn't move as he punched me hard in the stomach, winding me.

While I tried to catch my breath, he pushed me to the floor. He straddled over me, holding me down. When I struggled he pinned me down harder, pushing my shoulders down into the wet grass.

‘I said, leave it.' His face was close and I could smell the beer on his breath.

He turned to Nathan. ‘Teach him, Nath,' he said. Then he turned his face back to mine and raised his eyebrows in a smile.

‘Get off me,' I said, but he wasn't letting go.

Jake backed off to walk away, but the crowd pushed him back. He lost his footing, put his arms out to steady himself, and accidentally pushed Nathan.

Nathan punched Jake straight in the stomach.

‘Nathan, stop it,' I shouted. I was desperate. ‘Get off me,' I spat at Danny but he held me down harder.

Then the crowd went mental, the noise was insane. The shouting, jeering, cheering. Jake and Nathan were having a full-on fight. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't believe what was happening. I used all my strength to try and get up and stop them, to stop the madness. Jake didn't have his phone. Why would Lucy say that? I tried so hard to get up, but I couldn't. Danny was too strong for me.