This is a Love Story (34 page)

‘Wow, they look so yummy,’ Sienna replied, her eyes even brighter than usual. I think I got away with it, you know . . .

‘Well, I made some things last night, actually,’ she said, that stunning grin spreading across her freckled face. From a small Puma tote she whipped out a home-made banoffee pie. This was followed by a small salad full of plump-looking cherry tomatoes, which were almost panting in the 30-degree heat. Next to that was a fresh, fluffy-looking quiche nestled snugly against a blue freezer block. This was typical Sienna, kind and caring. She’d probably had to wrestle it from George that morning. That would explain the small chunk of missing pie.

‘Well, that looks fab, Si, thanks very much.’ She’d still managed to outshine me, even with my expensive subterfuge.

‘So, what brings us here?’ she asked, looking excited about whatever news I was about to impart.

‘Well, something huge is going to happen. But I just needed to ask you first, because I’m a bit scared, really. And you’re my best friend, Si, and I need you to tell me it’s right.’

I realised how needy I sounded. But I really was that needy. Even choosing which pants I was going to wear was difficult without her. I asked her everything, from how much onion I should put in a curry to which shoes I should wear on a date (apparently, if you get it wrong, it can be a deal-breaker).

‘OK,’ she grinned, pulling a tissue from her bag and dabbing her lips. ‘Fire away.’

‘All right, I’m just going to come out with this,’ I warned her.

I noticed she put her food down and shifted her arms behind her, as if to steady herself. Then she quickly put her sunglasses back on.

‘I’m going to ask Chloe to move in with me.’

Slowly she stopped chewing until her face was absolutely still. She didn’t say a word.

‘Si?’ I asked, slightly shocked at her reaction.

‘Er, sorry. Sorry, Nick – I’m really tired, you know. That’s, that’s, well, it’s fantastic!’ she cried, leaping towards me and wrapping her arms around me with the delicacy and finesse of a baby tiger. She almost knocked me over.

I felt a lump build in my throat. A hard lump right in the middle of my neck, as if I’d tried to swallow a pebble and it was stuck there, hopelessly. I just held on to her for a bit. We sat there for what seemed like forever; it didn’t feel bad, or wrong. She was so happy for me, and that was lovely.

The silence was freaking me out a bit so I started filling the gap with comments about which removal company we would use to get her stuff over and where we could go to get cushions, because she wanted more of those, apparently.

An elderly couple walked past and smiled at us. Over Sienna’s shoulder I saw a helicopter circle over a tall office block; it reminded me of when I was little and had an obsession with ‘’copters’ – that’s what my father said I used to call them, anyway. And here I was, a grown man with proper adult problems, worries and responsibilities, looking at a real helicopter from my favourite patch of grass.

It wasn’t until Sienna finally shifted and sat back down that I noticed a damp streak down her cheek. A perfect little line, as if it had been painted on with a tiny brush.

Her shades were so dark I couldn’t see her eyes at all. She looked down at her sandwiches.

‘Si? Are you OK?’ I asked, realising that she must have been holding on to me for so long because she didn’t want me to see her cry.

‘Yeah, yeah, of course. So what are you doing for the rest of the weekend?’ she asked, suddenly finding her salad very interesting, staring intently at the lettuce leaves as though she had dropped her debit card in there.

‘Come on, Si,’ I said quietly, shuffling my bum towards hers and sitting by her side so our arms and legs were touching.

‘Well, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m going to get some more books for Dad, and then I’m going to visit an exhibition, and then . . . and then . . .’ And then she started to cry. My stomach lurched. Shit.

‘I’m sorry,’ she yelped, between delicate little breaths. She still wouldn’t take her sunglasses off and proceeded to poke a tissue underneath the lenses in a desperate bid to soak up her feelings.

‘I’m just so happy for you. I’m just so thrilled you’ve finally found
that
girl, you know?’ She sniffed and looked at me.

I looked at her back. ‘So you think I’m doing the right thing?’ Thank God her tears were happy ones.

‘Yes, you silly bastard!’ she yelled, pushing me playfully and causing me to tilt to my left and overbalance slightly.

‘But don’t forget about me, Sienna, please. We can still see each other loads. Chloe loves you. Nothing has to change. Do you promise that nothing will change?’ I turned to look at her now, hoping she would make that vow and then everything would be all right. I realised there was a hint of desperation in my voice. I even made a movement with my hands and face to simulate our nights with Donkey Kong and a cigar. She looked away like a hurt animal and stayed quiet.

‘Si, please? Nothing changes, OK, that’s the deal.’ I poked the top of her hand with my index finger. What was that all about? I might as well have started hanging on to her legs and tugging at her trousers like a kid.

‘Things will change, Nick. But it’s for the best,’ she said finally, after taking a deep lungful of the sweet summer air. I could almost feel her rushing away from me; I wanted to hold on to her just so she wouldn’t turn into sand and slip through my fingers.

‘What do you mean? No it doesn’t,’ I said, starting to feel like I was pleading with her now.

‘It’s not fair, Nick. It’s not fair on Chloe. I’m not saying we can’t be great friends, but if you two are going to be really serious, that’s a different level. Do you know what I mean?’ She opened her right hand onto her knee, revealing the pale skin that hadn’t been touched by the sun.

I knew how those hands felt. They were soft and warm, because I’d held them once when she was sad. I’d peeled them open in the car all that time ago when she’d fallen over on the concrete and wiped away the drops of blood. There was no evidence of that now. No scarring. We heal amazingly well, I thought.

‘No, I don’t know what you mean,’ I answered, starting to feel the lump in my throat again. Fuck off will you, stupid emotions.

‘Well, I know you and I are just friends, and that’s all it ever has been. But I wouldn’t like it if I lived with you. Do you understand?’

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. The words were spilling from her mouth as easily as ‘Keep the change’ or ‘No mayo with that, thanks.’

A football came out of nowhere and smacked me in the side of the head. My ear started to ring. I threw it back irritably, a little bit harder than I’d planned. This was a vital moment, too important to be interrupted by flying objects pelted by boisterous children with despondent parents.

Sienna whipped her head round and watched it sail through the air before it plopped into some water, scaring the shit out of a duck in the process, which quacked in panic and flapped its wings.

‘Nick! You threw it into the pond! They aren’t going to be able to get that now!’ she yelled angrily at me.

‘I don’t give a shit, Sienna. This is important.’ I pulled her arm gently as she started to get up to retrieve it.

She landed back down beside me like a balloon on a string. I could hear the snotty-nosed children whinging like they were right next to my ear. I tuned them out. ‘Look, this doesn’t change anything, OK?’ I said, with a new level of determination. ‘She pretty much lives with me now and we can still do everything we did before. It’s going to be OK.’

A horrible ache filled my stomach. I was all too familiar with this sensation, and it felt like doom. As though Chris Moyles had casually announced on Radio 1 that the world was going to end, before dropping the needle on an N-Dubz song and playing it on repeat while we all huddled in groups, drinking ourselves to death. It was
that
bad.

‘No, Nick. It’s not fair on her,’ she insisted, lying back down on the grass and curling into a tight ball. She only ever did that when she was really unhappy. She used to do that when Daniel House was being an idiot, which was quite often.

‘But there’s nothing like that between us, Si – nothing to feel guilty about,’ I lied, trying to make it all OK. I guess I secretly hoped that she would just tell me that there
was
something. That there was something more between us than half a metre of lush green grass and the sticky summer air, which was so heavy you could almost dig a spoon into it.

I lay back beside her, lifting my T-shirt up slightly as the sun beat down on us, unforgiving and inescapable as the spotlights the time we were on stage. She pulled a thick layer of hair over her eyes.

‘Hey, Si. Are you really happy for me?’ I rolled over and faced her, hoping she would stop pushing me away.

‘Yes, Nick. I’m thrilled. She’s incredible. You’re both very lucky,’ she responded.

Genuinely. Truthfully. I knew she meant it. ‘And you’re going to stop all this silly talk about us, aren’t you?’ I asked.

She said nothing.

Sienna

It’s Monday and things aren’t good.

Mondays are bad enough as it is. There are more people on the train than on any other day of the week, the corner shop always runs out of croissants by the time I get there, and it’s the day of the editorial meeting, where Ant successfully quashes all of our journalistic ambitions in the course of an hour. Even on a sunny day like today, things are distinctly rubbish.

And this Monday I got up and approximately five minutes later, I remembered what had happened on Saturday, and then I felt even more shitty. Yes. There was a blissful 300-second period where I’d forgotten what had happened just two days before. When I remembered, I was in the middle of brushing my teeth, and I bit the head of my toothbrush in frustration.

It had all started at around 9 a.m. when I’d had a text message from Nick asking me to meet him at Alexandra Palace because he had ‘something huge to ask me’. I thought this might be it, you know. That moment I’d been waiting for all this time, where he might have chosen a view over London on a sunny day to tell me I was all he could think about.

I quickly prepared a lovely salad, and strangely enough Dad and I had made a quiche and a pudding the night before, just for fun. He insisted that I took them with me, which made me feel bad. ‘You never know what he’s going to say to you, Sienna,’ my father said oddly as he wrapped up the food. He was a cryptic one at times.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, suddenly wondering if he might know something I didn’t.

‘I don’t know . . . I just have a feeling about this. And I’ll only spend the whole day working my way through it all and getting fat, so please take it with you to share with him,’ he added, before sneakily cutting a slice of banoffee pie for himself.

‘Anyway, I’ve really got into this writing thing. There’s a lot I want to get down today and I could do without you moping around the house,’ he went on, poking me in the side playfully and pointing towards the small pile of black notebooks on the kitchen surface.

I didn’t know much about what was written in those books – they were his and his alone – but what I did know is that he wrote about all the things he wanted to see and do, and how he thought they might be. I wondered if his imagination had become super-developed to make up for his inability to experience things for real – rather like the way a bat has incredible hearing to compensate for its blindness.

‘I’m going to write about what it must be like to run a marathon,’ he announced, grinning from ear to ear and holding up a running magazine.

‘Are you going to be OK?’ I asked.

‘Yes, of course, darling. I promise I’ll wear my helmet,’ he added, shoving the headgear on, which made him look like an extra from a Saturday night game show.

‘Thank you,’ I said, before kissing him on the cheek and walking out of the door.

When I arrived at the park gate I saw Nick and he looked nervous. There was something about his demeanour that told me I wasn’t going to like his news. Oh God, what if Chloe was pregnant? I suddenly imagined having to hold said child and look really happy. Or maybe they were getting married? Oh Jesus, yes. I bet that was it. He was at that age now . . .

‘Hello, skinny,’ he said, pulling me into his arms. His body was tense. He was tense. On the other hand, maybe my quiet expectation was correct this time. Maybe he was going to say something about us. Me and him . . . Something good. Wonderful, in fact. But then I could be wrong. Maybe he’d just got a new job or something. That would be pretty bloody bad. I quietly told myself off for speculating so wildly about whatever he was planning to tell me.

But then my sunny day seemed to melt into a moody painting where the colours had all been dimmed, because he told me he was going to ask Chloe to live with him. Cohabit. The temp was permanent. It was official.

I faked the kind of happiness you reserve for the colleague who got the promotion you both went for, or the bloke who reveals a million-pound-winning combination on the scratch card he bought just before you.

Nick leaned back on his elbows, the outline of his washboard stomach showing subtly through a deep green T-shirt emblazoned with a white abstract graphic. His rebellious dark hair poked out from underneath a disgustingly sexy fedora, which cast a shadow against his strong, stubbly jawline.

I didn’t know what to do, so I leaped on him and cuddled him. Emotion washed over me like a huge wave. It was utterly overwhelming. I was losing him. I wanted to hold on to him before the gods swooped down from the sky, picked him up and took him away. Forever.

He held me back and as the tears started to come I felt my chest shake. I held my breath hard so he wouldn’t feel it. If he didn’t feel it, then maybe he wouldn’t see the water streaming from my eyes and I would get away with it.

Nick continued to talk about the big decision – how it had come about, cheap removal companies for Chloe’s stuff, bubble wrap – but to me it was just a load of mixed-up drivel.

But then he noticed my tears and I unravelled. All I could think about was how our nights of vintage gaming would have to end. No more Donkey Kong or Street Fighter sessions with a few Jack Daniel’s and Cokes, followed by a shared cigar with the cherry filter in the garden. Bollocks.