These Days

iii

"OH MY GOD, I'M SO SORRY -"

"Shit no, don't worry, this is all my fault, I was in a rush and -"

They both stop at exactly the same time.

Aaron cocks his head to one side, staring at the girl with the gaping mouth in confusion. "Wait - do I know you?"

She laughs a little nervously. "Well shit," she says. "You actually turned up. We should go inside."

"Wait - you're who I'm supposed to be meeting?"

"You're Aaron Charter, right?"

Aaron nods gormlessly.

"Well I'm Ciara McAdams. I was Hope Waterman's best friend and girlfriend."

"Hope didn't have a girlfriend. When she died, I mean," Aaron adds, almost as an afterthought.

"You think I didn't know that?" Ciara throws him a challenging glare. "Look," she says sighing. "Let's just go inside. We can argue about Hope over a cup of coffee or something. Okay?"

Aaron just nods, the storm inside his brain consuming his ability to actually speak. She's real and she's here - the person who hacked Hope's account wasn't a hacker at all, but the girl with cornrows who appeared in so many photos with her. Except she's upgraded the cornrows now, Aaron thinks, regarding the dreads slightly wearily.

He wordlessly follows Ciara in.

"Hi, how may I help -" The waitress stops abruptly, looking up and beaming at them. "Oh, hey, Ciara. And" - she peers around her, easy eyes landing on Aaron's slim figure - "guy from earlier. If you'd just told me it was Ciara you were waiting for, I could have, like, just texted her or something. God, people these days," she says, clicking her tongue and shaking her head.

Ciara holds out a hand to stop her there. "It's fine, Hattie," she says. "He didn't actually, err, know it was me that he was waiting for." She pauses, trying to decide how much more information she should give the wide eyed coffee shop girl standing in front of them.

It's unfair to call her a girl, really, Ciara thinks. After all, Hattie Spencer left school two and a half years ago and just never really found her calling in life. Ciara shudders, hoping that this won't be her in a few years time. She can't imagine never leaving this place - especially not now, when every single corner she turns reminds her painfully of Hope.

"So," Hattie continues, switching on her bright voice to compensate for the dead noise fizzling between Ciara and Aaron. "Your usual, Ciara?" She barely pauses to wait for Ciara to nod. "And for you?"

Aaron blushes a little. "Umm, just a glass of water will be fine, thank you."

The girl called Hattie gives him a strange look. "You sure, mate?"

He nods, looking away. "Yeah."

Ciara shrugs and drops a five pound note on the counter, turning and walking towards the row of booths on the far end of the shop. She hesitates in front of booth number three and then continues walking, bypassing it and instead slipping into the seat at booth number five. The gesture doesn't go unnoticed by Aaron.

"Number three, huh?"

Ciara doesn't meet his eye. "Our booth. Three was Hope's lucky number - but you wouldn't know that, of course. You never met her."

Aaron winces. "Wow," he says drily. "I'm sensing some bitterness."

"Someone's Geiger counter's working well isn't it?"

"What-er counter?"

Ciara rolls her eyes. "Doesn't matter. Forget I said anything."

"Why am I here?"

"Because you wanted to meet me?"

"No - like why did you invite me? I bet you didn't just sit behind her Facebook messaging every person who told her that they missed her, so why me?"

Ciara wraps her fingers into her palm, holding the fist tightly. When she speaks, her voice is far calmer than the angry storm beneath her skin. "Because you are under the illusion that you knew her better than anyone else. And you're wrong."

Aaron narrows his eyes. "Did you know she was bulimic?" he shoots.

"Did you know she had Borderline Personality Disorder?"

"Did you know she was suicidal?"

Th silence that falls between them is full of unsaid accusations. It's only then that Aaron notices what a warm colour Ciara's hard eyes are - and how full of hate they are right now. He understands where she is coming from - it must be hard hearing from someone that your dead best friend wasn't exactly who you thought she was - but then again, hadn't Hope herself told him that no one really knew her?

He doubts very much that this Ciara McAdams is the conveniently forgotten exception.

"Here's a mocha and a slice of walnut cake," Hattie says, quite suddenly appearing at the end of the small table, completely oblivious to the tension that she has just snapped in half, "and a glass of water." She serves them in front of two and smiles brightly. "If you need anything else just let me know!"

"Will do," Ciara mutters, her eyes never leaving Aaron's. The moment that Hattie skips out of earshot, she raises an eyebrow and almost hisses at him. "Is that how you knew her?" Her head nods at his left hand which is clutching at the class of water. "Support group or something?"

Aaron blushes but keeps his head high. "She didn't do support group," he says coldly. "I thought you knew her better than that."

"Then where? Are you one of her ex-flings? You must know that she didn't really care about you." (Aaron chuckles inwardly, noting just how perfect a couple Ciara and Hope must have made - after that night, he thought that he would never find anyone so razor sharp as Hope Waterman, that no one would be as blunt and hot headed and sarcastic as she, but yet here he is, sat in very the presence of the one person in this entire world who might possibly have a chance at rivalling her sass.) "And," she says, pushing her shoulders back a little more, "of course I knew her better than to know that she never went to support group. I tried to make her go but she told me there was nothing wrong with her."

"So you were her best friend but she didn't trust you with that kind of information?"

"You're a stranger and she did?"

Aaron nods. "I'm not a stranger. Not anymore."

Sighing, Ciara pushes a stray clump of hair out of her eyes. They're dark galaxies of frustration right now - all she really wants to know is who this boy is, why he thinks Hope valued him so much in her life (when she clearly didn't) and then slay him right down, crush him to his seat at the peasant's table (where he so obviously belongs) and watch him wallow in his self-induced misery. Is that too much to ask?

"Are you going to tell me how you knew Hope?" She has to refrain from growling at him - if only for the sake of her dead ex / best friend / girlfriend / person she cares very deeply about.

Aaron sighs, putting the (still mostly full) glass of water back on its coaster and pushing his glasses back up his nose. "Fine," he says, fiddling with his left thumb. "Fine. But you're going to have to listen. It's quite a story."

"I'm listening."

Aaron inhales really deeply, quickly shutting and opening his eyes. Calm, he tells himself. For Hope's sake, calm.

"I met Hope Waterman on the day that I was supposed to die."