A Likely Story

7. bumped

 I woke up at nine and swung my legs out of bed, already walking towards the cupboard to choose an outfit. I picked my phone up from the small table beside my bed and turned it on as I pushed my clothes aside, looking for my blue long sleeved blouse. I pulled it over my head and paired it with a pair of black high-waisted shorts. I walked out of my room and my phone buzzed in my hand, letting me know that it was on. I stopped on the first step and looked down at it absentmindedly. The day on the home screen caught my eye: Saturday. What was different about Saturday?

Suddenly I realised that the bookshop wasn't open at all; Maureen went to visit her sister in Wiltshire every Saturday, as she had enthused to us about many times. She and her sister had “such larks”, according to her.

I felt an odd sinking sensation in my chest as I sat down on the steps, and I realised that I was disappointed. I contemplated whether or not to go back to bed, but knew that I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. I stared for a second at my bare feet, resting on the step below me, toenails still painted bright tiffany box blue; Katie's nailpolish.

I wondered briefly whether or not we were still friends. We had met on the first day of year seven, and had gone through the whole awkward elevens phase where we were way too dramatic, with teeth full of braces and dreams of the “perfect guy”.

My mum had never said anything, but I knew she'd never liked her from the way that she smiled a little too brightly whenever I told her that Katie was staying the night, or that Katie was coming to my birthday party. That was probably what had made me stay friends with her for so long; the idea that in being friends with Katie, I was going against what my mother wanted. I'd spent a large part of my childhood making decisions based solely on that one principle.

I had a sudden flashback of sitting on my bed with eleven year old Katie, talking about how cute Olly Larson in Form A was. She had been so innocent, with her hair in the braids that she had always used to wear to school until she realised that they had made her look about five.

Then I remembered us sitting on the same bed at thirteen with the door locked, grabbing the aerosol can that Katie had brought over from each other, laughing hysterically. I had fallen off the bed in the middle of hysterics and smacked the side of my face on the table beside my bed; I'd walked around with a black eye for more than a week afterwards.

I heard my mum making her usual breakfast noises in the kitchen; the sound of the kettle bubbling noisily, the knife cutting through a single green apple. The stair rails around me seemed to close in on me as I sat listening, and I felt claustrophobia overwhelm me. I tugged my sleeve over my hand and stood up quickly. It didn't matter where I went- I just needed to get out.

As I pulled on my shoes, my mum came out of the kitchen holding a tea towel, as if she'd been waiting to catch me at the right moment.

“Where are you going?” she asked, wiping her hands on the towel. Her dark wavy hair was in a ponytail, and it was weird how much she looked like me. Or how much I looked like her, seeing as she came first. “You don't have to go to help Maureen today.”

I mumbled something incoherent, reaching for the doorknob.

“I was thinking we could do something together today?” she said hopefully. “We could go down to London and have a real girl's day out, and then we could come home and watch movies together...” I found myself being suddenly sucked into a cosy image of us curled up in front of the TV watching Four Weddings And A Funeral and talking about how awful Hugh Grant's teeth were. Something inside me yelled forgive her, it was nothing.

Was it? I thought about the fragments of the page falling to the floor, the relentless metal of the scissor jaws that glinted in the cold kitchen light; and all of a sudden I wondered how I had stood there for so long, letting myself get taken in by a woman I was pretty sure I despised. I couldn't believe how lonely that made me feel.