My Favourite Part

22: smells (sort of) like teen spirit

auggie: bring me back some scottish heather honey please x

angie: good morning to you too :)

auggie: good morning! :D scottish heather honey, please! :D

angie: is that tween for i miss you

auggie: it's tween for i need an organic, non-fat sweetener (and i miss you a lil bit)

auggie: how's the weather up there?

angie: shit – don't know how the scots deal with it

angie: miss u more munchkin :p

auggie: 🥺 💞 🍯

Mental note: find Scottish Heather honey somewhere in the Cotswolds.

I mean, it's half true... At least that's thought I comfort myself with as I slide my phone back into my pocket. I do miss her... but this weather's a beauty. The bouquet-ball sun has floated its way up again, and its low enough to make the topiary a shamrock-green under its rays, but high enough that I didn't need to take my jumper this morning.

Eric's still asleep, all tuckered out from an evening of "drinking his defeat", as Lolly called it; a shot of the good stuff for every winning goal she scored against him. Somehow, she turns goading into a good time, and shameless arrogance into allure – I don't know how she does it. In that sense I couldn't do much but sit on the arm of his chair and peck the back of his neck every time he made that yeurgh sound you make when you drink alcohol that tastes like bad medicine and liquorice, but on the 5th tiny glass, Lolly's raking honey eyes turned to me, and made my throat dry.

You're not going to let your beau swallow his penalty all on his own, are you, Jelly? Eric said I really didn't have to, but when she put it like that, squeezing my eyes shut and letting her pour it down my throat made sense; the burn as it ran down, however – that put things in perspective. But he watched, enrapt, with an open mouth, and when Lolly cheered and her girls giggled when I kissed him right after, with the taste of liquorice lingering, I felt... like some kind of party girl enchantress, under all the eyes and the low evening lights.

Seconds? Lolly swirled the dark liquid in the shot glass, and something in what she said snapped Eric out of the trance - alright, Lolly, I think you've given her enough of a taste.

For today, she'd laughed, before she tipped it down her throat and opened her mouth wide to show her pink tongue to the girls watching her with eager eyes. All gone.

Ugh, God, I sound naïve. Whatever.

It's 8am now, 8:12 exactly, and Lolly isn't the Macklin in my head anyway – it's Kitty, Eric's mum. I thought I'd be able to get her out of there if I went walking on the grounds, but now I'm just freaking out about meeting Eric's mum from further away.

This place really is miles from ...anything. At least it feels that way after walking for 7 minutes and not coming across a single neighbour or stray cat or roaming football from some boys next door. It just seems like too isolated a place for happy people to inhabit; although, maybe you don't need neighbours when you've got people waiting on you hand and foot and a social life at the country club that doesn't begin until you walk in.

A mellow, though insistent, clearing of the throat grabs my attention, makes me jump, and I swivel in its direction, half-expecting it to be Eric's mum materialised, with crossed arms and a judgy stare. Instead, it's a hooded back. 'The back' is sat picking at grass, pulling out perfectly planted patches from their roots and leaving little lumps of soil in their place. I can't see a face, but the nails are painted black, the Dr. Martens are black too, and sturdy, and the and the jeans are light in colour, loose and tattered. Something about the back feels... kindred.