Chapter 18: Let Me Help

It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds before the door swung open, but my God it felt a lot longer. My heart was thumping so powerfully in my chest I swear it was trying to burst through my rib cage. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like this. That’s a lie. I could remember. It was the first time I’d gone on a date with...

I shook away that train of thought before it really began.

From what both Will and Imogen had told me, it was a fair assumption that I’d hurt Emily and that was something I’d never, ever, wanted to do. So the prospect of seeing her again, of seeing that hurt in her eyes...

“Oh, it’s you.” I looked up from the spot on the floor I’d be staring at to see Lottie failing to hide her utter contempt for me. Or maybe she just wasn’t trying. “Mands!” she called back into the flat.

The front door opened onto a narrow corridor with doors to bedrooms on either side and another door at the end, which led to the communal kitchen. That door opened and Amanda came striding through. She stopped dead when she saw me.

“You!” she spat. “What the fuck are you doing here? Get out! You’re not wanted.”

I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “I haven’t come to fight. I just need to talk to Em–”

“You stay away from her! You hear?” She strode towards me menacingly. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave right now and not come back. I swear, I told you if you ever hurt her I’d—”

“Stop it!”

Amanda spun around to see Emily standing in one of the doorways on the left-hand side of the corridor.

“Stop it, Mands. Please.”

“But Emmy, he’s—”

“He’s my friend. That’s what he is.”

“Fine!” She stomped back down the corridor, opened the door opposite Emily’s and went into the room, slamming the door shut behind her. Lottie took one last look at me, shook her head then followed her friend down the corridor and into Amanda’s room.

Emily stepped away from the door and nodded towards her room. “Come in. We need to talk.” She seemed unusually calm and controlled, especially given what I’d heard about how she coped when I’d run away.

But once I was in her room, it was evident it was an act. She followed me in, letting the door swing shut behind her, then attacked me. I mean literally attacked me, hammering away with both fists on my back. I’m not going to say it didn’t hurt, but Emily wasn’t particularly large and, well, she hit like a girl.

But she kept hitting me as I turned around—on the chest now—and tears streamed from her eyes as she babbled incoherently, calling me all sorts of names that I’d really rather not repeat.

I opened my arms and wrapped them around her, hugging her to me, pulling her close so that she was no longer able to hit me. Instead, she rested her hands and her head on my chest and sobbed until she’d cried herself dry.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered. She lifted her head from my chest to look into my eyes and repeated, “I thought I’d lost you and I can’t lose you, Paul. Not you too. I just can’t.”

“Hey,” I said as I cupped her face in my hand and wiped away the tears from her cheek with my thumb. “You haven’t lost me. You’ll never lose me. I just ... I just needed to get away, that’s all.”

“That’s all!” she screamed. She pulled out of my arms and pushed away from me. “That’s all? Fuck you, Paul! Fuck. You. I spent all night not knowing what had happened to you! All night! For all I knew you’d rolled your car and were lying in a ditch somewhere. You didn’t answer your phone, didn’t reply to my texts. What was I supposed to think?”

I shrugged.

“Then when you did answer, you didn’t say anything and just hung up, and I thought ... I thought...” She started crying again.

“Ems, I...”

“Don’t you fucking dare say anything, you hear? I thought you didn’t answer because you couldn’t answer. That you were lying there, dying, and couldn’t answer.” She took a deep breath. “And the next time I tried, I got that stupid message saying the phone was off the network or whatever and I knew, I just knew something bad had happened!”

“I’m sorry, Ems ... I ... I threw the damn phone in the sea, so...”

“Fuck you! Fuck you, Paul Robertson.” Then she ran forward and this time she was hugging me, crushing my ribs and forcing the air from my lungs. And she cried again. So I let her, gently stroking her hair. Despite the sobs, she managed to say, “Then I got your message on Sunday, but it was so short and so ... It didn’t tell me anything, not where you were or what you were doing or when you’d be back.”

“Ems,” I said, tentatively. When she didn’t scream at me, I continued, “But it’s not like you haven’t known where I was or what I was doing before. All the time I was in America you didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You mean who you were doing,” she said with a hint of amusement in her voice at last.

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

She looked up into my eyes again. “But that was different, Paul, don’t you see. I didn’t need to know, I didn’t want to know. All I knew was that you’d be back before the start of your course, and that was all that mattered. I knew you’d be coming home. But this time...”

“I just needed some time and space, Ems. To sort my head out. You should have kno—”

“But I didn’t. And that’s the point. I thought I’d lost you because I didn’t know when you’d be back. Damn it, the way you left, I didn’t know if you would be back.” She put her head back on my chest, hugged me tightly again and sighed. “But I’m glad you are.”

I don’t know how long we stood like that, just two friends holding each other. But presently, she said, “So did it work? Did you sort your head out?”

I shrugged, which was kind of awkward to do when you’re hugging a woman a lot shorter than you.

“Do you want to? Do you want to sort your head out, or is it just talk?”

I backed off, holding her at a little less than arm’s length from me. “There’s nothing I want more right now.”

“Then let me help you.”

I looked into her eyes for a long time. Then nodded.

She had me sit on her bed, then left to make us both a cup of tea. There’s not much in life more awkward than sitting in someone’s room waiting for them. University bedrooms are very personal spaces. They tell you a lot about the person whose room it is. For example, Emily’s room told me she was extremely comfortable with her life right now. In stark contrast to my room, this place felt like someone’s home. It felt lived in.

My room was cold. Stark. I’d never gotten around to putting up any posters, for example, and the bare walls remained stubbornly magnolia. Sure, there was a television on my desk and study books and materials neatly arranged for maximum efficiency, but other than that, you’d be hard-pressed to believe any person resided in the room at all.

But Emily’s walls were adorned with pictures of pop singers and movie stars and a huge print of the Manhattan skyline with two shafts of light shooting skyward where the twin towers used to be. The pinboard hanging on the wall above her desk was covered in photos of her and her friends—me included—and in the top right-hand corner, surrounded by a hand-made frame of red hearts, a photo I dare not look at from her days at Micester High.

The desk itself was untidy, but you could tell it was a working desk that was frequently used. Her wardrobe door was open and there were as many clothes spilling out of it onto the floor as there were hanging up. A pair of jeans, a skirt and a blouse were draped over the end of the bed, within touching distance of me. And a tiny pair of pink panties lay on top of the laundry basket instead of inside it.

As I sat, trying not to look at that photo on the pinboard, the door swung open slowly and Amanda stepped into the room. I stood up, ready to defend myself if need be, but wanting nothing more than to placate her and avoid the fight.

She stood by the door and stared at me. I held my hands out from my sides and said, “What?”

She took a deep breath. “Emmy said I have to apologise. For Saturday and for just now. She said I was out of order both times.”

I held her stare and waited, but she said nothing more. “Go on then,” I said.

“What?”

“Apologise if that’s what you’re here to do.”

“I just did.”

“No. You just said that Ems said you had to apologise.”

She huffed. “Same bloody difference.” She looked upwards and sighed long and loud. A sigh of resignation, one might say. Then she locked her eyes on me again and said, “Look, I don’t do apologies, okay. Never have. And I don’t admit to being wrong, ‘cause I never am. Right?”

I did what I always do when I had nothing to say, I shrugged.

“But, maybe, it’s possible that I did go a bit too far. I might have said a bit too much Saturday night. But, I mean, I’d had a bit to drink and—”

“It’s all right. Forget it.”

“No, it’s not all right, Paul, damn it. Like I said, I don’t normally do this, so bloody well listen when I do and don’t just dismiss it like it’s nothing, ‘cause it’s not! I was ... I am frustrated. You were frustrating me. Are frustrating me. We all had a good thing going and you blew it. I kind of understand why, and maybe, just maybe, I could have handled it better, but ultimately...” She sighed. “Look, don’t make me say it, okay? Can’t we just go back to being friends? I was ... you know. But you were too. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

I looked at the floor, then at the photos of Emily and Amanda on the pinboard. They looked so happy and so at ease with each other. They couldn’t have been more different but maybe that’s why their friendship worked. Amanda brought out the wild side in Emily and Emily reined in Amanda when she went too far. She said she didn’t do apologies, but I wonder how many times, and to how many people, she’d given the same speech since she’d been in Westmouth—all thanks to Emily.

“Look, I suppose we can try to be friends again. For Ems’ sake. I’ve got nothing against you. Not really. But we need to put this stupid P.R.E. business to bed once and for all. It got out of—”

“I know. I know.”

“And don’t get pissed at Hannah. Friday night is on me, not her. There was on way I was going to go along with who you picked for me and Hannah ... You know. She and I...”

Amanda nodded. “Yeah. I was more pissed that she got another ride, and I knew I might not more than anything else. Lucky bitch.”

I nodded. “We’ll call it quits then. Friends because we both care about Ems.”

“Yeah.” She looked at the floor, then back up at me. “Paul, could we still ... I mean ... just me and you. And maybe Lottie and Libby too, perhaps ... Or Hannah, because I know you—”

“I don’t know, Mands. I just don’t know.”

“Okay.” She turned to leave just as the door opened and Emily came in with our tea. She looked at Amanda and they did that whole non-verbal thing that girls do. Then Amanda left us alone. I guess it was time to talk.

We sat next to each other on her bed, each clutching a steaming mug. Emily had one leg tucked underneath her with her body twisted towards me slightly. I sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor, not knowing where to look.

“Tell me about America,” she said, softly.

“Lisa’s already told you about the diary, right?” She nodded. “Then there’s not much more to tell.”

After a few seconds, she almost whispered. “Paul, look at me.” I did. Slowly, but I looked at her. “Stop lying to me. Stop trying to hide things from me. If I’m going to help you, you need to tell me the truth. The whole truth.”

I looked down. Then up again. I looked past her, to the pinboard covered in photos. I was up there in some of them. There was one of me on my own, one of me and Mark and two of me and Emily. But my eyes were drawn to that photo in the top corner. In it, the two best friends looked for all the world like sisters—or at the very least cousins—having the time of their lives, so happy and carefree. They’d even described themselves as sisters from different families once. It reminded me that Emily’s loss had been as great as mine—something I hadn’t even considered at the time. And yet, Emily had coped better in the long term than I had. Why was that? Was it me? Was I the problem? Or was the way Emily handled it a sign that there was hope for me to do the same. Eventually.

“Paul?”

I shook my head and looked at Emily. “Sorry. I was...”

She turned to look behind her at the pin board then back at me. “Sorry. I didn’t think ... You haven’t seen that before, have you?”

“No. I remember taking it but...”

She nodded. “At The May Ball. I know. It was a special night.”

“It was.” I looked down. Took a deep breath. And began. “Before I woke up properly after the accident, I had a dream.”

“A dream?”

I raised my eyes to hers.

“Sorry. I’ll try not to interrupt. Go on.”