the list to dry the not-even-slightly-wet ink. ‘Devil-may-care law breaker and international playgirl, Rachel Summers.’
‘Don’t forget the tattoos,’ I reminded him. ‘If I’m going to be crossing over to a life of crime, I’m going to need the prison tats.’
‘This is going to be so much fun.’ Emelie poked at the last surviving bag of crisps. ‘So. Much. Fun.’
I took the napkin from Matthew and studied it carefully before slipping it inside my bag. What was I signing up for?
‘For me or you?’
He looked at Em, who, with a little difficulty focusing, looked back.
‘Definitely us,’ he said, both of them nodding. ‘Definitely us.’
Once Emelie had finished drinking the last drops of wine directly out of the bottle, we agreed that was a sign it was time to leave. Helping each other out of our seats, I tried to stand as steadily as possible, walking in something akin to a straight line out of the pub, blinking into the late afternoon sunshine. I looked up at the sky, not quite understanding why it wasn’t dark. I’d been up for ages. It had been some time since I’d been this drunk in the day, but I had a horrible feeling that this was the beginning of something, rather than a one-off. I also had a horrible feeling that I was going to puke.
Against all odds, the three of us managed to stagger home in one piece and collapsed on the sofa. Within five minutes, Em and Matthew had passed out. I sat back in the middle of the sofa – Emelie snoring her head off on my shoulder, Matthew curled up against the arm, his feet in my lap – and stared into the mirror in front of me. Nothing had changed. The sofa was still red, my grandmother’s mirror still hung over the fireplace and the patch of damp in the corner of the room still needed taking care of. Nothing had changed but everything was different.
Easing myself out of the drunken BFF sandwich, I tiptoed into the kitchen to get some water. Glasses still in the cupboard, cold tap still not really cold enough. I drank one glass straight down, filled another and leaned against the kitchen counter. Everything had seemed OK in the pub. We had my list to think about, fish fingers to eat and, most importantly, wine to drink. But now I was home … now it was real. For some reason, I’d half expected Simon just to be lying on the sofa watching Final Score and eating Doritos like it was any other Saturday. But he wasn’t. The flat was empty. Just like it would be from now on. Almost as soon as the thought settled in my mind and the water had hit my stomach, I felt it coming right back up.
Thank god the flat was small enough for me to make it into the bathroom in time. There were very few things in life I disliked as much as throwing up, which was one of the reasons I really didn’t drink that much. Bracing myself against the sink, I washed my face and stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying to convince myself that the hot tears streaming down my face could be easily explained by the fact I’d just puked.
‘That’s it,’ I told myself quietly. I might be drunk at four on a Saturday afternoon but I didn’t really want anyone to hear me talking to myself. ‘No more tears.’
Granted, that was a statement that carried a lot more credibility on a bottle of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, but I had to make myself believe it. I was not going to waste any more tears on someone who had left me a note. I was not going to make myself sick over someone that thought five years could be written off in fewer than four sentences. I was not going to break my heart over someone who could break my heart and still think it was OK to take my toothpaste at the same time. I was done. Heading back into the living room, I curled up on the armchair and shook my head at Drunk and Drunker. It had been a hard day for the both, clearly. Trying not to wake them, I pulled the to-do list out of my bag and read it over again. I would never do any of these things. Never in twenty-nine years would I have considered any of them. I wasn’t the kind of girl who would do any of these things but I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of girl would.
And I couldn’t help but be a little bit excited to find out.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Morning.’
I rolled over to feel something soft on the other side of my bed.
‘I thought you said no same-sex experience on the list?’ Emelie mumbled.
‘If I went gay, it wouldn’t be with you,’ I replied.
Why was Emelie in my bed? Where was Simon? Why did my brain feel as if it had been taken out, tumble dried without so much as a sheet of Bounce and shoved back up my nose?
Oh.
Right.
‘It’s too early,’ I rolled back over and mumbled into my pillowcase. Maybe if I lay face down long enough, I’d smother myself into a coma. That would be a nice long nap, wouldn’t it? A lovely, lovely coma. Alternatively, I realized, opening my eyes, I should get up and be with other human beings as there was every chance I wasn’t terribly mentally stable. Wishing yourself into a coma isn’t usually A Good Thing. ‘I want a lie-in.’
‘It’s almost ten, that is a lie-in,’ Em said, bouncing up and off the bed like an Andrex puppy. ‘Today is the first day of your single life. That’s exciting. Get. Up.’
I felt the sunshine on my face and made a mental note to pick up some blackout curtains as soon as humanly possible. Silver lining number one.
‘I feel like shit.’ I pushed my legs over the side of the bed, hoping they would somehow catapult the rest of my body over there. ‘Is this part of being single?’
Em stretched and nodded. ‘We need to work on your alcohol tolerance. I’ll put the kettle on, see if he’s up.’
After passing out on the sofa, the rest of last night was a bit of a blur. I remembered waking up around seven, throwing up again, drinking tea, ordering a pizza and playing ‘guess who’s going to die?’ when Matthew turned on Casualty. Afternoon hangovers were the worst. Once it had been established that I wasn’t going to cry myself to sleep, Matthew and Em had allowed me to slope off to bed. Still, it made a change from my regular Saturday rituals of doing the washing, watching DVDs and going down to Pizza Express early enough to be home for Match of the Day.
Yawning, I combed my hair out of my face and tethered it behind my head. Was it weird that yesterday had probably been more fun than any other Saturday in years? Maybe fun wasn’t the right word. It was definitely the most interesting.
The hardwood floor in my bedroom was never warm, not even when the sun was streaming in, like it was this morning, but only one foot was cold as I forced myself to stand up. Glancing down, I saw that was because one foot was standing on something white. Something soft. I dropped back onto the bed, releasing the fabric. It was Simon’s T-shirt. It must have got thrown under the bed during our Friday night sexcapades. Closing my eyes, I held onto the worn cotton tightly and tried to breathe slowly. The main reason I hadn’t cried myself to sleep the night before was that I was just exhausted. My body’s first line of self-defence was to shut down and go to sleep, but that wasn’t an option today. I was going to have to do something.
‘Do you want shower or tea first?’ Em stuck her head round the door. ‘Matthew’s in there now but you can go next if you want?’
I shoved the T-shirt into my pillowcase and stood a bit too quickly. The afternoon hangover had definitely become a morning hangover, bleurgh.
‘Shower.’
