arrived back home, the flat was gloriously empty. The battery was flat on my phone and I’d left the charger at my mum’s, so there was very little to do but have a bath, wash away every trace of Charlie Wilder and collapse on the settee with a big bag of Wotsits. Or four big bags of Wotsits.
A week ago, I’d been prepping for my first day in my big new job. Seven days on, I had no job, I had no prospects, I’d shagged Charlie, I’d fallen out with Charlie, and I was relatively certain my mum had a bit of a bag on with me. I had excelled myself. An entire decade’s worth of drama in one week.
‘Sometimes things need shaking up,’ I’d told the rubber duck in the bath. ‘You’ve got to test the limits sometimes.’
He didn’t reply. He was getting a real attitude.
I was deep into my third episode of Come Dine With Me when I heard someone hammering on the front door.
‘Yay, Vanessa,’ I whispered, pulling my stripy blanket up under my chin.
‘Tess, are you in there?’
Not Vanessa. Charlie.
It was too late to run into my room and hide under the bed, so I did the next best thing I could think of. Pull the blanket over my head and shout, ‘No.’
But when I pulled the blanket down over my eyes, I saw a tall, creased-looking boy in the corner of my living room. All six feet three inches looking sad and stooped. My ovaries wanted to leap out of my body and never let him go.
‘Your mum gave me your spare key.’ He held it up before tossing it to me. ‘I didn’t think you’d let me in.’
‘I wouldn’t have,’ I replied, wishing I was wearing anything other than a giant Eeyore sleep shirt and a scrunchie. ‘So you can go now.’
‘I need to talk to you.’ He stepped towards the sofa with caution, staying as far away from me as it was possible to be, and rubbed at his eyebrow as he sat down. I curled up into a not-so-tiny ball and pouted. ‘I need to say I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, you do,’ I acknowledged. ‘So say it and then piss off.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘And you’re still here.’
Charlie took a deep breath in and stared at his feet. I pulled my knees up over my nose and peered at him over my blanket. This was horrible.
‘Do you remember the first time you talked to me?’ he asked. ‘Not in a seminar or anything, but the first time we properly had a conversation?’
‘Yes.’ Of course I bloody remembered, arsehole.
‘It was the Christmas party in the union, and you and Amy were wearing those stupid matching fairy outfits and all of the lads from my floor had a bet on which of them could get off with the two of you first.’
Oh, university. Hallowed halls of learning.
‘And then we were at the bar at the same time and you were not sober,’ he said with a smile. ‘And you asked if I’d done the reading for our media studies class, and I said I never did the reading for the media studies class, and you looked horrified.’
‘I was a very straight student,’ I muttered.
‘And then we were just chatting, and that girl I was seeing came up and kissed me.’
‘Sarah Luffman.’ Sarah bloody Luffman. I still wouldn’t accept her Facebook friend request to this day.
‘Sarah, yeah. Of course you remember.’ He rested his hands on his knees as though he was bracing himself. ‘Anyway, she came up and kissed me and I saw your face fall. You looked, like, properly heartbroken. And I didn’t know why, but it made me so sad because all night, all I’d been thinking about was kissing you.’
‘Because of the bet?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Because I thought you were beautiful.’
Oh.
I wondered if it would be appropriate to ask him to wait while I went and changed. This conversation could not take place while I was wearing something I had bought for a tenner from the Disney store in the January sale.
‘But when I looked again, you were gone. And the next time I saw you, my flatmate told me you were going out with that bloke off the PE course. So I didn’t make a move. But we had so much in common and we were in all the same classes and, you know, that was that.’
‘And you never thought to bother again?’ I said, shuffling my feet a little bit closer to him. ‘In ten years?’
‘I know your mum and dad got divorced, Tess, but if you’d lived through what I’ve lived through, you wouldn’t be so quick to swap a friend for a shag. By the time we were both single, we were such good friends. We had so much in common – the books and the music and everything – and I didn’t want to ruin that. I was twenty. I couldn’t even think about anything long-term. But you were long-term to me.’
‘You do know the only reason I read all those books and listened to all that music was so that I’d have something to talk to you about in the first place, don’t you?’ I asked, looking at a knot in the floorboards. ‘Because I liked you.’
‘Sneaky cow.’ He pulled the sleeves of his jumper over his hands and smiled. ‘Anyway, I just wanted you to know why I might have freaked out a little bit this morning.’
‘I’m not quite sure I do know,’ I said, my heart pounding. I really needed to hear him say it. ‘You might want to clarify.’
That’s when I saw the full trademarked and copyright Charlie Wilder grin break out across his face. ‘I freaked out because I didn’t know what it was. Or what you wanted it to be. I could never just do the friends with benefits thing with you because you’re my Tess. I love you.’
‘You love me?’
They were words I’d heard a thousand times before, they were words I’d said a thousand times before, but they’d never, ever mattered until he said them now. It felt like Cupid, the Andrex puppy and a selection of assorted kittens had taken up residence in my stomach. There was far too much fluffy fluttering going on in there for my organs to work properly.
‘You love me?’ I said it again just to make sure.
‘Of course I love you,’ he repeated, taking hold of my hand. ‘You’re my best friend.’
And with that, Cupid, the anonymous Labrador and assorted kittens froze and turned around to look at me very, very slowly.
‘I’m your best friend?’
My French teacher had always told me the best way to understand something was to repeat it until you’d really drilled everything into your brain, but I was just not getting this.
‘My best, best friend.’ Charlie squeezed my fingers so tightly I thought they might snap, and I inched back ever so slightly on the sofa. ‘And we both know how important that is.’
‘We
