I nodded. “Yeah. Youth Authority were great.”
Well, they probably would have been if I’d actually seen them.
“Now you’re back, we should go out tonight!”
“I have to work tonight.”
She knew this. She knew where I was every hour of every day, and where I was going, and what time I’d get there. This was just her way of telling me she was going out.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Well, Carrie and Skye want to go to Butterfly. I said I’d go.”
Their favourite nightclub in the city.
“Okay,” I said.
She smiled again. “I’m going to go and put all my stuff away.” As she stood up, she glanced down at the floor.
Shit. How could you be so stupid?
“What’s this?” Natalie swiped up Evie’s card. “Evangeline West? Who’s she?”
Her gaze was steady on me, and even though there was no reason for it, my muscles seized and I shuffled back slightly. “I met her last night. She’s… I…” My mouth turned dry and my palms began to sweat as her eyes narrowed into a glare. “She’s from Stockport. We started talking and we like the same music. I thought… I mean… she thought we might go to a gig sometime.”
She barked out a laugh. “Unless she looks like the back end of a bus, that’s not going to happen. So, does she? Is she an ugly bitch or did you fuck her?”
I knew the correct answer. Yeah, she was ugly. Nothing compared to you. But I wasn’t good at lying. I wouldn’t say she was ugly when she wasn’t, so I threw out the only defence I had. “She’s almost thirty, Natalie. I’m not interested in her. We just like the same music.”
Slowly, I could see her inner psycho calm. “Thirty?” she sneered. “She must be fucking desperate to be sniffing around you.”
I knew better than to say anymore. It was easier all around if she walked away. After another minute of her watching me, studying me and checking for signs of a lie, she stood up, still with the card in her hand. “You won’t be needing this.” She tore it into pieces then scattered them all over the floor. “Clean that up.”
As she walked away, I lowered my head, looking at the tiny bits of Evie’s card. I no longer had her number or email address, but I’d already added her on Twitter, and thankfully, Natalie didn’t see the handwritten Twitter handle on the back of the card. If she had… well, best not to think about that.
But now Natalie knew about Evie, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to meet up with her again. If I lied about it, she was sure to find out somehow, and I could hardly tell some woman I’d just met that my girlfriend was too possessive to let me meet up with her. I’d sound like a loser. Maybe I’d have to let it go.
My stomach twisted but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she was so nice. Maybe that was why I’d thought about her so much. Because I could imagine her being someone I could trust. Because she was older, and obviously wiser. But also a little bit vulnerable. She had a story, just like me, and maybe she needed someone to talk to too.
She must be fucking desperate to be sniffing around you. Natalie’s words echoed in my head. Except Evie wasn’t sniffing around me. In fact, it was me who approached her both times. Once to check if she was okay, and once because… I had no explanation for the second time.
I sighed, pushing all thoughts of getting a new friend out of my head. Besides, she was probably only being polite. I bet she hadn’t given me a thought since she got home. And why would she? She was an adult with a life, and I was nothing.
Nobody.
Not important.
“Auntie Evie!” Oscar waved to me from the top of a large, brightly coloured squishy cube.
Keely had invited me along to the kids’ favourite soft play area on Sunday afternoon, to make up for the fact that I hadn’t seen them in a while. I truly loved Keely and Nick’s kids. I’d been there for every moment of their lives and I spent as much time with them as I could. Although not their real auntie, I treated them as if I was.
I waved back to Oscar and smiled then turned my attention back to nine-month-old Daisy who sat on my lap, playing with a fluffy toy chick. She was the exact image of her mother, with soft blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. Oscar was more like Nick; chunky and dark-haired, with a cheeky smile. Much like my ex and I, they had been together since they were young. Even younger than we were. They got together aged fourteen, and had been inseparable ever since.
They were everything Jay and I could have been. Everything we almost were.
“So, what’s up?” Keely asked, taking her eyes off Oscar for a second to look at me. “You’ve sounded weird since you got home from Exeter.”
I’d felt weird. Something about being alone while I was there, and realising I still had so many things to figure out, had led me into a strange, slightly despondent place.
“You heard that from my phone call?” I asked.