My Best Friend's Girl (36 page)

chapter 46

I
’m glad you’re better,” Luke said to Tegan. “I was very worried, but you’re all better.”

I stood by the doorway of the small hospital room, watching them. The adventures of the day before showed on Tegan’s heart-shaped face: her skin had been bleached white by the drugs, dark shadows lurked under her eyes and a grayish tinge colored her lips.

Luke had brought her another birthday present—a photo album that had a maroon leather cover and a gold embossed “T” in the bottom right-hand corner. He’d already stuck in a photo of the two of them at the beach when we’d gone to Whitby for the day. Tegan held the album in her arms, watching Luke with suspicion and apprehension—she could tell something was wrong. He wasn’t the best at hiding his feelings, and his distress was radiating from him in waves. I’d called him last night, left a long, rambling message on his phone asking him to call me so we could talk, but he hadn’t. Nate, who couldn’t apologize enough, who genuinely hadn’t wanted to damage my relationship (I wasn’t fooling myself, he wanted me and Luke to split up but not like that) had offered to drive me to Luke’s place, but I’d turned him down. Luke obviously didn’t want to speak to me, and I didn’t blame him—I’d messed up, I’d hurt him, why would he want to talk to me?

“What’s the matter, Luke?” Tegan asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, avoiding her eyes.

“Mummy Ryn says that when there is something wrong,” she admonished. He should know by now that she was an expert on picking up the feelings of those close to her.

“OK, there is something wrong,” he admitted. My heart stopped; was he going to tell Tegan what I’d done? “I have to go away.”

“Go away where?” Tegan asked, her eyes wide at the very idea. My eyes doubled in size too.

“Remember I went to New York last year?” She nodded.

“Well, I’m going back there, to live. I have to go to London first, to finish this job,” he said. Tegan’s face became a mask of horror. “I went for the interview when I was in New York,” he replied to all the unasked questions circling my brain. “They offered it to me a few weeks ago. I accepted it yesterday.”

“But why?” Tegan asked.

“Because it’s my job,” he said.

“Are you really going to heaven to be with Jesus and the angels and my mummy?” she asked suspiciously.

Luke shook his head. “No. Not at all, T. I’m going to America. Remember, I showed you it on the globe?”

“Is it because I was ill?” she asked. “I won’t be ill no more, promise. Double-promise for ever and ever.”

Anguish flew across Luke’s face. “Of course not.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “Of course not. Baby, even if you were well, I’d have to leave. It’s something I have to do. I have to go.”

“Don’t you like me no more?” she asked.

“Tegan, I don’t just like you, I love you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I wish I could stay but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Tegan’s face fell even further into misery. “Aren’t we friends no more?” she asked.

“Of course we are,” he replied. “We’ll always be friends.”

“Are you still Mummy Ryn’s boyfriend?” she asked.

I held my breath.

“I can’t be her boyfriend if I’m in America.”

“I don’t want you to go,” she said, her voice without hope.

“I don’t want to go either,” he replied. “But I have to.”

The corners of her mouth turned down and she stared at her hands. She was trying not to cry, I guessed. She was brave like that.

“OK, baby,” he eventually said, moved toward her. “I have to go.”

“And you’re never coming back?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “But I’ll call you. And I’ll write to you.”

“OK,” she replied sadly, clearly not believing a word of it.

Luke closed his eyes as he hugged her. She moved her arms as far around his torso as she could get. She hadn’t looked so sad in months. Untangling himself from Tegan, I saw his eyes were glistening. He kissed her on the forehead and then, forcing a smile, said, “Bye, T. Tegan. Bye. I love you.”

“Bye, Luke,” she whispered.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said to Tegan as Luke shut the door behind him. I opened the door to go after him. This would be the last time I got to speak to him, I had to stop him leaving us.

I expected to have to run to catch up with him, but he was a little way down the corridor. From the way he leaned against the wall, his face in his hand, his body shaking, I guessed he was crying. I walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. When he didn’t shrug it off, I slid my arm around both his shoulders. “Let’s talk?” I asked.

We sat in the canteen, without drinks, hunched over in our seats, staring down at the Formica tabletop in silence.

“Luke, I’m sorry for kissing Nate,” I began. This was where I should have started yesterday, with an apology.

“And I’m sorry that you saw me, I can imagine that hurt a lot, but it was the first time. The only time. I was just terrified about Tegan and all my emotions were mixed up. I would have told you, you know. Because I want to be honest with you. I know that you never understood this, but, Luke, you’re the one I want to be with. I love you. It’s not been easy because you and I had to work to even start liking each other, but you turned up in my life just when I needed you. You’ve helped me grow up. And yes, that’s mostly to do with Tegan being around but it’s to do with you too. You’ve helped me and you’ve helped Tegan, I don’t want you to go.”

Luke’s reddened eyes watched me talk.

“It was only a kiss, you know, just that one time. Nothing more. I haven’t slept with him. I wouldn’t do that to you. I know how that feels and I wouldn’t do that to you. The kiss shouldn’t have happened but it did and I’m sorry. I’m terribly, terribly sorry. But please don’t leave us because of that.”

He watched me until I stopped speaking. “Ryn, if Tegan loved Nate like she loves me, would we be even having this conversation? Would you be back with him?”

I paused before answering. I was sick of this. I’d had enough of being the imperfect one with suspect motives and impure thoughts. There was no one on earth who knew, without a single sliver of doubt, what they wanted one hundred percent of the time, who wasn’t tempted and swayed even momentarily. I wasn’t the only person on earth—in this relationship—to have doubts, but I was the one who was constantly having to defend myself. Defend my thoughts—even though I didn’t express them.

“I don’t know, Luke,” I replied. “But she doesn’t and she does love you so I can’t answer that question. Not even in abstract because even if you do leave now you’ll still have been around, how she feels about you will always be that barometer. But if we’re going to go down that route, let me ask you something: if it wasn’t for Tegan, would you have even thought about having a decent conversation with me, let alone kissing me or going out with me?”

It was his turn to pause. His pause elongated into one of his noisy silences. He couldn’t even lie. Did he understand now that “what if?” wasn’t fair when you were asked to polarize things into one moment of time, when you had to defend what you wanted at a completely different moment?

“And, while we’re here, I have to know something else—why didn’t you tell me you’d been for an interview when you were in New York? And that you were offered the job?”

“Because I wasn’t going to take it.”

“But that’s why you were so hesitant about moving in with us, wasn’t it? You were still wondering if you should take that job.”
And go back to Nicole.

Another silence when he couldn’t deny the truth.

“OK, maybe you’ll have an answer to this question. When I said I didn’t want any more children, you didn’t think I meant it, did you?”

“But you’d be such a good mother…” He stopped as he realized what he said. Even after all this time, all our conversations, all his reassurances, he still said it.

“You don’t think of me as Tegan’s mother, do you?” I said, tiredly. “And if you of all people don’t, how is anyone else going to?”

“I do. That came out wrong. I do think of you as her mother and I saw how brilliant you were with her, and I wanted you to have more kids. With me.”

“But I told you, I don’t want any more. Didn’t you believe me? Did you think I’d change my mind or something?”

He reverted to silence.

“I told you I’ve never wanted children, I haven’t changed my mind, I never will. I suspected you didn’t understand that but I ignored it, thinking it’d be all right—”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Luke interjected. “I’m leaving.” He didn’t want to play this game anymore. Not since he found out that “what if?” wasn’t fun when you’re not the wronged party.

“Yes, you are,” I replied calmly. He was going, there was nothing more I could do to stop him. I’d apologized, I’d explained, I’d told him how I felt. All of it no good. Nothing would do any good, he’d made up his mind to go and that was it. That day in the hotel when Nate tried to get me to come home with him, nothing he could have said would have made me come back. Nothing, except, “It’s not true.” Luke was going. I had to deal with it.

“I hope you and Nate are very happy together,” he spat.

“Thank you,” I replied, not rising to the bait. I got to my feet and as I did so, I decided I was finished with defending myself when it came to this. I did a bad thing in kissing Nate but not as bad as not forgiving Adele before she died. Nothing I did could be that bad. “Keep in touch with Tegan, please. She’s going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss her. Bye.”

“Bye.”

“Did you say bye-bye to Luke?” Tegan asked, clutching her photo album to her chest.

I nodded, trying to smile at her. I sat in the seat he’d sat in by her bed and put my head on her lap. “I’ll miss him,” I said. And I would. In less than a year I’d lost three people I loved. First Adele, then Ted, now Luke. It was too much. Too much loss in a lifetime let alone a year.

“Mummy Ryn, is Luke really going to ’merica?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? Because I think he might go to heaven.”

I turned my head to look at her. She squeezed her mouth and nose up in that way she did to emphasize something as she nodded her suspicions at me.

“He’s not, Tiga, I promise you. He’s going to America. And it’s not your fault, I promise you that too. He had to go.”

“OK,” she said, and patted my head. She started to stroke my hair like I was the cat she’d desperately wanted at one point.

“It won’t be so bad with just me and you,” I said. “We’ll be all right.”

“We’ll have fun,” she agreed.

“We can go on holiday. Maybe to Italy where my friend Ted lives.”

“Really?” she said excitedly. “On a plane and everything?”

“Yeah. In the summer holidays maybe? Just the two of us.”

“Mummy Ryn, that would be fun. And I could take lots of pictures with my new camera. And then put them in the ’bulm.”

“Yeah.”

She smiled to herself for a minute then sighed. “I wish Luke was coming.”

“I do too,” I replied.

Rat-a-tat-tat!
sounded at the door. Tegan and I exchanged puzzled looks. “Come in,” I called.

The door opened and Meg appeared in the doorway. Tegan’s face lit up.

“Look who I found in my car,” Nate said, his face appearing in the doorway too. “I thought you might want her, Tegan. Was I right?”

“Yes.” She laughed.

“Good, cos I don’t think she liked it in my car.” He entered the room and handed Tegan her rag doll.

“Mr. Nate, Luke’s gone to ’merica and he’s not coming back,” Tegan said as Nate perched on the edge of her bed. Nate’s navy blue eyes darted to me for confirmation. I nodded that it was true. He frowned slightly, asking with his eyes if it was because of the kiss. I nodded again and regret flew across his face. “Oh, that’s sad, I’ll miss him,” Nate said to Tegan. He may not have meant it but he had the good sense to sound convincing.

“You’re not going to ’merica, are you, Mr. Nate?”

“No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Nate turned his eyes on me, fixed me to the spot with a steady, intimate gaze and my mouth curled up into a smile because I knew he meant it. I knew that out of everyone in our lives, he’d never leave us.

chapter 47

Dearest Kamryn,

I’ve asked Nancy to send you this a year after I die. I’m not trying to spook you out or anything, I just wanted to make contact with you, if that makes sense. And to remind you that you’re doing a wonderful job bringing up Tegan. How do I know? Because I’ve never seen you back down from a challenge yet. And this is one you’ll excel at, of that I’m certain.

I know Tegan’s in good hands with you and that you’re in good hands with her—I’m sure you know what I mean.

I hope that you will have found my other letter by now. If not, then I am disgusted, lady! You haven’t been through my things? Didn’t you even want to see if I had anything of yours?! Well, I did. I had that black velvet jacket I wanted from the day you bought it—and that’s where I put the other letter which explained about me and Nate and why I did what I did.

If you have found it, then now you know and I hope you don’t still hate me. I was wrong and I’m sorry. I have learned though, that life is short, too short to bear a grudge. Too short to shut people out without listening to what they have to say first. Beautiful, sort it out with Nate before it’s too late. I never saw two people who were more suited to each other, please talk to him, let him explain. Give him the chance to make things right—I know that’s all I ever wanted.

Remember that first day we met? You were so instantly nice to me. Yeah, you were prickly and acted like you didn’t give a crap about anything but you’d betrayed yourself, Ms. Matika. I knew we were going to be friends because rather than follow through with not wanting to come for a drink with me, you did. And you were just lovely—although not in the traditional sense. You just, I don’t know, it was like you couldn’t help yourself. No one has ever treated me like that before or since. No one has ever taken to me instantly and stuck with me. Thank you for that. I never said it, but thanks for being my friend. Thanks for being you.

Oh, I’m rambling…I’m sorry. I miss that most of all with you. We used to talk for hours about nothing, didn’t we? I never had that with anyone else after you moved to Leeds. No one would tolerate it apart from Tegan and, well, she had no clue what I was on about most of the time.

I’ll go now, beautiful. I just wanted to say goodbye properly, I suppose.

I’m pretty sure we won’t have had the chance and I wanted to say it. Good. Bye. Not bitter bye, or unhappy bye.
Good
bye.

All my love, forever.
Adele x