My Best Friend's Girl (28 page)

“Nice isn’t the word I’d use. I’ve got to tell her that it’s not going to work out between us.”

“Why not?” I replied, failing to keep that note of hope out of my voice.

“You know why,” Nate replied, staring straight at me.

“There’s someone else.”

chapter 35

I
don’t love him.

I do love him.

I don’t.

I do.

The world was still. Subdued. It was the middle of the night and everything was resting. Apart from me. I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t been able to sleep for days. Not since the night I met Nate for a drink. Not since I bumped into him in John Lewis, if I was honest. Or was it before that? Had I slept properly since Adele died? I couldn’t remember it, if I had.

Luke’s gentle breathing beside me cut into my thoughts. It was him being here that made thinking difficult. He was either breathing or moving around in bed, unintentionally mocking me with his undisturbed slumber. If he wasn’t here, if I didn’t feel envious of his ability to sleep, maybe I wouldn’t feel all this resentment toward him. Maybe, but maybe not. We’d been going through a rocky patch of late. Nothing was said, it lay under the surface of every conversation, look and touch—all was not well with us. And that was because neither of us knew where we stood with each other—I knew he was suspicious of my feelings for Nate, and I was just as suspicious of Luke’s feelings for me.

Things for me had changed since I said “I love you” and he waited a week—until I was going to dinner with my ex—to say it back. I’d said it because it was what he’d needed to hear at the time, but I had said it. First. I had made myself vulnerable, had opened myself up and he couldn’t even utter two words. Two words—“me too”—was all it would have taken to show I meant something to him. And he couldn’t do it. And it had made me doubt everything I thought he felt for me.

I don’t love him.

I do.

I don’t.

My tired eyes were fixed on the ceiling as I lay flat on my back, arms heavy, legs heavy, torso heavy. I was trying to leave my body. Trying to remove myself from this reality, trying to float away. Was that how Adele had felt when she’d died? Had she felt herself being removed, molecule by molecule, from her body? Or was it quick? Was she unaware that she’d gone? Or for the second before it happened did she know that the next moment she wouldn’t be there?

Luke made a sound with his breathing, and turned in bed, butting me gently as he moved. His arms reached out for me, pulled me toward him. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t wake up. He might, as usual, want to have sex if he did. And I couldn’t think of anything worse at that moment. I didn’t want to be in my body and I certainly didn’t want anyone else to be in it either. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want anyone to touch me. But especially not him.

I do love him.

I don’t love him.

I do.

I don’t.

Luke snuggled into me, nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck, molded his body against mine. “Hmmm,” he said against my neck. I wanted to push him off.

I just want to be alone.

Soon he was deeply ensconced in dreamland again, so I moved his arm off me and slipped out of his hold, then slipped out of the bedroom. Halfway down the corridor I stopped and opened one of the cupboard doors. I’d shoved Adele’s boxes in them after we’d come back to Leeds and hadn’t looked at them since.

I pulled out one box Adele had labeled clothes and carried it to the sofa. After I’d turned on the side lights, I shut the door and sat down. I opened the brown cardboard box, peered in.

The item on top was made from black velvet and instantly I knew what it was. I pulled it out, the cloth soft and furry under my fingers. It was mine, my black velvet jacket. I’d loaned it to Del for a work party years ago; it’d been quite big on her but she’d been coveting it since the day I’d bought it, so hadn’t cared. She’d worn it over a satin burgundy bra and the tightest pair of shiny burgundy trousers I’d ever seen. It’d flashed the white gold body bar in her pierced stomach.

A snapshot of how she looked—blond hair falling in waves around her face and onto her shoulders, makeup that brought out her long lashes and emphasized her eyes, my shiny black evening bag clutched in one hand—came back to me. I ached suddenly at how beautiful she’d been. That night and every night. A snapshot of how she’d looked when she came in five hours later flashed across my mind as well—shoes in one hand, makeup rubbed off one eye, lipstick kissed off her mouth, hair streaked with the scents of different brands of cigarette smoke. She had stumbled into her living room and ended up in a heap on the floor. She’d been disheveled but still pretty. Still beautiful.

I buried my face into the material, expecting it to smell of Del. Smell of how she did that night, maybe a few notes of her heady perfume mixed with her skin. Of course it didn’t. The party had been over four years ago, so the jacket smelled of detergent, like it should.

As I moved the jacket it crackled. I moved it again, and again it emitted a dry, papery sound. I shoved my hands into the jacket’s pockets, and in the left one there was a folded-up envelope. I unfolded the white envelope and on the front, in clear letters, it said,

KAMRYN MATIKA

With a rapidly increasing heartbeat I stared at the thick white envelope in my hand for a few seconds, unsure how this was possible. And then scared of what it meant. What it would say. Because it was Adele. It was like all the other letters she’d sent me, the ones that sat unread and mostly forgotten at the bottom of my underwear drawer.

My finger was shaking as I slipped it under the flap of the envelope and opened the letter.

I unfolded the fifteen sheets of paper, all written in Adele’s neat, considered handwriting. For someone as scatty as she was, Adele was very neat when it came to certain things.

Hey, Beautiful,

the letter began. I could almost hear her voice. Almost feel her lying beside me on the floor, propped up on one elbow, her legs curled under her.

Let me start by saying, I love you. I’m sure I never got the chance to say that to you before I died. Yes, this is weird. I’m sitting here in my father’s house, writing this knowing I’m going to be gone when you read this. I know I’m dead because you wouldn’t have this if I wasn’t, would you?

I love you, Kam. I’ve only ever been loved by two people in my life—you and Tegan—and I love the pair of you more than anything.

But I know what you’re like, Kamryn Matika—you’re a stubborn bitch who shuts down whenever the going gets tough. So I know you won’t have let me explain what happened with Nate. And you need to know, Kam, you really do. It wasn’t what you thought, it wasn’t an affair, it wasn’t like we ever thought about the other person in that way…

chapter 36

It wasn’t what Kamryn thought, it wasn’t an affair, it wasn’t like we ever thought about the other person in that way. I never longed for Nate romantically or sexually; he was such a dear, precious friend, almost as close to me as Kam, it was just, when it happened, it was a time when everything was so mixed up. So many things were going on. It was messy when it started and the end was just, what’s a word more extreme than messy? I can’t think, but that’s what it was.

Kamryn never understood how much Nate loved her. She loved him back, of course, but he’d do anything for her, his love for her was limitless, I think. Unconditional. She could have done virtually anything to him and he would’ve forgiven her. I’m not sure that’s very healthy but that’s how it was.

I was always a little in awe of how much Nathaniel loved her. And it must have been love from the outset because she was awful to him. Even when they got together properly. The shit I went through to become her friend was nothing compared to how she treated him. How sarky she was, offish, snappish and downright rude. But he stuck it out. Cut through all her bullshit and proved every single day how much he cared. She often said that I didn’t know him, didn’t know what he could be like, that he often needed her to prop him up, but she didn’t say that resentfully. I think it was her way of showing that it was a two-way thing. That while he loved her unconditionally, she cared for him in ways that weren’t immediately obvious. I thought I was going to die with happiness the day she said they’d decided to get married.

Even then, though, Kamryn didn’t quite believe that Nate was for real. I could see it sometimes, in the way she’d get a concerned look across her face when he left the table. She’d always wonder if he’d mutate into one of the controlling bastards who’d plagued her past. She worried, constantly and unnecessarily, that he’d find someone else. She’d start conversations about whether love really lasted forever. “What happens to love when you’ve been together so long that you can’t remember the reasons why you got together in the first place?” she said once. “When you’re together and it’s fine but it’s not the be all and end all.” When she saw my face she covered by saying, “I’m just wondering. I’m allowed to wonder.”

The time it happened, Nathaniel was so torn up. He’d just come back from driving Kam to Leeds, where she was going for business. He often did that, would drive her up there, then drive back again that day because he got to spend all that time with her. And when she was ready to leave, he’d drive up there to get her again. She never asked him to, he simply wanted to do it. Anyway, he drove her there and then dropped by my flat on the way back because Kamryn had told him to. She worried, you see, about me being on my own if she wasn’t around, so she’d told him to go check on me when he got back to London. He was knackered, exhaustion showed on every line of his face, his clothes crumpled, his skin pale, but there was something else. He was troubled, hurting. I could see it the second I opened the door.

He flopped onto one of my sofas and refused the drink I offered him. He said he wouldn’t stay long, just wanted to make sure I was all right.

“I’m fine, but you’re obviously not—what’s the matter, Nathaniel?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Ah, right, that’s why you look like death, then, is it?”

He rubbed his hand across his eyes, stared into space for a moment. Then he exhaled. “I think Kamryn’s going to leave me. She’s found someone else.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said, trying to be honest.

“She has. I can tell. I know my fiancée, I know how she gets when she’s in love, and she’s definitely met someone else. She can hardly look me in the eye nowadays and she won’t talk to me—not even to snipe at me. This drive up north was hell—five hours of virtual silence.”

“Nathaniel, if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that Kamryn would never jeopardize your relationship. She wouldn’t even look at another man.”

He shook his head. “You’re terrible at lying, Adele. But thanks for trying. I need to work out what to do for the best. But I can’t seem to think.”

“She really hasn’t done anything,” I reassured him. “And she wouldn’t. Kam’s not the cheating kind.”

“No, she’s not. My ex was, she did it for years and I put up with it. I couldn’t bear it with Kam. Not after…I know she wouldn’t physically cheat but I reckon I should end it before she leaves me.”

I was horrified. By the hopelessness in his voice, by the fact he was going to end their relationship. I had to make him understand that it was a glitch. “Look, Nate, she’s not going to leave you. Now, say, hypothetically, she’s met someone. Maybe at work. This is all just hypothetical, remember. And, say she clicked with this person and they started to spend lunchtimes together, had a laugh. That is all it would be. A laugh. Maybe she’d start to question certain aspects of her life, but Kamryn would never give you up. Not for anyone. We both know she’s never loved anyone but you.”

“Yeah,” Nate breathed. He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m so confused…Do you mind if I lie down for a second before I go home?”

“Course. You lie down, get some rest.”

Nathaniel went to lie down in Kamryn’s old room, while I watched TV. Hours later, I went in to check on him. He was sound asleep when I crouched down by the bed and, bless him, he looked so peaceful. Angelic. I jumped a little when his eyes flew open and he was suddenly wide awake and staring at me. I don’t know if it was because he’d looked so beautiful in his sleep, if I’d forgotten who he was, or if I’d just taken leave of my senses, but I did it. It was all my fault.

I kissed him.

Nathaniel looked surprised, then jerked his head away. That shocked me back to reality and I remembered who he was, that I didn’t fancy him, that I’d done a stupid, terrible thing. I turned to run away, horrified that I’d kissed my best friend’s fiancé, but he grabbed my arm, stopped me. I was scared as I turned back because I knew he wasn’t going to shout at me, I knew what was going to happen. We kissed again, and then it happened. It wasn’t frantic and lust-fueled. It was slow. Loving, gentle, beautiful. I’m sorry, it’s not what Kamryn would want to hear but I want to make it clear that it wasn’t about us fancying each other, about feelings building up over time that we couldn’t ignore. It was about two people who had different reasons for doing what they did. No man had been nice to me like that in a long time. And for that little while, I could pretend that the person I was with cared about me, was making love to me rather than just fucking me. That’s what most of the sex I’d experienced up until then was—fucking, sex without emotion. I know Kamryn could do that without it hurting too much, but that was because Kam had got used to compartmentalizing her life so early on. I’d never got the hang of it. I was always too much, as I once told Kam. Too everything all the time. I couldn’t put bits of myself away no matter how much hurt I’d been through. So each time I had sex without love I could barely convince myself that it was OK, that I didn’t feel worthless and lonely afterward. With Nate, for those few moments, I could pretend he cared about me. It wasn’t real but it felt real, for a little while.

When I woke up, Nathaniel was fully clothed and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m really sorry,” he whispered. “So, so sorry.”

Even in the dark I could see how ashamed he was. I was too. “What have I done? How am I going to make this right? I’ve done the worst thing possible,” he said. I knew how bad he was feeling because I felt that same anguish. Only, I’d been far worse than him. I’d known Kam for longer, I’d been there when all those other men had treated her like dirt and I’d just done something far worse, first by kissing him, then by making love to him. “When she gets back,” he was saying, “I’ll finish with her and move out. She doesn’t want to be with me anyway, so I’ll tell her what I’ve done. But I won’t say it’s you. I’ll say it’s some girl I met in a bar, and then I’ll go. She doesn’t need to know about you, this doesn’t have to ruin your friendship.”

I couldn’t let him take the rap for this. We’d both done it. And he was so decent that in his mortification all he could think about was making things better for me. We talked and talked until we agreed we’d put it behind us. We’d forget all about it. And it worked. We didn’t fancy each other, neither of us had any wish to repeat it, so it didn’t become an issue.

Then I found out I was pregnant. I knew straightaway he was the father and I knew I couldn’t tell anyone. Not Kamryn. And definitely not Nathaniel. He would have confessed and Kam would have left me.

It’s selfish, I know, but I couldn’t bear that thought—Kam leaving. When she did go, it broke my heart. I knew what she was like, she’d never stop to listen. She’d only think of it as betrayal, which it was. But it wasn’t like Nathaniel and I loved each other in that way. We’d simply done something unbelievably stupid. And I can’t even say I wish it hadn’t happened because that would be wishing away Tegan. Would she be Tegan without her nose, her talent for drawing, that unusual royal blue of her eyes if she wasn’t Nate’s child? Of course she wouldn’t. After everything I went through with my family, having a blood relative who loved me as much as I loved her was the most important thing in the world. I hadn’t planned on getting pregnant, but I didn’t regret it once it had happened.

That sounds awful and I don’t blame Kamryn for being so angry. I just want to apologize. I wish I had the time to explain it to her. I wish I had enough time to try, in the smallest way, to put it right.