The Art of Letting Go (The Uni Files) (5 page)

21st September

It’s been a full week of lectures. I have to admit it is slightly more difficult than I anticipated. You actually have to do reading and stuff in preparation for the lessons, and once you are there you are expected to participate (which sucks). I wish someone had told me this before I had enrolled. I may not have bothered.

I have always loved reading—my boxes of books give that away. It turns out that I am an amateur reader. I just like my books to sit there looking pretty, ready for me to dip in and out of them as I fancy. The reading lists accompanying the course outlines that were jovially given out by the crazy lecturers are enough to make even a hardened reader weep.

Every time I get called on in class, I go bright bloody red. Not helped by the fact that yesterday during our lecture on Ancient Rome I suffered the most terrible coughing fit. The girl sitting on the other side of me— Emma, I think her name is—sympathetically offered me her bottle of water which I greedily guzzled. This successfully stopped the coughing but resulted in a very loud and impossible to disguise burp.

There was a loud laugh from the chair behind me. Ben’s chair.

I am trying to ignore Ben. I truly am, but it is kind of hard when he is always about, everywhere I go I see him. If I am walking one way across campus, I can guarantee he will be passing the opposite. If I am going up the library stairs, he will be coming down (which is embarrassing because I am normally hyperventilating) and if I go out for a cigarette, the door will bang a few moments later and he will soon be standing in front of me looking outrageously sexy blowing smoke in the air. I just stand there like a mute tongue-less nerd trying not to drool. He is going to think I am raving lunatic soon.

Earlier, he came out of the bathroom wrapped only in a damp towel, which caused me to drop my plate of Ryvita all over the floor. He smirked as he walked past me into his room wafting whatever manly shower gel he uses into my nostrils.

Twenty minutes later he emerged looking outrageously sexy. All done up boy fashion with a dark shirt, jeans, and hair artfully tousled, he gave us a wink and exited through the front door before anyone could ask with whom he had a date. Date?

Date.

He has a date?

It’s only the first week of term! How does he have a date?

Why does he have a date?

Jesus! He was only backing me up against a tree a few nights ago! Really? Why?

Answer: because he is ridiculously fucking hot and I have been ignoring him all week acting like he is some sort of scumbag because he kissed me when I was drunk. Twice.

There is nothing worse than chastising yourself. It’s really bloody annoying and something I have to do often.

22nd September

7.00 p.m.

Ben’s date must have gone really well because he has not come home. Not that I am listening for him. Okay, maybe a little bit. No, I’m not.

I’m just sitting on my bed idly wasting away my Saturday, with my ear super glued to the wall. I don’t want to go into town in case I see Tristan. It’s a slim chance, but one I am not willing to take. I really don’t think that seeing my infuriatingly perfect brother tonight will do good things for my state of mind.

I’m trying to remember when I started disliking my twin so much. I think it was around the time when we were fifteen and he started trying to shag all my friends. He stopped in the end, but only because he ran out of options once I started working at Dad’s bank. Tristan knows better than to try something on with one of Dad’s employees. That is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I might go and see what Meredith is doing.

Town

9.00 p.m.

We are sitting in a pub on Putney High Street. It is a fab old-fashioned pub, which I can see becoming a firm favourite, but it smells strangely of old farts. That might be a contribution from the old man next to us.

It seems Meredith has powers of persuasion that I cannot contend with. When I knocked on her door earlier and found her deeply engrossed in Eastenders, I had said that I was happy to just sit around at home, watch some telly or listen to music—anything at all. Anything that did not involve drinking too much or snogging someone I hardly know.

One hour later we are on our second bottle of wine and I am starting to feel the effects.

“So, Ben?”

“Yes?”

“Well, you like him, right?”

“What on earth makes you think that?”

“Um, you go bright red every time you see him, stare at him constantly, and have kissed him twice in seven days.”

Bollocks.

“I do not!”

“I think the lady does protest too much!”

“I am not protesting too much! I don’t even look at him if I can help it.”

It’s true. I have been trying to keep my eyes averted at all costs, trying to ignore a very frustrating attraction that is starting to seep into my consciousness. I mean, it is pathetic.

Ooh, I wonder what Ben is doing now. I wonder if he is at the library. I wonder what T-shirt he will wear today. I wonder what he looks like in just pants. Ooh, I wonder what he looks like with no pants.

Blush, blush, it is all deeply embarrassing. I am reverting to a teenager at a dramatic pace.

“Babe, if that is you trying not to look at him, then you are doing a completely shit job.” She is only reaffirming what I already know.

I need to make a stand. I look Meredith straight in the eyes.

“Ben is clearly a player, and as such he holds no interest for me whatsoever. Just because I kissed him once, um, twice, does not mean I plan to do so again, ever. Ever.”

There. I think that made my point quite clear.

She is staring over my head, lips curved in a smile.

“That’s a shame, Delilah. I was
so
planning on having a repeat performance soon,” says an amused sounding voice from above and behind me.

I whip around to find Ben, a wicked look on his face, as he watches me blush what I know is a stunning shade of beetroot. Meredith laughs her head off as she pushes off her stool and stumbles to the bar, giggling like a hyena the whole way there.

Nice.

Ben scoots onto her bar stool.

Why does it seem so much closer when he is on it?

The table must have shrunk.

He leans into me, shoulder touching mine, voice low. “You really think I am player?”

I stare at the blues unsure what to say.
No. Yes. I don’t bloody know.
“Well, how was your date?”

“Date?

“Yes. You know, all dressed up and out for the night. The whole night?”

I need to stop speaking.

“Funny date, with three other
male
band members.”

Oh.

“Oh.”

“Do you think you would like to go on a date sometime?”

“Pardon?”

“You know. Go out with me?” he asks with a nervous twiddling of his lighter.

Say no. Say no.

“Uh, yeah. I guess.”

Meredith comes back with a pint for Ben and three whisky chasers. She gives me a blatant conspiratorial wink as she hands out the drinks.

Curse this girl and her penchant for spirits!

We knock them back, and the whiskey burns my throat on the way down, and not at all in a good way.

The moment I put my glass down, the room starts to spin in an alarming fashion.

This is a little worrying as the room is already spinning and I have a bad feeling the whiskey wants to say hello again.

“You don’t mind if I crash your girls’ night, do you?” Ben asks with a distracting blue eye twinkle and freckle crinkle.

“Yes,” I reply just as Meredith pipes in with, “No.”

“Good that’s sorted then.” He smirks as he shrugs out of his jacket.

I try very hard not to focus on the removal of clothing, ignoring the flash of skin above his jeans, which exposes a strip of firm abs. He catches me looking and gives me a wink.

Damn it.

I flush beetroot red.

I need a cigarette, or Valium, or something.

“I am going for air,” I announce, pushing away from the table.

“You okay, Lilah? You look a bit hot,” Meredith asks, completely oblivious.

“Mmm, great,” I mutter back before turning and attempting to make it to the door without face-planting the floor.

I am so far from cool right now, a heat-seeking missile could pick me out in a crowd.

It is fair to say that Ben Chambers brings out the worst in me. How did I go from sounding like a crazy stalker to agreeing to a date all in one conversation?

It makes no sense.

Why did he even bother to ask me out, when it is apparent I am completely and utterly bloody deranged? Why did I even say ‘yes’ when I know I shouldn’t have done?

He did ask me out, right? Or did I just imagine it?

I could have done. I am heading into Crazyville at a rapidly increasing pace.

Cigarette Break

It takes approximately three minutes for Ben to accompany me down the dingy alleyway I have found, lighting a cigarette of his own. He takes a deep drag and blows the smoke away into the air above him. I am not sure how he manages to make it look so sexy, but he does.

Oh, he really does.

“What’s up?” he asks once he’s finished artfully blowing smoke in a mesmerising manner.

“Nothing,” I say, looking anywhere but at him.

“Really? Nothing?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Any reason you don’t want me around?”

Yes. I fancy the hell out of you but also have a fiancé.

I look up to meet his gaze. “Uh, no not at all.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

“So you’re not ignoring me on purpose then?”

“Um, nope.”

“Okay.” He eyes me with an amused expression on his face.

It makes me want to punch him or kiss him. It’s a fifty/fifty split. “Okay.”

“It’s just I would hate it if I made you feel uncomfortable by kissing you the other day.”

God, this is just mortifying.

“Not at all, Benjamin.”

The smirk gets bigger.

“That’s okay then, Delilah.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

I can feel his fingers seek out my own. I am too scared to look in case he moves away.

We stare at each other for a few moments: blues meeting greys, fingers touching loosely, but not letting go.

“Come on, let’s go and rescue Meredith,”

I tug at his hand keeping my hold on his fingers as we head back inside. Turns out she does not need rescuing. Tristan the Arse is sitting in what was my seat. I am going to tell him something along the lines of "F’off," but then he makes a point of staring at my hand, which is still clasped in Ben’s so I don’t say a word. I just let them get on with it.

23rd September

I am a stalker.

Last night after I was assured by Meredith that she was more than happy with my brother’s company (can’t think bloody why), Ben and I walked out into the pub’s courtyard garden where we played a game of ‘get to know you.’

Well, I played a game of ‘let’s stalk Ben Chambers so I can write it all down in my diary when I get home and re-read it forever more.’

These are things I found out:

Ben’s band ‘Sound Box’ is doing well, but they are at the point of make it or break it.

Ben comes from Dorset (I drunkenly suggested we should go for a walk on the beach there one day because that is where one of my favourite books is based.
So kill me now.)

He has never had a proper girlfriend before (This little nugget of information caused me to spray my spritzer all over the table.)

“As bloody if!” I exclaim once we have stopped giggling from my wine fountain, but apparently it is true. Ben says he has always been too busy with the band. Then when he realised maybe he was missing out on something he could no longer work out if the girls were interested in him, or the fact he stood at the front of a stage and played guitar. I thought this was one of the saddest things I ever heard and stared into the blues for a moment contemplating why he thought I was different enough to jump off the stage for, but I shook the thought away without voicing it.

In return I told him:

Nothing.

Well, nothing of any real importance like “Uh, yeah, sorry I forgot to mention it the other day when you had me backed up against a tree, but I have a fiancé.”

I feel bad, but I was having so much fun sitting there with him, I didn’t want to tell him the truth. I am scared that if I do tell him then he will not be interested in me anymore. Deep down I know I would be sorely disappointed if that was to happen almost as disappointed as I was last night when he kept his promise not to kiss me and instead just pecked me on my cheek outside my door.