The Unknown Road

61 - Archie

"SO WHAT DID CHLOE actually say to you guys?" Danny asks.

Each of us are sat on a sofa cushion, cups of tea in hand, ready to debrief the day's excitements.

Tessa sits forward and takes a deep breath.

"I may have been a bit too touchy about it..."

Charlotte shakes her head. "No! Tess, she was basically badgering you. If you hadn't got a look in, I would have."

When I caught up to them, Millie was between them, and Charlotte definitely looked like she wanted a piece of Chloe.

"All day she was saying 'Matt and I are going to do this', 'Matt and I are going to do that' and I got really annoyed, so I asked whether she'd asked Matt about all this yet," Tessa says sheepishly. "She didn't like that and then kept asking what you and me are doing next year."

"What? Like what? Like how?"

"Yup. 'I'll be going to Matt's games. Will you be going to any of Archie's?' Basically rubbing it in my face that you won't be here next year, and that we'll be apart."

"She had a smug smile all day, babe," Charlotte says, turning to Danny. "All I wanted to do was smack it off."

He chuckles at Charlotte's outburst and pulls her close to him. She settles herself into his side and hugs herself to him.

"What else did she say?" I ask.

Tessa looks at me. "She kept saying I was unsupportive."

"WHAT?!" I explode, making Bruce, who's sitting in the corner, sit up and yelp. "That's ridiculous! If you were unsupportive you would have been the first person to tell me not to go to New York. It's you that's been telling me to go more than anyone else."

She swallows and I can see tears building in her eyes.

"Then when I went and defended myself, saying I was supportive, she went on to saying that she bet you couldn't wait to get away."

"She kept coming at her Arch. It was so mean. Honestly. And I have no idea where it came from either. It's literally the first time she's ever done anything like this."

Chloe was a friend of Tessa's from hockey, who Matt had been dating for the last year. She is nice, and she's funny too, but if she's saying these kinds of things to Tessa, she can't have been showing her true colours so far. There's no way someone just comes out with that kind of thing out of the blue.

I told the guys I was going to New York about a month ago, after I'd flown out to interview with the Dean at Columbia. She'd heard good things about me and asked me to demonstrate my knowledge on Art then and there, showing her my sketchbook, and when I left her office, she shook my hand and told me she would be seeing me in August.

The pack that had all the information I needed about accommodation and tuition fees came a couple of months ago, and then finally the letter of acceptance, despite not knowing my grades, arrived last week. It confirmed my place and confirmed that Tessa and I would be about to embark on the test of our lives...

Tessa, Andrew, Millie and Matt found out first, obviously, and I told the others a couple of days after I got the letter, but I did notice Chloe didn't react when the others did, so Matt must have told her before I did. I didn't mind at the time, because the only person I didn't want finding out from someone else was Tessa, but now it seems she's got it out for us. Apparently...

"What did you say back?" Danny asks.

"What could I say?" Tessa sobs, wiping her eyes. I put an arm around her and she quickly gets herself back under control.