Three Years On

Chapter Five

     ‘Well then, it sounds like you need to turn back around to St. David’s and stay there as long as it takes to break them up,’ Jordan suggested.

     ‘Are you crazy?’ Michael cried. ‘If I go back there her mum’s going to make me stay with them, and it will be incredibly awkward!’

     ‘Looks to me like it’s all been set up perfectly for you already, all you need to do is be there, and I bet within three weeks, she’s one hundred percent yours.’

     Michael didn’t say anything to this. He just digested the idea. I do still feel very strongly about her, he told himself. But she’s with Alfie.

     ‘Come on,’ Jordan drawled eventually. ‘You know you want to.’

     ‘I hate you,’ Michael told him, then hung up.

     He lent his head on the steering wheel thinking hard. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he cursed out loud, with each word banging his head against the wheel a little harder. On the final one he hit the horn.

     He lifted his hand up, with his iPhone still in it. Slowly, he tapped the screen, bringing up Debby’s number. He wasn’t even sure if she still had the same one, but he decided to call it anyway.

     ‘Hey,’ Debby greeted him.

     ‘Has your mum talked to you yet?’ he asked.

     ‘About you staying here?’ she said. ‘Yeah.’

     ‘What are your thoughts on that?’

     He heard her let out a long breath on the other end of the phone. ‘I’m not gonna say you can’t. It will be weird, and it will be hard, but my mum seems to think it must happen.’

     ‘So you’re saying you wouldn’t stop me?’ he checked.

     ‘I guess.’

     ‘Right,’ he said, then disconnected.

     Debby stared at the phone in her hand. This isn’t happening, she told herself. She wanted to scream. Instead, she threw her phone at her bedroom wall. It hit it with a bang, then fell to the floor, exploding into three pieces- the back, the battery and the actual phone. She knew from experience that it was basically indestructible, so she wasn’t worried about breaking it.

     She pulled her knees sharply into her chest and hugged them hard. Michael was going to come and stay in her house. She wasn’t so much worried about the situation itself; she was worried about her control. How much self-control did she really have? How long would it be before she was cheating on Alfie?

     The thought of that made her sick. He was always the one that cheated. He was always the one that lied. He was the one that created the arguments. It was her job to keep the peace, to give him time to feel guilty about it, to accept his apologies and get back together with him eventually. That was how it had worked for the past five months, and there were moments when she really thought she loved him. Alfie may have had his flaws, and he may have done terrible things to her, but there were times when he was incredibly sweet and opened up to her.

     But it had never been easy with Alfie like it had been with Michael. Things had just worked with Michael. They’d never argued, always perfectly in sync and knew exactly what to expect of each other. If she were to break up with Alfie for Michael, she would be taking a huge risk. Alfie had some anger management problems, and would not take kindly to things switching the other way, and all for what? For something with a guy she hadn’t seen in three years that she had no idea would work out.

     Feeling confused and frustrated she made her way across her bedroom floor to pick up the pieces of her phone. Her hands shook as she tried to put it back together. She waited impatiently for it to turn back on, then quickly dialled Beth’s number. Even though they weren’t strictly speaking best friends anymore, she still knew her number so well that it was faster to dial it than go find her on her contacts.

     She listened to the rings on the other end, waiting.

    ‘Heya Debby,’ Beth said.

    ‘Beth, I’m in a really weird situation,’ Debby told her straight away.

    ‘How so?’

     ‘Well, remember Michael?’ she asked.

     ‘Of course I remember him!’ Beth cried. ‘He was my best friend remember? How could I forget anything about that summer? Anyway, what about him?’

     ‘He’s back.’