Chapter 8: The Art of Making Friends
Nathan finally tracked me down at lunchtime on Thursday, just as I was contemplating a limp, clammy egg sandwich and wondering if I could be bothered to eat it. Common sense told me I should, but I wasn’t hungry at all, and now it was question of dredging up the energy to eat the damn thing. Maybe I should stop being so snotty and let Jenny to make me lunch. She had offered after all, but I had turned her down, again refusing to be indebted to my sister. I wished I could go back to eating in the cafeteria. As bad as the food was, at least it was warm. And indoors. And it didn’t rain in there.
“I’ve been looking for you” Nathan’s voice made me jump and drop the sandwich. Good riddance.
“Come to laugh at me?” I snapped. I knew I was probably being unfair, but I couldn’t help it. Nathan was potentially an enemy. I had to protect myself from him.
I had seen him a few times over the last couple of days, but had managed to avoid coming face to face with him. As I had predicted, he had fallen in with the popular crowd right away, easily stitching himself into the social fabric of the upper sixth form.
“No, I just came to return this. You left it on the table on Monday” he handed me the ugly woolly hat I had been wearing the other day. It must have come off as we were rolling about on the picnic table. I hadn’t even noticed I had lost it.
“Thanks” I muttered, stuffing it into my pocket. I could feel my cheeks beginning to heat up.
“Why would I laugh at you?” Nathan asked me, dropping onto the bench next to me.
“Because I made a complete fool of myself the other day?” I said flatly “Or maybe simply because everyone does. Take your pick, I’m not fussy”
“I’m sure they don’t” he said, but without much conviction.
“Please don’t expect me to believe you have been here for four days and you haven’t heard all about me. Annabeth Gankins, the black widow. The boyfriend stealer. I’m a lot of things, but naive isn’t one of them.”
Nathan stared at his feet.
“I might have heard some things” he admitted.
“There you go.”
“I didn’t say I believed them”
“You should. Most of those stories are true”
“So you really did almost kill this Connor bloke?” Nathan didn’t sound accusatory, he just seemed interested.
“That’s one way of putting it” I said guardedly.
“What’s the other way?”
“There was a car accident, which I did not cause, whatever Kathy or Charlotte might say”
“You’re an interesting girl, Annabeth, do you know that?”
My face felt like it was on fire, I was blushing so hard. I shuffled away from him.
“Look, about the other day...” I mumbled, my eyes glued on my shoes. “I don’t know what got into me. I don’t usually go around kissing people I’ve known for five minutes”
“That’s good.” Nathan shuffled closer to me “I like to feel special”
He started to lean towards me, one hand reached out as if to touch my hair. I jumped off the bench.
“Don’t even think about it.” I snarled, batting his hand away. Nathan shrugged, laughing.
“Just though I’d give it a try”
I sprang to my feet.
“You...You...Jerk!” I spat. Nathan held up his hands.
“Calm down” he said hastily “I was just joking”
“Do you think I’m some sort of... slut or something?” My voice was very high and shrill and tears were beginning to prickle the inside of my eyes. “Come to see if you could get me to do again, so you can tell everyone about it? I bet you could dine out for ages on that story.”
“Annabeth” he said, in a would-be soothing tone.
“You’re just as bad as the rest of them, nothing just a stupid, rotten, arse! It was a stupid mistake, alright, just a mistake! I didn’t mean anything!”
I broke off my tirade as Nathan came up and grabbed my arm. Just in time. I was on the verge of becoming hysterical. A tear slid down my cheek. Here it was, the meltdown had started.
Nathan took my arm and gently led me back to bench as if I was a piece of spun glass that might break at any moment. He pushed me down onto the bench and sat down next to me.
“Annabeth, I was just joking”
“Yeah, right” I sniffed and rubbed my eyes.
“Really, I was. I didn’t mean to upset you. I certainly wasn’t questioning your virtue, and I definitely wasn’t going to tell anyone about the kiss. That’s our little secret, isn’t it? Tell you what. Let’s forget all this rubbish and start over again. Hi, I’m Nathan” he stuck out his hand. I rubbed my eyes again, wiping away the last tears, smiled and took his hand. Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they?
“I’m Annabeth. Are you new here?”
“Yeah. I arrived on Monday...”
“You never told what you were doing in the Caribbean.” I remarked. We were sitting in a deserted changing room in the gym. It had started raining in earnest and we had retreated in haste to the nearest dry place. The changing rooms were dark, and there was a faint, unpleasant smell hanging in the air, a combination of sweat, dirty socks, dust and despair, the same smell that infused every changing room, but it was oddly cosy to be huddled together on a bench, while the rain pounded on the roof above us.
“I was visiting my aunt, she lives there.” Nathan fingered the bead hanging around his throat as he spoke “My parents thought it was the best way to buy my forgiveness, that it would make me more amenable to moving to back-of-beyond, Somerset”
“And did it?”
“A bit. To be honest, I’m not that fussed about moving here. I was just putting up a pretence.”
“Isn’t it a bit...boring, after London?”
“We lived in a dodgy bit of London. A least here you can wander about after dark without worrying about being mugged.”
“Yeah, but nothing else ever happens here. It’s as dull as ditch-water”
“Well, it’s not for much longer, is it? Once you pass your A-levels, you can go anywhere you like”
“I’d like to” I said, but I wasn’t sure about that. I hadn’t really thought about what I would after passing my A-levels. Travel maybe, then go to university somewhere very exciting, like London, or New York, or Paris. But I couldn’t help wondering if I would be able to away. Someone had to look after my mother. She needed someone to lean on. Jennifer probably wouldn’t hang around forever, she was already getting bored, I could tell, and Ruby wasn’t old enough yet. I sighed, and pushed the thoughts away. It was just too depressing.
“We should get going” I said, regretfully. It had been so nice talking to Nathan. We hadn’t talked about much, nothing deep or meaningful, and I had made sure I didn’t reveal anything about myself. I still didn’t quite trust him, but it had been nice all the same. “We’ll be late for class otherwise”
Nathan glanced at his watch.
“I suppose you’re right. Shall I walk you to class?”
“How very gallant” I laughed.
“It’s on my way”
We exited the gym and dashed across the courtyard, raindrops lashing our faces. We reached the arts block and stopped just inside, dripping wet. I glanced at Nathan and suddenly the situation struck me as terribly funny. I started to giggle. Nathan’s eyes locked with mine.
“Annabeth, don’t get cross, I just wanted to ask...”
“Yeah?” I said, untying my ponytail and shaking my hair to get rid of the moisture.
“You and me, would there be any...”
“Not a chance” I said.
“Oh, right” he said, looking crestfallen.
“Look, Nathan, it has nothing to do with you, you’re sweet and everything, but my life is already too complicated right now. And boyfriends, they just add more drama...”
“So it’s not a definite “no”. It’s a “not now”” he looked at me slyly.
“It’s a big, fat “no”, Nathan.” I patted his arm “Don’t worry, you’ll find someone soon.”
He shrugged.
“Try nothing, get nothing, that’s what my granny used to tell me”
I snorted.
“That’s flattering. Anyway, this is my stop” I indicated my geography classroom. “It was nice talking to you, Nathan. Let’s do it again someday”,
“You can bet on that” he squeezed my arm before leaving. I watch him walk down the hallway, a silly smile on my face.
“Found your next victim?” Kathy sneered. I turned around slowly. She was standing behind me, also watching Nathan walk away. And unless I’m mistaken, the look in her eyes was one of pure longing. I gave her cold look. I was going to demean myself by rising to her taunts.
“Who did you steal this one from?” She surveyed me from head to toe, taking in my ragged jeans and old jumper, and her lip curled in disgust. I turned away and pulled open the classroom door.
“I don’t what he saw in you” Kathy snarled, her face twisted and ugly.
“You know, I asked myself the exact same question about you” I called over my shoulder as the door slammed.
“Kathy’s going to kill me” I told Nathan the next day at lunch. We were squatting in the changing rooms again, as it was still raining. Nathan was lying on the bench, his head next to my knees. “Seriously, one day she’s going to stab me to death with her high heel”
“Well you were in the same car as her boyfriend when he almost killed himself. I’m not defending her, but she has a point.”
I snorted.
“He wasn’t her boyfriend.”
Nathan’s eyes opened. He looked up at me.
“He wasn’t? She told me he was. She definitely told me Connor and she were going out”
“Well it’s not as if he’s going to contradict her, is he? He dumped her two days before the car crash. Connor found out Kathy was sneaking around with his best friend”
“Why does no one know about this?”
I shook my head
“I don’t know. Connor wasn’t at school those two days and given Kathy was trying to convince him to take her back, she probably kept quiet about it. And everyone loved Connor, so she wasn’t going to make herself very popular by cheating on him.”
“And he wasn’t cheating on her?” Nathan’s tone was casual, but his eyes rested on me. I returned his gaze coldly.
“No, he wasn’t”
“Have you been to see him?”
I looked away, fixing my eyes on the damp stain of the opposite wall.
“No. Kathy’s been playing Florence Nightingale and barely leaves his side. I don’t want to cause a scene at St Marguerite’s.”
“Why is she doing that is he wasn’t her boyfriend?”
“Look at it this way: either he won’t wake up and she’ll get to play the tragic widow and bathe in everyone’s sympathy, or he’ll wake up and be so impressed by her loyalty he’ll take forgive her and take her back. It’s a win-win situation”
“Basically, it’s in her interest if he has amnesia”
“Exactly”
“Hey, do you want to do something tonight?” Nathan sat up.
“I can’t. I’m meeting my stepmother to get fitted out for my bridesmaid dress, then going to dinner with her and my father. My sister’s coming along as well. It’s going to be a right bundle of laughs.”
“How about tomorrow night?”
“Nathan” I sighed “I thought I made it clear...”
“Not as a date. Just as, you know, friends”
“Nathan, you don’t do “just as friends” with girls”
I hadn’t known him for very long, but I could tell Nathan was a charmer, a player. He wasn’t the sort of guy who had female friends, apart from as future conquests.
“Well, I want to try something new. Let’s just go to the cinema or a drink or something. You can pay your own way”
“Okay” what the hell? It was worth a shot. “You’re on”