By the time I reached the car, Trisha was already there providing Mum and Cora a dramatic rendition of what she'd caught from my conversation with Tommy.
I thought I came off well in the whole thing, considering.
At least I wasn't a weeping, sobbing mess. I had almost expected it; that when I woke up this morning, reality would sweep through like a tsunami, leaving me broken and waterlogged and drowned in its wake, unable to encourage my limbs to keep moving. Soaked through to the bone with despair.
But all I felt was anger, and even that was distant. Not overpowering or all-consuming; just a righteous knowledge that I was wronged, and the two closest people to me had betrayed me through no fault of my own. It was an anger that felt almost obligatory; I had to be angry, because I should be.
"And then..." Trisha was saying, her arms moving wildly with her storytelling. "Ally girl was like, I didn't, you did. She absolutely served him. Third degree burns, I'm telling you. His face was like—" she pulled an exaggerated sob "—he looked like she'd just taken a massive shit on his entire life. It was beautiful."
While Trisha looked like she'd just witnessed the second coming of Jesus, Mum and Cora mostly looked concerned.
"It was pretty beautiful," I added.
Mum and Cora whirled around to face me, schooling their expressions into neutrality. I rolled my eyes, but decided to let them attempt to comfort me. It was easier than insisting I was fine, and trying to get them to believe it.
I grinned at them. "It was a highly enjoyable conversation. I think he might have even been a little offended."
"Understatement of the century," Trisha said, clapping her hands together. All of her movements were exaggerated like that; big, elaborate things that often threatened to knock someone's eye out. Trisha was in her mid-30s and very connected to her Italian roots, and even more connected to street gossip. I thought the world of her. "I mean, I couldn't hear everything. But when you told him to play that Taylor Swift song, I almost passed out. He probably wanted to pass out, because he looked like he would welcome a swift death. I had no idea you were so fiery, girlie."
"Neither did I," Cora muttered under her breath.
The corner of my lips quirked upward. "It was well deserved."
"No shit," Mum said. I looked over at her, surprised. She shrugged. "He's a wanker."
Kai was right; we really did need to consult a dictionary for some more colourful insults. I thought, momentarily, about the feeling of Kai's massive shirt enveloping me, and the look on Tommy's face when he'd seen me in it. It was a little bit intoxicating, the jealousy and anger that had stirred the surface of his desperation.
"Actually, being a wanker wouldn't have really been a problem," I said lightly. "If he'd just stuck to that, the situation could've been avoided."
Cora wrinkled her nose. "Ew."
Trisha nodded along to my words, like I was some kind of Messiah. The reverent expression was a little disconcerting. "Naturally, naturally. So, who did the asshole cheat with? Was it a yoga instructor? It's always a yoga instructor."
Mum cleared her throat harshly. She was looking at Cora like the pair of them were devising the best way for either the pair of them, or, ideally, Trisha, to be transported to a sub-zero continent to freeze and die. With the added bonus of avoiding this conversation. Cora looked like she was waiting for me to burst into tears.
I just gave Trisha an indulgent smile. "Not a yoga instructor, unfortunately. He actually slept with Sydney."
Mum winced. Trisha gaped. "Sydney?" she asked. "The pretty little thing who's always at your place? Oh, honey."
I shifted under their sympathetic gazes, smiling awkwardly. "It's fine," I said, waving it off. When no one seemed to agree with me, I turned steadfastly to my mother. "So, breakfast?"
"If you want to drown your sorrows in hot fudge sauce, who am I to judge?" Mum said.
"The only thing I'm drowning is a hangover," I insisted. Then I bit my lip, considering. "Or maybe Tommy and Sydney, you know, if the urge comes to me."
Cora raised an eyebrow. "That makes me feel awesome about your mental wellbeing."
I didn't reassure her. I just grinned. This did not seem to make Cora feel particularly better.
"Alright, pile into the car, then," said Mum, who didn't seem thrilled by the turn of events. What did they want from me? A breakdown? Tears? I was dealing with this, and I was fine. Isn't that what they should want?
"I'll take my own car," I told Cora and Mum. They exchanged another look. It was like they thought I couldn't see them, or decipher their shared expression. They were very obviously screaming at each other holy shit, red flag, red flag, mission compromised, psycho on the loose. "I have somewhere to go afterward."
Mum raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? I don't know that that's a good idea."
I rolled my eyes. "I promise I have no desire to drive my car off a bridge."
"I was more concerned you'd want to drive your car over Tommy."
I brightened. "Oh, did you see which way he went?"
Trisha giggled.
Mum levelled me with an unimpressed stare. I matched her. "Mum, I'm just going to go visit Sydney."
It was my first thought, after closing the window on Tommy and his pathetic apologies. I have to go see Sydney. I needed to. I'd tapped out a message to her, and it had almost hurt when I'd seen the name at the top of the screen. SydColl, the bestest friend ever since 2004. The accompanying picture had been Sid from Ice Age, with Sydney's face superimposed over the top. It used to make me laugh.
I'm coming over later, I had texted her. It would have been an innocuous message any other day, expected.
It told me Sydney had been typing for five minutes before her reply came through. All it said was, Okay.
Then, you're still my favourite person, ally girl. would you still forgive me anything?
I closed the messages before I could say something stupid, like yes.
Mum didn't seem impressed by my choice of afternoon activity. "Running Sydney over isn't any less illegal than running Tommy over, and I feel like I could totally be an accessory to this if I let you take a vehicle with knowledge that you may, you know, commit murder with it." Mum grabbed my shoulders. "We would not do well in jail together, Al."
I pulled the car keys from my pocket and waved them, jangling, in her face. "I will deny any and all of your involvement. Please, just let me drive? It's just around the corner."
Mum's eyes, so similar to mine, flickered over my face, searching for something. Sadness, maybe. Viciousness. I just looked at her evenly. I was doe-eyed and innocent looking, and I knew my mother would find nothing untoward on my face.
"Also," said Mum. "Hungover people shouldn't drive. You would still have alcohol in your system. That's illegal. We follow the law in this household."
Cora smiled tentatively. "I didn't drink. I could drive her."
"I'm fine to drive," I said. "I checked." Mum had bought a small breathalyser to keep in the house; she would rather be safe than sorry, given I would lose my license if I was caught with any alcohol in my system. "I stopped drinking kind of early."
"And you puked, like, all of it up," Cora added, unhelpfully.
"Thanks, Cor," I muttered, as Mum smirked judgementally.
"Oh, you're right, Val, you sound very responsible right now."
"You should let her drive," Trisha interjected, still looking like she'd won the lottery. "She doesn't need to run Tommy over with a car. She just decimated him with a fucking monster truck of verbal slander. He's going to be hobbling for days, and his ego is roadkill. Plus, Ally is a good girl with no track record for committing violent acts of murder."
I looked back at Mum, brightly, giving her an innocent face of a girl who hadn't, and had no intention, of committing violent acts of murder. She sighed, and I knew I'd won. It was a small victory; I was allowed to drive around the corner. But I would take what I could get.
Cora climbed into the car next to me, apprehension drawing blonde eyebrows together until they were almost knotted. Outside the window, Trisha was fist-pumping, and miming elaborate kicks to invisible men's balls that seemed a little excessive, but I admired her enthusiasm.
When Cora shut the door behind her, she turned to me. "Why are you going to see Sydney?"
I looked at the road ahead for a moment. A car sped past the driveway, and I noticed an old woman walking her dog. The sound of birds filled the silence, before I said, "Because I need it all to be over before she figures out her story."
Because Sydney would try exactly what Tommy had; she would beg for my forgiveness, she would blame Tommy, blame Cora, blame Kai, blame alcohol, blame society or fate or Jack Heath's decision to serve sweet potato wedges when they're a known aphrodisiac, Ally, and you can hardly blame me for science. The difference between Tommy and Sydney was that Sydney was good at it. At pinning the blame on other people, at never being at fault. And I had a decade's practise in believing her.
Cora hummed thoughtfully. "She couldn't make you forgive her this," she said. The sound of a dog barking, the purr of the engine. "Could she?"
I couldn't answer her.
Instead, I just pulled out of the driveway, and pressed my foot down until we were tearing out of the street and onto the highway.
It was only a short drive, but I couldn't focus enough to talk to Cora beyond absent responses to her chattering. Her words—a mirror of my own concerns—kept replaying in my head like a broken record. Could she? Could she?
And I really didn't know. I'd always thought I could forgive Sydney Collins anything—had told her so only yesterday—and yet I'd never imagined a transgression such as this. A betrayal such as this. She didn't deserve my forgiveness. But that didn't mean I wouldn't still give it to her, as I always had before.
But by the time I'd pulled into the car space outside the nearby café, next to Mum's empty car—she'd gone inside to grab us a table—I knew. I knew even before my phone lit up with Sydney's message, the bar obscuring my background; it was a picture of Sydney giving me a piggyback, both of us beaming at the camera. You're breaking my heart here, babe. He isn't worth the end of our friendship. Just come see me, and we can talk about this.
I turned to Cora as she was pulling the door open, and I grabbed her hand. She looked back at me; blue eyes wide. "I'm not going to forgive her, Cora," I said. And I knew it was true. "I couldn't forgive myself for forgiving her."
Not this time, and not for this.
The smile that broke across Cora's face was like watching the sun rise in the early morning, peaking over the horizon in a vibrant array of colour.
Not this time, Sydney. Never again.