1999
"Why did you let her have him?" Lily hissed as soon as I rejoined them at the table. I shrugged miserably.
"What was I meant to do, refuse to let her cut in? You know that's not my style." I took a massive gulp of my vodka and Coke. "Maybe I just need to accept the fact that I'm not meant to be with Ryan." The thought made me want to cry.
"You can't give up that easily," Claire urged. "You were determined you were going to tell him how you feel; you need to do it or you'll go mad wondering what could have been."
I watched Ryan dance with Christine. He looked perfectly content to be with her. And I had been right earlier when I'd pictured them together - they looked absolutely perfect for each other. I could feel tears welling up. I felt pathetic.
"Why don't you go and grab some fresh air?" Lily suggested to me. "I'll get us another drink and come and get you in a few minutes."
"And, in the meantime," Claire stood up, her face determined. "I've got some cutting-in to do of my own." She looked at me defiantly. "If you don't feel like you can do it, I'm going to do it for you." And with that she got up and marched towards the dancefloor.
My friends were the best.
I pulled myself to my feet and walked towards the exit, my brain foggy with doubts and my heart exhausted. My pretty purple sandals were pinching my feet and I felt like my hangover might be starting already.
It was a bit cooler outside which was a relief. I sat down at the top of the stairs and eased my shoes off, sighing in delight that my feet were finally free. I stared at my toenails, printed a pale lilac colour to compliment my whole ensemble, and took a deep breath.
"Alright, Iona?"
I glanced behind me to see Martin Douglas standing just outside the door. Great. I liked all of Ryan's friends apart from this one. He was just a nasty piece of work and gave me such bad vibes. I always tried to avoid being around him.
"Hey," I said unenthusiastically, trying not to recoil when he sat down beside me. Too close. Martin was a creep, although I'm pretty sure a harmless one.
He lit a cigarette and took a drag. "You want one?" He asked, extending the packet towards me.
"No thanks," I replied. "I don't smoke."
He shrugged, exhaling. I suppose at least he had the decency to blow the smoke away from me. "Your loss. So what you doing out here then? You moping because your date ditched you?"
"Excuse me?" I couldn't believe how direct and offensive he was being. Even by Martin standards it was pretty brutal.
"Well, I saw Ryan seemed pretty into Christine. He's mentioned a few times that he thinks she's hot. And didn't they kiss before?" He stuck the cigarette back between his lips.
"He thinks she's hot?" I asked faintly, unable to halt the question coming out of my mouth. Of course he did. She was stunning. And so very slim.
Martin could sense my weakness. "Obviously," he said, rolling his eyes. "She's the hottest girl in school."
Don't let him know he's getting to you.
I had to steel myself. "Good for him. It's not like I'm in to Ryan anyway, we're just friends. She's welcome to him."
There was an almost imperceptible moment when Martin glanced behind him. That smirk curled at his lips and caused me to look back too but I couldn't see what had caught his eye.
"Phew," he said. "Because I wouldn't want to see you get hurt.
Yeah right.
"I'm not," I insisted through gritted teeth.
"I'm glad. He did say earlier that he wished he'd just asked Christine to be his date instead, that she's more his type. He prefers them slimmer, you see." Martin looked me up and down, making sure the point hit home.
And oh wow, did it hit home. And God, did it hurt.
All my insecurities came rushing back like a dam inside me had just burst. All the times I'd been upset about being curvier than my friends. The occasions I'd skipped meals before nights out so I felt thinner (once again, I'd done that tonight). The hundreds of hours I'd probably spent looking in the mirror while analysing my body's many flaws.
"I need to go." I stood up. I felt sick. Dizzy. Disbelieving.
Could Ryan really have said those things about me? Even if he wished he'd asked Christine to prom instead, surely he wouldn't have said that to his friends? And surely he wouldn't have body-shamed me like that? I needed to speak to him; needed to find out the truth.
"See you later," Martin said off-handedly. He knew he'd already caused maximum damage.
I headed back to the hall. My chest felt tight and my breathing shallow. Just speak to Ryan, I told myself, trying to calm down. He'll tell you this is all just bullshit.
But when I reached the doors to the hall the first thing I saw, practically lit up by spotlight, was Ryan kissing Christine in the middle of the dancefloor.
And, just to rub salt into my open heartache wound, a fucking Boyzone song was playing.
It seems Martin had been right after all.
Ryan didn't return my feelings.
If this had been a teen movie, I'd probably have dramatically collapsed in a ball on the floor and started screaming. Or walked straight up to Ryan and slapped him in his stupid, handsome face. But instead, strangely numb, I walked over to our table and picked up my bag.
"Iona, are you okay?" Lily asked worriedly. She'd only just returned with our drinks - Martin and Ryan had both wreaked their havoc in a shockingly short space of time - and she was watching the kiss too.
Claire was also watching, her face confused. "I don't get it," she said. "He excused himself from Christine and walked away before I even had a chance to cut in. Then he just walked back into the hall there and started kissing her."
"I don't want to know," I muttered, trying to keep my face composed. "I just need to get the hell out of here."
"Come on." Claire jumped to her feet. "Let's go." She and Lily steered me outside again. I'd left my shoes out there; who did I think I was, Cinderella? I hadn't even registered I had bare feet. "There's a taxi rank just down the street."
We piled into a taxi, my friends bookending me on either side. I relayed to them what Martin had told me, the things Ryan had said about me. About preferring Christine, that I wasn't his type because I wasn't thin enough.
"He was talking to all his friends earlier and they were all laughing; what if that was about me?" I asked hollowly. "I'm so glad I don't ever have to see any of these people again." I felt so humiliated.
Ryan had never really been interested in me. I'd clearly been imagining it this whole time. It seemed that I'd even imagined he was really my friend.
Maybe boys and girls really couldn't be friends. Even when you thought they might like you, they were actually slagging you off behind your back to their friends, using you for cheap laughs.
"Maybe you need to talk to him," Lily suggested gently as the taxi pulled up outside my house. I shook my head frantically.
"I never want to speak to him again."
"Will you be okay?" Claire asked. "Do you want us to stay with you tonight?"
"It's okay, we're leaving first thing for the Cairngorms tomorrow, remember? I wouldn't want you to have to get up early too." I nodded at them reassuringly. "I'll be alright, I promise."
I could see neither of them were convinced but we hugged goodbye and I got out of the taxi, walking slowly up the driveway to my house. I sat down on my doorstep, unwilling to go inside just yet.
He broke my heart tonight, I thought.
I allowed a tear to fall. But it broke a seal, and more followed. I allowed it to happen. Let the betrayal properly sink in. Tried not to wish I'd been the one kissing Ryan. Tried to forget the things he must have been saying about me.
But I wanted to punish him.
What if I went to my gran's and just didn't come back? I pondered. We were only meant to be going for our usual fortnight but if I managed to wrangle a summer job in one of the local hotels or restaurants, I knew my parents and gran would be happy for me to stay there. Then I could just come back when it was time to start uni, move straight in with my cousin as planned, and I'd never have to see Ryan Thorne again.
And, by that point, he should well and truly have got the hint that I no longer wanted him in my life.
By the time the second taxi pulled up, I was composed. I'd touched up my make-up so my parents, if they were still up, wouldn't be able to tell I'd been crying. And neither would Ryan, I thought, watching him climb out of the taxi with narrowed, spiteful eyes.
I thought about trying to sneak inside without him noticing but I figured any sudden movement from me might alert him to my presence. So I stayed put, hoping he wouldn't notice me as he started to walk up his path, his head down.
But he paused, halfway up the path, and turned around, his gaze skimming across my driveway and eventually landing on a far more together Iona than the one he would have witnessed ten minutes earlier. And a much different version of me that he'd ever encountered previously. Let's call her Iona 2.0. Cynical. Guarded.
Done.
After a brief hesitation, he started walking back towards me, and something in my heart seemed to pinch at the sight of him. Tears nipped at my eyes again. Don't, I urged my body. Don't betray me like this.
He sat down beside me. "What happened tonight?" He asked after a moment of silence. His voice was husky. "I thought we'd be leaving together."
Yeah, me too. I thought so many things about that night that hadn't happened. I swallowed back a bitter laugh. Nearly choked on it.
"I - I wasn't feeling too great, thought I'd best just head home," I lied. "And you seemed . . . otherwise occupied so I didn't want to disturb you." I shot him a sly look and he winced.
"Oh. Yeah. That." He rubbed at his chin. I'd noticed scrubbing at his face was his tell that he was feeling awkward or uncomfortable. And so he should.
I couldn't believe how much this was hurting me.
But I shrugged, met those bright blue eyes, forced my face to stay blank. "No big deal." More lies. But I was hardly going to tell him the truth now. He didn't deserve my honesty anymore.
"Are you feeling better now?" Ryan asked. How could he sit here, acting like he actually cared after the things he'd said about me? And he knew I'd saw him kiss Christine, probably knew exactly how I felt about him, and he really didn't give a shit underneath it all.
"Yep." I nodded. "I think whatever it was is out of my system now." The sentence had a double-meaning, of course.
It was just a crush, I thought. I'll get over it.
I had to.
I just wished I hadn't began to believe it was actually reciprocated. How very silly of me.
I needed to get away from him. Before I said something I might regret.
I stood. "I'd better go inside."
He pulled himself to his feet too as I took the key from my bag. He reached out to touch my arm and I tried to ignore the way the hair on my skin quivered at this. It seemed my body hadn't quite caught up with my brain.
"Are we okay?" He asked quietly. "Still friends?"
"Of course." I pushed the door open, forcing a grin I didn't mean. "Friends forever." There's a chance that came out with a hint of sarcasm.
Understandably, he didn't seemed convinced. But he returned the smile, tentatively. "You're leaving for your gran's in the morning, aren't you? Have a great time, yeah?"
"I will. Thanks." I took one last look at him, committing his face to memory. Chiselled features, dimples, full lips, those eyes. Cataloguing him as the first guy to break my heart.
I vowed then and there to never to let a guy do that to me again.
"See you soon," he said softly as I closed the door.
"No you bloody won't." I muttered, storming up the stairs.
Although, when we were loading up the car at seven a.m. to head up north, I glanced up at his bedroom window and thought I saw a figure quickly moving out of sight. I was probably sleep-deprived and imagining things though, as I'd been awake until 3am pouring my heartbreak out to my diary.
Anyway, I pulled my plan off with aplomb. Found a job in a hotel just down the road from my gran's house within two days of us arriving. My parents were impressed with my drive and, as expected, more than happy to let me stay up there for the duration of my summer holidays.
And I actually managed to have a good time, despite myself. I enjoyed working at the hotel, made some new friends to hang out with, even eventually had a wee fling with one of my colleagues. Maybe Ryan had inadvertently done me a favour because I ended up going to uni with a lot more self-confidence than I expected to have. I also mostly got rid of my body hang-ups too.
(My growing commitment and trust issues were a whole other story though. Those just got worse over time. But you probably knew that.)
On one occasion, maybe three weeks or so into my big Cairngorms adventure, I got home from a long day at work to a message from my gran. It said "Someone called Ryan phoned. He said could you call back if you get a chance?" His home number was scrawled beneath.
My heart had skipped a beat at the thought that Ryan had tracked me down, asked someone for my number. And had actually called me - I knew he hated phone calls. Mobile phones were only just starting to become big at this point so text messaging wasn't a thing yet either. You had to - yuck - speak to people.
I'd smiled down at the scrap of paper in my hand.
Then, my resolve hardening once more, I crumpled it up and threw it in the bin.
As far as I'm aware, Ryan didn't ever try to call me again.
So . . . There it is. Prom night 1999. Any thoughts?
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