Aiden’s distraction worked until we parted ways at the end of the cul-de-sac I lived on. He’d kept my mind busy all the way home, getting me to name my top ten films, books, and colours. I’d known he’d only been passing the time as we’d walked side by side, but trying to decide whether purple was better than yellow had kept my mood high and my nerves low.
We came to a stop next to a road sign and a lamp post. Aiden danced around the post for a moment, acting the fool and making me laugh, but as soon as his dance ended, so did the distraction. My expression must have given me away as Aiden let go of the lamp post to squeeze my shoulder.
“It’ll be okay. It’s not a life or death meeting.”
I gave him a tight lipped smile, more sure than before that he had no idea that Leanne liked Sonny.
No matter which way the meeting with Sonny went; Whether he wanted me to be his girlfriend or he was going to admit the kiss was a mistake, my heart was going to break. Standing in the cold, my arms wrapped around myself, I knew I was only delaying the inevitable. I wished I’d never found the email. The void in my gut wouldn’t be threatening to tear me in half right now if I hadn’t.
“Come see me after.” He reached up to brush a hand through his hair. “I mean, if you want to.”
“Thanks,” I replied, a sigh slipping out with my words, but I appreciated his friendly nature now more than ever.
He stepped back from me, biting his lip as if he couldn’t quite understand why I looked so defeated. As far as he knew, Sonny was going to declare his love for me. My stomach pinched and I held myself harder, almost to try and keep the pieces together.
Watching Aiden watching me, I suddenly decided that no matter how badly today went, I’d still have him to rely on. I was pretty sure he’d comfort me, even if he didn’t know what for. It wasn’t a surprise to me then when I closed the gap between us and linked my arms around his neck, hugging him like the good friend he was. I heard him take a sharp intake of breath and for a moment he didn’t react, but then his hands were on my back. Something shot through me then; a pleasant tingle that started from where his hands were on my hoody, moving in all directions, spreading warmth along my skin. This hug felt strangely more intimate than the hand holding in class should have been and I pulled back, hiding my confusion by tucking my hair behind my ears. The hug must have only lasted five seconds, but it had felt like a lifetime.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, startled. It was only Mum, asking if I was going to be around for tea, and then I realised what the time must be.
I heard Aiden fidgeting next to me and I looked up from my phone to see him smiling, an eyebrow raised with a meaning I couldn’t translate.
“You should get going,” he said. “Don’t want to be late.”
I gripped my phone tight, all the nerves flowing back into me at his statement. I shook my head. “I’ll see you later then.”
He nodded and, with a parting salute, jogged off towards his house. I stood alone on the street corner for a second, staring unseeing at the street sign as I tried to work out what, if anything, had just happened, before I gave up and dragged my feet the rest of the way home.
Mum had various pots bubbling on the stove when I shut the front door behind me. The smell of simmering sauces caught in my nose as I crossed to the stairs, all the enthusiasm of a person walking to their death.
“Oh, there you are.” Mum’s voice was as warm as the air floating from the kitchen and I turned to see her wiping her hands with a tea towel, soap suds clinging to the rolled up sleeves of her work blouse. “You’re later than usual.”
All I could do was shrug. “I’m going out for a bit,” I replied, setting a foot on the bottom step as if to make a point.
Mum only smiled. “Sure. I’ll dish you up some tea and it’ll be in the oven for when you get back.”
I returned the smile. I wanted to hug her for not asking questions but then I realised it was probably due to a life of always doing what I was told. If Leanne had been ‘just popping out for a bit,’ then Mum would have sat her at the breakfast bar for a full scale interrogation. Not wanting to risk breaking down in tears on her shoulder, I just shouldered my bag meaningfully and carried on the rest of the way upstairs.
I collapsed onto my bed when I’d shut the door, letting out a pent up sigh. Leanne’s bedroom door had been open and her room empty, and the void inside me was whispering suggestions and building scenes in my head. What if Sonny had asked Leanne along to our meeting? What if he’d told her about the kiss and they were both waiting to talk things out with me. I pictured the image of Leanne’s face, her telling me how betrayed she felt. I pulled myself up from the bed and yanked my hoody over my head, slipping off my shoes at the same time. If this was going to be the end of everything, I had to at least look the part. If I kept up appearances, they might not be so blunt about it. But what if Sonny does like you? I squashed the voice that was clinging onto the part of me that couldn’t let Sonny go by balling my fists at my sides. Nothing was going to change my mind. I was going to walk in and out of that café with my head held high, no matter how much it was going to hurt.
The void in my gut was pulling me apart so much by the time I reached the café that it felt as if I was hanging on by a thread of something that might once have been hope. Now, it struck me as faith. Faith that I wasn’t going to be completely destroyed by this meeting.
My hands were shaking so hard from the cold that I regretted not wearing my hoody. Part of me wanted to turn back home to get it, but then I knew that being slightly warmer wasn’t really going to solve anything. That, and I doubted I’d be able to force myself to come back to the café once I was inside the four safe walls of my bedroom. Dressed in a pair of skinny jeans adopted from Leanne and a woolly jumper that Cassie had given me last Christmas, though why I was wearing something that she’d given to me I didn’t know, I sucked in a breath and pushed on the peeling wood of the door. The bell above the door frame rang out as I entered the café, almost like a warning bell in my head, urging me to bolt back the other way. Something caught my eye and I turned to see Sonny sitting alone in the corner, cradling a mug between his hands. My stomach jolted at the sight of his brown eyes that had been drawn to me when the bell had sounded. My own eyes traveled around the almost empty room before I let the relief of seeing Sonny alone leak out of me in the shape of a long breath. At least Leanne wasn’t here to hear what Sonny had to say. Part of me didn’t want her finding out about the crush I’d been harboring for the last few months. Humiliation trickled through my veins at the thought of her knowing that we’d liked the same guy. I never stood a chance next to her. If I’d known that from the start, then I wouldn’t be in this mess. I would have given up weeks ago.
My shoes squeaked on the wood floor as I made my way over to him. My heart still thudded at the sight of him but I tried to convince myself that it was going to have to stop; my sanity depended on it. His eyes were still on me as I stopped at the edge of the table and I felt uncomfortable, almost shivering, as he looked me over. It reminded me of the way his eyes had taken in my dress at the gig, like he was taking a mental picture before storing it away in a file that had my name all over it.
I coughed to break the silence and it worked, returning his gaze to my face. I tried out a smile but it felt awkward on my face. The way he’d looked at me had made me start to panic and I could feel sweat beading on my palms. I took the seat opposite him and dragged my hands along my trousers under the table. I swallowed hard and wondered if he could see my throat move with the motion of wanting to shove unwanted thoughts and feelings into the harsh acid in my stomach where they could boil away to nothing.
“Would you like a drink?”
His voice almost echoed in the sparsely filled room and my gaze shot up to him from where it had been resting on my tightly knotted hands.
My first thought was to decline. Having a drink only meant that this whole thing, whatever it was – a meeting? Break-up? – would become longer than it had to be. But then I took in the expression on Sonny’s face and the look of pure anxiousness was enough to make me mumble the word coffee.
His expression softened lightly at my voice and I watched as he called a waitress over to announce his order. His mug was half filled but he asked for two coffees anyway. I shifted in my seat nervously, struggling to come up with anything to say, only for the table to fall into silence again.
I spent the next couple of minutes studying the spilt sugar next to Sonny’s cup. The greasy surface of the table. The misshapen corners of the drinks menu that was being held up by two salt shakers. I wondered where the pepper shaker had gone.
“Two coffees.”
The waitresses’ cheery voice made me jump. It sounded so out of place in this dreary setting. Even without the impending doom that I was feeling, and surely emitting, the café was hardly the most bright and breezy place I’d ever been. The windows were steamed up on the inside, showing those out in the cold how warm it was indoors. There were a couple of paintings on the stone coloured walls. One of a tree against a sunset and another of the horizon above a beach. They both seemed out of place here, like the café was draining any magic out of their settings.
I vaguely heard Sonny tell the waitress thank you and I turned to offer her the best appreciative expression that I could muster. I caught the smile she was admiring the both of us with and suddenly wondered what this looked like to her. Obviously I knew it was less than likely that I was going to leave the café feeling on top of the world, and I was guessing that Sonny was feeling the tense atmosphere, but I wasn’t so sure if the young girl who’d just set our drinks on the table knew what was really going on. Do we look like a couple to her? Did this look like some kind of date?
She was gone as soon as she’d come, returning to the counter to serve an old man who’d just wondered into the café, taking away the jolly aura and leaving us in silence yet again. The bell above the door was still ringing in my head but I managed to hear Sonny sigh. I’d only just been wondering if either of us was going to start the conversation but this, to me, seemed like the icebreaker. I added a drop of milk to my mug before I took a sip of my coffee to break the nerves, only getting a scolded tongue in the process.
“You’ve changed so much over the last couple of months.”
I looked up at him to see his eyes on the painting of the tree. I was confused. I thought we’d come here to talk about the kiss, not about how much I’d changed. I felt weird inside. Had I really changed? At least that would explain why he’d seemed to take an age to look my recent outfits over. Yet again ruling out any chance of him having feelings for me, I couldn’t decide whether I felt better or worse for it. Had I been too obvious with the violet t-shirt? Was that what he was on about? Had that tipped him off about my crush on him? I tried to imagine how I’d feel if Aiden suddenly became interested in my dancing, but then my heart thudded as I realised he had been interested of late. And then I tried to work out why I’d used Aiden as an example.
“Or it’s just that I’ve only just noticed you properly.”
I bit down hard on my lip. Where was he going with this? I was counting down the seconds until he said it. Until he crushed the last tiny piece of hope that was nestled deep inside my subconscious. I hated myself for still holding onto it when Leanne was what I should be focusing on. It was all down to her. Even if, and I was pretty certain it wasn’t going to come to it, but if Sonny did decide he liked me, I knew I was going to turn him down.
I was going round in circles in my head. Berating myself for clinging to hope and then questioning today’s outcome. Imagining Sonny telling me he likes me, and then listening to the other version, the more likely and hopefully real version, where he tells me it was a mistake. I was gearing myself up to hear it. No-one wants to know they were a mistake, especially when it’s coming from the one they like, but then that looked like the easier chain of events. I allowed myself one more wanting glimpse of Sonny’s coffee eyes, the hint of stubble, and imagined him wearing a smile for me, before I pinched my legs and forced all of my feelings to my feet. This was it.
It was almost as if he’d sensed that I’d let my fixation on him go. His grip on his new coffee mug hardened just as the words left his mouth. They sounded rehearsed, like he’d spent ages psyching himself up to say them, wanting them to sound just right. Not harsh. Not blunt. Just honest.
It shouldn’t have happened, but that wasn’t my fault. We’d both been drunk. He’d been trying to be helpful, wanting to get rid of Brandon for me. But then things had gone too far. The kiss had been spontaneous. None of us had been planning it. Right?
I just listened to him the best I could when inside I was feeling relief. No. Not relief. If I didn’t know about Leanne liking him then I’d be upset. So not relief. I couldn’t deny feeling like a weight had been lifted from my lungs, though. I could breathe without hardened effort for the first time since I’d gotten the email. No. Since Leanne had confessed her crush to me. Or was it when she’d accidently admitted that she was harboring a crush? Surely I’d had a feeling it was Sonny all along.
My heart wasn’t shattered into a billion un-repairable pieces. After the weight had been lifted, I found myself feeling strangely numb, but in a good way. I’d been worried about a different outcome. One that would have been nicer to hear but harder to bounce back from. Now the worry was gone.
Since I’d worked out that hearing the truth hadn’t ripped me to pieces I’d half expected Sonny to stop talking, but he carried on, moving the conversation to Leanne. I swallowed at the tense look on his face.
“I used to be a bad kid, you know.” He looked up at me with a small smile that said, ‘Does that surprise you?’ “I used to pick on kids. Smoke behind the bike shed. Never did my homework.” He let out a sigh and I suddenly realised that he was telling me something that he’d never confessed to anyone before.
I was confused as I listened. One minute he’d been telling me how he wanted to be nothing more than friends, and then he’d started talking to me as if I was the only one who could keep his secrets safe. Like he trusted me more than anyone else in the world. That didn’t make sense. It was Leanne who he’d trust with his life. And then it clicked; He was only telling me because this was linked to Leanne in some way. I felt honoured that he was confiding in me. I realised I probably looked like I wasn’t listening anymore so I settled an interested expression on my face and held my mug the way Sonny was, warming up my hands. It probably helped that I hadn’t broken down in tears or started yelling at him when he’d told me the truth about the kiss. My simple nods and okays had undoubtedly been received well and as a reward I was getting to see a side of Sonny that only Leanne got to see. I felt like smiling, even under the circumstances. If I couldn’t have Sonny as a boyfriend, then having him as a friend was good enough.
“I used to play with girls hearts for fun. Disrupt lessons.” He shifted in his seat and I realised he felt nervous about confessing his past to me. Did he think I was going to judge him? “I got kicked out of my old school. I’m not proud of it.”
I saw him regarding me with a look that I couldn’t quite make out the meaning of, so I raised my drink to my lips and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls to give myself time to think how to respond to his honesty. I didn’t know why, but some part of me didn’t think he wanted a pity speech from me. It was almost like he was leading up to something else. Like he was giving me the background story so that whatever he really wanted to tell me was going to make more sense. Or have more of a meaning.
“And then I met Leanne.”
At his words, everything made sense. Why he was telling me and not Leanne. He was going to admit that he had feelings for her. I didn’t know if I was going to want to sit here and listen to him spill his heart to me, but then I realised that this was probably going to be hard enough for him as it was. It must be weird for him, telling his crush’s sister his deepest, most intimate feelings. I got a shiver up my spine just thinking about what he was going to say next.
I hadn’t spoken for a while and I didn’t know if Sonny had paused for effect or whether he was waiting for me to say something.
“Sometimes I forget that you haven’t known Leanne your whole life. You guys get on so well.”
Sonny smiled like I’d said something he’d wanted to hear, or maybe it was the fact that I’d said something at all. Either way, the shame he’d been expressing seemed to disappear.
“I feel that way too. It’s like we were made to know each other.” He laughed to himself. “Does that make sense?”
I nodded. “Totally. Like, sometimes I reckon the whole reason I met Cassie was so I could teach her to calm down and she could show me how to have some fun.” My gut squeezed as I talked about Cassie, but I ignored the feeling. I knew what I’d just said made sense, but after our argument, I didn’t know if it still stood to be true. Who had been in the wrong? Both of us?
“Leanne taught me how to be a rebel without hurting anyone. Sure, I still got detentions, and she joined me most of the time, but it was mostly for chatting. Your sister can talk for hours.”
I smiled. “She sure can.”
Sonny traced the rim of his coffee mug with his index finger before he spoke again. “Sometimes I think Le-le was the first person to properly get me. Soul mate would be too corny, right?”
I bit my lip and Sonny downed his drink, coming up for air with a grimace.
“I thought so. I bet I sound like such a girl.”
I shook my head instantly. “No. It’s romantic.”
The numbness I’d been experiencing was beginning to fade and I couldn’t deny feeling a little bit of hurt seeping into my bones. There was no point in lying. I’d been crushing on this guy for the last six months at least, if not longer. It was going to take some time to get over him properly, but it did feel nice to know the truth. Time, apparently, was the best healer.
I knew Leanne felt exactly the same way about Sonny. She wouldn’t be too shy to use the whole soul mate spiel either. That thought made me feel a little better. Leanne and Sonny were the real thing. It was only then, with that last thought floating around my head as I watched Sonny smiling to himself, that I realised I’d liked him for superficial reasons. His smile. His hair. Eyes. Clothes. Guitar playing abilities. It was all surface crap that didn’t mean a lot when it came face to face with real, deep feelings. I felt suddenly shallow. Had I only dated Carter because he’d been popular and good looking? What about Eric or Pete?
“So are we cool?”
Sonny’s words broke me from my wondering and I looked up to see him giving me an earnest look. It was almost as if my answer mattered to him. I smiled properly for the first time since I’d left the house.
“Definitely.”
His grin confirmed my suspicions. “Awesome.”
We both got up at the same time, pulling on jackets and scarves. Well, at least he was going to be warm outside. I had my purse half way out of my bag when Sonny shook his head and insisted that he paid for the drinks. I didn’t protest his gentlemanly behaviour, allowing myself one last thought about it looking like a date to the girl behind the counter. This is the last time.
Once outside, Sonny made me promise not to tell Leanne about our meeting. He wanted to be the one to tell her how he felt. I agreed wholeheartedly before we turned our separate ways. I allowed myself one final glimpse of his backside, smirking as I savored the view. This really is the last time. Then, as I tucked my hands deep in the pockets of my jeans and strolled slowly home, I let my feelings go.
I smiled secretly to myself as I passed Leanne on the landing outside my room. Once on my bed, wrapped in a blanket with my reheated pasta in my lap, I got the urge to text Aiden to let him know how tonight had gone. He replied almost instantly; I’m glad.
It was only after I’d chewed through a couple of mouthfuls of food that I realised his reply looked strange. I scrolled back through my phone to find the message and stared at his text for a moment.
It was only now there wasn’t a kiss at the end of his words, that I realised there had been one in the first place.