“Cheers, it is then. To you and your fresh start.”
23
KARMA CHAMELEON
1989
Jeremy had tried to reach out to me. I left countless calls hanging in the hall, his tinny voice calling my name through the receiver. I blanked him outside lecture theatres, in the canteen, and in the café. And I binned all the notes he’d pushed under my door, stating meeting times and places that I ignored. But I couldn’t avoid him forever, so as per the instructions on his last note, I sat waiting on a bench outside the library. I tilted my face to the sun as it warmed my skin and thawed the deep chill in my bones. The first nice day of the year; all buds and birdsong stirring the campus from its bleak sleep.
Six weeks had passed since Francesca’s departure. In her wake, she’d left an unbearable hollow, a cold side of the bed, and a constant ache in the pit of my stomach. But the time and distance had helped me realise that the version of her I was grieving wasn’t real. I’d been in lovewith a false persona, duped by desire — the real Francesca was despicable, and she could go to hell.How thin the line was between love and hate.
There’d been no word from her, not that I wasn’t glad. A few days after she’d gone, a couple of people from Student Services came by to clear out her room. When I passed, I peered through the propped door and watched Robert Smith being carelessly torn from the wall. The sleeve of Francesca’s black hoodie hung from a bin bag dumped in the hallway. I rifled through it, searching for my bunny slippers, but there was no sign of them. I resisted the urge to squirrel away her hoodie; nothing good could come from pressing it to my face and inhaling her sweet scent.God, I miss her.
“Trusty! You came!”
I shielded my eyes, squinting in the direction of Jeremy’s voice. He stood taller and walked with more confidence. He’d grown a moustache and wore an Oxford shirt rolled to his forearms, unbuttoned at the neck. The audacious bastard looked happy.
“I’m so pleased to see you.” He sat and moved to pull me in for a half-hug, but thought better of it, his hand hovering for a moment before landing awkwardly on my shoulder. “How have you been?”
“How do you think?” I scoffed.
“God, yeah.” He combed a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry about how everything turned out.”
“No, you’re not,” I said, unable to strain the bitterness from my voice.
He hit me with a wounded look, and for a moment I glimpsed the gangly, goofy guy I’d grown up with.This wasn’t his fault. He was as much a victim of Francesca as I was.
Jeremy leaned in and lowered his voice. “I know it must have been hard seeing Francesca with me like that. I wanted to tell you right from the off, but?—”
“When did you start sleeping together?”
Red blotches flushed up his neck and into his cheeks. “Trusty, that’s a bit?—”
“When?”
“January.”
Fuck.I couldn’t compose my face, so I covered it with my hands.
“Francesca said we needed to tread carefully with you. She told me that, well… she thought you had a bit of a crush on her and she didn’t want to upset you.”
I dropped my hands, my limbs heavy with indignation, which Jeremy immediately misread.
“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. Uni is the time to experiment, you know, when we’re all young, dumb and full of…”
My stomach curdled. “Please don’t finish that sentence.”
“All I’m saying is that it’s cool with me. Hell, if it makes you feel any better, I snogged my mate Barnaby Blake when we were in Upper Sixth — tongues and everything!” He grimaced. “It was very bristly. I don’t know how you girls can enjoy it.”
“Jeremy, I’m gay.”
“You’re young; there’s still plenty of time to figure all that out.”
“There’s nofiguring outto do. I’m a lesbian. A dyke… whatever.”
Jeremy raised his eyebrows. “Well, good for you, but?—”
“Francesca and I started sleeping together last year.”
