The Pieces of You and Me

‘Are you coming to this party then?’ he asked. I didn’t know anything about a party. I was always the last to find out anything. I suspected, since you hadn’t mentioned it, that you had no intention of going anyway. You hated parties.

You’d known John almost as long as you’d known me, and I saw a look pass between you, one of understanding, the conclusion to a conversation that I wasn’t party to. I had the feeling that you and he had already spoken about this, that finding us kissing hadn’t come as much of a surprise to him.

‘Maybe we’ll catch you up,’ you said. John, not usually so easily dissuaded, nodded and walked away, everybody else following.

You draped one arm around my shoulders then, and pulled me towards you. With your other hand you got your cigarettes out of your pocket, knocking two out of the packet and lighting them, handing one to me. I rested my head on your chest as I had done a million times before but again it was different. I could hear your heart beat, feel your breathing and the warmth of your body, and it all felt so different to the last time we sat here smoking at Easter. How could three months change so much?

‘Do you want to go to this party?’ you asked after a while.

‘Whose party is it?’

‘You know,’ you replied, dropping your cigarette on the floor and scrubbing it out underneath your boot, ‘I have no idea.’ We giggled together, both knowing full well we weren’t going to the party.

‘Shall we go back to mine?’ you asked instead. ‘There’s beer and Mum and Dad are still in France.’

I looked up at you. ‘If we go back to yours can we keep practising kissing?’

‘Do you think we need more practice?’ you asked.

‘Lots,’ I replied …

11

JESS

‘Where’s lover boy?’ Gemma asked the next morning when I came down to breakfast at the hotel we were all staying in. I hadn’t been expecting to see her there. I’d presumed she’d be having breakfast in bed with her new husband.

‘Where’s Mike?’ I asked.

She waved a hand at me, gesturing for me to sit down, and poured me a cup of coffee. ‘Oh, he’s sleeping off his hangover, which is even worse than mine. Don’t worry about him. Now tell me everything.’

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