‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I yell in Nat’s ear.
‘Like it would have meant anything to you. What was the last album you bought? The Best of Adele?’
Here it is again – Nat’s bitchy side.
‘Are you mad with me about something?’
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she says, ‘Seems like Harriet’s having a fine old time.’ She points to her and Edie on the dance floor together: model-thin Edie in her million-dollar dress grinding her hips against Harriet’s, and Harriet grinding back.
My breath stalls.
‘Don’t tell me she’s been leading you on,’ Nat says at my ear. ‘Being lied to feels pretty crap, doesn’t it?’
I squint at her. ‘What are you implying?’
Nat laughs angrily. ‘Are you seriously asking me that?’
‘What have I lied about?’ I shout above the noise.
Nat’s eyes widen. ‘What haven’t you lied about, Will?’
I motion for her to follow me away from the dance floor and the speakers, into the alcove near the entrance, where it’s quieter. ‘What are you talking about?’
Nat leans against the wall. ‘It’s not that I wish things could have worked out between us. We both know the chemistry wasn’t there. But I thought we were friends,’ she says, her jaw tense. ‘Why didn’t you say something about your feelings for Harriet? Even when Duncan found you two together in the storeroom –’
‘Is that why you published the article? To get back at me for not telling you?’
Nat doesn’t answer. ‘You still denied it. It wasn’t until you rammed into that bloody door, and you wanted Harriet, not me, at the hospital, that I knew for sure.’
I gulp in air. I want to tell her I don’t care about Harriet. It would be easier. But it would also be another lie.
Then I remember the surprise I felt the day I came across Nat in the Price’s front garden. ‘How can you be angry when you didn’t tell me about Arthur?’
At the mention of his name, Nat’s look softens for a moment. Then she reddens with fury. ‘Because you didn’t give me a chance! You weren’t returning my calls.’
‘That was because you’d published that article about me and Harriet in the paper!’
‘Which I would never have done if only you’d told me what was going on between you and her – and I don’t just mean the storeroom thing, I mean Amelia Westlake, too. That’s what good friends, do, Will. They talk to each other.’
I open my mouth to rebut her latest argument, but Nat pushes herself off the wall. I watch her angle through the crowd towards the stage and her boyfriend.
I can’t help thinking she’s being unfair. It’s not like Harriet and I were secretly dating. It’s not like I’m even in with a chance.
I look over to the dance floor again, and there they are – Harriet and Edie. Something rattles in my ribcage like a second-hand car.
What am I doing, daydreaming that Harriet Price will ditch her perfect life and make a getaway in the passenger seat of the shit-box that’s mine? What is wrong with me?
Seriously, what the fuck?
The facts are right in front of me. For Harriet, tonight is not about taking a stand. It’s about her realising a long-held dream: to be Queen of the bloody Prom. She’s at the centre of the picture with her perfect partner. This moment – her and Edie on the dance floor – is what she’s been striving for. Operation Formal has nothing to do with anyone else, least of all me. None of our operations have had anything to do with me. Harriet has practically engineered every one. I’ve merely been a vehicle; her cover, and, if need be, the one who’d take the fall for her.
The worst of it? Even though I know this, it makes no difference. I have taken the fall, and will again, if it comes to that.
Harriet preppier-than-a-canvas-beach-tote Price. Tennis champ. Maths star. Private school pin-up girl. Harriet Price, who lives in a house the size of a suburb. Harriet Price, the girl who is – almost in spite of herself – one of the kindest, most generous, most principled people I’ve ever known.
It doesn’t matter that she’s with someone else, or that she has the power to do me over and probably will. It doesn’t matter that we are objectively, spectacularly ill-matched. I have moved beyond distaste, then beyond mere indifference, then beyond liking, then beyond infatuation. The place I’ve arrived at is as intoxicating as it is consuming and I see no way of giving it up.
Chapter 32
HARRIET
I turn away from Edie to find Will in the crowd. I finally see her, pressing her weight against the double doors.
She is leaving.
Light from the street spills in through the opening as she walks out of it. The doors slam shut.
Edie stretches out a hand to pull me back into a hip grind. I bat her away.
‘What’s wrong with you tonight, Bubble?’
‘Nothing. I’m perfectly fine.’
Doesn’t Will realise I did this for her? I rearranged an entire function to make sure she could be here. It is not even eight o’clock at the scene of Amelia’s greatest victory yet. What is the point of our victory if she is not here to taste it?
‘You’re acting really moody all of a sudden. Is it the music? I know this isn’t our favourite type.’
‘Remind me, Edie, what type of music do we like again?’
‘There’s no need to get catty.’
‘I’m serious. I’m interested to know what I’m interested in. Nothing playful or political, obviously. We’ve established that.’
My girlfriend peers at me with confusion, and I peer right back. It sounds strange to admit it, but I cannot remember doing this before – staring directly into Edie’s face. She looks suddenly unfamiliar. Not a single feature provokes my affection. I try to recall which of her qualities appeal to me, but I draw a blank.
‘Hey! Where are you going?’
When I get to the bar I order a kamikaze. I throw
