‘I saw you on telly yesterday, didn’t I?’ He mouth trumpeted the opening tune to Brand New Day then put his hot drink on her table and gave her a double thumbs up. ‘You sounded really smart, like.’ He did a little reenactment playing both Kath and Raven which was weird because he gave her a voice like the Queen and Kath sounded like Sporty Spice.
After her face had stopped burning, her interview with Kath had actually been pretty cool. She had a way of listening that made you feel as if she was actually listening. And she’d stuck to the plan, unlike Kev, who always seemed to be springing things on people as if he loved catching them out. Thank god he was going to Cape Town.
‘I loved that bit about social justice. You was like, all up in the cyber bullies grill. “Keep your mitts off of my social media and shit, yeah?”’
Raven frowned. She didn’t remember everything she’d said, but she was pretty certain she hadn’t said that. Rather than talk about exactly the truth – her complete shame and horror that she’d stood by while an innocent girl was driven to the point of complete despair – she’d talked near the truth. Cyber bullying was a big enough tabloid issue she’d been confident she could keep her actual emotional investment in it vague. But venturing into the realms of social justice? Not so much.
She examined Dylan’s eyes for red lines. Nope. Clear and … oh! Sparkly sea-blue, a bit like Bradley Cooper’s, not that she fancied Bradley Cooper because he was like, bleurgh, old, but … Dylan’s eyes were nice.
‘I liked the part where you said teenagers needed to take charge of their own lives because they were practically grown-ups anyhow and the future was their future so they might as well own it.’
‘Yeah, well …’ She was no Greta Thunberg. She gave a single shoulder shrug hoping she looked as if it had been pre-planned because all of it had actually been born out of sheer panic. Sue had been asked to go and had been terrified so Raven had said she’d go with her only to figure out she too was terrified until she thought about talking about cyber bullying and then it was like a whole different person had come out of her. Someone articulate and strong who could shrug off trolls and shamers. Someone who could stand up to her parents and refuse to go to uni straight out of college, move in with a newly widowed colleague and agree to go on a 174-mile bicycle ride for a mental health charity. So … she was discovering herself, really. And her superpowers. Like an ability to step up and do things even if there were people out there who thought you were a fat, brown, goth slag. Even fat, brown, goth slags could step up for people. For Aisha Laghari, for example.
‘I especially liked the part where you were all, I don’t need social media if all it’s doing is tearing people down. An online community should be like – an online community, proper like – where we build people up, not tear people down, innit?’
‘But you’re on Instagram,’ she reminded him. ‘Keeping your peeps happy.’ She threw out a tiny shape.
He laughed, then sobered and said, ‘Nah.’
‘What? I saw you.’
‘Nah.’ He looked over his shoulder then back at her, head tucked low. ‘They’re just selfies I send to my mum.’
Her forehead shot up. ‘Oh?’
‘She’s got anxiety and depression and shit and when I’m at work she kinda freaks, so …’ He threw a lame pose.
Raven never thought her heart could ache for Dylan, but at that moment it did.
‘Anyway,’ he said, drawing back up to his full height. ‘I just thought you said some cool shit.’
‘Thanks.’
She’d tried to catch the segment on the work telly but had been stuck on a call from a man experiencing chest pains. Whilst her colleagues gathered round the coffee area and watched the interview, she was busy trying to persuade him an ambulance was the wiser choice over waiting for the doctor even if the ambulance service was staffed by ‘foreign muck.’ The ‘foreign muck’ were better placed to help him as he was displaying signs of an actual heart attack which could kill him and yes, they would know how to speak English and work the AED.
As the staff clapped and walked back to their stations, giving her little pats of encouragement and popping coins and the odd fiver into the tin she and Sue had placed on the counter where everyone who did charity walks or runs or rides did, she’d smiled actual smiles and mouthed thank you whilst ignoring the barrage of racist slurs from Mr Heartattack as she transferred him to the ambulance service.
‘Your parents must think you’re the shit,’ Dylan said.
‘Uh – yeah, not so much.’
He looked genuinely shocked. Why not? You’ve got a kick-ass job. You do stuff for charity. You’re on telly.’
She barked out a laugh. Her parents would’ve been horrified to discover the entire world knew their daughter was taking *gasp!* a gap year. Gandhiji, after all, would never ever have taken a gap year. (Nor would he have invested in Pharma tech, but that was another story.)
‘They’re pretty busy,’ she said, hoping that was enough.
Dylan pulled out a chair and sat down across from her. ‘My mum watches it and we were having a cuppa before I went off to work and she was like, is that one of your mates and I was like, it sure is Mums, and she was like, she’s brave riding all that way, and I was like, double hella brave Mum. Then I told her about your friend and the …’ he mimed being hung by a noose, ‘… and how that really, like, hurt me that someone could be so low and
