Serena actually wails at this sight and covers her face.
‘I can’t believe this. She’s such a cunt!’
She almost shouts the last word, which I have never heard her use before, and I look out into the garden in alarm, but no one has heard her.
‘She’s just mucking around.’ I try to reassure her again, but Serena’s face has gone cold and pale. Her lips are a funny colour, white under the make-up. She looks like a corpse.
‘No, she isn’t, Viv. I know you’re her number one fan and all, but this is what she’s always been like. You’re blind. She can’t bear for anyone else to get any attention, or have anything that she doesn’t. She wants everything for herself. She was just waiting for him to start liking me back so it hurts more,’ she spits out, spitefully. ‘Just wait until you have something she doesn’t. I’m going home.’
‘That’s not true,’ I try and tell her. ‘Molly is always nice to everyone.’
Serena just looks at me like I am stupid, which I don’t appreciate. I don’t try to stop her as she wipes tears away and then storms out of the house. She closes the door quietly and that surprises me; I thought she would have slammed it.
The early evening wanes into the evening proper, and the sky is starting to turn pink and purple, luminous at the edges. I’m just sitting by myself on the swing chair, watching Molly get steadily even more drunk, and more all over Matt. I can’t understand it because she’s never shown any interest in him before, cute as he is, I suppose, with his stonewashed denim-blue eyes and dark curls. She’s pulling on one of them now and laughing as it springs back, a glossy coil. They haven’t kissed yet but I can see that it’s going to happen. I want to go home myself, but obviously I can’t without Molly, and she’s not going anywhere. Sasha and her friends left ten minutes ago, giving Molly filthy looks after Serena flounced off, and Ben has wandered off to talk to his other friends about where they are going next.
I’m thinking about going inside and watching Netflix or something when a shadow falls over me and I look up.
‘Alex,’ I say, without thinking. ‘You got Molly’s invitation, then?’
Alex smiles, and I shock myself by imagining his mouth on mine, those white teeth on my lip. Where did that come from?
‘This seat taken?’ He gestures to the swing seat with his bottle of beer. I shift up, willing myself not to blush. I can feel nervous sweat stinging under my arms. I glance over to Molly but she doesn’t seem to have noticed anything except how funny it is to spring Matt’s hair.
Alex doesn’t say anything. He sits down right next to me and surveys the scene and takes a long swig of his drink. I watch the movement of his throat, the ripples of the pulling muscles under his smooth skin.
‘Did you need that?’ I say, the gap in conversation making me antsy.
He looks at me with cool eyes. He pushes with his feet and the seat starts to rock back and forth. ‘It’s hot,’ he eventually replies. ‘The beer’s cold.’
I sit there, tense, not sure what to do or say. Alex puts his arm along the back of the chair and I’m painfully aware that if I sit back a bit the bare skin of my shoulders will touch the bare skin of his arm. There’s a lump in my throat and I can feel my heart beating. It feels like it’s being squeezed, folded in half, gulping for blood. I don’t sit back.
‘Tell me about Vivian,’ he says suddenly, turning to me and startling me again. ‘What do you think about living in a pokey little village, miles from anywhere with nothing to do except get pissed?’
I think I like the way my name sounds when he says it.
‘Well…’ I trail off, unsure of why he’s interested in talking to me. ‘I like it, I guess.’
‘You like everyone knowing your business? What about your secrets?’ He leans in slightly as he whispers the last word, and I shift away a bit.
‘I haven’t got any secrets,’ I lie, looking away. ‘It’s not like that. It’s more I suppose people like to feel safe, you know? We all know each other, we look out for each other.’
Alex just looks at me and takes another swig of beer.
‘Where’s your friend gone, then?’ he says, nodding to where Molly isn’t sitting any more, just as I feel my phone going off.
‘Sorry. Serena had a bit of a meltdown earlier. I need to check if this is her.’
It isn’t, it’s Tilly. Serena went to the chippy and is apparently crying all over the chips about how Molly is behaving. They want to know what she’s doing now. Molly isn’t here, and nor is Matt. I don’t know where they are, but I’m not telling them that. I lie instead, quickly tapping out that they are here and that nothing is happening and that they should come back. They don’t want to, though. Serena is hammered and upset, so Tilly is going to take her back to her house behind the shop.
I notice that Alex is watching what I’m texting.
‘Trouble in paradise?’ he asks, quirking an eyebrow, and I frown, cross with him for the second time in one day.
‘For someone
