‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. You’re a dark horse.’
‘I’m so not.’
‘We never see any guys, or girls, creeping out of your room at odd hours. No random boxers in the laundry basket. We wouldn’t mind, you know, if you had a few – or hundreds – of overnight guests.’
‘I know.’
‘So?’
It felt strange to be the sole focus of Hanna’s attention, for a change. She had a steady gaze, despite the volume of alcohol she’d put away. Dark-blue eyes. Long, real lashes, loaded with mascara. The sharp edge that normally surrounded her was gone. ‘There’s no one – at the moment.’ Chloe felt naïve.
Their food arrived, which provided a welcome distraction. There was a pause as they buttered their toast, burst the tops of their fried eggs with their hash browns and shovelled forkfuls of food into their mouths – a mirrored attack on their breakfasts. But Hanna hadn’t given up. ‘There must have been someone who’s succeeded in breaking down that famous Chloe reserve.’
The truth was that Chloe’s ‘relationship’ history was woeful. A crush on her GSCE English teacher, some teenage groping and grappling, her virginity ‘given away’ to the first lad who asked for it in Freshers’ Week. It had been a relief to get it over with, but the experience hadn’t been anything to write home about. The thought made Chloe laugh out loud, which made her realise she was still quite drunk. The image of her younger self providing her parents with a blow-by-blow – she laughed again, nearly choking on her baked beans – account of her ‘deflowering’ was gloriously ridiculous.
‘What’s so funny?’ Hanna asked, sleepy-eyed but attentive.
‘My love life.’
‘Why are you always so self-deprecating?’
Chloe pushed her beans around on her plate. ‘I’m not always.’
‘You are. At work, around the flat, when we’re out. You need to go for what you want, Chloe. People don’t just hand out the good stuff. Sex, jobs, money, affection… you have to ask.’
‘That’s your way, not mine.’
Hanna seemed about to argue, then changed her mind. ‘Speaking of which, if you’re not gonna eat it, can I have your sausage?’
Chloe laughed, speared it with her fork and offered it to Hanna. Instead of simply taking it, Hanna leant across the table and took a bite. Eye contact for a brief second. Teasing. The three guys at the next table leered and cheered.
By the time they left the café the sun was coming up, dusting some much-needed pink across the concrete and asphalt of Latchmere Road. They walked slowly back to the flat, crippled by their good night out and their full bellies – Hanna barefoot, her sandals swinging at her side. Chloe had the key. Hanna rarely took one out, after losing too many in the past. Another source of conflict with Keiron, when she rocked back up in the early hours and had to ring the bell.
The flat was quiet. They crept along the dark, narrow corridor that led to the bedrooms. Chloe was about to turn into her room, but Hanna stopped her with a hand on her arm and a fingertip to her lips. She pushed open the door to the room she shared with Keiron. The bed was empty. ‘Told you!’
There was nothing left to do but say ‘goodnight’.
But they never did.
The pause lasted long enough to become charged. That charge increased when Hanna swayed forward and kissed Chloe, slowly. Then she stopped and looked at her. ‘Your choice.’ She pushed the bedroom door wider open.
It wasn’t a decision Chloe needed to think twice about, but she had some standards. Or at least she did at that point. ‘Not in there. In mine.’
Hanna smiled, a sharp, awake smile. ‘Ah… assertive all of a sudden. I like it.’
And so began the best, and the worst, time of Chloe’s life.
It was the most alive, most fulfilled, most in love with someone – and with herself –that Chloe had ever felt. She and Hanna were yin and yang. Opposites that made a whole. Two souls destined to be together. A perfect–imperfect match. All the clichés, but true. Hanna filled Chloe’s life, and her head, and her heart.
There was, of course, the problem of Keiron, and the sneaking and cheating and lying and pretence. And the pain. The pain of watching the love of your life being someone else’s girlfriend. Because although everything changed that night in Battersea, nothing did. Hanna still slept with, argued with, made up with, ate with, laughed with, shopped with and went away with Keiron. And Chloe let her, because it soon became clear that she didn’t really have a choice. If she wanted Hanna at all, she had to share.
And so she did.
And the longer she put up with it, the more it cost her. The little self-confidence she had built up by being in London seeped slowly, inexorably away, to be replaced by a perpetual state of anxiety and dependence. In her heart she knew disaster was looming on the horizon, so what she did was studiously avoid looking up. Her desperation was, in retrospect, pathetic. Even when Hanna told her that Keiron had proposed, Chloe still clung on to a sliver of hope that his declaration of undying love might force the issue – make Hanna finally pick one of them.
It did.
She chose Keiron.
And just like that, Chloe’s world shattered. She lost her home and her job – she couldn’t face working alongside Hanna day in, day out. She lost her purpose and, with it, she lost the plot.
She hung on in London for a few months, sofa-surfing, but it was too depressing for words, so she took a job in Leicester for a while – a favour set up for her by a friend whose futon she camped out on – but that fell through after only a few weeks, leaving her jobless, skint and
