Lessons in Love. Belinda Missen
like death, Penny looked like she was enjoying every minute of this. For once, it was me on the wrong end of the bar tab and not her.
‘And, where, pray tell, did you disappear to last night?’ she asked.
‘Uhhhh.’ I tucked my napkin under my plate and chewed ultra-slowly. Not even Penny was exempt from my decision not to tell anyone. ‘I went for a walk.’
Her brows disappeared beneath her fringe. ‘For a walk?’
‘I was so drunk,’ I tried, fingers fanning out from my temples. ‘And I thought the cold air would do me good. All I ended up doing was throwing up in the gutter.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘You?’
‘Me.’ I pouted. ‘What a waste of good martini, right?’
‘Jesus, Eleanor. If you’re not careful, you’ll be having random cheap sex.’
Pancake stuck in my throat. I coughed.
‘And herein, you are shooketh,’ she chuckled. ‘Ellie, you crack me up.’
I grinned. ‘Glad to help.’
After breakfast, I beat a hasty retreat to bed, where my only companion was going to be Harry Potter and his magic wand. He was going to be far less trouble. Plus, it was my tenth read through of the series, and he was at least a known quantity.
Still, there was only so many magic spells that would keep reality at bay. My hangover tapered off with a thumper of a headache, which was soon replaced by waves of embarrassed realisation. It arrived slowly at first, but then rushed in like a high tide in a monsoon. My life had an egg timer in the top right-hand corner. Less than forty-eight hours until I had to deal with Marcus again.
Penny suggested a day of shopping, but I couldn’t process the idea of perhaps running into him on the street. I didn’t want that awkward ‘How about that, huh?’ one-two shuffle on a street corner while neither of us knew what to say. So, I opted for a weekend inside. The couch and a DVD box set were calling my name. I needed to recharge, I argued, and disappeared into a pile of cushions with half the confectionary aisle and another set of What Ifs to be anxious about. I powered through a box of Lindt balls, balls, and broke apart a block of Cadbury Fruit and Nut … nuts.
Chocolate! Marcus was the chocolate bar I stole from the milk bar when I was fourteen. While the shopkeeper was busy stacking fruit and veg, I slipped a single-serve Cadbury Snack bar into my pocket and raced out the door. Only, this time, I’d been caught. And what did we learn from that episode? There was not thrill in getting away with the crime, and it wasn’t ever going to happen again. There, brain. Sorted. Illicit. Illegal. Not happening. Never again.
By the time my alarm went off on Monday morning, bright red and screaming like a banshee, I was well prepared. I’d been awake for hours, pondering what exactly it was I was going to say during the inevitable discussion. I’d rationalised how I was going to get my point across without sounding like a clingy girlfriend. To him, whatever may have only been a word. To me, it was a matter of respect. How the ever-perceptive Penny hadn’t picked up on my agitation was beyond me.
I kept my head down and thoughts to myself as I walked through the school gates. If I couldn’t see the looks in people’s eyes, then they didn’t know, and I could sleep easier. We slipped into the reception area together, where Penny opened the safe and booted her computer, and I checked my pigeonhole as per my shiny new routine.
My heart thumped in time with my footsteps and my stomach was stuck on spin cycle. They dropped it down a notch as I ventured into an empty tea room. It was one hurdle I’d cleared. It all felt a little like Mario trying to get to the castle to save Princess Peach, except I was the Princess trying to avoid Mario, so maybe that wasn’t the best analogy.
I shouldered my office door as it swung open.
‘And it’s a very good morning to Usain Bolt!’
As it turned out, I was not prepared.
Marcus sat, legs dangling from the desk, bearing coffee and a greasy bag that I took cautiously and with minimal eye contact. Inside the bag, a Florentine – only my favourite biscuit ever. With its sweet chocolate base, crunchy nuts and candied fruit, Penny and I would walk laps of town as teenagers, fuelled only by idle high school gossip and the sugar in these biscuits.
‘I thought, seeing as I didn’t get my morning after breakfast that I’d improvise,’ he continued.
‘How’d you know these were my favourite?’ I asked.
He shrugged and lifted his feet onto the seat of a chair. ‘A little bird told me.’
‘A little bird in a tiki dress?’ I asked.
‘Is that what it is today?’ He smirked. ‘I can never keep up.’
My gaze shifted from the contents of the bag to him. Panic drummed a beat in my ears.
‘Relax, I didn’t tell her,’ he assured me. ‘She certainly seemed completely oblivious to it when I rang for some insider information, so why feed the gossip train?’
‘What’d you tell her?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘I told her I wanted to do something nice for you for breakfast. Something about welcoming you into your first proper week on the job.’
I placed his offering beside my computer, twisted my hair up into a bun and shoved a pencil through the middle. Until then, I hadn’t noticed I’d left it loose this morning.
‘Can I … I need to know what happened,’ he said, hesitant.
Our eye contact was brief. Marcus picked at the edge of my bench, and he swallowed more often than a drowning rat. This wasn’t helping me. My heart sank under the weight of guilt and embarrassment, and all the words I’d prepared over the weekend marched out the door two by two. I grappled for them, but they were gone.
I pressed the door closed with a quiet click, keen to sort this out and move on for the day. I crossed my arms, fearing that if I rubbed my hands against my hips one more time I’d tear my skin clean off. Pressing at an invisible spot on my forehead didn’t seem to work either. As I paced about, Marcus sat on the edge of my desk and waited patiently.
‘I’m not here to argue with you,’ he ventured. ‘I just want to know what happened. Everything was going great, at least I thought it was. I got out of the shower, and you were gone.’
‘You don’t think that might have something to do with you at all?’ I asked. ‘Let’s not call it anything? Whatever?’
His head dipped back slightly, frustration lining his face as his words came back to haunt him. He rubbed a hand across his mouth. ‘I did say that, didn’t I?’
‘Yes. Yes, you did.’
‘What if I said I wanted more?’ He clasped his hands in his lap. ‘What if I’d spent all weekend thinking about that night and thought maybe we should do that again, and soon?’
I pursed my lips and I shook my head.
‘No?’ he asked. ‘What, so, you’re upset because I said “whatever” and, now, you’re upset because I want to take it back?’
‘I’m not upset about you wanting to take it back.’ I smiled softly. ‘I’m upset that I was stupid enough to go home with you in the first place. That I put myself in that position again when I promised myself I wouldn’t, that I’d be more careful.’
Eyes wide, his mouth formed a shocked ‘O’. ‘Christ, okay. There’s a spare spot on my back if you want to dig the knife in again?’
‘And how do I know you don’t try this on with all the girls?’ I asked. ‘Maybe I’m just flavour of the month.’
‘It may surprise you, but our school is not exactly the Baskin Robbins of the dating world.’ He stood straighter. ‘What happens now?’