Page 113 of Don't You Forget About Me

‘I did say raking up the past wasn’t a good idea. You wanted to know.’

‘I did. Now spoken, it can’t be un-known.’

‘So I’m being punished for telling you something you wanted to know and I told you, you wouldn’t like?’

‘You’re being punished? Ha.Of all the barmaids in Sheffield, I’m sure you can find a replacement. I’m the one foregoing my salary.’

‘I don’t want you to!’

‘I can’t stay,’ I say, simply.

‘I don’t …’ Lucas puts his hand on the back of his head, his body taut with tension. I can see him trying to figure out how much more truth will help, or make things worse.

‘… Was it honestly that much of a surprise I felt that way? All I said was that what happened, it upset me. At the time, I mean. It’s like it happened to someone else now.’

I can feel an urge to pursue this, to point out he can’t simultaneously be indifferent and repulsed by me. But my simple steeliness is the only thing holding me together right now, more from him on this might break me open. I breathe deeply.

‘That’s not all, though, is it. You branded me a brassy slut.’ I say this emphatically, deliberately, and he can’t meet my eyes.

‘I didn’t do that!’ Lucas says, flushing. ‘Oh my God, we were kids, who cares, honestly.’

‘You do, obviously, given what it stopped.’

Lucas swallows. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you or misjudged anything I said. I felt we’d been down that path before and it didn’t need a revisit.’

Didn’t need a revisit. His attempts at minimisation are only going to offend me further.

‘… I meant to say: I like being friends, let’s not spoil that.’

‘I’m not happy with the whole “pretending not to remember me” thing either, the game playing. We could’ve got it out of the way at the start.’

‘Well, were we going to chew the fat about it?Oh hey remember when we…’ He trails off, glowering. I ignore his sulky beauty, it can go to hell. ‘You baffle me, Gina.’

Is it deliberate, resurrecting his pet name for me? Much as I’d like to hate him for it, call him sassy things like ‘a player’, I suspect it isn’t. This is why he didn’t want to discuss the past, it makes him vulnerable. He’s forgetting himself.

‘I’m sure I do. If you’re so arrogant you thought I’d accept your poor opinion of me, and carry on.’ My voice nearly breaks on my last words but I’m holding this together while I still can. I will damn well leave with some dignity.

‘I don’t have a poor opinion of you. You’ve been great here, and we don’t want you to leave. Both of us, me and Dev. And if seeing less of me is what it takes to keep you, I’m going back to Dublin soon. It’ll be Dev and Mo running the show until they hand over to a new manager.’

Bloody hell, he doesn’t even want me here because he cares about me, it really is about professional competence. What he thinks is his ace card is in fact the worst thing he could’ve said. I’m not leaving for the reason I told Devlin, and I’m not actually leaving for the reason I’m giving Lucas, either, and this knowledge allows me to pull myself up, raise my chin and meet his eye again.

‘Thank you. I’m still going.’

I sidestep him and smash through the kitchen door, back out to the bar and say, loudly: ‘Yes, who’s waiting, please?’

Screw Lucas McCarthy, and not in that sense.

Funnily enough, telling Kitty is the worst. She cries.

‘I feel like you’re my sister,’ she says, hugging me.

‘I’ll still come in here, we’ll still see each other.’

‘Yeah but it won’t be the same. I feel like I’ve learned so much from you.’

‘You have?’

‘Yeah. You were the one who explained to me that “offal” is what the meat’s called, when I thought people were saying eating brains and bumholes was “awful”.’

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