Page 69 of Broken Heart Syndrome
‘Do you remember all the crap I had to put up with because of that nickname? I didn’t even sleep with anyone until after uni because I couldn’t know if they wanted to be with me so they could say they’d finally conquered Frigid Frankie. It was humiliating.’
‘Stop,’ Dylan semi-shouted, and I could see that he was red in the face. ‘Just stop, okay? Of course Tom knew who you were at uni. Everyone knew who you were, Frankie.’
‘W-what are you talking about?’
‘Christ,’ he bit out, startling me into taking a step back. He registered my shock and his tone softened. ‘You’re so blind sometimes, Frankie. “Frigid Frankie” was just something one of the half-wit meatheads on the team called you after you kept turning Longley down; Tom never called you that.’
My eyes widened and I took another step back. ‘What … wait … what do you mean turning Longley down?’
Dylan shifted uncomfortably in front of me. ‘Look, Ladies, the thing is … I might have told him you … weren’t interested.’
‘Interested in what?’
‘In him.’
‘He asked you? But he didn’t even know who I was.’
‘Okay, listen,’ Dylan said, his eyes looking weirdly like they were pleading with me. ‘I may have told a few little lies back then, to him, and to you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Tom used to ask about you,’ he said sheepishly, ‘a lot.’
‘What?’ I shrieked.
‘Yeah, and I might have told him you weren’t interested. In fact I … I may have told him you thought he was an arrogant prick and that you wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.’
I felt my heart stop beating for a second, then kick-start double time.
‘You didwhat?’ I whispered. Dylan was looking more and more uncomfortable. ‘Why on earth –?’
‘Because I was in love with you, Frankie,’ he admitted in a driven tone, tearing his hands through his hair. ‘I loved you. I wanted you for myself. He was such a player at uni and I knew how you and Lou used to obsess about him. I knew he could have you if he wanted, and I didn’t think he deserved you. I didn’t think he could love you as much as me. I didn’t think anybody could.’
‘What about the whole eff-a-fresher thing?’
‘I made it up.’
‘But … but we both decided to be friends,’ I told him, not ready to believe what he was saying. ‘We agreed.’
‘No, you decided that, Frankie,’ he said firmly. ‘I never told you I loved you, but I assumed you knew. Have you ever known me to offer an exclusive relationship to anyone else?’ I shook my head slowly, letting his words sink in. ‘I understood that you didn’t see me as more than a friend eventually. Your friendship is one of the best things in my life. That’s why I’ve been a selfish bastard and didn’t tell you what I did. I didn’t want to lose you as a friend.’
‘Does Tom know?’
‘He worked it out soon after “Scary Drunken Frankie Night” when he stayed. I think you may have let it slip that you, um … liked him a little.’ I winced: how humiliating. ‘He confronted me when he got the chance. I begged him not to tell you. I didn’t think it mattered anyway. I thought you were over all that stuff and that you guys were happy together. I actually felt relieved; I’d felt so guilty for so long, especially after you started seeing that scumbag in your house jobs.’ I was nodding slowly, trying to sort things out in my mind.
‘There’s something else,’ Dylan said, looking even more worried. Jeepers, what else could there be? ‘I ginned Tom that night, made up some reason that everyone went along with.’ At our medical school, especially in the rugby club, if anyone did anything good, bad, or even often for no reason, everyone sang the gin song and they had to down eight shots in one (six for girls). There was little point trying to communicate with the gin recipient for about ten minutes after they downed it. First would be the gin babble (mostly consisting of telling everyone how much you loved them), then bad dancing, then the gin sweats, and then, more often than not, vomiting, followed swiftly by passing out.
It wasn’t that unusual for the rugby boys to gin each other for spurious reasons, so I didn’t understand why Dylan was treating this like another confession. ‘So what?’
‘So,’ he started, and then took a deep breath, ‘I did it because he said he was going to make his move with you that night, talk to you himself and see if he could change your mind.’
‘Oh my God,’ I said, my hand going up to cover my mouth. It was all coming back to me: the way Tom had stumbled across the room, him slurring his words, nearly vomiting in front of me after he kissed me, only to be led away by … Dylan. I stared at Dylan in shock. My mind was overloaded. Dylan had loved me? He lied to me and to Tom? Tom had actually liked me? Was there a chance I could have been with Tom at uni? Blood rushed to my head and my ears roared as I realized how much heartache I could have been saved.
Chapter 26
Nun in a cucumber field
‘ “Be careful of your enemy once and your friend a thousand times, for a double-crossing friend knows more evil.” ’
