Page 108 of Alice Carver Manifests Her Perfect Life
Okay, well so far, no smug smile. If anything, he looked slightly discomposed.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Probably the best summer I ever had,’ said Matthew.
‘What – the one we spent being completely shit bar staff at the Lamb?’ I said, imagining he had confused it with a different summer.
Matthew shrugged.
‘I guess you really liked the Lamb. Even then.’
‘I guess so,’ said Matthew, giving me a brief look.
He scrutinised the photo again. ‘That was the night you and Ollie got together.’
‘Yeah.’
I saw that muscle in Matthew’s jaw twitch slightly. Surely, he still couldn’t hold a grudge over that? He may not have thought I was good enough for his friend, but the fact we’d ended up staying together for such a long time said something. Besides, Ollie was happily married now and had a daughter – it was all water under the bridge.
‘How long were you two together for?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. Four, five years, on and off. So you were wrong.’
‘Wrong about what?’ Matthew looked puzzled.
‘Me not being good enough for Ollie.’
‘I never thought that.’
‘Well, you told him he should go for Astrid instead of me, and if he went for me, you’d lose all respect for him.’
Matthew looked at me, appalled. I looked right back at him. It felt good to finally challenge him on it, after all these years. Well, if good means uncomfortably close to tears.
‘Did Ollie tell you I said that?’ he asked at last.
‘I overheard you. At the party.’
‘But the other week, you said you only overheard… ’
‘I lied. I overheard everything you said.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes.’ I remembered him saying that I gave everyone the eye. Remembered how it felt to hear him speak the way he did about me when I felt the way I did about him.
Matthew nodded. He looked at me and then looked away again. ‘And what did you think?’
Well, that was a weird question. What I’d really thought was,So, Alice. Evidently Matthew doesn’t feel the same way you feel. It’s never going to happen. You’re never going to be happy. But I couldn’t say that. ‘I guess I thought it’s probably better I know how Matthew really feels,’ I said. ‘It explained a lot. And I was glad that Ollie went there anyway. He was my type.’
There was a pause.
‘Yeah,’ said Matthew. ‘Ollie plainly knew what he was doing. He was your type. I can’t blame him for that. And at least I had America.’
‘Er, okay,’ I said, not really following the train of thought.
‘I shouldn’t have interfered then,’ said Matthew. ‘And I shouldn’t have interfered again, with Guy.’
‘It’s not quite the same.’ Unless he’s been slagging me off to Guy on a ‘don’t go there’ WhatsApp group?
