Page 64 of Best Mistake Ever
Liars.
There’s definitely something going on here that the two of them don’t want me to know about.
‘How about you?’ Dee asks quickly before I can say anything more. ‘How did the festival go?’
‘Oh. Great. It went really well.’ I force back a wave of sadness as I remember how much fun I’d had organising and runningit. I’m feeling almost nostalgic about it now, even though it only ended a few days ago.
Having sex with Jonah seems to have turned my world upside down and inside out and it’s making everything else feel very distant.
‘You don’t look very happy about it,’ Dee points out, her eyebrows knitted.
I try to smile and brush away her worry, but to my horror, my eyes fill with tears.
I’m going to have to tell her everything and I don’t even know where to start.
‘I… er… I’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid,’ I say in a shaky voice.
Her frown deepens. ‘Are you okay? What’s going on?’ She looks panicked now.
I sense Jem shift next to me, but I can’t look him in the face. He’s got some bad news of his own coming, but I can’t get into that right now.
‘I made a real mess of things, Dee. I’m so sorry.’
‘What do you mean?’ She moves closer to me, her head cocked to one side.
‘I… I had to tell Jonah I was pretending to be you and… he fired me. Well, you. He fired you.’
She stares at me for a moment, clearly trying to unpick what I’ve just told her.
‘Right. Okay. And why did you have to tell him?’
This, of course, was the trickiest bit to explain.
‘Um.’ I clear my throat. ‘We, er. We started to get close.’
Dee widens her eyes. ‘When you say close…?’
‘We kissed.’ I screw up my eyes, not able to look at her now. When I finally open them and peek at her, her expression shows a mixture of surprise and delight.
Weird.
‘And he kissed you back?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Wow. So, you two are a thing now?’
I shake my head. ‘No. We ended up sleeping together, but he’s really angry with me for lying to him about who I really am. I think it’s over now.’
Jem makes a strange noise in the back of his throat. Apparently, he’s uncomfortable listening in on us talking about our sex lives – or lack of them in my case, because he mutters, ‘I’m just going to check on my email in the office,’ then strides out of the room before we can say anything.
Dee is staring at me like she can’t quite process what she’s hearing.
To my frustration, a tear pools in the corner of my eye, then slides down my cheek.
‘Oh, Bea! You poor, poor thing,’ Dee says, breaking out of her trance and wrapping her arms around me again. ‘Don’t cry. At least, don’t cry about me losing my job. I don’t care about that. I’ll get another one. I was never any good at it anyway and I was fooling myself it would all magically work out and help turn me into some famous artist. What was I thinking! Clearly, Jonah wasn’t interested in a relationship with me either. He wouldn’t kissmeback.’ She attempts a smile but I can see in her eyes that she’s hurting. Badly.
‘I don’t know how it happened,’ I say in a begging voice. ‘I never meant it to, I swear.’
