Page 67 of Save Us
Kingfitz:ur the best x
Kingfitz:wish wed made a den in the ice cream shop and just stayed there
Kingfitz:hey lets try out every ice cream place in 5 miles and rank them
Wren’s lack of capital letters and punctuation is doing my head in, but that’s not the only thing making my fingers tremble with rage as I scroll through our series of messages. Suddenly, the words that had meant so much to me feel empty and meaningless.
I can’t believe I made such an idiot of myself.
I spent hours googling grants and loans. I helped him paint his room so he could feel at home in his new house. I listened to his worries and spent hours telling him what things were like here after Dad’s accident. That I used to feel just as desperate, even though I was a little girl with no idea how everything was going to change for us all. I trusted him with my fears because I thought I’d found someone I could talk to about all the things I can’t tell my sister.
And now?
Now he’s having a housewarming party, and he not only didn’t invite me, he didn’t even mention it to me.
I thought we were friends. I thought he was ready to take what we have to the next level, like I was. But it seems I was wrong.
see you tomorrow?
That was his last message to me. He sent it this afternoon, and I was stupid enough to answerdefinitely. Now I have no idea how to act. There’s only one thing I’m certain of: I’m not letting my anger eat away at me.
I stare intensively at my glowing phone keyboard and hunt for the right words.
Enjoy your party, you backstabbing bastard.
That just sounds childish. I delete the draft straightaway.
I look up at the TV. Gordon Ramsay is screaming at another chef, which reminds me of the evening Dad and I spent watchinga best-of clip show and just creased up at fifteen minutes of nonstop Ramsay shouting.
Maybe I should watch that video again.
“Why the long face, love?” Mum asks suddenly.
I sigh. She doesn’t miss a thing. Wren calls me Supergirl, and I secretly think that about Mum when, yet again, she’s spotted something that nobody else has noticed.
“Did you ever have friends who dumped you out of the blue?”
Mum puts down the Kindle that she’d had under her nose. She eyes me pensively, stroking her hair back behind her ear.
“I had a friend like that at school, yes.”
“How did you deal with it?” I ask.
“Mostly I pretended not to notice. But there was one time when I did say something. That was after she threw a party on my birthday so that nobody turned up to mine.”
“Oh God, Mum, that sounds awful.”
“Are you talking about Samantha Baker?” Dad pipes up suddenly. “What a bitch!”
“Angus!” says Mum.
“Well, it’s true. I loved it when you told her what you thought of her.”
Mum’s cheeks flush slightly. “Thanks, pet.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I told her how the way she acted made me feel. She’d ignore me at school but as soon as it was just the two of us, I was her best friend. I’d had enough of it. So I gave her a chance to change, but she wouldn’t.”
