#ch:anikasutton

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But Lissa put off the invitations. As summer turned to autumn and college resumed, she carried with her some dim hope that friendships would eventually materialise for her, like they used to. Occasionally, she’d entertain fantasies where she’d strike up a conversation with approvably cool types in the library, in the dining hall of the scholars’ housing, or the queue for the vending machines. The visions were sharp. She’d sidle up and say something so observationally witty and approachable that they’d invite her to a party, or to come hang out, or join them for lunch. She’d play it cool for a little while, give it a few weeks, then casually drop the invitation to her chalet. Yes, in the Alps. I go skiing there if you fancy it. No big deal. It’s whatever.  

And in fact, the cool types were in no short supply. She’d spotted them in the library, the dining hall and the queue for the vending machines, but discovered rather swiftly that these visions she was indulging in, as lucid as they were, did not contain the script she needed to actually be witty, interesting, or frankly, say anything at all. Usually, by the time she’d thought of something, they’d already left.

So she was eating meals alone. 

 A few times a week she would see Joshua when he wasn’t already doing something else. No girls allowed at the boat club meetup. Tired after rugby. Too much study to do—finance is no joke. Business and Law was no joke either, but she always found the time for him. She had so much time. Endless evenings just dragging on, reading books, watching The Sound of Music again, with a sudden and fierce yearning for Maria Von Trapp’s life—she had so many people to talk to.

Sundays, she’d go to Joshua’s house—a visit that had recently taken on the quality of a mandatory appointment. Lissa would wince in preparation for the grim look on Barbara’s face as she answered the door. Oh, she’s come again. Better let her in. 

Even their Scrabble games lacked the gusto they used to have. These days, when Lissa chose a risky word, there was no theatre. Nobody was standing up and pointing in anyone else’s face, or having arguments over the validity of NANOHERTZ that escalated until Barbara insisted on a ten-minute break to cool down. A few weeks before, Lissa played the word BLONDIE and Cyril coldly passed her the dictionary without a word. She removed the tiles one by one, and they resumed the game in silence. 

In October, an email came from Diane.

My Darling, 

Confirming New Year’s plans. How many friends? Need to prepare the chalet before snow makes things difficult. 

Bisous. D.

So Lissa invited Joshua, the obvious choice. 

He grimaced. “Your mum’s? I can’t. I have plans with Albert and Nuala at Christmas. I’ll be staying until after New Year’s.”

“Oh, right.”

“You understand, right? Family obligation?” He said it with a barbed look in his eye that suggested she somehow didn’t. 

Then in November, out of the desperation that followed a second, less patient email from her mother, Lissa texted Anika. 

Hey! Long time! Want to meet for coffee?

She sounded far too intense. Why was she using exclamation marks? No matter. Anika responded with polite enthusiasm. 

Hi :-) Yes, lovely! When?

They chose a Wednesday—a dreary afternoon, when the sun seemed in a hurry to set, and wind sprayed noncommittal rain sideways into one’s head. The lights of a cafe glowed over the wet concrete outside, and Lissa and Anika sat by the window with matching foamy cappuccinos, unable to think of much to say to one another. The conversation had dried up after the portion of small talk. It’s been ages, yes, yes, and how are you? Lissa began to fear that the only thing they ever had in common was a flat. 

“And how’s Joshua? Are you still together?”

“Oh, yes. We’re doing fine, thanks.”

“Ah, good. That’s good. I’m glad you…” she hesitated before adding: “Yeah.”

“Hm?”

“No, I was just saying I’m glad things are well since Trinity Ball. I think that was the last time we properly chatted about things, so.”

“Was it?” Lissa did not like to think about that night, which led her down a rocky psychic path and dragged up feelings she preferred not to have. But indeed, it had been the last time she and Anika had spoken. Those final days—the moving-out days—had been busy enough with packing that she could avoid conversation. To pretend she hadn’t heard her over the sound of the vacuum bags as she wondered aloud whether it would be weird to continue sleeping with Nick. No. As if it wouldn’t be the least weird thing to ever happen. A total inevitability. 

“I was surprised when you texted me,” Anika stirred her coffee. “You pretty much just disappeared at the end of the year.”

Lissa’s face heated. “Oh, I was so busy. It was a crazy summer with work and travelling and all that.”

“Oh, nice.”

“And you? What did you get up to?”

“I was just home in England. Oh, it was boring, to be honest—just rained constantly.”

“Yeah? Did you see friends?”

“Yeah—my mates. The usual. I suppose that was quite nice, catching up.”

“What about Nick?” Lissa couldn’t help it. “Did he visit you?”

A micro-expression crossed Anika’s face—a crooked, ironic sort of smile that made Lissa feel instantly foolish. “No. No, he didn’t come. He was doing some work experience at his dad’s TV studio. Awfully pleased with himself, he is.”

“Ah,” she thought a moment, trying to come up with a delicate way to put it. “So, like, you’re not together?”

“Well, we’re friends, mostly, and then sometimes—” Anika shrugged. “It’s hard to know what he wants. I don’t know.”

The bizarre dynamics of modern relationships frightened Lissa—this post-millennium singles scene that was apparently crawling with those eager to remove their clothing for people who might only call them back the next day if they felt like it. What had happened to real love? 

Silence fell between them. Outside, the rain intensified, and droplets raced down the glass. 

“Actually,” Lissa said before she could stop herself. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“My mum’s got this chalet in France. She’s been insisting I invite people for New Year’s… you know, like, for a party. Would you want to come?”

Anika’s eyebrows rose. “To France?”

“Yeah, just like… we could go skiing if you wanted. My mum is a terrible cook, but…” she trailed off. Why did this feel acutely humiliating? 

“Oh, that’s so nice of you to ask.” But Anika looked confused. Tension on her face, like deciding whether to decline, and if so, the politest possible way to do so. “Is Joshua going?”

“No, he has other plans.”

“Ah,” she pursed her lips. “Would it be alright if I brought someone? Like, if it wasn’t just me? Just because… you know. It might be a bit—”

“Like who?”

“Well, Nick, if that’s okay. We had plans to meet up over Christmas already, so…” she watched Lissa carefully. “Or would that be weird?” 

“No,” Lissa said. Too quick. “That’s fine. Completely fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, yes. Mum won’t mind at all. The more the merrier, really,” and she was talking far too much. “The chalet is huge.” 

Anika smiled. “Alright then, I’ll ask him.”

They finished their coffee and wrapped things up. Anika, with plans to meet someone else, and Lissa, with none, and nobody to see. 

While walking home, she pulled the collar of her coat to her chin, bracing glumly against the wind, a sick feeling brewing in her gut. 

Anika had the idea to invite Nick, but why hadn’t she said no? Or made something up about girls only. She wanted him there, and Anika probably knew it. And Joshua—he didn’t know—wouldn’t know. She wouldn’t tell him, and then somehow pull it all off in a spectacular ruse, and come out with her hands clean. 

It was like one of those nightmares she occasionally had about herself, in which she’d done something unforgivable or illegal in public, and like a Scooby Doo villain, her mask had been ripped off, and nobody had been surprised to see her underneath. 

Manipulator, liar, all that. It didn’t make her feel good, but at least she felt real. Fully alive. Tangible. No more a ghost with a scrabble rack on her lap.

But underneath the guilt something murmured—the faintest heartbeat of anticipation. She pictured Nick at the chalet, charming Diane at the dinner table. On the balcony watching snow fall, breath clouding in the cold air. Feet up by the fire, that funny snaggletooth flashing in his mouth each time he smiled. 

Was he sitting with her? 

The sick feeling intensified. Dread and anticipation tangled together. A two-headed beast. 

She kept on walking. 

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There would be times in Lissa’s life she would encounter difficulties far beyond those faced in her first two decades—times she would struggle, fail, claw her way back up, only to fail again. Moments she would feel out of her depth, inferior, overwhelmed, like surrendering was her only option—but New Year’s Eve, that crisp, white day in 2005, found her without notion of such things as losing. She was actively winning! No race but the one inside her head had been declared, but she was beating the others as she tore down the slope, leaving them in the mist. 

The precise forward tilt, her control of the skis, cutting, swerving. She conjured up a flattering image of herself—The olympian punching through the air, aerodynamic, sleek. She was pure technique. Undeniable, even in a suit that had fit more nicely the year before, the dull headache pressing at her temples from poor sleep. And Joshua—

Her mind snagged on him, and her body surged with a sourness that swamped her self-satisfaction. His face that morning. His “I don’t feel like going,” like he couldn’t be bothered with an excuse. The point was to show face—participate in an activity with her, as was the obligation of all boyfriends, instead of embarrassing her. 

She didn’t have time to correct. Her ski—the world tilted—sky, trees, snow, and then she was down, ankle twisted beneath her.

She felt a wrongness, like something coming off inside her. 

Then the pain came. Sharp, white-hot, shooting up her calf.

“Lissa!” Diane’s face appeared as the edges of her vision blurred. “Lissa, are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, and that was instinct. The reality was her ankle swelling inside her boot. “Actually, I don’t know.”

And then they were all there—Alexander, Anika, Nick—filling her vision, staring. She did not want to be stared at. Not while fallen. She tried to struggle up, but someone pushed her back down. Nick. Gloved hands pinning her shoulders to the snow. 

“No, wait,” he said. Breathless from the skiing, hopefully, and not the sight of her. “Don’t move. You might have broken something.”

“That’s what I’m trying to see. Let me look at it.”

“No, stay down. What if you’re really hurt?”

“As in I’ve broken my back?” she said indignantly. “I think I would know!”

“It’s good to be safe,” Diane said. “Just stay there. Alexander—call for patrol.”

“You’re all being so ridiculous!”

“Shh,” Nick said, which made her want to shout some more. 

“I am fine! Let me up! I’m not going down like this, I’m not!” 

But she did go down like that, and doing it via sled, wrapped in a giant sheet of what might have been tin foil, which only added to the humiliation. Nick went with her. God knows why he’d insisted on coming, because all he was doing was repeatedly asking if she was okay between anxious comments to ski patrol in French spoken without even the barest attempt at an intelligible accent. She had to start ignoring him. 

The medic at the tent spoke as rudely as possible to her—likely for the crime of not being French enough—and prodded around her ankle with hard fingers while Nick went grey in the face. Sprained, not broken. That was the diagnosis.

“So I can’t ski?”

“Eh? Of course not.” Stupid girl. 

Bandaged and armed with a blister pack of painkillers, she was banished to the chalet in disgrace. 

“You can go back to the slopes if you want,” Lissa said, unsure what to do with her leg. “You don’t have to sit here staring at me. The injury’s not getting worse.”

Nick struggled out of his jacket and tossed it onto a chair. “It’s alright. I’ll stay.”

“If my mum forced you to come, it doesn’t mean she’ll be mad if you go back. Tell her I’m fine. Tell her I wanted to be alone.”

“Do you want to be alone?”

“I don’t mind.”

Nick picked a log from the pile by the fireplace. “I’ll light a fire,” he announced, as if offering a great, noble deed. “You’ll want to be warm, yeah?”

She watched him place the logs in an aesthetically pleasing arrangement atop the pile of last night’s ash. A perfectly lovely fire pit worthy of a children’s cartoon, which would absolutely never work. 

“You going to clean it first?” Lissa said. 

He chuckled under his breath. “Yes, of course. I was planning on doing that.”

“Your parents never made you light a fire.”

“No. Excuse you. I mowed the grass, washed the car, things like that.”

“Wow, I’m impressed. We’ve got a real handyman here.”

“Hmph.” He dismantled his tower, log by log. “And where’s your boyfriend, then? Shouldn’t he be the one lighting you a fire?”

“Well, it’s you that insisted.”

Nick opened the grate and let ashes spill onto the hearth. “Shouldn’t you tell him we’ve come back? Let him know about your ankle?”

From the bedroom above, there was no sound. “I don’t want to interrupt him,” Lissa said. “He’s so wrapped up in his essay.”

“What essay?”

She didn’t know. “Something for college. He takes it all really seriously.”

“Ah, so seriously it prevents him from engaging with his girlfriend’s sprained ankle.”

Lissa bristled. “He takes his work seriously. It’s one thing I admire about him.”

“Right, yes. Of course. That’s a special thing you share.”

“Well, anyway. There’s more to life than all of that, isn’t there?”

Nick just laughed. Emptied his shovel into the metal bucket and wiped his hands on his trousers, smearing grey powder over his hips. 

“Firelighters,” she told him. “Then logs.”

“Right, there’s an order.”

“Do you know how many fireplaces there are at the hotel?”

“I don’t. One hundred. And they made you light them all like a little child-servant.”

“Some. That’s how I learned.”

A match rasped against the side of the box. “So this is your future, then? Lighting fires in the Mansfield.”

“I don’t expect so, as I’m not the one who’ll own it.”

“What, the business? You won’t inherit it?”

Lissa chuckled. “No, of course not. I don’t want the hotel. I’m going to do something a bit more exciting, that actually belongs to me. The whole point is to create my legacy, not to inherit someone else’s, so whatever—Alexander can have the Mansfield, and I’ll have my thing.” 

Nick thought this was funny—a singular shake of his shoulders while he reassembled his stack.

“What?”

“No, just, I’m not convinced I can see Alexander take on the business. He doesn’t exactly seem like a tycoon to me, you know what I mean?”

“He’s still only seventeen.”

“Mm, but you at seventeen… You already had the spirit of a thirty-five-year-old estate agent. You’re not the same animal.”

Lissa paused. They were sitting suddenly on the edge of something, which he must have sensed too, as he was all at once extremely interested in the flames.

“I didn't know you thought that,” she said.

“Hm? Oh, yeah. I suppose I felt you were a bit—” he trailed off.

She let him trail off. Watched him.

“Well. At my dad's wedding, you said—”

Now his ears went red.

“You told me you thought I was the flower girl, and that I looked fifteen. Do you remember that? I remember it.”

“It was like two and a half years ago,” he mumbled. “I dunno what to say. I was an idiot.”

“So you didn’t think I was fifteen, then,” she said. “You just—did you say that to make me feel bad?”

“No, no, come on. I was joking.”

She could still recall his expression, and the careless shrug he threw her without even bothering to look her in the face. She hated that Nick. Even after all the time that had passed, he managed to bring her temper to a boil. 

“I don’t think you were.”

“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was harsh, probably. I don’t remember that being a very good day.”

“Well, neither do I,” she said. “My father was remarrying essentially the moment the courts allowed it to a woman who invited tabloid magazines to do a feature on them. I was trying not to cry while a load of bloody journalists followed me around, asking which Backstreet Boy was my favourite. It was hell. I get angry when I think about it.”

He turned now, a moody, cornered look on his face. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “That isn’t ideal.”

“It wasn’t. And then, in the middle of it all, some random teenage boy came over and told me he thought I was stupid.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid. That isn’t what I thought. I thought the opposite, actually.”

“You thought I was a—a huge nerd or something,” Saying this was somehow unbearably embarrassing for Lissa, who flattened her hands against her face, burning from ear to ear.

“I didn’t know you were Lissa Mansfield,” Nick said. “We got off on the wrong foot. I would have spoken to you differently if I’d realised.”

“And how does one speak to Lissa Mansfield?”

He grunted dismissively. “Look, my parents talk about you the whole time—Jarlath’s daughter, and how perfect she is. They thought maybe because we’re the same age or in the same circles I would want to know. Or maybe, I dunno, it was a humiliation ritual, or a way to trick me into copping on. They thought I would like to know how well you were doing at school, or how you did debating, or hockey, or spoke fluent French, all while working that weekend job you had at the hotel. To be honest, it was annoying.”

“My dad brags about me to whoever. I think it’s to make himself look good.”

“Yeah, well, my parents were pulling me out of boarding school that summer—arranging for me to go somewhere where they could basically pay my way into college. It was our last, pathetic resort. The last stop before I became one of those sad men playing games in the family computer room until they died.”

Lissa was not in an especially sympathetic mood. “Right,” she said. “So because you were having a hard time, it was fine to take it out on me. Are those the kind of punch-down tactics they taught you at boarding school?”

“Well—come on. I wasn’t thinking about it like that.”

“You make me so self-conscious. I’ve always been convinced you kind of hate me.”

“What? I don’t remotely hate you. I actually—like, I admire you.”

She scoffed. “Oh, come on.”

“I do,” he watched the fire, picking up now and scorching the edges of the wood, and for a long moment, he was quiet. “Your dad’s right to brag. You’ve got pretty much unbelievable levels of work ethic. I was mad because I felt I needed to compare. I can’t, obviously. I’m just one guy, and you’re like three girls all in one, so…”

“Yes. My life is completely sorted.”

“I said you work hard, not that you’re a perfect person,” he said. “The point is, I’m sorry. I really am.”

“I know that.”

“I’m making a conscious effort to be less of a dickhead, even though it’s… innate.”

“Please, you’re not that bad.”

“It’s fine. I am. But I don’t want to be a dick to people who don’t deserve it.”

“Well, okay. I appreciate that.” 

Lissa shifted automatically, and as an arrow of pain shot up her leg, she remembered her ankle. She let out a small, involuntary cry, and Nick leapt to attention. 

“Can I do something?”

“Ah—no. You’re fine. It just hurts.”

He was grabbing a cushion. “Do you want to put this under it?” He was unsure whether or why such a thing would help, which struck Lissa as oddly cute. Not a sportsman.

“Could you do me a big favour, actually?”

“Of course.”

“I think I’d like hot chocolate. Do you think you could—”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely,” he grinned, delighted to be useful. “Don’t worry, Lissa, I’ve got you there. I can make hot chocolate easily.”

And to the kitchen he went, whistling to himself while the fire reached a hearty blaze. Its crackling and popping while the snow piled up on the sills brought a childhood comfort, a nostalgia for the good old days, if she hadn’t imagined them. 

Upstairs, Joshua was moving around, pacing. In the silent pockets between Nick’s clanging and cursing, she could hear the low rumble of his voice through the ceiling. He was on the phone. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. 

Nick emerged after some moments, pleased with himself, a mug in each fist like a pair of trophies. Sat with her on the sofa, and she disregarded the brief brush of her fingers against his as he passed her the drink. 

She sipped and held the liquid in her mouth for a long moment. Bitter. 

“Good?”

“Yes. Lovely.”

They watched whatever was on television—some French film featuring people in elaborate medieval costumes, already halfway through, without subtitles. 

Nick rested his head back against the cushions and stared at the screen. He was close enough that she could smell wood smoke on his clothes. She slyly observed the shape of his throat as he craned his neck toward the ceiling, and Joshua’s footsteps crossed the bedroom above. “Is he on the phone up there?” 

“Mm.”

A pause. “If we can hear him, he’s heard us, right?”

“I suppose.”

“And he’s not come down to say hello?”

Lissa didn’t say anything for a moment. “He’s busy. It’s probably about his brother’s baby.”

She felt him watching the side of her face, as if to make pointed eye contact, but she stared at the television.

He gave up. Joshua kept talking—pacing. It had been ages now. 

After sipping his drink, Nick jolted forward in his seat and sputtered. “Jesus Christ, that’s awful hot chocolate. What the hell did I do?”

“No sugar,” she said. “You used plain cocoa.” Her own cup was cooling on the coffee table—unstirred powder blooming on the surface.

“Well, why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t want to be rude.”

Nick laughed. “I think you should be ruder, Lissa.”

She liked hearing that. “You think?”

“Absolutely.”

She smiled. He smiled. They stopped speaking and watched the movie. 

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Downstairs, someone shrieked with laughter. Music pounded. Diane’s voice rose above it all, bright and drunk and oblivious. “Fifteen minutes!” She cried. “Where is my daughter?”

And in the living room, among a sea of sophisticated strangers, ex-pats and art dealers, Diane caught her arm, champagne spilling onto the carpet, her eyes bright. “Lissa! Where is Joshua?”

“Not feeling well, unfortunately.” 

“Oh, that headache is lasting a while. Poor thing.” She pulled a great, dramatic, and utterly unconvincing sad face, but then her eyes sharpened as she looked more closely at Lissa. “Are you alright, darling?”

“Fine, yeah.”

“Are you sure? You don’t look—”

“I’m fine, Mum. Leave it.”

“Oh, well, then. Have some champagne. It’s almost midnight.”

Lissa took the glass and brought it to an armchair. Pushing coats and bags aside, she sat and sipped, observing as though through a pane of glass the party churning around her. She was the mysterious figure in the dark corner, watching adults behave like teenagers, laughing and laughing, faces bright and joyful, and easy to resent. 

The occasional drunken diplomat staggered up to greet her. Oh, Lissa. You look beautiful. You’ve grown. Do you remember me? She never did. Diane’s acquaintances were a rotating reel of sun-aged faces, Francis or Claude, Thelma or Camille. 

Near the fireplace, Nick and Anika had their heads close.

“I should say something to her, shouldn’t I? Just check?” He said. 

“No,” Anika replied. “Leave her. Don’t say anything. She’s more sensitive than she pretends to be.”

The countdown started.

Dix! Neuf! Huit! Sept! Six!

Lissa stayed where she was.

Cinq! Quatre! Trois! Deux! Un!

Bonne année! The room erupted, and Nick cupped Anika's face.

Lissa watched. Anika’s hand on his hip, the way her head tilted back as he kissed her. Open mouths. It was pleasant, in a way, to watch him kissing someone else—the angle of his jaw and the shadow of his lashes against his face while confetti exploded cinematically around them. 

She stayed where she was, staving off drunken small talk until the party died down and finally—finally, Diane had to be carried off to bed, and thus marked the end of the night. 

Anika appeared by the chair, crouching into Lissa’s eyeline. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said. “Are you doing alright?” 

“Yeah, fine.”

“Did something happen with Joshua?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it, thanks.”

Anika nodded. “Alright, well, I’m here if you want to talk.” 

“Yep.”

Alexander cleared the glasses and swept the confetti from the floor, stealing wary glances at Lissa, and frightened to address her. Then, when he had finished cleaning, he sloped off to bed, mumbling, “goodnight”. 

And Nick—Nick who she wouldn’t dare to look at again, in case he approached her—Nick snuck another bottle of wine from the cellar. With two glasses in his hand, he and Anika headed upstairs, pausing only to press up against the wall, giggling softly into one another’s mouths. 

And then she was alone. 

She moved the coffee table to make space for the pull-out bed, fetched blankets and pillows from the cupboard, and with the house silent save for the patter of snow on the glass and crackling timber in the dying fire, she lay down and finally, finally, she allowed herself to cry. 

Once she’d started, it was less of a cry and more a wail—retching, infant-like, and heaving from her depths. Open-mouthed with no sound, gasping for breath, and then the wave would pass for a few moments, and she’d stare at the beams on the ceiling, hot tears steaming down her face and she’d feel dimly optimistic in her assumption that nothing could ever feel worse than this. 

Then she’d remember something poignant, like when Joshua held her hand under the covers of this very pull-out bed, on this very night six years earlier as one century became another, and she would cry again for the hopes she’d held for them and for herself, her foolish assumptions that everything would be alright. 

There was movement on the stairs—the creak of a step, and Lissa sat up. 

Nick. 

A silhouette in the ghostly light, he moved toward the kitchen, then stopped. He’d spotted her. 

“You’re sleeping down here,” he said. 

“Yes.”

He went into the kitchen. Filled a glass with water. She heard the gurgle of the pipes, the squeak of the brass tap, then he paused in the archway, and they looked at one another. Lissa couldn’t think of what to say to him, but for once, that felt alright. They were caught in the shadowy place between one year and the next, and it was borrowed time. She felt no obligation to perform. 

“Fuck him, Lissa,” he said simply. “Fuck him.”

And then he was gone. 

Lissa stared at the fire for a long time—the final embers glowing orange, then fading to ash. 

And sometime in the very first hours of 2006, she finally slept.

End of Part One

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The pub was a stone’s throw from the gates of the college—an old traditional place, whose steps were now filled with banished smokers, as the late October wind tunneled down the street. It was the kind of dark, sultry venue that people flocked to in the hopes of finding an authentic experience, yellowed walls from decades of cigarettes, the thick, malty smell of beer, and a crackling fire. Later, Lissa would worry about the smell on her clothing, but now, she concentrated on her path through the crowd with Anika, the place so full and loud that she considered grabbing hold of her coat sleeve to guide her.

Anika navigated the space like she was from there, offering greetings as she passed, a hand on a shoulder, a back, I’ll chat to you later, yeah? Good to see you. She secured them two seats at the back, beneath signed posters of old rock stars and politicians. Half a table, already claimed by coats and half-empty pint glasses.

“Stay,” she said. “I’ll grab drinks. What’ll you have?”

Lissa struggled out of her coat, half-sitting on it already. “I don’t know. Whatever you’re having.”

She pulled her jacket into her lap and scanned the room with mild panic. Alone at a table, looking a bit gormless, like someone who’d never been to a pub before. They weren’t really pubs-and-pints people, the Mansfields, more wine bars and small plates, but she was keen to embrace the lifestyle. She was certain she could become someone who sat around holding a Guinness if she really put her mind to it. 

Like the people at the table across from her. Pints on the table in front of them, a packet of cheese and onion crisps torn open and flattened into a makeshift plate. She eavesdropped casually on their conversation, as if seeking instruction. 

“Yes, but the library is always unbearable in the evening,” someone said. “I actually have to go home to study, and that means—”

Indistinct muttering, laughing, the door to the beer garden swooshing open, and a blast of frigid air over Lissa’s legs. She craned around looking for Anika, or at least someone on the staff to clear away the dirty glasses, but no one was coming.  

She looked back at the table. Students, for sure, the way they spoke. The arts, too, if she had to wager a guess. Maybe history, anthropology, or English or something else that produced the type of degree designed to trap you in academia forever. Future doctors of philosophy, she thought with a private smile. They will write their theses about a Wittgensteinian remark or something. 

“No, no, wait, quiet for a minute,” the guy nearest to her was saying, his hand up like halting traffic. “Let Maddie talk—Maddie, continue.”

There was something oddly calming about the way he controlled the table—not loud, not showy, just certain. He turned his head back to Maddie, and she saw him in profile. 

Nick.

Lissa jolted her face away immediately, heat rushing to her cheeks, body tense like a spooked cat. Anika chose that moment to return, one slim glass in each hand. 

“Are you a bit warm?” She frowned. “You’ve gone… slightly violet.”

Lissa fanned her hands over her face. “I’m fine. I have one of those complexions.” Grabbed the drink and brought it to her cheek, the ice clinking pleasingly by her ear. “All good. This looks so nice, by the way. Is it a cocktail?”

Anika slipped into her seat. “Just a vodka and tonic. Is that cool?”

“Oh yeah, totally.” She took a sip. It was horrible. 

She tried not to focus on Nick, but he was also right there, which made it a challenge. Over Anika’s shoulder, leaning in, listening intently. Extremely intently, like there was no one in the room except the person speaking. How odd that she felt hurt by it. And the memories from her father’s wedding resurfaced—the way he’d treated her like the most boring creature on the planet. This—knowing he was capable of such intense levels of conversational engagement—made his flippancy sting even worse, like he’d torn off her plaster and spat into the wound.

She would have her drink. Concentrate on having it. At some point, she decided it would be best to keep an eye on Anika’s, and make sure they were having the same amount, but by the time she’d even had the thought, her drink was already lighter than she meant it to be. Fine. The edges of her bitterness had been knocked off, and other people were arriving, obscuring the other table from view. 

Someone Anika knew from lectures. Someone else who knew someone else. Coats slung over chairs, then over each other, and then someone was sitting on Lissa’s. Trapped irretrievably. She stopped planning her exit and ordered another drink while the table filled with glasses she wasn’t sure were hers. 

Anika leaned back and laughed at something said at the other table. Her knee bumped against Lissa’s. 

“Oh, how rude of me!” She said to the person next to her. “This is Nick, from…what do you do, darling? Literature?”

She could only see the top third of his head, and his hand running through his hair. He must have been getting gel on his fingers. She hated that she even gave it thought. 

She drank again. 

Around her, the room was warmer, louder, the fire blazing against the side of her face. Words were arriving a second too late, like she was grasping for them, pulling them out of the air after two, three failed attempts. When she laughed, she was surprised by how easily it spilled from her, and how raucous. Someone brought her a drink without asking. She didn’t refuse. 

At some point, she realised she was no longer thinking about the taste at all.

The realisation she was drunk didn’t hit until she stood, staggered towards the door. Amusing how things spun when she moved, the exotic dance of the door handles, guessing which one to grab. She unleashed herself into the night air and thick smog of nicotine, cold lapping up and down her arms. Which way? This way, surely. 

Someone told her the bathroom was inside, actually, which made sense. She spun back as the door swung open…

…and bumped straight into him. 

“Oh, sorry, love, I didn’t see you.” Nick had an unlit cigarette between two fingers. “Are you alright?”

“Yes. Sorry. I was trying to find—”

“Oh, Lissa. Sorry, Lissa Mansfield, right? I didn’t mean to crash into you there, I was just heading out for a smoke.”

She just stood there. Thought of pretending not to know him as a form of revenge, but had some dim awareness that the ability to carry off a convincing lie would be difficult in her condition. 

He caught her eye with intention and added, “Or, excuse me, Bouchard-Mansfield, wasn’t it?”

“Hm, yes,” she muttered. “From the wedding.”

“I was just about to say. The wedding.” A pause. “How’s your father?”

“He’s fine.”

“And that wonderful extension?”

It was difficult to tell whether the nauseating wave that came over her was caused by the vodka tonics or the harrowing images she was conjuring of that monstrous cube. “Ugh,” she said. “It’s finished. They’re landscaping. The landscaping is…” she struggled to think of the word. “... fetid.”

“‘Fetid’,” he echoed. “That’s a great word.”

“It’s not the appropriate word.”

“I should use it in an email.”

“Hm. You may.” 

He was moving around in front of her. Once Nick. Two Nicks. He was more pleasant when she couldn’t actually make out his expression, or any of the things about his face that annoyed her. Maybe one was Good Nick, and the other was Evil Nick. One could only tell the truth and the other could only lie. Was she mixing up her allegories? 

Both Nicks were laughing, which was interesting. 

“I may? Thanks so much for your permission.”

“You can write whatever emails you like. I don’t care.”

“Noted.” He reached for his pocket. “Do you want one?” 

He was offering her a cigarette, which she certainly didn’t want. She had never smoked, nor intended to, and shook her head. “They’re illegal.”

“Well, they aren’t…” 

It’s not what she meant. 

“Indoors, unfortunately,” he continued. “I miss not having to freeze my tits off every time I want to go for one.”

“I meant—” she didn’t actually know what she meant. She reached for the word and clutched at air. The buildings behind Nick were rotating as if fixed to a wheel, and she lurched sideways as she spun with them.

“Woah, hang on a second,” he grabbed her arm. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, yes, thank you very much.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Alright, maybe I drank a little too much.” As her words slurred together into one long, drunken soup, he stared at her blankly.

“We might need to find someone to bring you home.”

“I’m fine.”

“I respect that, but I reckon if the bouncers see you, they’ll chuck you out. I’d feel better if that didn’t happen.”

It was reasonably logical. 

“Where are you staying, Lissa?”

“Botany Bay.”

“Of course you are,” he muttered, as if he thought somehow she wouldn’t hear him. She didn’t like that. And why was he still holding onto her arm? She snatched herself away. 

He was floating near her eyeline now, looking serious. Very brown eyes, he had. “You live with Anika, yeah? Anika Sutton?” 

She blinked hard, seized with anxiety. “Don’t interrupt Anika.”

“Then who do I get, Lissa? Who will be looking after you?”

“Joshua,” she said, although that seemed like a poor idea, too. But yes, it was probably about time for her to be handed back to him, to whom she belonged, like a slightly crumpled jacket someone forgot at the cloakroom. 

“Is he inside?”

“He goes to another college.”

“So he’s not here? Where is he? Can you call him?” Nick said. “And tell him where you are.”

She would, but her phone was inside her coat pocket, and underneath someone else’s arse. A situation that was impossible to solve, now that the table she’d sat at was a hundred miles away, and her arms were made of lead and gelatin. But she knew Joshua’s number. Tomorrow, when she was clearheaded again, she’d be impressed by her recall of his digits, and the way she rattled them off to Nick under extreme conditions, but of course she could. She called him every day she wasn’t with him. Talked until one of them fell asleep. Was it past her bedtime? Maybe he was calling her now.

“Hey, Joshua.” Nick had one of those flat, silver phones with a chrome coated number pad that reflected the colours of the city in pleasing, abstract blobs. “This is Nick Lynott. No–no, you don’t. I’m just calling about Lissa. She’s here at the—she’s fine—” he broke off and sighed. “Nick Lynott, I said.”

While they spent several minutes arguing over who Nick was, Lissa sat. He’d put her sitting on a bench next to someone whose cigarette smoke was billowing into her face at regular intervals. Oh, wow. I’ll be sick later, she thought brightly. Joshua would have to be in there with her watching her do it, because she didn’t like vomiting. Found it violent and frightening. How odd to think she’d be in a situation like that later, sobbing over a toilet bowl, while now she smiled blandly at the neon shapes crossing the keyboard of Nick Lynott’s phone. 

“He’s coming,” Nick snapped his phone shut. His mouth was pulled tight. “Nice guy.”

“Lovely Joshua,” Lissa agreed.

He asked her to stay put, and she did, swaying in place while he ventured inside to fetch her belongings and a glass of water. The cigarette he’d been preparing to smoke had ended up on the ground, whole and unlit, and she tried to hand it back to him when he returned. 

“I don’t want to smoke something that’s been on the floor,” he said, which had her feeling inexplicably sad for it. She let it roll off her palm.

“Here,” he said, and laid her coat across her lap. He put the water into her hands, tending to her in a way that made her feel comforted and faintly infantile. It was in a Guinness glass. The embossed harp felt nice under her finger. As she stroked it hypnotically, she began recovering some thought she’d had earlier about pubs. Or pub people. Something like that. She had been very clever. She was sure of that. Nick reminded her to drink.

She did, and the pub was an aquarium through the lens of the glass. Intriguing. 

“Oh, Lissa, there you are.” And there was Joshua, emerging from the cigarette smoke like a medieval knight through mist. He smelled nice, like deodorant and clean sweat from exertion. “Princess, are you alright?” She smiled sweetly and nodded, though she wished he hadn’t called her that in front of Nick. 

But Nick was gone already, two versions of him folded into one, vanished into the noise of the pub. She looked for him anyway, searched the crowds as she felt herself be taken—Joshua’s guiding hand at her elbow—though she wasn’t sure what she meant to say if she found him.  

She tried, in a way that only made sense to her while drunk, to work out which one of him it had been. The good one or the bad one. But she found, as she was steered onto the street, the distinction no longer seemed very clear.

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“Sorry, what on earth is math rock?”

“Doesn’t it sound like something you might enjoy, darling?”

“Really? Why?”

“Whatever, I don’t know. I was telling a joke. Math. Academia, that sort of thing. It’s all running on the same theme.”

Anika glided through the crowds, her lean body swerving elbows and hips like she was swimming. Lissa followed, nose halfway in the schedule brochure she’d procured from the front office. Trinity Ball, May 2005. She didn’t recognise a single act. 

Her other hand picked at a loose thread—the front of her dress, where a single rhinestone had come loose from its backing. It was the same one she’d worn to her school debs not ten months before, and it already felt incredibly like last year’s dress. The thing that had made her feel like a film star then, now stretched tighter around her hips, its yellow satin creased from the wardrobe in a way that hadn’t steamed out, and was now literally coming apart under her fingers. 

Anika wore a slinky black number, her hair pinned up from her face, a slash of red lipstick on her mouth. It was better to just resolve herself to the fact that Anika would look good in anything, a bin bag, even, and so comparison could only ever be an agent of self harm. 

Joshua was waiting by the Campanile. He wore his debs suit too—the square shoulders, the long tie that hung past his belt buckle—she felt a surge of something as she watched him, a moment before he noticed them. Affection. Or pity. 

He smiled, then. His face was oily, all the floodlights shining on him as he greeted her with a kiss. 

“It’s very warm tonight,” she said. “You look like you’re running a bit hot.”

“No, I’m fine, the weather is perfect,” he produced a handkerchief to pat down his face, then he lifted her worrying hand from the bodice. “Oh, Lissa, have you torn your dress already?”

“Oh, it’s a rhinestone. It fell off somewhere.” She mimicked a search for it—an ineffectual scan of the closest cobblestones, as though it wasn’t lost forever in the gravel somewhere around Botany Bay. 

“This girl, right?” he said to Anika, prodding a thumb at Lissa. “Can’t take her anywhere.”

Anika looked over her shoulder. 

Lissa stepped back and swiped her hands over the hips of her dress. “Have you seen who’s playing? Not a single name I recognise.”

Joshua took the brochure, “Pete Doherty?” and his brows shot up his forehead. “You don’t know Pete Doherty?”

“No, am I supposed to?”

“The Libertines, Princess.”

She shrugged. “Don’t know them.”

“She’s not the best with music,” he said again to Anika, now rummaging around her clutch. “I took her to Coldplay for her eighteenth, and she didn’t know half the songs. Imagine.”

“I did,” Lissa smiled, aware already, so early in the night, that she was teetering on the verge of a dangerous feeling. “I just wasn’t singing along to them, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t know them. You bought me their album the previous Christmas.”

“I recall, yeah. I was looking for it last week in your room, by the way—”

“Oh, hi!” Noise then, pleasant commotion as a crowd of Anika’s friends arrived and stood around them in a way that forced Lissa’s acknowledgement. The cool people. The ones she had come to know anecdotally, like Oliver–Olly–who didn’t yet know his open mic comedy was extremely poor, Emily, whose impacted bellybutton piercing recently landed her in the A&E, and Nick—Nick, of course, who she was no longer surprised to see. Who had become a fixture of Anika’s social life over nine months of pub nights and get-togethers that Lissa had faithfully missed, but she had heard romping tales about over the hum of her porridge heating inside the microwave. And then Nick said this, and Andrew was so shocked! Endless stories, it seemed, featuring Nick saying something to someone else.  

Nick wasn’t wearing a suit to the ball, but a shirt, the top three buttons loosened in a way she was sure—absolutely, sure—was accidentally-on-purpose. He had that look these days, a thrown-together, dishevelled disposition all the boys were going for. The boys on TV were growing their hair out that year, and so was he, a lock of it falling extremely trendily over his brow as he greeted Anika with a kiss to her cheek. 

She pulled back from him with her hand upon his arm, and pulled his shirt to expose a slash of collarbone, gleaming from the heat. On him, sweat seemed a stylish addition, and something he’d done to complete his outfit, rather than something that had overcome him. 

And Joshua, she glanced again at the Windsor knot of his tie, the way moisture beaded in his sideburns. Recently, there had been times when she’d looked at him and felt she was staring twenty years into their future. Like she could see the man he’d grow into—the patterns of his ageing face. There had been something boyish about him, a dimple-chinned cuteness that was eluding him as he became a man. He will look like his father, she thought as he scratched his jaw, and conjured up a vision of Cyril Dempsey stooped over to prod the coals with a pair of fireplace tongs. 

Nick had a face that seemed it would look like that forever. Sallow and lean, the skin taut across his cheekbones. Handsome, maybe, though she wasn’t sure she really thought it. Lively, at least. Striking. Comfortable in his youth and health. He was looking at her now. 

“Lissa,” he approached, then hesitated, like he was resisting a hug reflex. “I heard—my dad told me you passed your exams. You got your scholarship. That’s—congratulations, what a fantastic achievement that is.”

They were both self-conscious. Her, cradling herself with her arms, and him, his hands inside the pockets of his slacks, rocking back on his heels, yearning to be elsewhere.

 “Thank you,” she said. “I worked really hard.”

“I bet, yeah. It’s no mean feat, right?”

“Right. I’m so pleased.”

A pause. He smiled. She smiled. 

Joshua swaggered up,—chin jutted forward like a fighter. “Hey, man, what’s the craic?”

Nick nodded. “Hi.”

“Do we know each other? Like, have we met before at something, or?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Well, I’m Joshua. Joshua Dempsey?” A question, as if expecting recognition. “This is my girlfriend, Lissa.”

“Mm, yes. Nice to meet you.”

Joshua stared. “Yeah. It just seems like you’d met her before, by the way you were just talking to her, so I was just wondering.”

“Joshua,” Lissa muttered. “My father knows his. We’ve met once or twice, at—” she looked at him for affirmation. “At the hotel, and such.”

Nick nodded, a great amused, closed-mouth smile spreading across his face. “Her father’s hotel. Great acquaintances, Miss Lissa Mansfield and I, here. I was just congratulating her on her scholarship. Should have introduced myself.”

“Right, then, and you are?”

“Nick Lynott.”

Joshua’s nostrils flared. “Oh. You’re that lad who phoned me?”

“Hm?”

“From the pub.”

Nick squinted. “Uh. I have your number?”

“No, from her phone, you phoned me from hers.”

“Lissa’s phone? Was this recently?”

“No—well, a number of months ago.”

“Eight months,” Lissa said, her face heating. “It was in October.”

“Oh, God, eight months ago,” Nick scratched his head. “It’s been a while. I can’t say I remember the specifics. Nice to you, was I? Or was I a small bit of a dick?”

“You didn’t call me to chat, Lynott. No need to pretend.”

She wanted, for some reason, to laugh at how hatefully uncomfortable the conversation was. Joshua, with a face like a bull, and Nick, up on his high horse, literally looking down his nose. As if it wasn’t her humiliation, her ill-judged moment, dredged up and used as ammo in some petty battle of egos.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Who cares? It was ages ago. I don’t remember either. Leave it. I want to get something to drink at the bar.”

“Alright then,” Joshua snipped. “I’ll go with you.”

And there, while she waited for her cup of wine, he hovered. Fussing with his hair, his shirt collar, with the pent-up energy of a housebound dog. She pursed her lips and exhaled slowly. 

“Your father’s?” He ranted on. “Which friend of your father? Lynott? Never met him. Isn’t known to my family. Was he at the wedding? Who Lynott?”

“Ben,” she said. “From RTE. His wife, Linda, was wearing that gigantic hat.”

“Which hat?”

“Gigantic one,” she said, and didn’t elaborate. Only Alexander had thought the hat was funny. Joshua was the one who insisted the hat was a normal size for that type of event, which it frankly couldn’t have been.  

“Well, anyway, they’re clearly not a good family. Judging by the way he’s turned out. Didn’t he get the email that this was a formal event, by the way?”

“Perhaps he didn’t read it.”

“Maybe he can’t read at all. What’s he even doing at Trinity? He doesn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.”

“Good question.”

Lissa took her plastic cup and wandered towards the forming crowd. A crush of bodies shoved against the barriers at the stage, their faces underlit and strange. “We should find somewhere to stand.”

“Somewhere near the back. I don’t want to be stuck near people pushing.”

“Right, yes.”

And they hovered on the outside, his hand, as it would be all night, damp and insistent on her waist. 

It must have been an hour like that, the music throbbing through their feet, the crowd churning around them as act after act took to the stage. Seven, eight scruffy looking men with the same haircut, swinging guitars about. 

“Is that him? Pete Whatshisname?” Lissa kept saying, and Joshua would say no, not yet. I’ll tell you when it’s him, sounding so smug about it, like he possessed a secret knowledge about this random rockstar he was just delighted to withhold. She stopped asking. Stopped saying things altogether as he made quips into her ear along with the gurgle of his wine as he drank from his cup. Her temper simmered. 

As the night wore on, and the grass turned trodden and mucky underfoot, the hem of her dress became streaked with dirt. On a hike to the porta potty, which she had avoided for hygiene purposes until eventually reaching a point of desperation, she speared a plastic cup with her heel. Crunch. She shook it off. No matter, she thought, I will never wear this stupid outfit again. 

In the cubicle, as she held the great bundle of her skirts on her lap, she picked at a mucky thread, loosening it from the hem. A series of pops as it ripped and unfurled the seam, leaving it raw. Oh, right, okay, she thought mildly, then snapped the thread and left it on the floor among wads of wet toilet tissue and a single false eyelash.

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2004

“Absolutely not,” she said, and flung open the drapes. Evening light flooded in. “Look at that. The world is happening out there, and you’re in here with—what is that, corporate finance? Christ, Lissa.”

Botany Bay shone below like an Ivy League fantasy. Vines clung to the Regency brick, glossy and dark as wine in the dappled light around the tennis courts. Lissa stared out and sighed.

“Fine,” she said. “I suppose I'll come.”

“That’s it, clever girl.”

Anika Sutton had an unselfconscious spirit, and no sense of personal boundaries. Roommates—or housemates, Lissa supposed, as they had their own bedrooms in the pokey student flat on the grounds of Trinity College—she had already seen this near stranger completely naked three times within as many weeks. She had grown used to Anika wandering in whenever she pleased, while Lissa made sure to almost never be naked herself without first locking her door.

She was beautiful, in an impossible way that made you draw inward. It was more than surface-level, something structural, as though the blood and bone beneath her skin were beautiful too. A short, blunt haircut framed her small face and strong nose, a feature that ought to have been a flaw, according to the narrow standards Lissa had learned, but wasn’t, simply because Anika had never believed it was.

“Will you be getting changed?” She asked and parked herself on the edge of the bed. Beneath her tiny skirt, she wore black opaque tights and no shoes, long, defined limbs. When Lissa wore opaque tights, she felt like a playschool teacher. There was something… homelier about Lissa’s figure which hadn’t even occurred to her before she’d walked in on Anika flossing her teeth in just a pair of lacy knickers. Other girls she’d seen had mirrored her own body, a standard within the familiar walls of the school changing room. Hockey thighs were what Lissa had. Curves and muscle formed by sport, not slim nor perfect, no gap between them when her ankles touched. There had come a jarring realisation in recent weeks, that while she was pretty—she knew that—she was not actually chic. 

“Is there something off about what I’m wearing?” She said. 

“No, you can wear whatever you like.”

She dug through her wardrobe, pulled out some of the gaudy things Jade gave her, and lay them out on the bed, in the spaces Anika didn’t occupy—leaned back on her elbows watching with lazy interest as Lissa tore the tags off them. 

“Do you go to parties and things like that quite a lot, Lissa?”

“Yeah,” she lied. “Well, now and again.”

It was a lie, that part, too—now and again, as apart from birthday parties and school dances, Lissa hadn’t truly indulged. It was hard for her to say out loud, when that very fact was beginning to feel vaguely embarrassing. 

The city had been seized by the flamboyant, hedonistic era of the nightclub. Music and pills, bankers and lawyers throwing money, strobe lights and two euro shots forming a sticky film on the floor. It was a carousel that still felt like it couldn’t stop spinning. She had been a legal adult for over a year, yet had never experienced the scene. The mystery of it. What everyone talked about—complained about with barely contained smugness while clutching their heads in morning lectures—oh, how hungover they were, how they were never drinking again. 

Outside the window of her student bedroom, the city throbbed each night until sunrise slid up the walls, and she had begun to wonder, in a small way, whether she might be missing out.

“Would you like me to wait for you?” Anika was out of the room while Lissa changed, and zipping up her leather boots in the hallway. “I can. But the pub is only five minutes away.”

“Oh, please wait,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll know anyone there.” She cringed, conscious of the small, anxious lilt her voice did on her last word, and the way Anika paused afterwards, like she’d heard it too. 

Her voice came back kind, gentle, as if speaking to a child. “Yeah, don’t worry, Lissa. We’ll go together.”

“Thank you.”

“Sure.”

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The ankle strap wouldn’t unfasten—not with the mud caked around the tiny mechanism, yet she tried her best, despite the tears that blinded her. It was the horrible, most hideous type of crying, thick and hot, and made her eyelids feel they might go inside out from squeezing them so hard. Her nose like a faucet as it leaked from her chin to the knee of her dress. 

Hunched on the steps of her accommodation was not the most ideal nor private place to have a meltdown. But the shoes… She’d thought she was being sensible in her decision to remove them before entering the foyer—some consideration she had for people who cleaned the floors, but now as she wrestled with the buckles with fingers that hurt, she cursed herself for even thinking about them. 

She conjured memories, clear as day, of Joshua. Joshua. What had she done to him? She thought of his face the first time they’d been skiing together, the terror in his eyes as he careened down the slopes, and later, after he’d slept it off, and he made them hot chocolates with mountains of marshmallows for them to share while they watched the sunset from the chalet window. Her mother had let them sleep on the pull-out bed by the fire, as long as they left the living room door open and promised to be good. They were always good. For years, they were good and chaste and sweet, and that night by the fire, he’d merely held her hand beneath the blankets. They were happy back then, right? There was proper happiness in the innocence of the first three years. Maybe they were star-crossed, and it was the sex that fated them. 

The heavy door of the building banged behind her, and she wiped her cheeks quickly with her fingers. 

“Oh, Lissa, darling? Are you alright?” 

There stood Anika. Her dress with hitched up on one side with a hair-tie, in wellington boots now, and two bottles of wine in one hand, held clinking together by their necks like chickens. There was something oddly rural about the image that Lissa could hardly appreciate through wet eyes.

She dropped onto the steps immediately and touched a cool hand to her arm. “Oh dear. Oh, darling, why are you crying? What’s happened to you? Tell me.”

Lissa collapsed into a fit of heaving sobs, her head between her knees while Anika smoothed her hair, fixing it back into place in a very loving, girls-supporting-girls type of way. It was still hard for Lissa to comprehend Anika’s pursuit of friendship with her. A female friendship absent from competition and backstabbing was a thing she’d never known. Mostly, others wanted to better her, prove her wrong or catch her out for something, but Anika was always just kind, in such a way that felt suspicious at first but now seemed simple. The thought opened a new cavernous hole of loneliness inside her chest, and she sobbed harder. 

“Get it all out, Lissa. That’s it. I’ve got you, sweetheart.” Then, more quietly, she said: “Was it Joshua?”

Lissa managed just a high-pitched, squeaking sound, nodding while tears studded the concrete step. 

“Oh,” Anika twirled a piece of hair at the nape of Lissa’s neck. “Have you split up?”

She raised her head. The thought had not exactly occurred to her, at least not in those terms. “Split up?” She echoed.

“Well, yes. Did you… did he dump you? Did you dump him?”

Lissa stared. “I don’t know. We had a fight. An awful one. How would I know something like that? If we’ve… split up?”

“Usually something would have been said to that effect.”

Seized with panic, she straightened. “I told him to go away. To call his dad and get him.”

“And then he went?”

“Yes, he’s gone. I think. At least he didn’t follow me.”

“Bit of a grey area, isn’t it?” Anika chewed her lip. “Did you intend to break up? Was that the idea?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never broken up with anyone, or been broken up with. I don’t know the script.”

“There isn’t one. It’s just what you both agree the end looks like.”

The end. 

Lissa tried to picture it—the vista of her life without him opening to her, the possibilities of who she could be, single. Surely, she thought, it would not suit her. It would leave her untethered and floating off into the unknown, like the helium balloon she’d released at the millennium, with a big ‘2000’ printed on the foil. Days later she’d found it tangled in a tree by the smokestacks on Sandymount Strand. Punctured and forlorn, dangling there limply like an omen of what lay ahead. 

“Anika, I don’t know what I’ve done.”

“Oh, come on, surely it’s nothing that can’t be undone,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s the right time to try to fix it. It’s probably best if you both take space–sleep on it.”

“I couldn’t go to sleep,” Lissa said with rising hysteria. “I’ll be up crying all night over it, I’m sure. I’ll go inside that flat and I know I’ll just lie in bed all night wishing… wishing I was dead, or something.”

She felt she’d admitted something deeply shocking and disturbing, but Anika barely reacted. Just uttered a soothing hum while rubbing meditative circles on Lissa’s back. “I’m going to an afterparty soon,” she said. “Out in Irishtown. A few of us are heading out after the ball.”

Lissa tried to work out whether she was informing her or inviting her. “Oh, cool,” she said.

“If crying your eyes out in an empty flat doesn’t seem like your idea of fun, you know, you’re very welcome to join me.”

“I won’t know anyone.”

“That’s alright sometimes, isn’t it? Getting to know new people?”

Lissa gestured to the ridiculousness of her appearance, the unravelling hem, the dirt and wine and tears blooming all over the yellow satin of her dress, as though she’d been dragged backwards through the mosh pit. “I’m not exactly looking my best.”

“It’s lucky we’re right outside the building, you know, where your wardrobe and your makeup are just two flights up. Come on, we’ll sort you out, have you looking nice again, yeah?”

Lissa nodded. Shrugged. Maybe she could go to a party. An after party. Never been to one of those—only heard of them, and imagined people crowding around on the furniture in someone’s living room, leaving cans of lager on the floor, and cigarettes in the sink, and all that. She could try it. She might hate it, but at least then she could just come home. They couldn’t trap her at a house party. 

Anika patted Lissa’s knee. “Come on then. Let’s go.” She grabbed the bottles again, and Lissa’s eyes narrowed. 

“Hey, are those mine?”

Anika looked down with surprise, as though seeing them for the first time. “Oh!”

“That’s my mother’s rosé wine. I brought it back from the vineyard, see? Côtes de Provence. It’s written right there.” Even in her weary state, she could still find a reason to be precious. 

“You didn’t seem to be drinking them. They were in the fridge since January, so I thought maybe I’d just… replace them, and you wouldn’t notice?”

“I would have noticed,” Lissa said, getting to her feet. 

“Bit cheeky of me. Sorry about that.”

As Lissa looked at her housemate, the impish smile of someone who almost got away with it, and realised she didn’t have it in her to care. Wine was just wine, after all. And wine was better shared, not sitting in the fridge door like some sentimental item, waiting eternity for the right time to be enjoyed. 

“It’s fine,” she said. “I don’t mind. We’ll share them at the party.”

“Alright!” Anika said, and threw up a hand sign like a surfer from the 60s. “Sounds good!”

She held the door open, and they both slipped inside. 

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[hannahssimblr]

The cassoulet sat in the centre of a table with burning candles and flowing drinks. Wine—so much wine. A Marcellec this time, which Alexander had dragged up from the cellar. Rich and dark, and staining the inside of Joshua’s lips considerably as he took impassive sips and slid food around his plate with a fork. 

“You’ve something on your mouth,” Lissa murmured beneath the dinner conversation, and he turned his head to her, a slightly affronted expression on his face. “Just there, just your lip.”

He took a paper napkin and blotted ineffectually, and she pretended he’d gotten the mark off. 

“... well, this was when people still wired money, darling. I had to call my poor father and beg him so I could get a flight out of there.”

She had been zoning in and out of the conversation for the last forty-five minutes. Coming up with exciting phrases like “What? Oh, yes,” whenever Diane prompted her to fill in a detail. She was utterly frozen in this strange situation she had orchestrated. She knew everyone was just going along with it to be polite. They thought it was weird, right? She kept looking at them for confirmation, but they sat engaged and content, smiling at Diane, prompting her earnestly for more romping tales of her youth and reacting to each new, outrageous detail. 

“You didn’t!”

“Oh, of course I did. What else could I do?”

Lissa tried not to stare at Nick. He leaned back in the chair with his elbow slung over the spindle—a messy, mod-adjacent haircut that made him look like one of those Arctic Monkeys boys. So casual, the way he held himself, how he swiped pieces of sourdough from Anika’s side plate, shared her wine, took up space—all legs beneath the table. He caught her eye occasionally when she adjusted herself, kicked his feet or knocked knees, and she had to apologise in case he felt she was doing it on purpose. 

Otherwise, he wasn’t particularly aware of her, and she wasn’t making a point to talk to him, mostly because she didn’t have anything to say that would wow him like her mother could. It was all about Diane according to Nick, who wore the enchanted look of every man who encountered her—Sitting kind of moony-eyed and dopey, complimenting her excessively—her decor, her wine, her cooking, which was a lie, as the cassoulet was dramatically over-salted and burnt, and he hadn’t finished it. 

“Nicholas, did you know…” she said while pouring from the second bottle of wine. “That you and I have met before?”

“Have we?”

“Yes. A long time ago,” she shot Lissa a private wink over the rim of her glass, which sent a jolt of dread through her body. 

Nick glanced between them. “I don’t think so. I would have remembered.”

“Lissa, darling, don’t you remember? Tell him what happened.”

“I actually don’t.”

“Oh, she does, but I’ll tell you anyway. Did you know you came to visit our home in Dublin when you were a child?”

He seemed perplexed. 

“We thought—well, Jarlath, my ex—he thought it would be nice for the children to get together and play, since you’re the same age as each other, and well, he used to see so much of Ben and Linda. So, we invited your whole family to the house on a Saturday afternoon, and our Lissa was so excited. She really was the hostess with the mostest, weren’t you? You still are, I’m sure, yes? She loves meeting new people.”

Lissa smiled. 

“Well, she spent the afternoon in a frenzy. She tidied up her bedroom and laid out her best toys. She went into the garden and found every tennis ball lying about. And you know, it’s a large garden, and tennis balls were just everywhere—lost in the long grass, the hedgerow—she was digging through,” she was doing a charming impression of seven-year-old Lissa burrowing through the laurel hedgerows like an over-eager little mole. “And she found dozens. Put them all into this great bucket, and sat like this, and waited for you to arrive.”

Nick was enraptured, as though he weren’t a character. 

“And then, finally, the Lynotts arrived! And guess what you did? Can you guess?” Diane was cackling now, clutching his arm. “You completely ignored her! Oh, it was so cruel. You had absolutely no interest in playing. You wanted to sit up in the kitchen and speak to the adults, while she played tennis with herself against the garage door. Oh, it was terrible. But funny, you know, in a way that children don’t yet know is funny. Eventually, she begged us to send you home, and we were under strict instructions never to invite you again.”

Nick let out a weak laugh and looked at Lissa. “I—well, honestly, I really don’t remember that. It’s horrible. I can’t believe I did that.”

“It’s fine,” she replied. “It was over a decade ago. I don’t care.”

“Christ, but I’m sorry, I don’t know what was wrong with me.” He reached across the table and squeezed her arm. “My parents should have had me tested after that. I was demonic.”

Anika was cackling too. “That’s such a Nick story. I can see that happening.”

He gasped in mock offense. “No…”

“Yes, Nick. You’re so rude by default. I adore that you were like this even as a child. It’s almost comforting, right? Like nobody really changes that much through the years, and we’re really just who we are, whether we like it or not.”

“That’s not a very appealing characteristic, though. I was a rude little bastard—excuse me, Diane, sorry. I meant, a rude little—”

“Oh darling, we can say whatever words we like in my house.”

He grinned like he thought this was sexy. 

“How about you, Joshua?” Anika said, and there was a brief pause around the table. “What were you like as a child? The same as you are now?”

He wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. “I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”

“Ah, but, you know—what have your parents said about you? Don’t they have stories about things you did?”

“I haven’t asked.”

“Well then, what about Lissa?” Nick said. “You two have been together forever, right? What was she like as a child? Wait, sorry, you met… when?”

“At twelve,” Lissa said. “We started going out at thirteen.”

“Right, right. So, go on, twelve-year-old Lissa, Joshua, tell us all about her.” He smirked before adding: “If you can remember that, of course.”

Joshua leaned back, puffing through his lips. “Well, she was quite sweet, actually. She was shy and giggled a lot. Hm, let me see… Polite, soft-spoken, and very sensitive. A little clumsy.”

Lissa’s smile faltered.

“Ha!” Diane cried. “What are you saying? She wasn’t. She was a furious, bossy little cow who needed everything her way, and she was fabulous. She got that from me.”

“Mum!”

“Yeah, two entirely different people are being described here,” said Anika. 

“Alexander!” Nick said. “Which description fits your sister?”

Alexander held back a smile. “Mum’s, obviously. Lissa was mean.”

Nick let out a squawking, triumphant kind of laugh as he turned his attention back to Joshua. “So, actually, you don’t remember? Have you hallucinated her?” 

Joshua’s nostrils flared. “That’s how she was with me, and it’s how I remember her, so I don’t know what else you’d all like me to say.”

“Was I really?” Lissa was failing to conjure a memory that supported his allegations. “I was soft-spoken? I led the debating team at Loreto. They had to ask me to lower my voice as I was so naturally shrill.”

“Mmm, she was always shouting at home,” Diane agreed. “Shrieking at her father about the government, or the hole in the ozone layer, or whatever was upsetting her. Thank God that house had so many rooms. I could hide away in peace.”

“Well, excuse me for saying she was nice,” Joshua huffed. “My apologies. Obviously, I was wrong.”

“Aw, no worries, mate, we all make mistakes,” Nick said, and snickered while Anika poked him beneath the table. 

Diane smiled thinly at Joshua, then looked around at all the plates piled high with uneaten food—cold meat in a pool of watery sauce. “Well, anyway. I’m sorry for the meal,” she pivoted. “It really wasn’t my best, you know—I was never destined for a domestic life…”

“Oh, no,” Anika said. “It was lovely. We just ate while we were waiting for the bus, didn’t we, Nick?”

“Yeah, we filled up on McNuggets at the airport. Terrible. It’s a shame, really. This meal was so nice.”

“Oh, don’t.”

“No, seriously.”

“Yes, Mum, it’s lovely. You did a nice job.”

“Well, thank you, Alex, sweetheart.”

“Sorry,” Joshua tossed his napkin onto his plate. “Are we all just going to sit here and pretend the food is edible?”

There was silence. 

Diane placed down her wineglass and smiled serenely. “It’s refreshing to have such honest guests. Joshua, I apologise if my cooking isn’t up to your standards.”

Anika leapt in. “No, Diane, really, it was lovely…”

“No need to be polite,” Diane stared at Joshua. 

“Actually, apologies, everyone, but I’m going to go to bed,” he said. “I have a headache.” He got up and left his plate where it was, barely out of earshot before Diane said: “Ah, wonderful. Looks like we’re cleaning up after him, too.”

“Mum, don’t.”

Diane’s eyes met Lissa’s, and there was something hard and frightening in them that made her want to sink into the floor. 

“I’ll clean up,” Nick jumped to his feet and began grabbing plates and cutlery all around him, forming an unstable tower in his arms. 

“No, no, Nicholas,” Diane protested. “I don’t want you to clean. Please leave it. Have more wine.” The bottle dribbled into the bottom of Nick’s glass. “We’ll get another. Alexander. Won’t you go to the cellar again?”

She shot him a stare, and he instantly rose from the table.

“Now, Nick, Anika, you stay here and relax. Lissa and I will clear the plates, and then we’ll join you. We can play cards. What do you think?”

While they made noises of agreement, Lissa trailed her mother into the kitchen, the half-full casserole pot in tow. 

Diane laid the stack of plates down, a tremor in her hands that rattled her bangles. 

“Mum…”

“I don’t want him in my home,” she said through gritted teeth. “That… horrible little man. I don’t want him here for another minute, let alone two more days.”

“It’s just a mood he’s in. He’s…” Without a reasonable excuse, Lissa let the sentence die. 

“I've been watching him all evening. The way he looks at you, the way he speaks to you, or doesn’t, frankly, as he barely said a word. Has he always treated you with such hatred?”

“It isn’t hatred. Don’t be dramatic.”

“I can’t believe how you allow him to behave.”

“Wait, me?” The pot was hefty. Lissa dropped it on the stove with a clunk. “Why am I in charge of how he is all of a sudden?”

“Because you don’t stand up for yourself, which is the same as condoning it.”

“You want me to grab him by the collar and slap him around when he misbehaves?”

“I want you to say something. You won’t let me do it, so why don’t you?”

“Because, Mum—”

“Jade might allow this in her house, but I won’t allow it in mine. I don’t allow anyone to behave like that. Not in front of me.”

“Wait, Jade?”

“Yes. That Jade. She… she moves into my house and ruins it with her designs. My gardens, my tennis court, and then she lets that little blonde devil in—lets him treat you so awfully. That’s where he gets the idea he can.”

“This has nothing to do with—Mum, you said we can’t talk about her.”

“Well, I’m talking about her now.”

“No!” Lissa hissed. “You don’t get to bring this up after you’ve had an entire bottle of wine. You always want to blame everything on Dad and Jade when you were the one who—”

“Everything alright in here?” Nick stood in the archway, wine bottle in hand. “Sorry—looking for the corkscrew. Any chance you cleared it up with the plates?”

Diane’s fury evaporated in an instant, replaced by her hostess smile. “Oh, Nicholas. We must have, darling. Let’s take a look.” She sifted through the stack, hands still shaking.

He glanced between them. “You sure I can’t help with the dishes?”

“No, please. We’re nearly done.”

He found the corkscrew and left. Diane waited until his footsteps disappeared to speak again.

“I mean it.” She said sternly. “I don’t want Joshua here if he’s going to be this way. You need to figure it out.”

She turned on the tap, hot water rushing into the sink.

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