The Art of Keeping Faith (46 page)

“Shjayne,” she tells me before face-planting the bathroom floor.

“Tristan, come and help me move her, I can’t lift her by myself.”

I can hear him cursing all the way down the hallway.

“For goodness’ sake. If it is not one of you it is the other.”

“Well it’s not me anymore, is it? I am sodding pregnant, now help me lift her. She is bloody passed out.”

Or not.

Beth lifts her head from the tiles and stares at me in shock before passing clean out.

Crap.

Let’s just hope her memory recall is like mine after ten too many.

8.00 a.m.

We are all sitting in my room staring at Beth. She is asleep and snoring like a pneumatic drill, much like she has all night since Tristan plonked her in my bed at half two.

We still have no idea what is wrong, and I still do not know if she remembers what she heard me say last night in the bathroom.

It is all a little annoying.

Worse bit is I have got to leave for campus in a minute and have not had time to check the Internet for Ben, which is fast becoming part of my morning routine—much like putting on my make-up. Not that I can be arsed with make-up anymore.

I would give Uni a skip but it is the second to last week of term and I kind of feel that I should at least be on campus, even if I am not technically studying.

My mind is in complete free fall at the moment. I have still not recovered from the huge spanner in my Get Ben Back Plan created by the Isle of Wight cancellation. I need to come up with my next move quick. There is only a week left of lectures and then it will be a couple weeks of exams and those boring things called essay’s and my second year will be over. Okay Uni will be over completely for me, but I can’t think about that too much right now because it makes my brain hurt.

I need to go to the library and spend some quality time staring at books and coming up with a new game plan.

6.30 p.m.

“Anyone home?” I call, walking through the front door.

I am hoping not, but the way my luck is running, there will more than likely be a houseful.

I am knackered. Uni has completely exhausted me.

I am also frickin’ starving and slightly apprehensive about what the cupboards may hold.

I can feel another pasta moment coming on.

“Yeah me,” Beth calls back.

I walk toward the sound of her voice coming from my bedroom, stepping over Kit on the way.

“What’s up, Kit, do you want some pasta?”

The meow in response could be a yes or no. I will give him some anyway. I am sure that cats like pasta.

“I’ve already started dinner,” Beth tells me as I walk through the door to my room and find her on my laptop.

Damn it. Still no Ben stalking time.

“What you looking at?” I question rather than comment on the fact that a) she is still here and b) wearing my clothes.

“Trying to find Ben for you.”

“Any luck?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“That’s okay, I’m beginning to think he may not exist and is just a figment of my imagination.”

She gives me a quick glance and opens her mouth to say something before changing her mind. “Cheesy pasta for dinner okay?” she asks.

I offer her a broad grin. “Exactly what I fancied.”

“Good I have made a mountain of spaghetti.”

“Excellent. Come on, let’s eat. I’m bloody starving.”

We head off to the kitchen, both of us walking in silence, and load our plates with a truckload of pasta.

Beth eyes my plate. “Guess you’re over your bug?”

I offer a shrug and mumble, “Yeah, I guess.” She just shrugs back, too.

“Guess you are not on a diet anymore either,” she adds as she sprinkles hot sauce over her bowl of pasta.

Oooh, hot sauce.

I grab the bottle and sprinkle, or rather lather my dinner in the red goo.

“What makes you say that?” I ask.

She nods her head to the bowl of pasta and I give another shrug.

“Nah, guess I’m not.” I say and start to walk back toward the lounge.

“Oh my God! Lilah McCannon do not lie to me, we are supposed to be best friends.”

Guess she hasn’t lost her memory then.

“You remember.”

“Yes, and I found the book under your bed with a Post-it note stuck on it from Meredith telling you to read it before you annoyed her to death with your questions.”

Ah, that.

“What on earth where you doing under my bed?”

“Trying to coax your psycho cat out. So is it true then?”

“What?”

“Lilah!”

“Yeah, it’s true,”

She assesses me for a moment longer. “I thought your boobs looked bigger.”

“They do not! And please do not tell anyone. I don’t want anyone knowing yet. I was going to tell you in a couple of weeks I promise.”

“I can’t believe you have kept a secret from me. Why would you?”

By this point we are sat in the lounge next to each other, our trays precariously balanced.

“Because Ben thinks the baby died, that’s why he left. Now I can’t find him to tell him the truth and I kind of wanted him to be the first to know. Well I wanted to tell him he was not to blame before anyone else got to tell him.”

“And you think I would?!”

“No, not at all. But I can think of one person on campus who would take great pleasure in spilling the beans, and at the moment I am just trying to fix my mistakes.”

She eyes me with her usual direct scrutiny. “What mistake?”

I flush bright red straight away.

“The day the picture came out of Ben and Mihraandah I went mental. I told him I wanted him to leave and never come back. Then I started to bleed and I wouldn’t let him stay with me. I went to the hospital thinking I had lost the baby. When I got back he was gone and I haven’t heard from him since.”

“What the fuck! Lilah!”

“I was just so angry. I’d been sick by myself for weeks, and then he turned up acting all odd. When I saw the picture I just assumed he was going to break up with me so I tried to protect myself. I didn’t realise he was not going to wait around to talk it through with me. Believe me, I hate myself for all of this.”

”That’s sodding rubbish and you know it. He would never hurt you. He loves you. Oh, my God Lilah. Does he think he is the reason you lost the baby just because you got so angry about that picture?”

Oh, that sounds bad when she says it like that.

“Yeah, I think so. He just left a note saying he was sorry.”

I can’t stop myself. I start to cry huge heaving sobs.

”So do you want to get back together with him?”

“I don’t think he loves me anymore. If he did he would have called wouldn’t he?” I sob some more. “He would have called?” I repeat mainly to myself.

“Mate, I don’t know either. You know he thought you were having a thing with Richard?”

I choke on a piece of pasta that is covered in hot sauce. It burns the whole way down. “What!”

“I think he was insanely jealous of all that time you spent doing your essays with him. And then he kept getting pictures of you guys.”

I interrupt her straight away. “What? Why didn’t you –” She holds her hand up to stop me.

“I think that is what Valentine’s was all about. I mean he never said, but why would he turn up like that, get your picture in the paper and then spend that day on campus acting like you guys were the most solid couple in the world? He was trying to get Richard to back off.”

I think about this.

“But I told him there was nothing going on. I was telling the truth.”

“Didn’t he tell you there was nothing going on with Miranda?”

“Well yeah, but …”

“No buts. You are both as bad as each other.”

“Anyway, Richard is a wanker,” she states with unexpected vehemence.

“Well maybe. He did go out with Barbie on Friday on a date, so wanker or not he clearly has no class.”

“Did he? He also snogged Jayne last night. I caught them at the Fez.”

This time I drop an entire forkful of pasta all over the floor. Kit pounces on it quick. Oh, well. Let’s hope he likes it spicy.

“No way. Is that why you came here? Did you and Jayne have a row?”

“Uh, not as such, I just walked out.”

“You still fancy her then?”

“It’s more than that. We have been, well. We have been kind of seeing each other.”

Nope, it’s no good. I am just going to have to put the pasta down.

“What?”

“Well, you know, on and off for the last couple of months.”

“What?”

“Lilah, don’t make this any harder.” She is bright red so I try and fail to make my face neutral.

“Oh, my God. You had the cheek to make me feel bad for lying, you bloody cow.”

“Well I guess it’s over now.” She shrugs like it is no big deal. I know she is now the one lying, but I am not going to push it.

“So what you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to stay here for a while?”

“Really?” Her face brightens.

“Why the hell not? The more the merrier, and anyway I have to hold you captive until the end of term now that you know my secret.”

This makes her laugh.

I pick up my bowl of pasta and start to eat again. As I shovel the now cold food into my mouth I think over our conversation. Something is niggling at the back of my mind. Not niggling as such, but more just not quite sitting right; like a bell that is ringing just not loud enough.

Then I have it.

“Why on earth did Ben have to come home at Valentine’s to make an ownership claim, or whatever it was you thought he was doing? I’d just written that big article for that magazine broadcasting my feelings to the entire frickin’ world.”

Beth shrugs some more. “Got any beer?”

Helpful.

“Yeah in the fridge. Go wild.”

Something is still niggling.

Beth is still in the fridge clinking bottles when it hits.

“Zoe!”

“Nope, Beth.”

“No, Zoe! You know Tristan’s connection at that publishing place! She can help me. I can see if I can write another article, make some sweeping romantic gesture about Ben, one that he will hopefully see.”

Beth pokes her head around the kitchen door.

“What on earth would you say? Oops a daisy, I am still pregnant, and I’m sorry I’m an insane, crazy, jealous person?”

“Close, but not quite. I will write about our first date. I will write about the moment that I knew that I was in love with him.”

“You can remember that? I thought you were drunk?”

“No! Oh, maybe a little bit, but I am going to make it sound like the best date ever.”

“Wasn’t it the best date ever?”

I think for a moment.

“Yes. Yes, it so was.”

“Excellent, what can I do to help? I need a distraction.”

“Go get my laptop. And under my bed there is an old jotter, my diary from last year. Go grab them while I make a call.”

I am going to call Zoe Benedict and I am going to beg her to let me write another article.

Just maybe someone will be able to help me.

I am just dialling her number when I hear Beth call out from my room.

“I can’t believe you called me Goth Chick last year, you are such a bitch.”

I laugh, a hysterical bubble of sound escaping from my lips.

“Bite me. What the fuck else was I going to call you?”

I make my telephone call and put my plan into action. Lucky for me Zoe is so loved up with that Tom guy she worked with she was all up for a sob story. She no longer works for the magazine but she said she would pull strings with the relevant people.

I am going to make the biggest romantic gesture that I can. I’m going to show Ben that even though we are not together anymore I still completely get the reasons why we were.

I’m pacing the room with excitement when I hear Beth walk back through. I turn to tell her the news but a loud screech escapes me instead.

“What the fuck have you done?”

Beth is standing there with all her Goth make-up on.

“Goth Chick is back,” she says.

“Uh, no she is fucking not,” I shout, marching her to the kitchen and using fairy liquid on her face to get all the gunk back off again.

After I have finished and we are still giggling away cleaning up the mess we have made, I turn to her and put my hands on her shoulders.

“You don’t need to be Goth Chick. You are beautiful and you don’t need to hide yourself,”

She gives me a half smile. “You know, I was a bit worried about your parenting skills. But maybe you won’t be too bad after all.”