Remix. Part 11

It hurts.

There's a steady pulse in my right temple and my eyelids are gummed together with mascara and reluctance to function. My fuzzed tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth and I feel like I've just exhaled gas that is one part rotten eggs to five parts processed alcohol.

Injustice flickers in my thoughts, but when I try and add up how much I drank, I get a bit lost. My indignation lowers its head and edges away, allowing humiliation to step up to the plate as I think of all the terrible things I said to Kaz. Groaning, I roll over and knock into a Ma.s.sIVE bottle of water with a paper cup resting on the lid. There's a message written on the cup: DRINK ME.

On the floor next to that, there's a packet of paracetamol with EAT ME written on it and then, (BUT ONLY THE RECOMMENDED DOSE!) in tiny little letters underneath. Kaz's sleeping bag has been neatly folded over, her pyjamas sitting on top like towels on a hotel pillow, but other than this there's no sign of her. I can't remember her coming in last night... Once medicated, I pull on Ed's ma.s.sive hoodie that I've been using as a pillow and shuffle out of the tent and into the sun, prepared to ride out whatever looks I get from the others about how weird I acted last night.

Lee's the only person here.

"You look rough," is the first thing he says. I'd stick my tongue out at him, but that feels like effort.

"Where's everyone else?" I croak.

"Gone showering."

"All of them?" By which I mean Kaz?! It's not like her to shower with relative strangers, although she is a bit of a clean freak.

Lee can see I'm struggling with the thinking. "They've gone off-site to do it somewhere hot and private. And to pick up McDonald's."

This time I really am baffled. I lift my arm and wave at the nearest line of burger vans before I collapse onto the floor next to Lee.

"They probably wanted to escape the smell. You stink, Rubbuteo."

He might have a point. I close my eyes and enjoy not moving.

"Don't fall asleep." Lee prods me in the cheek and I open my eyes to see a wicked smile that promises nothing but pain. "I know something that'll sort you out."

KAZ.

The shower is on its hottest setting and my skin's blotchy from the heat as I stand under the stream and cry.

It doesn't matter how many times I've tried to tell myself that I lost my virginity to the boy I love, what I've really done is have s.e.x with another girl's boyfriend.

I should have asked him.

It's too late now. The memories of what we did burst across my brain all the excitement and desire now tempered with shame.

And misery. Because for all I feel appallingly, devastatingly guilty for what I've done, I feel sadder still that the boy I have always loved replaced me so quickly. He didn't even care enough to be honest with me.

"Kaz? Are you in there?" It's Anna.

"Yes, sorry. Coming!" I lift my face into the stream of scorching water and wash away the evidence of my misery before I switch the shower off and dry myself with the free gym towel. G.o.d bless Parvati for her expensive gym members.h.i.+p and willingness to give one of her promotional guest pa.s.ses to me despite the fact that she doesn't even know my real name. My pa.s.s says CAROLINE on it.

The other two are dressed and waiting as I dart into a cubicle. My clothes stick to my still-damp skin as I pull them on, not wanting to delay the girls more than I have to. By the time I emerge, my top lip is coated in perspiration.

"You all right?" Anna asks, looking at me closely, and I catch sight of my mottled reflection.

"I'm fine!" I smile and nod as if moving will make it harder for her to see that I'm lying. "Just a bit hot in here..."

Parvati nods. "It's always baking in the changing room and I'm still steaming from the booze. Let's get out of here."

I wish I could stay.

RUBY.

No doubt inspired by the summer that Ed instigated the Drench Ruby Rule when I couldn't set foot in the back garden without someone throwing a bucket of water at me Lee's idea is for me to stand by the water point in my bikini whilst he uses a saucepan to chuck water at me.

It has the desired effect.

The second the water hits my skin, my hangover's forgotten. What starts out as a "shower" soon turns into a full-on water fight, involving everyone within splas.h.i.+ng distance of the taps, and by the time the attendant manning the water point comes over to break it up, I can barely breathe for laughing/screaming/shouting.

Mood lifted, skin cleansed, I walk back with Lee.

"Were you planning on telling me what happened last night, or were you just going to pretend everything's fine?" Lee's voice is quiet and he steps close enough that I can almost feel the water evaporating from his skin.

"I could ask the same of you." I glance up, but Lee's eyes are on the ground. He can poker-face it better than Gaga when he wants to.

"I'm serious, p.u.b.es." Lee b.u.mps my arm. "Parvati told me that there was a spin-the-bottle incident involving Stu. She told me you were angry that you had to kiss him."

That's one way of putting it, I suppose. The easy way.

"I thought it was over," I say, closing my eyes, permitting myself a heartbeat of remembering.

"And it isn't?" Lee asks.

"It has to be," I answer.

KAZ.

Owen and Dongle are waiting outside with hot(ish) McDonald's. Parvati tells us we're not allowed to eat it in her mum's car, so we all end up sitting in a line on the wall around the corner from the exclusive gym. A group of toned and tanned ladies dressed in expensive leggings and branded T-s.h.i.+rts give us looks that range from disapproval to sympathy as they walk past, Pilates mats rolled up under their arms. We aren't exactly an attractive bunch: Dongle's sweating through the grey vest he put on; Anna and Parvati are still looking peaky despite the shower, their meal punctuated by the occasional sigh as if eating is tiring. Of the two of us who aren't hungover, I'm blotchy and miserable and Owen just looks plain miserable.

I don't know what Owen's excuse is, but every bite of my hash brown is a battle against the rising sickness I feel at the thought of Tom's hands on another girl's skin, him kissing her the way he kissed me last night...

When I look down, the hash brown I'm holding has turned into a potatoey mush between my fingers.

Back at the campsite, I stop off to collect my phone from the charging tent I'll have to remind Ruby to do hers later. It's exactly the sort of thing she'll leave until it's too late. There's a new message from Mum.

Someone's written FLEAS!!! on the kitchen calendar. Am I supposed to know why? Do I have fleas? Do you? I can't think it's your sister.

I message back telling her that Morag's flea treatment is under the sink, signing off by reminding her to wash her hands afterwards and telling her that I love her. What I want to do is ring her and cry down the phone, confessing what I've done, but I'm not sure that will help. Mum is pretty hard-hearted when it comes to relations.h.i.+ps she was happier when I told her I'd broken up with Tom than when I told her I was in love with him and I envisage words of comfort that can be translated into the English language as "I told you so".

Then, because I obviously have a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic streak a mile wide, I reread Tom's messages that were waiting for me when I turned my phone back on first thing this morning, before I'd even unzipped my sleeping bag.

Kaz, I want you to know that the only mistake I've made was to break up with you in the first place. I want to be with you. Give me the weekend to make things right, OK?

The next message is shorter: Please don't hate me.

The problem is that I don't hate him I hate myself ...

His last message is shorter still: I love you.

... because I love him too. Still.

RUBY.

The others get back just as I'm finis.h.i.+ng my make-up. Ruffling my fingers through the back of the hair that I hate, I figure I'll do. As I've told Kaz a thousand times, it isn't what you've got that matters, it's how you work it.

The thought of facing Kaz jabs at my insides like someone's out there working a Ruby Kalinski voodoo doll. I can't stop thinking about how we left things last night jab after I took my rage at myself out on the person I love the most jab, jab, jab how I made my best friend cry because I couldn't carving knife of guilt straight to the heart.

I have got to make this right.

KAZ.

Ruby emerges from the tent dressed in her ubiquitous cut-offs and the string vest she bought last week from the Army & Navy Store, bright purple bra contrasting beneath. She's wearing a sweep of khaki eyeliner to match the vest, but it looks fresher, cleaner than yesterday's. When she sees me, she repositions the two kirby grips she's holding in her lips to look like fangs then gives me a vampire smile as she twists her hair away from her face.

This is the Ruby I'm used to.

"Present for you." I hold out a crumpled brown bag that she falls on like a starving seagull, ripping the paper in her haste to get to what's inside. It's not a pretty sight, but it's a welcome one my plan for today is to make sure Ruby eats more than she drinks. I'm not making any excuses for her, but I don't think yesterday's alcohol consumption helped matters.

"How are you feeling?" I ask, sitting next to her on the gra.s.s in front of our tent.

"A bajillionty times better thanks to you." Ruby looks around, as if checking we're alone. We're not, but the others are cl.u.s.tered on the other side of the dead fire. "And I'm sorry. So sorry. I'm sober and using my indoor voice and" she reaches out to lay her hands on my shoulders, tilting me towards her so I can see how earnest she is "I get why you tried to protect me from Stu and that's what I thought I was doing with Tom, only I'm sorry, because it's not very protective to shout such mean stuff at you and a lot of it wasn't really that true, except about his trousers, and if you want to be with Tom-" She stops as I start to shake, my eyes squeezed shut against the tears that are welling up. "Kaz? Are you all right? What's wrong? Oh G.o.d, I'm so sorry."

I shake my head and a fragment of a teardrop flies from the corner of my eye. I don't say anything, but I don't need to. Ruby's there already, her arms around me so that no one else will know I'm crying. Sniffing, dabbing at my nose with one of the napkins that Ruby's shoved at me, I sit back up and face her.

"You were right. Tom's seeing someone else."

Ruby's face is a battlefield of emotions despair, triumph, sympathy, sadness before she settles on the safest, the one she's always latched on to because it's the easiest to feel.

Anger.

"What a c.o.c.kwomble!" Ruby gently punches her fist into her palm. "Want me to hurt him? I know how to make it look like an accident..."

RUBY.

At least she can laugh. That's got to count for something. We hug again and when Kaz gives me a squeeze, she whispers her own apology.

"Sorry I didn't listen to you."

I squeeze her tight. "Don't worry about it. No harm done, right? Unless you want me to cause harm? I was serious about hurting him."

KAZ.