Remix (15 page)

The game is on.

Neither one of us has mentioned last night, or our moment in the Grundiiz crowd. We’re both playing each other now, standing by the poster-lined panels around the edge of the arena, away from the crowds.

Stu asks me to turn round so he can look at my faux-tattoo. He studies the pattern as if it’s real, touching my jaw to tilt my head so he can see where the design tapers up my jugular. I wonder if he can see my pulse speeding up.

“It’s cool.”

“Thank you. I think so too.”

The way he looks at me is unmistakable and he leans in close, saying nothing, watching me. Waiting. I can’t stop thinking of all the things we used to do that brought us this close, my brain blocking out the fact that he gets this kind of close with a lot of girls.

Or maybe I haven’t blocked it out. When it feels this good to be near him, maybe I don’t care.

“What do you think’s going to happen now?” he says.

“I don’t think anything’s going to happen.” I keep my voice calm.

Stu smiles and there’s a rush of breath as if he’s laughing. “You really think I don’t know what you’re playing at?”

“You think this is playing?” My lips are perfectly angled for a kiss.

“You’re telling me it isn’t? Standing
just
where I can see you in the crowd, one shoulder bare…” He gently brushes his little finger down from my jaw around the perimeter of the jagua. It takes everything I have in me to stop myself from trembling with excitement. “Wearing my favourite bra.” The finger runs down from my shoulder to the top of my bra. The one I hairdryer-ed yesterday morning. A million years ago.

“What makes you think that’s anything to do with you?” I catch his eye and go for a defiant glare. I’m not sure I pull it off – I’m not exactly wanting to defy him.

“Nothing.” His hand sweeps under the hem of my vest, fingertips gliding up to rest in the small of my back, all the time watching my face, searching for a response.

“What are you doing?” I whisper and the corner of his mouth curls up in a lazy, arrogant half-smile as he closes the distance between his mouth and mine.

And I give in. I want him so much – so
very
much that I’ve run out of strength to deny it. I practically throw myself at him, ready to kiss him back, my hand tentatively shifting from the safety of my pocket towards the danger zone of Stu’s body. All I can think about is what it will feel like to have his lips on mine and his tongue in my mouth and his hands on my body and I’m ready to give up the pretence when I feel him stop, his mouth resting on mine and I implode with wanting him.

Then he kisses me.

Days, weeks, a month and a half of carefully constructed defences are blown open and my hand is under his vest, gripping his skin and pulling him into me. His fingers press into my back, and his other hand comes down from its resting place on the boards to hold the back of my head and I can feel the rise and fall of his ribcage as he breathes hot and cold on my cheek—

Until he takes a step back. No longer in my hair or on my back, both hands are now resting on either side of my face in a way I don’t like. This is the way he would hold me before he said something I didn’t want to hear.

“What are you doing, Stu?” My voice, which I want to be breathy and sexy, sounds worried.

“Oh, you are so far from over me, whatever you pretend to everyone else.” When he smiles it is a self-satisfied smirk and I want to punch him just as much as I want to devour him. I hate him and I want him and I wish I could not feel anything for him.

“What the
fuck
?” I shove him in the chest, but he doesn’t move and I’m the one that bounces backwards. “You’re the one that kissed me!”

“Ruby…” Stu frowns and gives me a patronizing smile. “We both know that’s not true.”

“You tricked me!”

“Can’t trick someone into kissing you if they don’t want to.” He’s grinning again and I want to slap him. “I know that look. Don’t even think about it.”

The one time I did slap him we had a massive fight about how it is not OK for me to lash out at people. And I know it isn’t. I don’t want to lash out at
people
. I just want to lash out at Stu. There’s no one else who makes me angry enough.

“You’re such a shithead!” I hiss.

“But such a sexy one.” Stu edges closer and I push him away.

“Do you want me or not?” I snap, immediately regretting it. How am I just putting it out there for him to decide?

Stu shrugs, still grinning.

All my fight evaporates in an instant. Is this really all I am to him? Just a joke, a point to be proved, a score to settle?

Well, I’m not prepared to be any of those things. That kiss, no matter how good, how much I wanted it, is not worth what he’s charging.

Saying nothing, I step round him, careful not to so much as brush against the hairs on his arm as I pass. I hear him say my name, a
come on
that follows me like an unwelcome smell as I walk away from him.

Fuck him.

FUCK. HIM.

It’s peaceful on the hill without Ruby to disrupt things – something that I feel a little guilty for noticing. When I sent her a text to let her know that this was where we’d be, she replied with a picture of a peculiar-looking mole, which is vaguely promising. If she rejoins with some semblance of civility towards Lauren, I know I won’t say anything more on the matter. The encounter with Sebastian and the feel of sun on my skin have put me in a forgiving mood.

People are standing as far back as the big screen, waiting for the act on the main stage, and Owen, Dongle and Anna are somewhere in the crowd, leaving more room for me, Lauren, Lee and Parvati. When Lauren goes to get a drink, I stay, lying back on the rug, my eyes shaded against the sun, letting the conversation wash over me, swelling in and out of the music that’s started up. Tom told Lauren that Naj had only just got beyond triage, which means they’ll be hours yet – something I feel oddly glad about.

“Where’s your pain-in-the-arse sister anyway?” Parvati says to Lee, the pair of them stretched out across two blankets.

“Back off, Parvati,” Lee says.

“Don’t feel you need to defend her on my account,” I reassure him.

“I wasn’t.” Lee is sitting up against the slope of the hill, his profile in sharp relief to the sky behind. I’m so used to him smiling all the time that seeing him sad is like looking at a different person. “Ruby’s not having the best time of it.”

For a moment I think he means this weekend and I’m about to point out that the root cause of that problem is Ruby herself – even she would deny the Stu excuse I keep trotting out. But as I open my mouth to say this, Lee turns to look at me and I shut it with a hollow pop.

Lee isn’t talking about Remix – he’s talking about the whole summer. When we put our pens down at the end of the final exam, everything was supposed to get better, but for Ruby things have only grown worse. First she had to hear about Stu, then deal with the fallout whilst I was away with the choir. Then her results came along and snatched away the future Ruby had mapped out in her head.

Whatever happens next – whether she wins the battle of wills against her parents and leaves Flickers for good, or comes back to resit – Ruby won’t have me to support her at school, nor Lee to fight her corner at home. Ruby has never looked forward to her brother leaving, but now it seems like it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Four days from now and he’ll be gone, and Ruby will have to face her future on her own.

I’m steaming mad about what happened with Stu, but I don’t know what to do about it. Tell Kaz that I went looking for trouble and got burned? For starters, I don’t think I’ve quite been forgiven for the Lauren strop.
See you back on the hill
is not the friendliest text in the world and my picture of a star-nosed mole didn’t even get a response. Plus Kaz is hardly likely to be tea and sympathy after all that shouting I did last night on the matter of
her
ex…

She might be more understanding if I told her the truth – that I have been totally lying to myself about being over Stu – but we all know that’s not going to happen.

From here I can see Lee, Parvati, Kaz and Lauren on the rugs, and Dongle, Anna and Owen coming back from wherever they’ve been. I should be there, with them, not standing here watching. How did I get here? So far away from the people I want to be with.

I pull my phone from my pocket and delete the missed call from Stu and the text he sent that I haven’t read. I might have deleted his name from my contacts list, but I still recognize his number – one of three that I know off by heart. I open up my list and dither between “L” and “K”.

Then I dial.

“I need a hug.” My voice wobbles as I try and keep it together. I don’t cry.

Lee gets up as Owen goes to sit down with a “I’m not avoiding you”.

Owen’s “That’s not what it looks like” is easier to catch, although no one but me seems to notice. Not even Lee. I try and catch Owen’s eye, but he’s looking away up the hill, watching his boyfriend walk away.

His expression is one I recognize.

Owen is looking at Lee the way I’ve been looking at Tom: as if he is the one thing in the world that he can’t have.

As Lee gets closer I can see he’s caught the sun across the tops of his cheeks and his freckles are blurring together. He pulls me into his bony chest, arms warm and safe around me and I bury my face in his vest and breathe there quietly, letting it out before it turns into tears. When I fight with my parents about school, when Callum winds me up about things in the news or when Ed dropped me on my face during a piggy-back race and broke my nose – it has always been Lee who’s there to put me back together. Guess I’m going to have to learn how to do this myself once he’s gone.

“It’s all right, Ruby,” he murmurs, not asking me anything, letting me be whatever it is I want to be, even if all I want is to be sad. We stay like this until I feel I can talk again. I don’t tell him about Stu, or how upset I am with Kaz. Instead, I ask about him and Owen, thinking of the hug I saw last night, wanting to hear something nice about someone else’s life now everything in mine is going to shit. Lee tenses slightly, but he’s smiling when he says he hasn’t seen much of Owen, who’s been “off on a mission to sweat in as many crowds as possible”.

“Don’t you want to see any of the bands?”

Lee shrugs pink shoulders and fiddles with his watch. “Not that fussed. This weekend is about more than the music.”

“I came here to share it with my best mate and look how well that’s turned out.”

Lee looks at me for a moment, measuring how much I won’t like what he’s planning on saying. “Ruby. You’re acting like a dick about Lauren. Really you are. She’s harmless.”

“So say you. How would you feel if Owen was hanging out with some guy who kept telling him how awesome he was at guitar, how buff he was and what great taste he has in music?”

I think I’m making a good point, but Lee looks nonplussed. “Boyfriends aren’t for sharesies. But the same does not go for friends – even the ones you love best.”

“Why not?” It’s out before I can stop it. “How come I have to share everyone I love?”

“Everyone?”

“I have to share you with your wanderlust. I have to share Kaz with Lauren. I have to share Stu with every girl in the whole of the rest of the world.”

“You didn’t love St—”

“That’s not the point!”
I’m being unreasonable, but I can’t help it. “I want to be enough for someone, all right? Enough for you to stay in the stupid fucking country, enough for Kaz not to need Lauren, enough for Stu to stay faithful!”

“I don’t know what—”

“I just want to be good enough for a change for
anyone
.” I’d even settle for it to be my parents. Tears are threatening to flood my eyes, but I refuse to let them.

“Let’s go back to the others,” Lee says quietly. “You need to talk to Kaz.”

“Because talking to you made me feel so great.” It’s a mean thing to say and I deserve the look I get.

“Whatever you think that was, it was not you talking to me. It was you venting. I’m not Kaz. I’m not Stu.” He steps closer, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “You are my little sister, and no matter how important you are to me, you can’t be ‘enough’ for me to pass up on a chance to travel the world. I don’t believe you want it to be any different, no matter how hormonal you’re being.”

I stare at the floor. The toe of my boot is inches away from Lee’s left foot and I edge it forwards, gently kicking my foot against his. “Such a bloody know-it-all,” I mutter and he swings an arm around me, pulling me back down the hill and whispering, “I’m going to miss you too, Rubik’s Pube.”

I will not miss all his stupid nicknames.

Lauren has insisted that she can braid my hair to look just like the girl in one of the series of street-style pictures posted on the Festblog feed. I hadn’t realized that by commenting how good that style looked I was asking to model it myself. Mostly I prefer to wear my hair down.

There’s no talking Lauren out of something.

Suppressing a wince at how tightly she’s pulling on my scalp, I think how odd it is to be the one having her hair done. In junior school you were either a plaiter or a plaitee and I was
always
the former, and (since my previous school was even less diverse than Flickers) I was also subject to a lovely bit of racism when one girl told me that no one knew how to make my weird hair look good. The upside is that I’m pretty good at hairdressing and when Ruby had the notion to cut all her hair off, I was the one she asked to do it. Despite the fact that she hates having her hair short, it’s not because it looks bad. Actually, when I catch sight of her walking towards us, tucked neatly in the crook of Lee’s elbow, I think how good her hair’s looking now it’s grown out slightly.

I feel the tug and twist as Lauren plaits the remaining section of hair, using the last of the spare hair ties that we’ve cobbled together between Anna, Lauren and Dongle (who pretends they’re Anna’s spares even though I saw him tie his hair back at camp when he brushed his teeth). I turn round and all three of them give me the thumbs up.