‘Why so negative? Pat hasn’t heard from you for three days now.’
‘And?’ I feel the anger rise.
‘Why are you punishing her?’
‘Look, Emily, as you’re so pally with my mum, you can tell her the self-righteous messages aren’t helping. You have no right to behave like this however upset you might be!’I do a mean imitation of Mum’s voice in a rough summary of her recent text.
‘Your mum’s the nicest possible, you don’t know how lucky…?’
I shake my head. Open mouthed. Stunned. How dare she gang up with Mum against me? How dare Mum? I whip out my phone and get Facebook up. De-friend Mum and wave the screen at Emily.
‘There, no longer friends with my darling mother.’
She folds her arms tight across her tits like armour. ‘Well, you’ve got Fran now, I always thought there was something between you two.’
‘What the fuck?’ Literally reeling from this shot.
‘All this, like brother like sister bollocks? You should see the way she looks at you.’
‘And this is your business how?’ My voice is a hoarse whisper.
‘So, you don’t deny it?’ She pulls her lips tight like she’s scored a point.
‘Deny? Of course, I, fuck’s sake Emily.’ I hold my head in my hands. What happened to my beautiful sweet girlfriend?
‘I’m sure you’ll both be very happy,’ she carries on in her shitty little smugness.
‘Oh, do fuck off. I literally don’t know what planet you’re on.’
‘Fine.’ She turns to go. ‘I thought we could be friends.’
‘So, be friendly, bitch.’ I shout as she scuttles away. I slam the door shut, lean against the wall to steady my racing heart.
I try to keep my face neutral as Fran looks questioning.
‘Was that Emily? Why didn’t she come in?’
‘Oh, she was in a hurry,’ I mumble, spooning the tomato on my pizza.
‘Well, what did she want?’ Fran moves to the sink. ‘Gethin?’
‘Oh, she, she actually wanted to pick up?’ First thing that comes into my head. ‘You know, as in weed?’
‘Emily’s coming to my house to score? That is so not on. Did you tell her she could?’ Fran doesn’t wait for me to answer, goes straight into a rant about how people might think her mum was dealing! Why would anyone think that?
‘Emily just thought I might have some…?’ is my weak response.
That dread feeling, like the time I blamed that kid for tearing the picture of the spaceship out of the school library book. What was I thinking saying Emily came to pick up? Dickhead!
‘You were shouting, what was that about?’ Fran moves towards me, wielding her knife.
Talk about digging a hole. I move back a step.
‘Fran, please, I just told her to go away. Really, it’s not such a big deal.’ My calmest calming voice.
‘Ha ha, big deal, very funny.’
I duly groan at the bad joke. Fran turns back to her pizza. Maybe I’m off the hook, if I can stop talking like an idiot.