Lucy King – The Reunion Lie (страница 2)

Sitting in front of her computer, her spreadsheet blurring in front of her eyes as the memories kept coming, Zoe had sworn she could still feel the tiny bruises from the sneaky pinches and the sharp pain from the surreptitious kicks she’d received on an almost daily basis. She’d thought she could still hear the snip of the scissors as one afternoon, while she’d been working head down at her desk concentrating so hard she’d been oblivious to anything else, they’d cut through the long shiny ponytail she’d had since she was six.

Mostly, though, she kept reliving the awful night following the one and only time she’d dared to retaliate, when she’d been pinned down and had had ouzo poured down her throat. She’d been found by the caretaker stumbling around the grounds at midnight, singing—badly—at the top of her voice, and taken straight to the headmistress, and as a result had been suspended a month before her A levels.

It had not been a good time, and even though she’d got over it all years ago the last thing she needed was an evening spent with fifty-odd reminders of what had definitely not been the happiest days of her life.

But then at some point during the last week or so, her previously rock-solid conviction that she was right not to attend the reunion had begun to wobble. The more she’d dwelled on what had happened, the more she’d begun to regret the fact that she’d done so little to stop it. OK, so it wasn’t as if she were going home to her parents every evening and had been able to confide in them, but with hindsight she could have told someone.

Why she hadn’t had started to bother her. What it said about her she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. And as if the tendrils of doubt, self-recrimination and denial that were winding through her weren’t enough, she’d begun to be hassled by an image of her sixteen-year-old self, standing there with her hands on her hips and pointing out that now would be the perfect opportunity to redress a balance that should have never been allowed to become so skewed in the first place.

Go and show them, the little voice inside her head had demanded with increasing insistence. Go and show them how well you’ve done, that despite their best efforts to batter your confidence and destroy your self-belief they couldn’t. Go and show them they didn’t win.

She’d tried to resist because she’d risen above what had happened long ago, she really had, and besides, she loathed conflict, hated having to make conversation and avoided social occasions like the plague and the combination of all three might well finish her off. But that little voice wouldn’t shut up, and in the end she’d come to the conclusion that she owed it to her teenage self at the very least to try and make amends because, quite apart from anything else, if she didn’t she wouldn’t have a moment’s peace.

So she’d emailed the girl organising the reunion to tell her she’d changed her mind, and that was why, fizzing with adrenalin, buzzing with fighting spirit and brimming with a confidence she rarely felt when confronted with the idea of people, she’d wriggled into a little black dress and heels and then trekked across the city to the gastro-pub in Chelsea on this late September Thursday night instead of spending the evening at home snuggling up to her laptop in her pyjamas as usual.

But if she’d known things weren’t going to work out as she’d anticipated, if she’d known she was going to wind up drinking disgustingly warm wine while having to endure a whole load of ‘do you remember when’s and being made to feel inadequate, as if somehow she’d failed simply because she hadn’t procreated, then she wouldn’t have bothered.

Zoe drained what was left of the wine in her glass and set her jaw. She knew she hadn’t failed. She’d achieved way more than many other women of her age and she was proud of the success she’d made of her life.

And so what if she wasn’t married and didn’t have children? And who cared if she had abysmal luck on the boyfriend front? She had a career she adored, supportive and loving parents and a great sister. While she wasn’t averse to the odd date or two and possibly a relationship at some stage, she didn’t need a man to complete her life, and she certainly wasn’t sure she wanted the chaos and mess and general disruption that children caused.

No, she was perfectly content with the way things were and therefore she had no need to feel insignificant. No need to feel inferior or inadequate. No need to let herself be affected by the opinions of a bunch of women who shouldn’t—no, didn’t—matter.

And yet...

As the conversation drifted on around her, once again casually dismissing her achievements as of no consequence and instead turning to the stellar accomplishments of husbands and children, Zoe felt what was left of the adrenalin and confidence drain away, leaving a kind of desperate despair she hadn’t experienced for fifteen years.

All she’d wanted to do tonight was exact retribution for everything she’d had to go through. All she’d wanted to do was impress the girls who’d tried so hard to stamp her out, stun them with her success and make them jealous of her for a change, but she hadn’t even been able to do that. The only kind of success anyone here would be impressed by was the marital kind, and that she didn’t have.

Retribution, it seemed, was no more within reach than it had been fifteen years ago. There was no redressing of any balance and there were no looks of envy being cast her way, and just like that she sank into deep despondency.

These women hadn’t changed, and nor, it appeared, had she, because despite managing to convince herself otherwise, despite all her professional achievements and industry accolades and the self-assurance she’d gained through them, she still cared what a bunch of over-privileged and underachieving housewives thought of her. They still had the ability to demolish her self-esteem, which was pretty shaky at the best of times, with nothing more than the curl of a lip and the arch of an eyebrow, and they could still make a mockery of her confidence.

That she wasn’t as over her school experiences as she’d so blithely assumed was a pretty devastating discovery and Zoe felt her chest tighten with something that felt a lot like panic as the questions began to ricochet around her head.

Why hadn’t she changed? Why did it still matter what they thought? Would she ever not? Above all, was there anything she could do to fight back?

The talk turned to biological clocks, career women and what their lives must be lacking by being single—accompanied by several pointed looks in her direction. And whether it was a great tangle of fifteen-year-old emotion that was churning around inside her or the confusion or the panic at the thought that she wasn’t nearly as in control as she’d envisaged she didn’t know, but adrenalin was suddenly pounding through her once again. The blood was rushing in her ears and her heart was thundering, and unable to stop, unable even to think about what she was doing, she found herself raising her eyebrows and saying in a cool voice that didn’t sound anything like hers, ‘Who said anything about being single?’

TWO

If he’d known his usually fairly quiet and staid local pub was going to be taken over by a gaggle of expensively turned out but very loud and loquacious women Dan would have suggested somewhere else to meet Pete because the sickly combination of scents that filled the air was making his stomach churn, the noise level was making his head throb and none of it was conducive to a catch-up over a few drinks and a bite to eat with a friend he hadn’t seen for months.

As it was, however, Pete had texted him to say he was running late and had then gone incommunicado, so unfortunately he didn’t have any choice but to arm himself with a pint, find a table on the other side of the pub and if possible block out the racket and the toxicity of the air until Pete arrived and they could make their escape.

With that aim in mind, Dan shrugged off his jacket and pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and then, bracing himself, began to make his way to the far and marginally less crowded end of the bar.

He was so focused on his destination, so intent on ignoring the women and the noise that he didn’t notice one of their party clap eyes on him and suddenly smile. Nor did he see her put down her drink, extricate herself from the melee and make a beeline for him.

In fact he didn’t notice anything about her at all until she was standing right in front of him, stopping him in his tracks and flashing him a dazzling smile, and then it was pretty impossible not to notice her.

Dan didn’t have a chance to mutter an ‘excuse me’ and step to one side. He didn’t have time to wonder why she was standing so close nor why her smile was so bright. He didn’t even have a chance to check her out properly.

All he got was a fleeting impression of blonde hair, dark eyes and an overall sense of attractiveness before she flung her arms round his neck, plastered herself against him and gave him the kind of kiss that he’d have considered more appropriate if they were naked and in private.