Fully English

CHAPTER 20

So the story was, George caught Reece and I in a 'compromising' position at Markus' party and I threatened him with a gun to stop him telling Tasha. That's where his contempt for me stemmed. He remembered Tasha from when we first got high together and we were leaning on his car when Reece and her walked by. He put the pieces together and concluded that Reece was cheating on my best friend with me and freaked out.

Still I wondered if Tasha knew what happened, as incognito as she was, such gossip cannot go amiss.

What had I done? What had I done? What had I done?

This was every woman's worst nightmare – for her partner to cheat with her best friend and I'd fulfilled it by betraying girl code. Every petty inconvenience Tasha had placed upon me paled in comparison to this betrayal, this treason of friendship I'd committed. The gravity of what I've done hits me when I reach my flat and I begin bawling.

No wonder George hated me. I was a terrible person, drunk or not I had no right to do what I did, I was disgusting. Broken and dishevelled, I curl my body into a foetal position on my bed and rock haphazardly. I am so off-kilter that I slip from my quilt onto my carpet, pulling the bedsheets with me.

I land on my front and facing the space underneath my bed I see, stowed away behind my shoes, a treasure box that my counsellor Randy had advised to me make when I started my counselling sessions with her. Me, a whole 20 years old, making a treasure box, but I obliged and hoarded an empty shoebox, decorating it with ribbons and colours and stickers I'd ransacked from a local stationery store. Now dust had found its home on the colourful décor so it didn't pop as vividly as when I first made it. I reach for it, blow a stream of breath, manoeuvring the dust with a flat bare hand until I could see the writing I'd scrawled with multi-coloured sharpies on the lid – MEMORIES.

I pulled the lid off to reveal many keepsakes: my hospital wristband bracelet, separate pictures of me alone, me with mum, me with dad and me with Tasha. Underneath was a CD on which my father videoed my mother's labour, the sound of my heartbeat on the ECG in the incubator – my proof of life. At the bottom of the box is a tall, forgotten stack of personalised and trademark Get Well Soon cards I'd amassed from my short hospital stay. I sift through them slowly, not opening any one of them but just fingering through. In the other corner is a floral diary I used to document my emotions as a teenager but the jewellery beneath it is what catches my attention. Glinting in the light is a friendship bracelet Tasha had bought for me to wear for prom: one of my most prized possessions – so special I never wore it again. Now I had the urge to never let it go. It reminded me of the good – when times weren't so hard. Before all of the unimaginable happened.

FLASHBACK

I walk up to the driveway of my best friend's grand home and prepare to knock on the door: both her mother and father's cars sit on the driveway so I know I can't be my usual goofy self when I enter. Not that I was that laidback when at her place but at least when it was just her mother in the house I could afford to lower my guard a bit, her dad however was a different story.

My knuckles drum the front doors and I press the bell.

A minute or so passes until I see Tasha's mother's silhouette in the glass.

"Natasha!" My trained ear knows that this holler is a call to attention for Tasha to come downstairs and greet me at the door. Seconds later I am being welcomed in by mother and daughter – both in equally expensive dressing gowns and slippers.

Tasha's dad lugs the suitcase I have brought up the stairs until I reach the landing and he disappears without a word. I make my way to Tasha's room at the far end of the corridor and see she is far more prepared for prom than I am. Laid down on the bed is her prom dress – pressed to perfection, a curling wand sits heating on a mat on her dresser, make up products are gathered in a pile in front of her vanity mirror and her shoes sit near the door where I stand.