It Sounded Better in My Head - Nina Kenwood Page 0,73

I got my marks, I added teaching to my course preferences because…because it was something I might get into, something I might be good at. I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to be.’

‘You always said you wanted to be a lawyer.’

‘That’s what I said, yes.’

‘But it wasn’t true?’

‘I thought it was true. It’s what my parents want. They are so mad at me right now. But I don’t think I ever wanted to be a lawyer. Especially after I did work experience at that law firm. Do you know what a lawyer does all day? Reads really detailed, boring contracts, mostly, and sits in meetings and has conference calls. And they do this for, like, ten or twelve hours a day.’

‘That does sound boring.’ All office jobs sound boring, when you really think about it. I did work experience at the office of my local council, and people seemed to spend their time reading emails, complaining about emails, worrying about finding space in the fridge for their lunch and getting excited about coffee.

‘And you have to wear a suit. Suit jackets look ridiculous on me,’ Lucy continues. Neither of us has ever worn a suit jacket, not that I know of, but I nod anyway.

‘It’s because you’ve got very delicate shoulders.’

‘I like little kids. And I’m small, so I won’t be intimidating to them.’

‘That’s important,’ I say. I have exactly zero idea about what is important. When I first started school, every teacher looked like a giant to me.

‘Oh god, I have no idea what I’m doing,’ Lucy says.

‘I mean, we’re young. We should have no idea what we want to do.’

‘Well, I’m going to study teaching now, so I hope I know.’

‘You do. You know. I’m the one who doesn’t.’

I hug her, and she whimpers a little into my shoulder. I feel slightly dizzy, trying to comprehend the fact that Lucy, who never lies, lied about this. That she is going to be a teacher. I had already planned the gift I was going to give her when she graduated as a lawyer. I had planned our futures around the idea she would have much more money than me. I was going to be the creative one, the one struggling for money and living in the spare room of her beautiful house, and she was going to be the rich, cut-throat corporate sell-out who paid for our taxis and takeaway food, and was secretly jealous of my artistic struggles. Now the picture looks different. Now she’s going to inspire children and be deeply fulfilled, and I’ll just be directionless and unemployable.

‘I’m psycho. You’ll never trust me again after this,’ she says.

I can feel her shaking. I want to hug her forever. ‘I still trust you,’ I say.

‘You shouldn’t.’

‘I’ll always, always, always trust you.’

‘What if I keep lying? What if I can’t stop?’

‘Then we’ll find a way to make you stop.’

‘I haven’t told Zach.’

‘We’ll tell him together.’

‘No, no, I have to do it on my own.’

‘We’ll make a plan of how to do it. Look, I’ll get a pen right now and we’ll write down what you can say. We’ll role play it. You know I do a good Zach impression.’

‘He’ll break up with me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’ll never break up with you. He loves you.’

‘I knew I had to tell you both. I was going to do it on New Year’s Eve. But I couldn’t.’

‘Lucy, it’s okay. It’s none of our business what score you got, anyway.’

‘Yes, it is. I lied to you. That is unforgivable.’

‘Lucy, everything is going to be fine. Drink your tea. You’ll feel better.’

Lucy holds the mug in her hands, half-heartedly raising it to her lips and pretending to drink, and I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her, smiling encouragingly like I know how to fix everything.

29

Shiny Happy Party People

I’m at a fluro party.

Alex is wearing a neon yellow singlet and neon yellow sunglasses and he’s carrying a bright green water pistol and has neon yellow zinc stripes over his cheeks. Most of the girls are wearing hyper-coloured bikini tops, teeny, tiny denim shorts and wild eye makeup, with coloured hairspray and glitter and armfuls of fluro bracelets and glow-in-the-dark nail polish. Music is pumping, everyone looks drunk or high or overwhelmingly bright. It’s basically a rave party in somebody’s very expensive three-storey house, and I’m perched on the couch self-consciously yanking up my mother’s hot pink exercise top (the closest thing I could find to something fluro in