so quickly, but if you’re honest, you’ve always been a little bit in love with Greg Smith,’ I say.
I should tell her to leave. I should maintain what dignity I can, which isn’t much considering I’m wearing a blanket and the smell of last night’s drinking. But my family is pretty shit at dignity as well as love, so I think: fuck dignity. Dignity is not in my genes.
‘See, this is why I’m confused. Because when you told me you loved me, in this bookshop, you didn’t say, “I love you but if I’m honest, I’m also a little bit in love with that moron, Greg Smith.” I’d remember that. You just said, “I love you, Henry.” And when we bought the plane tickets, and I used all my money, you didn’t say, “Keep in mind, I’m also a little bit in love with Greg Smith.’’’
‘You used all your money and some of mine,’ she says, and this feels pointed and I know I’m right and she’s choosing Greg over me because I’m broke. ‘It’s because of where I work, isn’t it? It’s because of how much I earn.’ Or, how much I don’t earn. ‘Is it that I live with my family? Is it because I drove you to the formal in the bookshop van?’
‘Henry,’ she says, like I’m being ridiculous.
But I know her. I know her expressions. I know the one she’s wearing now: it’s pity. I’ve seen it on her face when she’s watching documentaries about stray animals that no one wants. I’m a hundred per cent right about why she chose Greg Smith. He’s richer, he’s neater, he’s going to university.
‘You’re a great friend. But we’re not in high school anymore.’
‘So I am right.’
‘No,’ she says, when clearly she doesn’t mean it. She shakes her head, trying to find the answer for me. ‘He’s the one I always saw myself with. You know, at university. Doing things.’
‘What things?’ I ask.
She puts her hand on my arm for a second, lets me feel the warmth of her. She looks past me into the bookshop, and says, ‘There’s always Rachel.’
‘Rachel and I are friends. Just friends. It’s you,’ I tell her. ‘You.’
She smiles and holds my arm a little tighter.
‘What if I changed?’ I ask, and she hesitates before she answers.
‘I don’t think it would matter. It wouldn’t matter,’ she says, but it’s the first part of that answer that’s the truth. She doesn’t think it would matter, meaning it might matter. It could matter. Before she leaves I make her promise that if I change, and it does matter, that she’ll come back.
She kisses me goodbye and I decide to take it for a yes.
There’s not one part of me that doesn’t hurt this morning: my teeth, my head, my heart, my pride, my eyeballs. The backs of my eyeballs hurt. I put my head under the water stream and try to wash out the thought of Amy always being a little bit in love with Greg.
I get out and dry off, then sit on the edge of the bath, and let the leftover steam clear my head. Dad walks in as it’s clearing and asks if he can use the mirror.
‘Rachel told me about Amy,’ he says.
‘She’s only with Greg temporarily.’
‘Sometimes you have to let go, Henry,’ he says, tapping his razor on the side of the sink. He doesn’t believe that, though. If he did, he’d be moving on with his life instead of re-reading Great Expectations and hoping for another chance with Mum.
I watch him making roads through the foam on his face, trying to figure out how to say what I want to say, now that I’m certain I want to say it. ‘How much would we get, Dad?’ I ask.
‘We own the building, Henry. It’s double-storeyed with a big backyard. I’d say well over a million.’
I go quiet while he finishes off his face, wiping it with the towel that I pass him. ‘It’s okay to want to sell,’ he says.
In my perfect world I wouldn’t worry about money. In my perfect world, books would be with us forever, and everyone would love the second-hand ones as much as Dad and George and I do. Amy would love them. But it’s not my perfect world. ‘I think maybe we should sell. Mum thinks we should, and she knows about the business.’
He nods, and waits. Because I can’t answer with a maybe. It’s a yes-or-no question. It reminds me of how he told