Fractured(2)

‘Rachel, my lovely, how are you?’ I hugged her back, feeling momentarily choked to realise that soon I’d only be seeing her during the uni holidays and not every day, as we had done for all of our senior school years. Apart from Jimmy, she was my oldest friend. And however close Jimmy and I were, and had always been, there were still some topics of conversation that were reserved only for your girlfriends.

‘Sorry we’re late,’ Sarah apologised.

I gave her a wry smile. Sarah was always late. For a girl so naturally pretty, she still seemed to require an incredible amount of time getting ready to go out, with multiple hair and outfit changes before she could be persuaded to step away from the mirror. And she never seemed satisfied with the final effect, which was ridiculous, because with her heart-shaped face, her shiny brown curls and petite frame she always looked perfectly lovely.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ she asked, slipping her arm through mine and pulling me away from Matt to walk with her across the car park to the restaurant’s entrance. This was most likely to ensure that she made it in one piece across the tarmac with those ridiculously high stilettos, although it could have been to avoid watching Trevor and Phil’s knee-jerk reaction to Cathy as she climbed out of the car beside them.

‘Just long enough for Matt to piss Jimmy off,’ I replied in a voice low enough for only her to hear. She smiled knowingly.

‘Oh, no time at all then!’

By now we had reached the patioed doorway at the rear of the restaurant and stood waiting while the various boys in our group of friends (Matt included) all tried to pretend that they were not noticing the extremely inviting cleavage being displayed by Cathy’s low-cut top. Worn over skin-tight jeans and high-heeled sandals – which, to Sarah’s chagrin, she appeared to have no difficulty walking in – Cathy looked every inch as though she was off to a photo shoot. Long blond hair fell around her shoulders and everything about her seemed so perfectly put together that I instantly felt as though I’d got dressed in the dark with clothes that’d been thrown out from a charity shop.

Cathy had been a fairly new addition to our circle of friends. Prior to her arrival into our sixth form, our group had been a tight unit of Sarah and me and the four boys. I suppose the boy–girl ratio had been a bit unbalanced, but we’d all been mates for so long that it wasn’t an issue. That said, Cathy’s slow inclusion into our group had been welcomed quite vigorously by pretty much all of the boys, for obvious reasons. And, looks aside, Cathy was good fun to have around. Her family had moved to Great Bishopsford from a much larger town, and she had seemed much more worldly and clued-up than the rest of us. Added to that, she was extremely open and friendly with a wicked sense of humour and, when she wasn’t flirting outrageously with every male within a five-mile radius, I actually really liked her.

Sarah, though, had her reservations, and on more than one occasion, when Cathy had ruffled her feathers or stepped on her toes, I had heard her mutter darkly, ‘Last in. First out.’

When Jimmy sauntered across the car park to join us, Sarah stepped to one side and began to peruse the menu displayed inside a glassed-in case by the doorway. The others had all walked over to admire Matt’s car, or Cathy’s chest, I thought waspishly, as I watched her bend down low, supposedly to examine the alloy wheels. As if she cared about wheels!

‘You look much nicer than her,’ Jimmy whispered into my ear, knowing instantly what was on my mind.

‘Am I that easy to read?’ I asked, smiling back up at him. He gave me the grin I knew so well, the one that crinkled up the corners of his eyes and lit up his whole face.

‘Like a book,’ he confirmed, ‘but a good one.’

‘Like a battered old paperback, you mean, rather than a glossy magazine.’

He followed both my eyes and my analogy as we looked across to where Cathy was standing with Matt, listening raptly while he extolled something or other about the car.

‘You don’t have anything to worry about,’ Jimmy reassured me, giving my shoulder a brief friendly squeeze. ‘Matt would be crazy to look at her when he’s got you.’

‘Hmm,’ was all I managed in reply and was surprised to feel that the warmth of his words had ignited a small blush. I quickly turned away to avoid him seeing.

Catching my reflection in the restaurant’s window I didn’t feel my old friend was being entirely honest. Or if he was, then he seriously should think about getting his eyes tested. What I saw in the glass was certainly never going to elicit the kind of reaction from men that Cathy did. Long dark hair, fashionably poker straight, big eyes, that hardly functioned at all without their contact lenses, and lips that were a little too wide. It was a pleasant enough face, but not stunning and I was honest enough to know I was never going to stop traffic. And that had truly never worried me before, but since being with Matt, who was, let’s face it, undeniably gorgeous, I seemed more aware than ever of some of the shortcomings Mother Nature had dished up.