By that point I hadn’t spoken to Pearl like I’d planned, I’d let it all fester inside me instead, and avoided the girls as much as I could. On hearing that Ben was seeing Alice, that he was developing actual feelings for her, I decided I needed to talk to someone. I tiptoed across the landing to her room and knocked on her bedroom door.
‘Pearl?’ I whispered.
‘All right, darling,’ she growled. ‘Come in.’
She was at her desk in her pyjamas, with books and loose pieces of crumpled paper covered in handwritten notes surrounding her. Her hair was gathered in a crazy pineapple at the top of her head – her favourite way of keeping it out of her face while she worked.
‘Revising?’
‘Doing what I can, but I fear it’s a case of too little too late,’ she said, swivelling in her chair and turning to face me.
I must have looked as troubled as I felt – as soon as she saw my face her own curled downwards in a frown.
‘Dude! What’s up?’ she asked, as she stood up, took me by the arm, and led me to her bed to sit down.
‘I don’t even know where to start, Pearl,’ I said, crossing my legs and picking up one of her pillows to hug, burying my face in it.
‘Tell me. Is it all this stuff with Robert?’
‘Yes and no,’ I said, looking up at her.
‘Go on …’
‘I kissed Ben.’
Unshockable Pearl’s jaw dropped. ‘What? When?’
It’s one thing admitting to yourself that you’ve done something wrong, it’s another when you’ve got to tell someone else how much of a plonker you’ve been. Pearl stayed uncharacteristically quiet as I told her everything. From Ben and me getting drunk, kissing, having a fumble, him sleeping with someone else, him saying to forget it ever happened, to having to go on a double date with him, Alice and Robert.
‘Hold on a minute. Rewind. You didn’t sleep with him?’ she said, holding her hand out and stopping me.
‘No.’
‘You just cuddled?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows.
‘Not quite, but in the end, yes.’
‘Jeez, what are you even worrying for?’ she sighed.
‘It was more than that, Pearl. Cheating is cheating, whether it’s a kiss or mind-blowing sex.’
‘It’s really not. It’s totally different,’ she argued, shaking her head dismissively.
‘Is it, though?’
‘Yes! Do you want me to go into detail to prove it? Remind you exactly what you could’ve done had you not stopped?’
‘No, thanks,’ I squirmed, knowing Pearl would go into a graphic description that would make even porn stars blush.
‘Shame,’ she sighed comically.
‘It’s not only that, though, I feel like I’ve fallen for him. That’s got to be way worse than sleeping with someone.’
Pearl looked at me with confusion as her face crinkled up in bewilderment.
‘Mad, your boyfriend did a really shitty thing. In response, you got rat-faced and kissed someone. That’s all it needs to be. Don’t go turning it into something else, especially if that person’s now gone off and started screwing this other bird.’
‘He said he loved me.’
It was almost the same thing I’d said to Ben, the same argument that stopped me from being able to get past the whole thing and accept that being together wasn’t even a possibility.
Pearl looked at me and sighed. ‘And then he did something even shittier than your boyfriend did in the first place.’
I’d never thought of it like that. It seemed ridiculous to me that, even after he’d slept with Alice, I was the one running around after him, emailing him with heartfelt words (and crazy ones), placing myself somewhere that I knew he’d turn up. I couldn’t explain what had led me to do those things, or say what I was hoping to gain.
‘I think you’ve freaked yourself out,’ Pearl continued, standing up and pacing around the room, nodding her head as though she was agreeing with her own words. ‘You’ve acted in a way that’s completely out of character – Maddy, you’re the most loyal person I know. You’ve shocked yourself and now you’re trying to give it a greater meaning to justify your behaviour. Babe, you did wrong, but that one action doesn’t define who you are.’ She grabbed my hand in hers and patted it sympathetically.
‘I just don’t know what to do,’ I said feebly.
‘What to do about what exactly? It looks to me as though Ben is no longer an option,’ she said matter-of-factly, perching herself back on the bed. ‘You need to get him out of your mind, pronto.’