Do You Remember the First Time?

I thought you’d be like.’
    ‘Amazing,’ I said. ‘Person in not-pathetic-victim shocker.’
    He smiled.
    ‘Clelland! Scurrison! Do you really want to stay another day?’
    ‘Sure,’ said Justin. And he winked at me. And for the first time since I’d arrived, I felt rather pleased.
    As we came out of the building, Justin self-consciously moved over to walk beside me. It was getting dark.
    All of a sudden we heard, ‘Oi! Little Britches.’
    It was a familiar voice and I stopped dead in my tracks.
    ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake …’ said Justin. ‘It’s my brother. He thinks it’s hilarious to call me that.’
    ‘Your brother’s picking you up? Here?’
    ‘He just got back from Africa and won’t leave me alone. Some bonding bollocks,’ said Justin. ‘Here he comes now,’ as the familiar shape loomed out of the dusk.
    FUCK!
    Clelland stopped about five feet away, stock-still, his face as white as a sheet, just staring at me.
    It would appear that he recognised me, but that he thought he was seeing a ghost.
    ‘Hey, retard!’
    It was Justin. He sauntered up to Clelland and hit him on the arm. I remember how he used to pad after him as a baby and concluded that, underneath it all, Justin still worshipped his brother.
    Clelland continued staring at me. I tried not to meet his eyes.
    ‘Spazmo,’ said Justin, when he couldn’t get a word out of him.
    ‘Sorry, I …’ Clelland blinked and looked at me again. ‘You look like …’
    ‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘Bye, Justin.’
    And I ran like the wind, tie and schoolbag flying behind me, all the way home.

Chapter Eight
    It was the following evening and I was huddled on my single bed; my new, prominent rib bones made me so thin I was cold all the time. I was on the phone, my parents were downstairs having a fight about a frying pan. The frying pan so far hadn’t come into play, but I had a horrible suspicion it was just a matter of time.
    ‘Tashy, we have to—’
    ‘I know. Don’t worry.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I’ve already spoken to John Clelland. I have never heard a man panic so much in my entire life.’
    ‘He called you about me?’
    ‘No, he called Ghostbusters. Yes, of course he called me. Or rather he called my mum and left a very frantic message. He thought he was cracking up.’
    ‘Wow. He remembered me.’
    I think to have met Clelland again and then been wipedfrom his memory circuits for ever would have been more than I could have borne.
    ‘After all this time. You know, he hasn’t seen me yet, not till the wedding. And he still recognised me! That’s amazing.’
    ‘Yes, yes, my wedding, the wedding, blah blah blah. Anyway, he called. Apparently when Justin told him your name he started to gibber. He wondered if you’d died recently. Do you know, I’m getting quite nonchalant at explaining it now.’
    ‘How did he take it?’
    ‘He suggested we both required medication. And he wants to see you.’
    My heart leaped. ‘I may … Um, maybe I should go see him to explain things.’
    There was a pause.
    ‘To explain things?’ Tashy sounded suspicious. ‘Are you going to wear a Britney Spears top that shows off your perfectly flat tummy?’
    ‘It depends on whether I feel the situation requires it.’
    ‘Flora.’
    ‘Uh-huh?’
    ‘There is someone you really have to see, and it’s not Clelland.’
    I knew that. It was stupid, stupid, stupid. I was in a ridiculous situation, and pining after someone from a long time ago wasn’t going to help anything.
    ‘I know,’ I said.
    ‘Call him. Sort it out. Then decide what you’re going to do. Then sort your life out. Then make everything right again. Then make sure everything is good for my wedding. Then you’re allowed to worry about John Clelland.’
    The noise of a frying pan hitting the wall came up the stairs.
    I tentatively crept downstairs; I needed to use the house phone. I couldn’t afford to keep my mobile in minutes. My parents immediately jumped apart, then arranged their faces into ghastly intimations of being pleased to see me.
    ‘Aren’t you getting ready, darling?’ said my mother. ‘I thought you’d have been more excited.’
    ‘Excited about what?’ I said.
    ‘Oh, you teenagers!’ said my mother, as we all ignored a big dented frying pan in the middle of the kitchen floor. ‘Ha-ha.’
    The doorbell rang. My mum answered it, and Constanzia burst in in a whirl of black curls with a tiny shredded fishnet lace top thing on.
    ‘Did your mother let