Lucy in the Sky

hurts.’
    I take a deep breath before speaking again. ‘Where did you go?’
    ‘Some of the guys from work dragged me to a party,’ he answers.
    ‘Kicking and screaming, I bet.’
    ‘Hey?’ He sounds confused. ‘Lucy…’ Now he’s weary. ‘What’s the problem? If you were here, you could’ve come too. What’s the big deal?’
    I don’t want to nag him but I can’t help myself. ‘Why didn’t you answer your phone?’
    ‘I left it here by accident.’
    ‘I was ringing at midnight,’ I say.
    ‘Yeah, and I was out until one,’ he answers reasonably.
    ‘Oh. I called this morning too.’
    ‘Christ, was that you? I thought I was dreaming. I am knackered !’ He sighs.
    ‘Okay, well, now I know you’re alright, I’ll let you go back to sleep.’
    ‘Thanks, baby,’ he says sleepily down the receiver.
    I’m not happy about this at all. Why does he always have to go out with his sodding mates? I can’t stand them!
     
    Mum and Terry’s tea shop is a cosy place with red and white chequered tablecloths, wooden chairs and a few knick-knacks on shelves around the walls.
    ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ Mum calls out to me when I go to see her in the afternoon. A few minutes later she re-emerges with tea and sandwiches for the lunchtime stragglers.
    It’s 2.30 and we’ve probably got half an hour to an hour before the afternoon tea brigade turns up. It’s Easter weekend and Dunster, with its medieval castle and picturesque high street, is predictably busy. Mum brings me over a pot of tea and two bone-china cups, plus a couple of currant scones with jam and clotted cream.
    ‘Aw, thanks, Mum.’
    ‘Freshly baked this morning by Terry.’ She smiles. ‘So how are you, Lucy? You don’t seem quite yourself.’
    ‘Don’t I?’ My mum knows me better than anyone else.
    ‘No,’ she shakes her head, ‘you don’t. So what’s up? Is everything okay with James?’
    ‘Erm…’
    She waits patiently, gazing at me intently over her teacup. Suddenly I find myself telling her everything.
    Everything .
    ‘Do you love him?’ she asks, when I’ve finished. She’s talking about Nathan.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I answer truthfully. ‘I don’t think so, but when I was leaving, I felt like I did. Maybe it was just another one of my obsessive crushes.’ She knows all about my love-triangle past.
    ‘Well, at least you’re over Sam…’
    ‘Yeah, I know. I mean, honestly, what is it with these bloody Wilson brothers?’
    She smiles, then becomes serious again. ‘And you’re still in love with James?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Have you told James how you feel about Nathan?’
    ‘No, Mum, are you mad? I could never do that, he’d hit the roof!’
    ‘Well, Lucy, you’re going to have to figure out what you want, my darling, because you shouldn’t be stringing either of these men along if they’re not the ones for you.’ She looks at me pointedly.
    ‘I’m hardly stringing Nathan along, am I?’ I’m frustrated. She says it like she sees it, my mum.
    ‘Maybe not Nathan, but what about James?’
    ‘But, Mum, what if he has cheated on me?’ I ask.
    ‘And what if he hasn’t? What evidence do you have, apart from the text?’ She eyes me questioningly. I don’t answer. I’m beginning to regret telling her anything, but I usually appreciate her honesty once I’ve had a chance to think about it.
    ‘Lucy,’ she says gently. ‘How would you feel if James was having the thoughts about another girl that you’ve been having about Nathan?’
    I pause for a moment and think. Nausea sweeps through me as I put myself in his position.
    ‘Don’t you believe thinking about cheating is almost as bad as doing it?’ she persists.
    I know she’s right. But I don’t know what to do. Apart from the uneasy feeling I sometimes get about James when he goes outwith his friends, Mum’s right: I don’t have a lot to go on. And I do have a tendency towards paranoia. At least I do with James. And I haven’t had another proper boyfriend who I can draw experience from.
    ‘Just have a think about it,’ she tells me. ‘You’ll know what to do when the time is right.’
    ‘I hope so, Mum. I really hope so.’

Chapter 14
    ‘I can’t believe we swung this trip to Italy together!’ Chloe laughs, as we perch on stools at a trendy bar in the Porta Ticinese area of Milan and order a couple of vodka sours with passionfruit–or vodka sour alla maracuja , as they soon become known to us. Italian barmen show off