Sam bit his lip. ‘Of course I still see you, Molly. How could I not, when you’re standing there yelling at me? Oh, I’m sorry, that was another question. Do forgive me.’ He left and slammed the door.
Molly walked into the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed and started to cry. Sam was trying hard to be good about her diagnosis. He was coping the only way he knew how. But she couldn’t help wishing he had put work to one side. Just this once. To stay with her, to put his arms around her. To love her and let her know that nothing would change between them.
Molly knew Sam was hoping the diagnosis was wrong. She was too, obviously. But she knew it wouldn’t be any different to the first opinion. It would be exactly what she had heard from Mr Ward. Molly wasn’t being defeatist about it; she just knew when something made sense. She didn’t blame Sam for wanting to hear something else. He didn’t want her to be sick – why would he? He wanted her to go back to normal. He wanted everything to be normal between them again.
But Molly knew things wouldn’t be normal again. She wasn’t being negative, she was being realistic. And Sam would be too. Once they had the second opinion confirmed, Molly knew Sam would be fine with the whole thing. He would be his usual practical self, sorting out a plan of action, wanting to know every type of medication available and basically taking control.
It was for the best that Sam was this way, Molly decided. After all, she was so far out of control, she needed someone to rein her in. She just hoped Sam remembered she needed love and affection as well as support. And that rows were the last thing she needed. Even though she felt she might have started the one just now.
She stood up and tiredly selected some underwear. As soon as she had the second opinion confirmed, she would go and see Ed. She was loath to pee on his bonfire when he had just got engaged, but they were best friends. If Ed had news like this, she would want to know. She would have to know. Molly also knew that if Ed had something like early-onset Parkinson’s, she would feel as if her heart was breaking.
February 1998
‘Tonight, I drink to the health of … of … Cardinal Puff, Puff, Puff.’
Molly carefully tapped the top of the table three times, then underneath the table, clicked her fingers and looked helplessly at Ed. She was drunk. Hopelessly so. And she couldn’t for the life of her remember the rules of this dumb drinking game.
‘Three fingers on your glass, Molls,’ Ed whispered loudly, falling about laughing.
‘Don’t help her!’ Jody, Molly’s housemate nudged him indignantly. ‘There are rules in drinking games, you know.’
Everyone in the lounge – a plethora of bodies that had somehow found their way back here from the student union – booed and hissed. Someone even tossed a cork coaster at Jody’s head.
Ed blew Jody a kiss. ‘Ignore them. I love how pedantic you are. It’s endearing.’
Jody made a show of looking cross for a second before giving him a wide smile. A sexy smile. One that said, ‘Fuck me later you massive bastard.’
Ed deliberately broke the eye contact. He had slept with Jody when he and Molly first arrived at Lincoln University, oblivious to the fact that she had just moved into a house with his friend. Molly had no doubt told him about her new living arrangements before they had even left home, but names weren’t Ed’s strong point. Well, remembering names of random flatmates-to-be wasn’t his strong point. He hadn’t acquitted himself well on the Jody front; he’d done that shitty bloke thing of collecting up his clothes and sneaking out without a word in the early hours. Ed wasn’t proud of himself but he had regretted the union almost as soon as it was over and he couldn’t wait to get away.
He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. He had found university to be a veritable goldmine when it came to available, willing pretty girls and he had over-indulged somewhat in the first few months. Ed was seriously beginning to wonder if he had some sort of problem, but his old school mate Boyd had ruefully reassured him that if he possessed half of Ed’s charm and good looks, he wouldn’t think twice about making an absolute killing, instead of surviving on what he described as ‘meagre pickings’.
Molly caught Ed’s eye. She couldn’t help making a bit of a dig at him every so often about Jody. They had slept together months ago and Jody had waxed lyrical about it, providing Molly with rather more detail than she might have liked. She was fascinated on the one hand, appalled on the other. Molly didn’t want to visualise Ed with someone else but she found herself perversely intoxicated by the intimate details Jody had provided her with.
Molly was laughing at him again, Ed thought grumpily. She was always making references to the Jody situation, stopping short – but only just – of singing ‘Ed and Jody, sitting in a tree …’
Ed cursed himself as he watched Molly flick her long, newly blond curls over her shoulder. He hated that she saw him as an idiot Lothario. It shouldn’t matter, but it did. Of course, he was both an idiot and a Lothario, but still. Ed felt irrationally self-righteous about the unfairness of it all.
He truly wished he could control himself, especially when he was drunk. But his nether regions thought differently. The stupid thing was that his mind was consumed by thoughts of Molly – both wholesome and not so wholesome – for an absurd amount of time. But when he had a few drinks, he acted like a total and utter nobber and found himself sticking his tongue down the throat of any number of inferior girls. Sometimes he slept with them as well. Mostly because he knew Molly didn’t want him that way. Probably because he kept sleeping with her friends. Jesus. He seriously was a nobber.
Ed really was a nobber, Molly thought. Why on earth did he keep sleeping with all of her friends? She didn’t know if he did it on purpose to annoy her or if he had some sort of problem. Molly stole a glance at him. He looked rather drunk this evening. His hair was all over the place and his eyes had gone all sexy, the way they did when he was a bit squiffy.
Ed rubbed his eyes. God, but he had drunk too much tonight. Some filthy cocktail in the union – just because it was half price and he knew he looked as camp as Christmas drinking it. He gazed at Molly again and felt a pang. He felt it almost every time his eyes alighted on her. Sometimes in the groin, but mostly in the heart. Fuck it. He was her best male friend. Which meant that after her father, he was sort of the number one dude in her life. Ed knew it couldn’t stay that way for ever, but he couldn’t think about that, couldn’t think about her being with some other guy. The one thing Ed had on his side right now was that Molly was discerning. When it came to men, she was pickier than anyone he knew. He wasn’t even sure if she’d slept with anyone yet, but it wasn’t a subject he liked to dwell on. It made him feel as though his guts had been kicked inwards.
Finally remembering what she was supposed to be doing, Molly picked her beer up, holding it awkwardly with three fingers. She hit the table three times with the bottle, clearly searching her mind for the next bit of the drinking game. ‘And, ee, once a cardinal, always a cardinal!’ she exclaimed triumphantly. She drained her beer in one and twirled the empty bottle over the top of her head, beaming at Ed.
Ed punched the air, mostly to distract from the way his stomach was doing the usual fizz and slide antics that happened whenever Molly went full beam on him. And he didn’t mean just in a smiley way. There were moments when she turned her full attention on him and it literally rocked his world.
‘Let’s make spaghetti bolognese,’ Molly slurred in his direction. She stood up, hiccupped and took his hand.
‘What? Why on earth—’
‘I’m hungry. Come on.’
She stepped over Jody – Ed apologetically did the same and received a furious frown in return