The Trouble Series

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Harrison!

I wake up on Friday morning with the name on the tip of my tongue, and I’m convinced it belongs to Aiden. I know I caught a glimpse of the label on his bag, and when I close my eyes, I can clearly see an ‘H’ after his first name. I guess my brain just needed a few days to remember that detail—or it could be that after a few days of obsessing, my brain manufactured a false memory while I was sleeping.

To prove to myself that I haven’t been obsessing over Aiden, and that I don’t care whether I’ve remembered his surname correctly or not, I intentionally bypass my laptop on the way to the shower. It already feels about five hundred degrees hotter than any day should ever have the right to be at 8 am, so I turn the shower tap until the water is as cold as it will go. Afterwards, I take my time choosing a pretty summer dress. I eat breakfast slowly, make my bed, and start packing my bag for a weekend at Matt’s grandparents’ farm—all while pretending half my brain isn’t focused on the laptop in the corner of my room, as if it has some magnetic influence over my thoughts. I choose a pair of shorts, another dress, some summer pyjamas that are appropriate to wear in front of other people—not my old-enough-to-be-transparent nightie with the cartoon cow and Over the moooooooon written on it—and then try to remember which of my three bikinis Matt likes the most. Because I’m supposed to be thinking of him, not Aiden. Matt is my boyfriend. Matt is the guy who loves me. Matt is the one I’ll probably spend the rest of my—

“Oh, this is ridiculous.” I drop the tangle of bikinis onto my bed and rush to the corner of my room. I sit down at the desk and open the lid of my laptop. The machine whirs for a moment or two, then blinks out of hibernation mode and shows the last page I was on: my email. I open a new tab and navigate to f*******:. The moment the site loads, I type ‘Aiden Harrison’ into the search bar. A second passes, and then a whole list of Aiden Harrisons show up. I lean forward, examining the tiny profile picture next to each name. Not him … not him … not him … not him … Is that … ? My heart does an uncomfortable double beat thing and a tiny squeal escapes my throat as I recognise the fifth Aiden Harrison.

It’s him! I’ve found him!

Okay. Breathe. Calm down. I push my wheeled chair away from the desk and pat out a random rhythm across my knees. What am I doing? Am I going to send him a friend request? And then what? What if he accepts? What if he doesn’t? What if he’s not using his phone or a computer or anything while he’s on holiday and he only sees the friend request when he gets home and doesn’t even remember who I am?

But he is using his phone, I remind myself. I remember returning to the Häagen-Dazs table in Dubai airport with two cups of ice cream in my hands and seeing him frown at it as though he didn’t like what he saw there.

Okay, one step at a time. I reach for the edge of the desk and pull myself back towards it. I’ll check out his profile—whatever I can see without actually being his friend—and then decide. Ignoring the fact this probably makes me an instant stalker, I click on his name.

Once his page has loaded, I can see his profile picture in more detail. He’s smiling and looking at something outside the frame of the photo, and in the background colourful houses sprout from a mountainside that ends with a sheer drop into a blue, blue sea. Scrolling down his page reveals the photos he’s used as profile pictures in the past—some group shots, a few arbitrary pictures that don’t include him at all, and several with his arm around a pretty dark-haired girl. The most recent photo with her is dated eight months ago, though, so I’m hoping that means he isn’t with her anymore. Not that I have any right to hope for things like that, considering I still have a boyfriend.

I scroll back up to the top of the page and stare at the ‘Add Friend’ button. I move my mouse over it but don’t click it. I try to figure out what I want from Aiden. It can’t be more than friendship, of course, since he’ll be returning to England soon—and there’s Matt. A guy I want to be with. Because people don’t just throw away two-year relationships for random guys they met on a plane and think they had some connection with. So … I’ll click the button, wait for him to accept the friendship request, then tell him that even though I really enjoyed the kiss, I actually have a boyfriend and—no, wait, I won’t tell him I enjoyed the kiss. I’ll just say that I have a boyfriend, but I’d like to still be friends with Aiden. Because I enjoyed chatting to him. And it felt like we connected on some level. Or whatever. I’ll figure it out when he responds.

I tap my finger absently on the edge of my laptop and continue staring at the button. I stare at it for so long that I don’t realise how much time has passed until the gate buzzer sounds and Sophie shouts, “Matt’s here!”

My head jerks towards the open doorway of my bedroom, as if Matt might already be standing there watching what I’m doing. I turn back to the screen and the ‘Add Friend’ button. I clench my fists over the keyboard.

Come on, just make a decision. Make a decision.

I hit the button, then jump up and back away from the computer as if it might bite me.

“Hey, Soph,” Matt says from the entrance hall. “How’s it going?”

I dart forward and slam the lid of my laptop shut.

It’s done. Stop thinking about it now. Finish packing your bag.

Matt appears in my doorway just as I shove all three bikinis into my suitcase. I’m normally a much neater packer, but I don’t exactly have time right now. “Hey,” Matt says. He crosses the room and gives me a quick hug and a kiss. “You almost ready?”

“Yeah, just give me a few more minutes.” I grab a book from my bedside table and slide it carefully into the top pocket of my suitcase. I might be happy shoving certain things into my bag, but books are not one of them.

“Babe, come on,” Matt says. “I sent you a message when I left, and it took me, like, three hours to get here. I thought you’d be packed by now.”

“Yeah, I know. I got side-tracked. But I’m almost finished, I promise.” I duck past him and hurry to the bathroom to pack my toiletries.

Ten minutes later, I’ve said goodbye to my family and am wheeling my small suitcase—the same one I used for carry-on luggage—towards Matt’s car. He lifts it into the back seat, closes the door, and looks at me as if noticing something for the first time. “You look pretty,” he says. “Not as pale as when I saw you on Sunday. Did you spend some time in the sun this week?”

“Yes. I managed to get quite a bit of tanning done, actually.”

“Cool. I hope you brought nicer shoes, though,” he adds as he stares pointedly at my slip-slops. “You need to look a little smarter for the party this afternoon.”

“Of course,” I say with a sigh as I open the passenger door. “They’re in my suitcase.”

Matt likes to talk a lot, which works out well for us, since I’d rather be listening than talking. He spends the first half hour of our drive to the Drakensberg telling me about the game of golf he played with his dad yesterday. I try to remain interested, but I’ve always found golf to be a particularly boring game—perhaps not too boring if I were on the golf course witnessing a game myself, but certainly boring enough when I’m being given a blow-by-blow second-hand account of every blade of grass.

I pull my phone out of my bag, open the f*******: app, check whether there’s a response from Aiden yet—there isn’t—and then feel so guilty that I’m sitting next to my boyfriend while looking for a message from another guy that I log out of the app immediately and decide not to log back in for the rest of the weekend.

I watch Matt while he continues chatting. Most girls find him attractive, but I think it has more to do with his confidence and his winning smile than his actual physical features—although there’s nothing wrong with those. He seems at ease now, the way he always does, one elbow leaning against the window while his hand loosely grips the steering wheel. His other hand rests on my knee.

For weeks after we started dating, I’d catch myself staring at him and thinking, I can’t believe he picked me! This good-looking, friendly, everything-he-touches-works-out-in-his-favour guy picked me to be his girlfriend. He must have been aware of my epic shyness, because weeks passed between the moment he first showed interest in me and the day he finally asked me out. Weeks of shy smiles, notes passed in class, awkward conversations in corridors, and rumours that he liked me. By the time he asked me out, I was convinced I was already in love with him. I was convinced I’d never love anyone else the way I loved him.

But now … now I can’t help wondering something. If Matt had never shown any interest in me, would I ever have wanted to be with him? Would I have liked him simply for being him, or was it only because he liked me first?

“Why did you ask me out?” The words have left my mouth before I can stop them. Before I can even think them. It’s as if my mouth has taken over and left my brain behind.

Looking as startled as I feel, Matt says, “What?”

“I … I mean … what first attracted you to me? Why were you interested in me? We didn’t run in the same social circles back at school, so … I mean, you didn’t know me at all.”

“Uh …” Matt is one of those guys who usually has an immediate answer for everything—even if it’s an answer that’s rubbish—so his hesitation surprises me. He looks straight ahead at the road, both hands on the wheel now, and says, “I think the first time I noticed you was during that English book review oral we had to do at the beginning of matric. I’d only ever known you as That Really Shy Girl.” He looks at me then, his confident smile back in place, and adds, “That Really Pretty Shy Girl,” and I can’t help smiling with him. “I don’t think I’d ever heard you speak before,” he continues, “so that was the first thing that interested me. The next thing was when you started talking. I could tell you were nervous, but you were so passionate about the book you were reviewing, that the nerves didn’t show that much. I have no idea what book it was, but I remember that you spoke so intelligently, so intensely, that it was as if you understood that book better than anyone else who’d ever read it. And right then, I thought, ‘I want to know more about this girl.’”

I start blushing and look down at my lap. “I love you,” I say quietly.

He grips my knee again. “I love you too, babe.”

He turns the radio up and sings along while I watch the towns slipping away on either side of us. The mountains come into view slowly, first as a hazy blue-grey line of bumps in the distance, then taking shape and growing in size as we get closer. By the time we turn off the tar and onto the tree-lined dirt road that leads to Matt’s grandparents’ farm, the mountains are all around us, their peaks looking deceptively close.

We drive through an open gate, beside which stands a wooden pole with an aged sign nailed to the top of it: Millers’ Place.

We’ve arrived.