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I might have felt this nervous before – heart racing, my stomach twisted up in knots – but right then I couldn’t remember it.
This was one of those nights that I would surely never forget. Given that my prom date was my twin brother, my hopes perhaps shouldn’t have been that high. But then again, his best friend Elliot Ollerton was arriving any minute, and that had the potential to change everything.
‘Jessie, come on!’ Isaac, my brother, called up the stairs. It was all right for him; all he’d had to do was put on a suit and rub some gel through his hair. My preparation for this evening had started a month ago, with trying on every party dress in Meadowhall. The shopping centre was in Sheffield, a decent drive away, but it was a rite of passage for every sixth form girl in Brooksby Academy. I wondered how many of them had thought about Elliot Ollerton the whole time.
I wasn’t the only one who’d dreamed about being his date tonight. Having joined our school at the start of A levels, Elliot had not quite lost the frisson of interest that a city boy arriving at a village school stirs up. It helped, of course, that he was affable and at ease with himself. He was the fastest cross-country runner in the county, and had floppy blond hair and a smile that flipped hearts upside down.
What I lacked in terms of looks or any of the other, as yet mysterious, elements that caught a popular boy’s attention, I made up for by being Isaac’s twin. With the three of us catching the school bus from Houghton, an even more boring village than Brooksby, twice a day we spent twenty glorious minutes discussing everything from our English coursework to the likelihood of our driving instructor being an alien.
Tucked away inside my tender teenage heart, I knew that Elliot liked me. We were interested in the same things – social justice and mysterious crime stories. We would discuss food preferences until Isaac begged us to change the subject. Once, when he was playing Xbox with Isaac, I made him laugh so hard he snorted lemonade out of his nose.
What I had no clue about was whether he liked me just as a friend. Or, even worse, his best friend’s sister who, Isaac had made clear, was completely Out of Bounds to any of his mates (I did point out that this only left people he didn’t like as potential boyfriends, but his solution to that was I stay single).
But when Elliot looked at me, eyes crinkling with humour, or his forehead furrowed with concentration as we debated an issue, I couldn’t help wondering if he felt the same as me. Which was utter infatuation. I was about as in love with Elliot Ollerton as a seventeen-year-old living in a tiny village who’d never been kissed can be in love.
So, as I inspected myself in the mirror for one last time, I knew that if this was going to be like the movies, I had to look right. So perfect that Elliot suddenly saw, not his friend’s perpetually disorganised and amusing sister, but the Woman of His Dreams. As I adjusted the ice blue, floor-length dress, I felt a flutter of hope that it might be enough.
‘Finally!’ Isaac took one look at my hand gripping the banister and adjusted his tone. ‘Hey, you look good though, sis. I like the… sparkly bits.’
‘You’ve managed to look not quite so ugly yourself, for once.’ Isaac and I shared the same black hair and pale grey eyes, with a smattering of tiny freckles. While his open features and bold bone structure had created a face that earned almost as many Valentine’s Day DMs as Elliot, on me they prompted grandparents to declare me ‘handsome’. And had earned me one Valentine’s Day card to date. Which I suspected was from my dad.
‘Come on then. Elliot’s waiting.’
To everyone’s surprise, Isaac had decided to go with me to the prom. As he’d patiently explained to our parents, he’d rather spend the evening with his mates than hanging about with a random girl pretending she was special. I was thrilled, as that meant we’d be going with Elliot. Rather than choosing the unimaginative (and expensive) option of hiring a limo or a tractor (this was the countryside; a lot of kids chugged to prom on farm machinery) Isaac had hired a tandem bike to cycle the mile and a half to the venue. When I pointed out that I wasn’t spending a fortune on a dress only to arrive sweaty and dishevelled after cycling up the hill to the Houghton Country Club, he invited Elliot to ride tandem and added a kid’s bike trailer on the back for me.
‘Hey.’ Elliot was attempting to prop the bike against a tree when Isaac and I stepped out onto the front path of our tiny terrace. He gave Isaac a complicated fist-bump then turned to look at me, where I was still hovering nervously half-way down the path.
And I mean, he looked at me. At my stubbornly messy hair tamed into a sleek twist for
once, a few artful tendrils curled around flaming cheeks. Mum had insisted on doing my make-up and I don’t know what kind of spell she weaved with that smoky eyeliner wand, but it had worked.
‘Wow.’ Elliot’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his floppy fringe. For a second he appeared genuinely stunned, and my heart thumped so hard I was surprised the beading on my bodice didn’t ping off. ‘You look… I mean, you always look…’ He stopped, cleared his throat, and tried again. ‘Jess, you look beautiful.’
Before I could remember how to speak, Isaac had flung an arm around Elliot’s neck and dragged him towards the tiny square of grass that made up our front garden. ‘Photos, before Mum starts crying again.’
We did the obligatory poses while my parents cooed and clucked and made embarrassing comments about what they’d got up to at their school prom. Standing there, in between two of the people I loved most in the whole world, it felt as though all my dreams were about to come true.
For the next few hours I sailed along on a cloud of awestruck happiness. Once we’d safely locked the bike up, Elliot had waited for Isaac to go and say hello to another group of friends, then turned to me, face serious.
‘I’m counting on you to protect me tonight.’ He swivelled his eyes towards a group of girls loitering a few metres away, and gave a brief shudder.
‘So I’m a shield to ward off all your admirers?’ I folded my arms. ‘I’m not sure how I feel about that. I thought we’d genuinely bonded over cheese and ketchup paninis. Now I find out you only want to hang out with me as a decoy date so Macy MacDonald won’t jump you.’
‘Come on, Jessie. You know that’s not the only reason.’
The stomach fluttering started up again.
‘There’s Gabby Stephens and Serena Curtis… that girl with the weird eyebrows…’
I swiped him with my
clutch bag just as Isaac strolled back over. ‘What’s this?’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
‘Elliot’s freaking out about being sexually harassed. He’s begging me to be his bodyguard.’
Isaac scowled. ‘My sister is not guarding anyone’s body this evening. Least of all yours.’
I bit back the retort that I’d do whatever I damn well liked, instead ducking my eyes to hide my frustration.
As it turned out, after the first few minutes, Isaac wasn’t around to play protective brother. There was a pretend casino set up on one side of the room and he was quickly sucked into the blackjack table. Elliot showed no interest in joining him, instead finding us a bench in a shadowy corner.
The rest of the evening was utter bliss. I didn’t care that I ended up ignoring most of my friends, that instead of getting tipsy and dancing my heart out I spent the next two hours with one person. As we laughed and talked, our knees somehow ended up touching. My arm had come to rest against his and our heads were bent so close together I could feel the warmth of his breath. Every millimetre of contact was like connecting a circuit that sent electricity humming between us.
I’d next to no experience when it came to flirting, but when Elliot nudged me with his elbow, eyes glinting, I knew it wasn’t my imagination. Meandering through gentle teasing, earnest soul-baring, loaded comments that made my heart pound in my throat, it was as if we were the only two people in the room. I’d never felt so alive.
When he asked if I wanted to go for a walk, I couldn’t help glancing over at the roulette wheel, where Isaac was cheering along with a small crowd of onlookers, a girl he’d gone out with a few times hanging off his arm.
‘Forget him,’ Elliot muttered, taking my hand in a seemingly innocent gesture that took my breath away. ‘He doesn’t get to decide this any more.’
Decide what? I squeaked inside my head. Was this a this? What sort of a this?
We walked across the patio and slipped through a gate leading to the golf course. Elliot’s hand was clammy in mine, and it thrilled me beyond words to think that he might be nervous about this. The sun was setting behind a hill in the distance, and the light glowed red, orange and magenta across the ridge of the forest, as though the treetops were on fire. I knew how they felt.
‘Are you cold?’ Elliot asked, once we’d settled on a patch of grass out of sight on the far side of a hillock. He ran his hand along my bare forearm, which only made the goosebumps even bigger.
I took a trembling breath, shaking my head. ‘I’m… maybe nervous?’
Nervous… elated… wondering when I’m going to wake up and find I’ve overslept for school again.
‘Nervous?’ Elliot pulled his hand back, brow creasing. ‘Jessie, you know you don’t have to worry about me trying anything.’
I shook my head, my voice a whisper. ‘I’m more worried you might not try.’
After the longest silence, he placed a tentative hand against my cheek, leant in and kissed me. I felt like I’d come home.
Well, if home was like the best, most exciting, delicious place ever. Like the world’s greatest theme park and music festival and restaurant all condensed into a couple of square centimetres of soft, fervent flesh.
Is it possible to faint from being kissed?
‘What are you thinking?’ Elliot whispered against my forehead when we’d finally managed to break apart and take a long, breathless moment for our brains to unscramble.
‘I’m thinking I should have asked Mum to do my make-up ages ago.’
The fading sunlight cast his face in shadow as he broke into a grin, hand confident this time as his thumb stroked my cheek. ‘I miss your freckles.’
‘Oh! Okay, so is it the dress?’
Elliot lowered his eyebrows
, confused.
‘Well something made you decide you wanted to… do this.’
‘You mean this?’ He leant in and kissed me again. Softly this time, so that my bones melted into liquid gold. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for ages.’
‘Then why haven’t you?’ I shook my head, disbelieving. ‘If that’s true, why didn’t you invite me to the prom, so I didn’t have to ride in a kiddie seat behind my brother?’
‘Because I promised him I wouldn’t.’
‘What?’ I sat back, feeling the familiar prickle of fraternal irritation. ‘My brother doesn’t own me. This isn’t medieval times. Why would you promise that?’
Elliot sighed, but he held tight to my reluctant hand. ‘It was ages ago. We were drinking on the hilltop. I asked a question about you. I’d probably asked way too many questions, and he got suspicious. It wasn’t a hard promise to make to a new friend, considering I didn’t know you, then.’
‘I can’t believe he made you do that. Has he asked all the boys in school to stay away?’ I gave a bitter laugh. ‘And here I was thinking it was because I was so unattractive.’
‘I don’t know about anyone else. But it’s definitely not that. Not that I want to think about anyone else finding you attractive. But, with Isaac… You can understand him thinking that if we get together, it could mess things up.’
I said nothing, still too busy seething at my brother.
‘How many real friends does Isaac have? Not people he hangs out with, but real friends. The kind who’ve got his back.’
I shrugged. ‘He’s got me. He’s never needed loads of friends.’
‘He’s always had you. And then he met me.’ He paused, waiting for me to catch up. ‘So, what happens if we have each other? Or we end up hating each other?’
‘He’d take my side.’ I released a slow sigh. ‘And he’d lose you. His only actual friend.’
‘Back then, it was an obvious promise to make.’
‘But now you’ve broken
it. What happens?’
Elliot took my other hand, his eyes fixed on mine in the twilight. ‘I’ll talk to him. Make him understand. If he knows how we – well, how I – feel, he’ll understand that keeping the promise will only cause more problems.’
My breath had got trapped behind my rapidly expanding heart. It was the kind of question I wouldn’t have dared to ask anyone apart from him. ‘How do you feel?’
He laughed, ducked his head and took two eternally long breaths before looking up again. ‘I love you, Jessica Brown. So much it hurts.’
Once it grew cold, we wandered back inside, dropping hands so that no one would suspect anything before we’d had a chance to speak to Isaac. My brother, however, was nowhere to be seen. The crowd at the blackjack table told us that he’d gone to an afterparty with Brittney, yet another girl he’d dated once or twice. Elliot and I decided to walk home, stopping by the tandem to remove a bottle of screw-top wine from the trailer with the intention of drinking as we walked.
We drifted down the hill, entwined together, and it was close to midnight by the time we reached the junction at the bottom. There was a steady stream of cars going up and down the hill, picking people up, and every time we spotted headlights approaching we ducked into the undergrowth at the side of the road to avoid being seen.
‘There’s people there.’ Elliot came to an abrupt stop as the sound of voices floated around the last corner.
‘It’s Isaac,’ I whispered, heart pounding. I instinctively dropped Elliot’s hand and moved away. ‘It’s fine, we can say we couldn’t find him so you offered to walk me home. There’s nothing suspicious about that.’
‘Hey, Danny.’ Isaac’s voice was overloud, a sure sign he’d been drinking. ‘Have you seen my sister?’
‘Nah mate,’ Danny called back. ‘But Keisha saw her with some guy on the golf course. They were kind of busy, you know what I’m saying?’
In the midst of the jeers and whoops I heard Isaac demanding to know who it was, swearing with frustration when Keisha insisted she couldn’t tell in the darkness.
‘I’m going to find her.’ Isaac’s voice was rough with anger. ‘And him.’
Elliot grabbed my arm and we ran to the side of the lane, ducking behind a tree that in daylight would have been a comically bad hiding place, but in the darkness offered sufficient cover that a furious, alcohol-fuelled brother would storm straight past.
We waited another five minutes, but while some of the group ambled back up the hill
after Isaac, others were happy to wait where they were. The general consensus was that he was going to go ballistic.
‘I have to go and find him.’
Elliot stepped away from me. ‘If any of them see us together, they’ll message Isaac straight away.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll go up the hill, you go down?’
‘I’m not leaving you on your own in the dark.’
I shook my head. ‘There are people everywhere. I’ll be fine.’
‘It’s the people I’m worried about.’
‘Don’t be silly. No one would dare touch Isaac Brown’s sister!’ I placed my hand on his chest and he grabbed it, a grin flashing across his face. ‘It’s a ten-minute walk without you distracting me every five steps. I’ve got my phone.’
‘Okay. Message me when you find him. And once you’re home. And in bed. And as soon as you wake up… while eating breakfast…’
‘I thought we were being discreet?’
Elliot’s smile disappeared. ‘Swear you won’t say anything, Jessie. Not until I’ve had a chance to speak to him.’
I nodded. ‘As long as you do it soon. I’m not good at keeping secrets from him.’
‘You have to be, this time.’ He placed both hands on either side of my face. His touch was gentle, but his eyes burned into mine. ‘Swear to me you won’t say anything.’
‘I said I’ll try!’ I rolled my eyes, annoyed at my brother all over again, the wine making me bolshy.
‘No. Say it. If you love me, then swear on my life that you won’t say a word about us until I’ve explained everything.’
‘Okay! If it means that much, I swear on your life I won’t say anything.’
He pulled me up against his chest, bending his head to kiss me again. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, just… I know how strong that twin thing is.’
After another hurried kiss, I insisted I had to go. I tucked the earbuds that we’d been
sharing into his ears and clicked through his phone to the song that had been wafting across the golf course when he first kissed me, turning the volume up to ear-splitting.
‘There. Now you can think about me all the way home.’
He laughed. ‘I don’t need a song for that.’
We crept back out onto the lane, me first, then Elliot once I’d gestured that the coast was clear. He then insisted on waiting until I’d gone. Maybe it was the wine, perhaps I was high on love, but I started to sway, adding in silly dance moves and spins as I walked, flinging my hands in the air as I felt the thrill of knowing he was watching.
I twirled around just in time to see it.
The deafening music must have muffled the sound of the engine.
His black suit must have made him invisible where he hovered by the side of the road.
But it was because I distracted him that he stumbled.
So, when the car hit, tossing Elliot into the air like a stuffed toy, I was the one to blame.
When Isaac and I left home, exactly one month after our eighteenth birthday, I swore to myself I’d never live with him again.
Not simply due to his constant pestering, concealer theft or post-sport stink. Isaac had been the other half of me since before we were born. Getting some space from him was how I hoped to get space from myself. Or at least the me I used to be, before.
I couldn’t run away from me, but I could hide from the person who knew me better than anyone.
Only now, nearly eleven years later, I’d run all the way out of options.
I took a deep breath and picked up my phone. After all, it wouldn’t be forever.
Hey bro. That spare room still available?
Instantly my phone rang. I braced myself before answering with as cheery a hello as I could muster.
‘It’s yours,’ he said, not bothering with a greeting. ‘Funnily enough, there aren’t that many singletons looking for a house share in the metropolis of Houghton. When Mum said you might be moving back, I was hoping you’d be interested. When do you want it?’
Hearing my brother’s voice for the first time in months made my stomach cramp. I started to mentally backtrack, thoughts scrabbling through alternative options, despite knowing full well that if there were any, I’d have found them by now.
‘I have to be out of here by the weekend.’
There was a brief silence while I could hear Isaac holding back from asking me why on earth I’d waited to contact him until two days before being made homeless.
‘If it’s not ready that’s fine, I can crash with a friend for a few days. Or weeks. However long, it’s not a problem.’
It was a big problem. I didn’t have many friends of my own here in Brighton. Not the kind who’d let me stay with them rent free, anyway. Besides, I was supposed to be starting my new job on Monday and I needed the money.
‘No, it’s ready. Arthur’s been keeping some stuff in there, but that can go in the garage.’
‘Arthur?’
‘Arthur Wood.’
‘You live with Arthur?’
Isaac huffed with impatience. ‘We’re not twelve any more, Jessie. You should be past being freaked out by the Woods.’
Arthur’s family had provided the village with funeral services for three generations. Four, if you count Arthur.
‘Does he still work there?’
‘Why wouldn’t he?’
‘Because not everyone wants to end up working for their parents?’ Said me, who was
about to come home and do precisely that.
Another pause. ‘Do you need picking up? I’m working on Saturday, but can do Sunday afternoon.’
‘No, it’s fine. Dad said he can give me a lift. On Friday, if that’s okay?’ I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘And, well, thanks Isaac.’
It was only after we’d hung up that I remembered the most important question.
How much is the rent?
It was a couple of hours before he replied to my message.
100 a week including bills
Any chance of a twin discount?
This time he replied straight away.
That IS the twin discount!
A hundred pounds a week would hurt. My parents had been beyond generous in offering me the role of Activities Coordinator at the day centre they ran in a converted barn, which everyone simply called the Barn. Particularly as I strongly suspected the role hadn’t existed until I’d mentioned I needed a new job. However, despite managing to allegedly get my life together in the three years I’d been living with my boyfriend, Seb, my bank account was still in recovery from the time that went before it. The compulsion to avoid settling too long in one place had led to years of flitting from one city to another, picking up crappy work and making impulsive decisions that had resulted in a somewhat precarious debt situation. The Debt Swamp, I called it. I’d finally made some real progress in dragging myself towards the edge of said swamp when everything got flipped upside down again.
I’d half wondered if Seb was going to propose when he’d taken me out for dinner. The coffee shop he managed had been wobbling on a knife edge since the start of the pandemic, but lately he’d seemed to shake off the despair and feel hopeful again.
It turned out that what he’d been feeling was mostly relief that the struggle was over.
‘Klara’s decided to cut her losses. We’re closing at the end of the month.’
‘Wow.’ I sat back, the news ricocheting about my head. I was the only other remaining employee, so both of us would be out of a job. Although, unlike Seb, I was no stranger to sudden unemployment. ‘You don’t seem devastated.’
He shrugged. ‘I knew it was coming, and I’ve been considering other options.’ A smile curled at the edge of his mouth. ‘I thought, why not take the opportunity to do some travelling?’
‘Oh. That’s a fantastic idea.’ I sat back, the surprise now tinged with a glimmer of excitement. ‘I’ve never been further than Spain. Have you thought about where we’ll go?’
He’d had the decency to look contrite when he put down his slice of pizza and explained that this was a voyage he needed to take alone. ‘You know I love you, Jess, and I’ll miss you. But the past couple of years have been a nightmare. I need some space to recover. I’ll be back, I promise, but this is something I have to do, before, well, before I commit to making things permanent. I mean, if that’s what you want?’
‘To make things permanent?’
He shrugged. ‘We love each other, don’t we?’
‘Is that a proposal?’
He laughed. I’d missed Seb’s laugh. ‘It’s a proposal to propose once I’m back. Let’s do this properly, yeah?’
‘How long will you be gone for?’
A few months at the most, he hoped. Long enough that it wasn’t worth him finding a new place to live. The manager’s role had included a one-bedroom apartment above the coffee shop, so we were losing our home as well as our livelihoods.
Seb offered to help me find somewhere else, but even without the secret Debt Swamp and disastrous credit rating, I couldn’t afford a place of my own in Brighton, and without a steady income, no one was going to offer me a house share.
I could hardly complain – Seb had let me stay rent free for three years.
I could, however, secretly cry in the shower about how, just when I dared to think I
might have a normal life, it had all gone wrong again.
Then I’d remember that someone would never have a normal life again, partly thanks to me, and I’d cry even harder before stuffing it all away deep down inside my sullied heart where it belonged.
And now, here I sat, surrounded by three bin bags and one tatty rucksack, waiting for my dad to come and take me home.
It took five hours to get to Houghton, nestled on the edge of Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. It would have been four, except Dad insisted he needed to stop off at a supermarket to get some ‘bits and bobs’, and while we were there decided I might as well pick up some essentials, which of course he then ended up paying for. My dad, like my mum, was about a whisker away from perfect.
Warm and thoughtful, unfailingly supportive since accidentally-on-purpose getting pregnant at eighteen, they’d refused to see us as anything less than wonderful. Now forty-six, with faces starting to bear the creases of love, laughter and a daughter who’d caused them countless sleepless nights, they’d been delighted that with Seb I might have found the happy ending they’d always believed was right around the corner.
Keeping up the pretence that I was now a healthy, functioning, financially stable adult would be exhausting, but at least I’d had plenty of practice.
