Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter at all.
‘Why are you like this?’ was the first thing Pip said to me, furiously rubbing tears from her eyes, new ones replacing them just as fast.
‘Like … what?’ I asked, genuinely confused.
Pip shook her head, sitting back from me a little. ‘This.’ She laughed. ‘I never would have done something like this. I’m too much of a dumbass.’
‘You’re not a dumbass.’
‘Oh, I am. Big, big dumbass.’
‘You’re talking to someone who is waist-deep in a river in February right now.’
She grinned. ‘Shall we continue this conversation elsewhere?’
‘That would be nice.’
We ended up getting back into the boat – with Pip, this time – and rowing all the way back to St John’s. Pip was so excited by this that she nearly capsized the boat and it took Jason and me quite a lot of effort to convince her to sit down and stay still, but we made it to college without any accidents.
Rooney sat right at the back, trying not to look at Pip. I noticed Pip glancing back a few times, almost like she might say something to her, but she didn’t.
Before we all disbanded on the college green, I thanked everyone for helping me.
‘All in the spirit of love,’ replied Sunil, slinging an arm round Jess.
He was right, I supposed.
All of this was for love, in one way or another.
Pip and Rooney finally acknowledged each other’s existence when Pip said, ‘You were good … on the tambourine.’
She’d meant it as a genuine compliment, but somehow it sounded like an insult. Rooney just said, ‘Thank you,’ and then mumbled something about having someone to meet in town, tore off her lifejacket, and left before Pip could say anything else.
The last person to say goodbye was Jason. He gave me a tight hug, then walked away, the bottom of his trousers damp and water droplets on his sleeves.
And then it was just Pip and me.
It didn’t even need to be said that Pip would stay and talk with me that afternoon. She just did.
It reminded me of the way we were the first year we met. Age eleven. That was the year we went everywhere with each other, trying to figure out if there was anyone else we could invite into our inner circle, and eventually realising that, for now, it was just us.
I took her up to my bedroom. Rooney wasn’t there – she really had gone into town, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t be back for a while – but our beds were still pushed together, the sheets unmade, and everything from last night came back in a sudden rush. Rooney’s confession. The tears.
I realised suddenly that this was probably not the best impression to give Pip, who had been angry at me and Rooney because she thought we were an item.
‘Um,’ I said. ‘This is not – we weren’t –’
‘I know,’ said Pip. She smiled at me, and I knew then that she believed me. ‘Hey, has Roderick shrunk?’
She walked over to Roderick and crouched down. Despite the amount of leaves I’d had to cut off, he actually seemed to have grown since I last watered him. Maybe he wasn’t totally dead after all.
Pip shivered suddenly, which was when I remembered that both she and I were pretty much drenched from the waist down.
I dug out a pair of joggers for her and some pyjamas for me, and when I turned round, Pip was practically ripping her jeans from her legs in her haste to get out of them.
My joggers were comically long on Pip, but she rolled them up and soon we were huddled on the carpet, our backs against the side of the bed, with mugs of hot chocolate and a blanket over our legs.
I knew I needed to be the first to say something about everything that had happened, but I was still so bad at having deep conversations or talking about my emotions in any way that it took a few minutes of Pip chatting aimlessly about her course and her nights out with friends before I said what I really wanted to say.
Which was, ‘I’m sorry. I know I’ve already said that, but, yeah. I really am.’
Pip looked at me.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yeah.’
‘I completely understand you not talking to me after the whole thing at the Bailey Ball,’ I continued, not quite able to look her in the eye. ‘I’m sorry for … you know, what happened. It was a shitty thing to do. For … several reasons.’
Pip said nothing for a moment. Then she turned away and nodded.
‘Thanks for saying that,’ she said, awkwardly flattening her curls. ‘I … I think I knew right away that it was a mistake for both of you, but … yeah. It still hurt.’