Like Clouds Cross Skies

London's big, but somehow it's impossible to escape the people you thought you had left behind. I knew that if Aaron was skulking around then I'd bump into one of his mates eventually. Yet somehow I didn't imagine I'd see them at work.

Keeper stands there, smirking, and it's not a playful smirk, it's tinged with a haughtiness and venom that obviously hasn't seeped from his system since we left sixth form.

“I've heard a lot about you recently,” he says. The bar is all that separates us, and unfortunately there's not even a queue behind him, so I know I'm not going to get shot of him easily. Keeper always did hang around like a bad smell, much like his stupid, football-related nickname.

“And I haven't heard that much about you,” I answer, making a show of checking the ledger. “Do you have a reservation?”

“Stuff about you and a certain pop star,” he goes on like I never spoke. I look up and he waggles his eyebrows at me.

I was drunk at a party once and Keeper tried to make a move, despite the fact that I was seeing Aaron at the time, and I told him that he made me feel violently ill. That much hasn't changed at least.

I sigh. It's nearing the end of my shift and all I want to do is go home and crash on the sofa. “I'm working, Keeper, can we not? All that's bullshit anyway.”

He snorts. He's leaning on the counter like he owns the bloody place. “Well either way, Aaron's having a hissy fit about it.”

“I don't see why. It's none of his business who I see,” I say. Keeper raises his eyebrows, and I hurriedly add, “Not that I'm seeing Harry Styles.”

“Well,” Keeper says, drawing out the word, “you can tell that to the man himself.”

I frown. “Who? Harry?”

Keeper rolls his eyes irritably. “No, Aaron.”

And it's like at simply the mention of his name he's there. The bell of the front door pings and in steps the man himself. Heat rises to the surface of my skin, and it feels as if my stomach has seeped through the cracks in the old floorboards.

Aaron's smile is tight, but his eyes are intense, like he's been holding that stare since the night at the pub. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his hoodie, clearly balled into fists. “Isn't this a nice surprise?” he says, and his smile becomes easier but no less sharp.

Smug git.

“Oh piss off Aaron, you know full well I work here.”

The two boys exchange patronising girly “oohs”. This was why I didn't like hanging out with Aaron and his mates and stuck to my own group; he was, and still is, friends with a bunch of tossers. I'd happily slap the smiles off their faces.

I don't know when I got so angry, but it's not going to end well.

“How's your new man?” Aaron asks. He's trying to keep the jokey atmosphere going, but his smile is becoming tight again.

“Were you not listening that other night when I clearly said I'm not seeing Harry?” I snap. “Lianne is writing an article on him and that's why he's been around. I'm not gonna avoid my best friend just because she's hanging out with Harry Styles for a week.”

How many times am I going to have to explain myself before Aaron gets the picture? He's only ever had one train of thought. Always grabbing onto one piece of information, true or not, and just running with it like a burning torch, setting alight to anything and everything in his quest to prove he's right, to get what he wants. I naïvely thought he'd grow out of it. I thought this was just typical teenage boy behaviour. But by the end of sixth form he hadn't changed, and even now he's the same. He scared me then, and he's scaring me now.

“Would you like to ask Lianne herself?” I continue. “It's almost the end of my shift, I can phone her if you want.”

Aaron scoffs. “And I'm supposed to believe everything your 'best friend' says? Alright then.”

I shake my head. My chest feels as though it's tightening, like a snake is coiling round it. I shouldn't be rising to the bait. “I don't even know why I bother arguing with you, Aaron, you always make out that I'm the one who's in the wrong.”

He bristles. I've hit a nerve. What nerve that is, I don't know, but it makes me stiffen. Through the doorway to the dining area, Donnie catches my eye as he serves a table their orders. He straightens and raises a concerned eyebrow. I try and give him a reassuring smile; I don't want him getting involved.

I turn my eyes back to the ledger and say to him and Keeper, before they can get another word in, “Have you booked a table?” I try and keep my voice level, keep the tremor of emotion from it.

“Yes, actually,” Keeper says. He's still leaning a little too close, and I can smell the faint tang of alcohol on his breath. They went for a drink before coming here apparently. That explains a bit.

“Under whose name?” I ask.

“Mine,” Aaron answers.

The bell sounds as someone opens the door. I feel a flood of relief. Aaron wouldn't carry on an argument now, not with an audience; he's already done that once this week. I can get rid of them and move onto the next customer in a minute.

I don't look at him, just scan the ledger until I find 6:00, Hamilton, table for 5. Thank the Lord my shift will finish before I have to see the rest of his mates trample in.

When I look up, there's a third face in my line of sight. Lianne is peering round Aaron, who's oblivious to her presence. She pulls a panicky face and mouths, “What's going on?”

She was supposed to finish work an hour ago, but I've never been happier to find that Lianne has waited for my shift to end.

Aaron follows my line of sight, and immediately his expression darkens. Yet somehow his face breaks into a grin. “Talk of the devil,” he says.

I assume he's talking about Lianne until Keeper shifts to the side and that all too familiar tangle of dark curls appears.

This situation has gone from shit, to a bit better, to shit in the space of a few seconds.

Keeper immediately bursts out laughing when he glances over his shoulder. He crumples against the bar, laughing his head off like someone's just cracked the funniest joke he's ever heard. But this isn't a joke to me, not at all. And nor is it to Aaron, or apparently Harry.

For his light tone and his grin, there's a strain to Aaron's posture, like a puppeteer pulling his strings taught. Harry is a different story. He may be standing rigid too, but his expression isn't false like Aaron's, a mask. Instead, his indignation is there for everyone to see, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown.

“I don't know who he is, but I don't like the way he's treating you.”

Lianne rolls her eyes like she always does, breaking the tension with a sharp sigh. “Can we break the stand-off and be civil please? This isn't the Wild West.”

She's attempting to diffuse the situation with an apparent disinterest and humour like she always does, and I couldn't be more grateful to her right now. As much of a help Harry was the other night, I don't need him sticking up for me right now because he feels the urge to defend chivalry. I try and catch his eye, but he won't break from Aaron's gaze. I'm tempted to throw my pen between them to break it, but knowing me I'll only smack one of them in the face and make them more annoyed.

“Come on, mate,” Keeper finally says, placing a hand on Aaron's shoulder and attempting to make him budge. Keeper was only too happy to defend Aaron's beliefs when it was two against one, but as per usual he's chickened out. “We'll wait in the bar for the others.”

He forces Aaron towards the seats in the bar area. Harry continues to track Aaron's movements, and Aaron does the same before shrugging Keeper's hand off and taking a table at the back of the room.

Lianne looks to me, a sympathetic smile on her face.

No more pity, seriously, I'm sick of it.

Harry steps closer and clears his throat. He glances through the doorway at the dining room, and doing the same I see that we've attracted a few stares. I feel heat rush up my neck and flood my face. “You alright?” Harry asks.

“Fine,” I say, but my throat feels constricted, and I realise it's because tears are threatening, beginning to prick my eyes.

Jesus Christ, Kailey, get a grip.

Harry opens his mouth to say something else, but instead of his voice another one rings out from beside me, sharp as ice. “Kailey, a word.”

Ian.

Harry tries to hold my gaze, still looking as though he's about to say something, but I look away. I can only face one person at a time.

I follow Ian into the back room, and he spins to face me. His face is a livid shade of pink. “You do not bring personal matters to work. I don't care what boyfriend trouble you have, Kailey, you keep your work life and your personal life separate. You were already late to work today and now you insist on disrupting my restaurant further. I won't tolerate any more of your behaviour. You're suspended for a week, and count yourself lucky I'm not getting rid of you altogether. Now get out of my sight, your shift is over for today.”

My vision blurs as I reach breaking point, just fuelling Ian's image of me; I'm just a child. A silly little girl. Eighteen years with nothing to show for it.

I don't say anything as I turn and leave, grabbing my bag from its hook; if I do it'll just be a strangled noise. I'm angry with everyone. With Aaron's vicious stubbornness; with Ian's patronisation; with Harry's uncanny ability of turning up when he's really not wanted. But most of all, I'm angry with myself, and I can't stop it.

I'm biting back tears when Lianne and Harry see me. I try my best to ignore Aaron and Keeper in the corner of the room, but I can feel their eyes on me, burning.

“Kailey,” Lianne starts.

“I've been suspended,” I say, my tone flat.

I try and tell myself it's not even that bad, it's really not, but the events of the past week have all been building up to this, and now I'm finally buckling under their weight. Maybe a week of no work will do me some good. Or maybe it'll just give me a chance to lose what little motivation I have left.

Get it together.

Lianne and Harry follow me out the door like two little obedient puppies, when all I want is to be left alone, to sit on the tube and recollect my thoughts, force myself into optimism. But I can't do that when one of my problems is on my heels.

It's still raining. Lianne must have got Harry to wait around so I wouldn't have to walk anywhere in the rain; he could drive me. But why? Why would he do that? People do anything for Lianne, but not me.

I turn and the two of them stop abruptly, both of them squinting against the rain, Lianne holding her handbag over her head. “Can I just be left alone for a bit please?” I say. “I can get the tube home.”

“Kail, it's raining,” Lianne says. “Harry can drive us. He is my bitch, after all.” She adds the last bit with a weak smile, trying to lighten the mood, but it only makes me feel worse and I don't even know exactly why.

“I don't want a lift,” I say.

Harry frowns at me. “I'm not letting you make your own way home like this.”

“What do you care?” I snap, my voice practically rising an octave. I just can't control my words around him and I find myself shaking, and I don't know if it's from the cold or rage. That anger is back, the anger I thought I'd finally lost this morning.

His frown smooths in surprise, and even Lianne looks a little shocked. Well if they didn't expect an outburst now, when did they expect one?

I turn away from them and start walking, and for a second it sounds as if one of them is following me. And then Harry's voice cuts through the rain. “I'm sorry.”

I stop. He sounded defeated, frustrated. I spin back around. He was the one who followed me, at least for a few steps. The rain is flattening the hair to his head, straight for once.

“Sorry for what?” I ask irritably.

He shrugs, searching for the right words. “I don't know. It just seems like some of this is my fault. I don't really know what I did but...” His voice trails away and he shrugs again.

I want to say you're right, Harry, some of this is your fault. If you hadn't turned up then you wouldn't have given Aaron any ammo. But a lot of this is my fault too, old problems resurfacing and new ones I've created. I'm angry at the both of us, and right now it's better if I'm just left alone with only one of the people who's made this mess.

“It's fine, I'll walk,” I say, waving his words away. I'm monotone again. “I'll feel better in the morning.”

Probably.

I can't help feeling like I'm being stupid as I turn and walk away.