chapter 19

"Remember I invited you out for drinks with the girls," Marnie said. "Don't think I won't hold you to it. Join us for post dinner cocktails."

"French martini and keep them coming," Amy said to the waiter as she and Cassie slid into the booth beside them. She was definitely going to need something to take the edge of this encounter.

Marnie looked a little better than when she had last seen her. Now with a full face of makeup and no longer under the unforgiving strip lighting of the supermarket she could make out the faint outline of the girl who had made her life such a misery. Even in her late twenties Becki was still little more than Marnie's craven sidekick. She laughed a little too eagerly at all Marnie's jokes, agreed with everything she said too readily and had styled her clothes and hair as close to her's as possible. It was only Melissa who looked out of place. In her capri pants and pastel cardigan she looked like she had come straight from picking her kids up from their after school activities. She said little, only occasionally casting shy looks at Amy and sipped from a single small glass of white wine as if she was determined to drive home as soon as possible.

They mostly ignored Cassie and Amy heard her own voice as distant as a stranger answering their inane questions. No, she didn't have kids. No, she wasn't married. Yes, London was an expensive place to live. No, she had never met Kate Moss.

It was only when conversation turned to high school that Amy could take no more. She could not stand to hear them share anecdotes and reminisce with her as if they had been old gal pals now that they had retrospectively deemed her worthy of being a person.

She excused herself and hurried to the bathroom. She took a deep breath and gripped the sink to steady herself, cold ceramic against sweaty palms.

"I need to know your secret."

Amy whirled around to see Marnie had followed her. "What are you talking about?"

"Your secret. What you did to lose all that weight. I need to know."

Amy could only stare at her in disbelief. Surely this wasn't really happening.

"Come on, just tell me. Was it Atkins? Paleo? Some sort of weird diet pill?" Marnie demanded almost impatiently but then her expression softened. She took a step towards Amy and leaned in close to her as if she was confiding some big secret in her. "I'm up 40 pounds since high school and my husband barely touches me. I swear his eyes are on every woman but me. I need to do something."

There weren't many people left in Amy's life who knew just how fat she used to be and honestly she preferred it that way. In the past whenever someone did ask her about weight loss she would just smile blandly and tell them that there was no special secret, it was just a case of eating less and exercising more. She found that it was the quickest way to get people to leave her alone. Everyone wanted to believe that there was some strange voodoo to it. No one wanted to hear the dull truth that weight loss could generally only be achieved through calorie deficit.

But there was a deeper truth behind her weight loss that she thought about telling Marnie. She thought about all the times in the past that she had retreated into a still and silent cocoon inside herself and said nothing while Marnie did her worst. Now she wanted to tell her that she lost weight because she hated herself so much that she didn't think she deserved to eat, because she felt so worthless that she didn't think she deserved to take up space in the world. But no, she could not bring herself to let Marnie see her spill her emotional innards; raw, fleshy and vulnerable. As soft as spoiled fruit.

"What was it you told me in high school?" Amy said coldly. "That I wouldn't be so huge if I just stopped stuffing my big, fat face?"

As she watched her words slowly penetrate Marnie's mind, she saw only an emptiness in her eyes that chilled her. She realised that Marnie did not feel any shame for her past cruelties, felt no remorse for the damage she had inflicted. She had no understanding of Amy's anger and no desire for her forgiveness.

Marnie was no more the pristine high school queen. No more the girl who had it all. No more the merciless bitch who could destroy other girls on a cruel whim. Whatever power Marnie had once possessed in high school was now irrelevant and, now that her beauty had faded, she was learning the cruel lesson that life doesn't just give you everything you want. Amy had wanted to believe that the horrible things that Marnie had done had left an indelible mark on her conscience, that maybe Marnie would want closure as badly as she did but now she knew that she just didn't care and she never would. She realised that all that she could gain from meeting her former bully again was the petty satisfaction that she was living an unhappy and unfulfilling life and with that Amy decided that it was time to leave her behind for good.

She pushed past Marnie and back into the restaurant. Cassie was sitting just where she had left her, she was awkwardly fidgeting and pretending to check her phone while Melissa and Becki ignored her. Cassie gave Amy a grateful smile when she saw her but her expression soon changed to shock when Amy put her hand on her shoulder and said: "Come on, we're getting out of here."

"Amy! Wait! What's going on? What happened in there?" Cassie demanded as Amy dragged her into the parking lot.

"Those girls made my life hell for years."

"I know," Cassie said gently.

Amy sighed and leaned against the wall of the restaurant, trying to still her pounding heart.
"You know that bit in Carrie where she burns down the school? What if, instead of doing that, she just kept all that hurt and anger inside of her. And then years later when she finally has the chance to unleash it on the one person who deserves it the most it doesn't come out as a pyrotechnic rush of fury but rather this sad, sooty splutter. And she realises that the fire burned out inside her and she was just so used to the dull ache that she didn't even notice it was gone. Well, that's kind of what happened in there."

Amy did not look at Cassie, she stared into the parking lot and continued speaking as if in a trance. "I've spent so long punishing myself for the things she did and twisting myself and my body into something that other people would find acceptable and it hasn't brought me any happiness at all. I guess I need to find a way to be happy for myself and that's... such a relief but completely terrifying at the same time."

Amy turned to Cassie and gave her a small, embarrassed smile. "I'm sorry. This is pretty intense for what's technically supposed to be a first date."

"No! No, Amy, I know this is crazy because we've only known each other a short while but I really feel like we have something. There's something I should tell y--"

Her words were interrupted by the sound of car keys jangling to the ground and they both spun around to see Melissa reaching down to scrape her car keys off the ground.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I followed you out here to talk to you, Amy, but then I overheard what you just said and I thought it was better if I just leave. Gosh, I'm such a clutz. There I go and draw attention to myself anyway..."

"What did you want to say?" Unconsciously Amy folded her arms protectively against her chest and even after everything she had said she could feel herself creeping back into that still and silent cocoon deep inside where she could pretend that nothing could hurt her.

"I just wanted to say that I've thought about you a lot over the years, about all the horrible things we did to you," Melissa said. "I've often wondered how you are are. I even kept a stupid copy of Vogue because it mentioned your name in an article about London Fashion Week. Anyway, I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I know it doesn't make everything OK but I really am."

Amy nodded. "Thank you."

Melissa gave her a tight lipped little smile. "Take care. Both of you."

Lying in bed with Cassie's arms around her that night Amy was about to drift off to sleep when a thought suddenly occurred to her.

"What were you going to tell me earlier?"
"Huh?"

"In the parking lot. You said you wanted to tell me something."

"Oh... I can't remember. Probably just that your boobs looked incredible tonight."

"You're a terrible liar."

"I like to think it's one of my more endearing characteristics. But honestly, your boobs really do look incredible." She gave Amy's breasts a playful squeeze to illustrate her point.

Amy giggled but she was determined not to let her wriggle out of it. "Cassie, that is NOT what you were going to tell me."

Cassie pushed Amy back on the mattress and she felt the light pressure of her lithe body with all its promise of pleasure against her,

"I guess I can wait until the morning to find out that you're an axe murderer or whatever."

"Don't be silly," Cassie said with a little mischievous smile as she kissed Amy again. "If I was an axe murderer you would be in a million teeny tiny pieces in the morning."

"Psycho killer, qu'est que c'est?"

And with that all her questions were lost in a kiss.