The Regret Read online

  ‘Hi babe!’ Becca cried, grasping a bottle of M&S Finest Prosecco by the silver foil throat. ‘I bought birthday fizz.’

  She bustled past, dressed in going out clothes, a black camisole, gold hoop earrings, and red strappy heels that made Rachel’s calves ache just to look at them.

  ‘Konrad’s not here,’ Rachel said, wiping her mouth, wanting to get the crumbs off her lips.

  Becca dropped onto the sofa, groaning and peeling off her heels, like she’d just stepped in from clubbing. She looked considerably drunker than on the video call, her pink lip gloss smudged, and a pale dribble, spilled wine most likely, on the front of her white jeans.

  ‘He should have been here at half six,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Men!’ Becca lifted the wine. ‘Glasses?’

  Rachel hovered by the armrest. Was that it? Couldn’t Becca see that she needed to talk about this? ‘You have to hear what happened.’

  ‘Choppy chop, babe. Unless you want to see me drink from the bottle.’

  Rachel stormed through to the kitchen. Becca could be such a bitch sometimes, especially when she’d been drinking, which seemed to be all the bloody time these days.

  In fact, why was Rachel clinging to Becca? They weren’t in school anymore; they didn’t have to stay friends. It was always her trying to make plans, just like at the gym, which she blew off without an apology. And tonight, inviting her round, trying to keep going a friendship that she clearly didn’t want. Why else would she turn up smashed?

  Rachel took two wine glasses from the cupboard, then sagged against the door and rested her head against the cool wood. Why was she being so hard on her? She had a bad habit of doing that, of thinking the worst of people, as though by making herself annoyed with them she could stop what they did from hurting her. Such a stupid defence mechanism. All that happened was she ended up angry as well as sad.

  How long had it been since Becca quit her job at Orchid? A couple of months, at least. They hadn’t seen each other much in that time, and being honest, that was mostly down to Rachel. She’d been too wrapped up with Konrad, spending most evenings with him – and if she fancied a quick pint, that she knew wasn’t going to turn into ten, then it was easier and simpler to grab one with Spence. But what if Becca wasn’t so fine about quitting as she’d made out? She’d told Rachel she’d been sick of working in PR – the long hours, the hyper competitiveness, how everyone backstabbed to steal the hippest clients – but if she was really okay with it, wouldn’t she be doing more with her time than getting leathered and posting duck-lipped selfies on Instagram?

  Because she’s not happy. She just doesn’t want to admit it to you.

  For as long as they’d known each other, Rachel had been the screw up, with the broken home, the mental health problems, the weirdo stalking her. Meanwhile, Becca grew up with two sane functioning parents, a younger brother to terrorise, even a family dog that snuffled into bed with her in the morning. She went to parties, had boyfriends, got into university and landed her dream job when she got out.

  But look at them now, and hadn’t their roles reversed? Rachel was the one with the boyfriend, the family, the career, while Becca was single, unemployed, getting smashed every night – and putting on weight. When she sat down, the denim strained at the top of her jeans. No doubt about it, she would be secretly fuming about that.

  Rachel sighed. Really, she wasn’t such a good friend herself. How could she expect Becca to fawn over her problems with Konrad now if she’d barely been there for the last few months? Whatever happened to make her leave her job, it had messed her up, and she should have been more supportive.

  She carried the glasses through to the living room, where Becca was taking a pull from the bottle. She belched and looked up guiltily. ‘Ooops!’

  ‘Ladies cover their mouth,’ Rachel said, falling onto the sofa beside her. She took the bottle and poured two glasses.

  Becca mimed sipping tea, her face prim and her pinkie stuck out. ‘There are no ladies here, my dear,’ she said, in a fragile falsetto.

  ‘That much is very clear,’ Rachel replied, smiling at their old joke. ‘Listen, Becca…’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘About what happened with your job at Orchid–’

  Becca made a noise of disgust. ‘Ughhh. So where d’you say this bloke of yours was? He bringing anyone?’

  ‘No, it’s just him. Well, it’s supposed to be. And Spence.’

  ‘Oh, so I’m the beard, am I?’

  Rachel saw some of Becca’s interest in the night fade from her eyes. ‘I just wanted to keep it small. A few friends, you know? I don’t need to be making chit-chat with people I don’t know, especially after the day I’ve had.’

  She left her sentence dangling, hoping Becca would grab the hook.

  ‘Oh yeah, right,’ she replied, massaging her temple, looking pained. ‘You want the goss?’

  ‘Sure.’ Rachel, all clenched up, listened to her go on about some girl from school she didn’t remember who’d been arrested for shoplifting and was undergoing therapy for chronic kleptomania.

  ‘She’s just so thirsty for attention,’ Becca said, then looked at Rachel sideways and barked a laugh. ‘Sorry! I didn’t mean–’

  ‘You still think I sent you that photo, don’t you.’

  ‘Fucking hell, Rach. Can’t we just chat? I can’t stand the drama.’

  ‘It’s not drama. It was pretty humiliating actually. You don’t know what happened. That photo was sent to Pete as well. You know, Konrad’s mate. From his business. And now Konrad’s not here, and the night’s ruined, and I think… I think…’ Why was Becca looking at her like that? Rachel had been close to tears, had battled them down, but the expression on her friend’s face told her the truth – she thought she was making it up.

  ‘Do you have to do this?’ Becca groaned, wafting eau de Prosecco into her face. ‘You sent it, all right? Whether it was supposed to go just to me, or you managed to epically fail and send it your boyfriend’s mate, can we cut the crap? I don’t care. You’ve got your “problems”. Big deal. What’s new?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe you were bored.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘I don’t know what goes on in your head.’

  ‘Listen, Becca. I think… I think it might be Alan Griffin. He’d want you to think I sent it.’

  ‘That bloke? The perv who used to harass you? But, I mean, it’s been such a long time. Why would he come back now? You’re not so, y’know… young anymore.’

  ‘Don’t you remember what he used to do to me?’

  Becca squinted, not even attempting the keep the disbelief off her face. ‘Just tell me one thing. When that photo was sent, you were in the gym. Right?’

  ‘Okay…’

  ‘And were you logged into Snap?’

  She must have been. She’d put in her password on the bus and didn’t have to again after that. A cold feeling crept up from the hollow of her throat. ‘Well, I was–’

  Becca flung out her hands – got you now! ‘If someone else was using your Snap account, you’d have been logged out on your phone.’

  ‘But… I don’t…’

  ‘I tried it. I logged into Snap on my tablet and checked my phone. Boom. Gone.’

  ‘But why would I do that?’

  ‘But you were logged in!’

  ‘On my life, Becca. How could you–?’

  Becca cut her off with an exasperated tut, and finished her glass. ‘Who gives a shit anyway? You’re a fuck up. I’m a fuck up. Let’s just get drunk, eh? Might as fucking well.’ She looked her in the eye and snorted out a laugh. ‘You dopey cow.’

  Rachel stared, cheeks flushed, mouth open. A rap on the front door broke her stupor. She went to get it.

  Spence was on the doorstep, still in his nurse’s tunic, smiling, but in an unusual way, like someone was standing in the shadows, a gun trained on him, telling him to look happy. The photo. Of co
urse. He’d been sent it as well. Why those three? She didn’t have many contacts in Snapchat – she mainly used it to catch up on celebrity gossip while on the loo – but why not send it to her whole address book? It didn’t make sense.

  ‘You’ve seen it?’ she asked.

  His face flitted through confusion, to suspicion, then back to a smile, although it was somehow even less certain than before. He handed her a birthday card with her name in green neon highlighter pen. ‘Did… did you want a photo of me?’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ she said. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Spence!’ Becca tilted the wine bottle towards her mouth, then jerked forward as it spilled down her front. ‘Better hurry if you want fizz.’

  ‘Only if your herpes has cleared up,’ he said.

  ‘I prefer to call it spreading the love,’ she replied, and took another drink. ‘Mmmm… it’s so nice to feel something sparkly in your mouth. Makes the world that bit more bearable.’

  ‘Where’s your beast of a boyfriend?’ Spence asked Rachel.

  ‘Not here.’

  His eyebrows rose, as a question.

  Rachel blew out her cheeks. Long story. ‘Sit down, I’ll get you a glass. Unless you want to add to the backwash.’ She remembered the canapés. ‘You want food?’

  ‘Missed circuits this morning.’ Spence patted his flat stomach. ‘So nothing for me.’

  ‘Sling ’em this way,’ Becca said.

  Rachel went to the kitchen, found a clean plate in the cupboard, and slammed the door closed. Konrad wasn’t coming, that much was clear. So that was it. Eleven months and it was all over. Her mind flashed with an image of him leaning in for a kiss; she felt the soft press of his lips, the heat of his breath, the touch of his fingers caressing her cheek. Goddamn it. This was so fucked up. Only last week she’d been daydreaming her reaction to him saying I love you. She didn’t want it to be over. She didn’t want any of this. She tipped the canapés onto the plate and clattered the tray beside the sink.

  ‘Fine,’ Spence said, behind her. ‘I’ll eat your stupid food. Just don’t smash the place up.’

  He had his arms out for a hug. She fell into them and started to cry.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s okay.’

  She pulled away and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. At least she never got round to touching up her make-up, otherwise it’d be halfway down her face. ‘It’s not okay.’

  ‘I grabbed the screen.’ Spence got out his phone. ‘You look great. I’m going to save it in my contacts, so whenever you call I can check you out, little miss hot stuff.’

  ‘Can you delete that please?’

  He mock-rolled his eyes. ‘Uhh, if I must.’

  Before he could press the little trash can icon, she pulled the phone out of his hand. Rachel looked at the picture properly, her seventeen-year-old self. Was that really taken nearly ten years ago? Lying on her side on the bed, naked except for white panties and knee socks, she was thin, but not sick thin, not yet. No thigh gap or bikini bridge or collarbones like diving boards. She was definitely more attractive than she thought at the time, before illness and pregnancy warped her body out of shape.

  ‘I didn’t send it to you,’ she said.

  ‘But it came from your Snap account.’

  ‘Someone hacked it.’

  Spence pulled an oh wow face. ‘You’re joking. Do you know who did it?’

  ‘I think so… maybe…’

  ‘Let me guess – a vengeful ex?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘Don’t leave me hanging!’

  ‘It was a mistake, a stupid mistake. Just me and Becca messing about.’

  Spence’s eyebrows spiked.

  ‘Nothing like that!’ She paused. It wasn’t a period of her life she particularly liked to talk about, but he’d seen the photo, so he might as well know the rest. Well, some of the rest. ‘Have you heard of d0xing?’

  ‘Oooh, I read about that. It’s when someone gets their personal details published online.’

  She pinched out the photo, zooming into the pinboard above the bed. ‘See that?’

  ‘What? A letter?’

  ‘From the hospital, a referral for low blood sugar.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So it had my name and address on it.’

  ‘But how did…? I still don’t get…’

  ‘Fine. I’ll tell you. But please don’t say anything to anyone.’

  Taking the photo had been Becca’s idea. Back in school, a group of sixth form lads, lean footballers with styled hair and cool clothes, had a Hotmail account. Saved in it were pictures of the girls they liked. Most were topless. All were provided by the girls themselves.

  ‘It’s quite an honour,’ Becca said. They already had one of her. Sitting in Rachel’s bedroom after school, swigging from a bottle of gin they’d nicked from her gran’s kitchen cupboard, Becca was trying to convince Rachel to do the same. ‘Means someone fancies you.’

  ‘What if they show people? What if they put it online?’

  ‘Like anyone’s interested in your skinny butt among the gajillion gigabytes of porn. Come on, babe. Maxine Posen hooked up with Greg Clarkwell this way. It’s how I got off with Finn Young.’

  Could she do this? Rachel was sick of being sad and sexless. Sick of trailing after her best mate, wishing she had her life. She was seventeen. An exciting world of boys and parties, of fun memories that would last her a lifetime, waited for her behind an invisible wall. Could this be her wrecking ball?

  Rachel sighed. Who was she kidding? There was more chance of her growing gills and starting a new life as a mermaid than there was of her sending a topless photo to the boys.

  ‘Fine, sod them,’ Becca said. ‘Let me take a picture of you anyway. You’re such a babe and you don’t even know it. If you saw how your bod looked to other people, you wouldn’t be so hung up about it.’

  ‘If I want to see myself naked, I can look in the mirror.’

  Becca drunkenly shook her head. ‘Not the same. You look in a mirror, the angles are always wrong, the light’s always bad.’

  Heart thumping against her ribs, Rachel took two big gulps from the gin. Maybe Becca was right. Maybe with the proper lighting, lying in a sexy position, with her hair and make-up nicely done. Rachel would see something in a photo that she hadn’t seen before, something to give her confidence, to propel her into a normal life. The alcohol was making her head swim. Come on, she thought. You’re supposed to do dumb things like this when you’re a teenager. And if she was going to do it with anyone, it would be Becca, one of the only people she felt if not comfortable without clothes in front of, then at least not so horribly ashamed.

  Besides, if she hated it, which she surely would, then they could delete it and file the memory away to the Never Think Of This Again folder.

  But if she didn’t hate it…

  Really, what did she have to lose?

  Rachel still had her netball uniform on, and hesitated with her fingers on the hem of her red vest. ‘Promise you’ll delete it straight away if I tell you to?’

  ‘On my honour,’ Becca replied, giving her a hazy salute. ‘Come on, Rach. Don’t you want to feel good about yourself?’

  Yes, she did. She took another swig from the bottle and dragged off her vest.

  As expected, Rachel hated how she looked in the photo – all lumps and divots and masses of ugly pale flesh – despite Becca’s protestations that the photo was amazing, babe.

  ‘Why do you always have to be so blimmin’ negative,’ she said, as she e-mailed her own photo to the boys from her phone.

  ‘Can you delete it?’ Rachel asked. ‘Please?’

  ‘It’s deleted, it’s deleted.’ Becca turned her phone, showing the thumbnail gallery, ‘Look, gone.’ She took a mouthful of gin and shook her head in disgust. ‘Now let’s get super drunk.’

  Rachel didn’t drink often, spirits especially were hard on her stomach, but the evening had messed with her head and she ne
eded to wipe it from her memory. What if she had been brave enough to send the photo to the boys? What if they’d seen her differently from how she saw herself? She took the bottle from Becca. Her brain swirled. Her pulse pounded with the lost possibilities.

  Becca’s phone rang. The name Finn Y appeared on the screen, along with a photo of him in some nightclub, his arm around the shoulders of another bloke Rachel didn’t recognise.

  ‘Oh my god, oh my god!’ Becca yelped. ‘They must have seen it.’

  She took the call, pressing the phone to her ear even though he was talking loudly enough for Rachel to get the gist that he was apologising. Maybe he’d been too forward, although that didn’t seem likely. After losing her virginity at fourteen in the backseat to some estate kid whose name she didn’t remember, her best mate was no more averse to putting out than she was to trying magazine perfume samples.

  Becca covered her mouth. Even with the bronze sheen on her cheeks, she’d gone pale. She was glancing at Rachel, nodding at something Finn was saying, looking as though she’d been given terrible news, a terminal diagnosis, the gory details of a car crash, that an asteroid was moments from slamming into North London.

  ‘Send it to me,’ Becca said, and hung up.

  ‘What is it?’ Rachel asked. ‘What did he do?’

  Becca logged into her Yahoo account. Her latest e-mail was a minute earlier, from Finn. Inside was a link, nothing else.

  http://boards.4chan.org/b/thread/739373421

  Rachel knew about 4chan. The boys loved it. Oldest forum on the web, home of the depraved. She’d browsed it once for ten minutes and discovered only racism, homophobia, the occasional funny meme, and a deep primeval despair at the entire male gender. Becca clicked on the link.

  There, right there, at the top of the web page – on the Internet – was the photo of Rachel. The same one they took tonight. In her socks and knickers. She took a step to the side, reaching for the windowsill, the room listing. Gin burned back up her throat. She tried to hold it down.

  ‘They post all the photos there,’ Becca said. ‘Mine too. The shitty, shitty bastards!’