The Night That Changed Everything by Laura Tait and Jimmy Rice

other, I manage to snatch the phone without falling flat on my face.
    My heart is thumping a techno beat.
    Put the kettle on , Jamie has written.
    â€˜Tit,’ I say out loud.
    I allow myself to collapse on to the floor, where I sweep away the phone with my arm and watch it slide over the veneer towards the kitchen before ricocheting off the foosball table towards Jamie’s bedroom, right at the moment his door opens. He stops and inspects the phone, which lands near his bare toes, and then me, a wounded Y on his floor, and he doesn’t look as confused as you might expect.
    â€˜I’m not even going to ask.’
    He heads to the kitchen and places a hand on the still-cold kettle.
    â€˜I think there may be something wrong with your phone, mate.’
    I return to the couch. ‘I thought it might be Rebecca.’
    He stands by the kettle, not saying anything, as it starts to boil.
    â€˜I spoke to her last night,’ he finally says. ‘She said you texted her seven times yesterday.’
    â€˜You spoke to her? How is she?’
    â€˜On the verge of getting a restraining order, I expect.’ He shakes his head. ‘She wanted to know whether I’d known all along.’
    â€˜What did you say?’
    â€˜The truth – that I was as shocked as her. How could you and Danielle have
done it
without me finding out?’ I sense him looking at me for an answer. ‘How come neither of you told me?’
    â€˜We’ve been through this,’ I say wearily, and then to change the subject: ‘I’m going around there tonight.’
    â€˜I don’t think she’s ready yet, mate. Just give her a few more days.’
    â€˜For fuck’s sake – I can’t keep borrowing your clothes for ever.’
    He pours the tea, adding half a sugar to mine, just how I like it.
    â€˜It wasn’t seven.’ I reach for my phone and go over to show him the messages, vindicated.
    He takes the device from me. ‘Mate, there are one, two, three . . . seven messages here without reply, and that’s just yesterday.’
    â€˜Look at the times, though.’ I point to the screen. ‘Five of them were sent within three minutes of each other. Anything sent within a three-minute window only counts as one message, everyone knows that.’ I return to the couch with my tea. ‘Plus, rules go out the window in an argument – that’s what we told Danielle when she was texting Shane.’
    â€˜I’ve got to get ready for a delivery at the bar,’ he says, carrying his mug into his bedroom. ‘Stop being a loon.’
    Russ is scribbling on a notepad when I get to my desk, his tongue jabbed into the side of his cheek like a kid who’s concentrating really hard on algebra.
    â€˜Morning,’ I say to him and Tom.
    Russ looks me up and down. ‘Don’t people usually let themselves go when they get dumped? How come you’re dressing better?’
    â€˜I haven’t been dumped,’ I say. ‘Yet.’
    Tom bows his head guiltily so that his floppy hair resembles a lampshade. ‘Avril really couldn’t be sorrier,’ he says.
    Russ harrumphs, and I find that hard to believe myself, but I don’t want to take it out on Tom. ‘It’s not your fault, mate.’
    â€˜You could have stayed in your old room, buddy,’ says Russ.
    I smile, grateful, but we both know it wasn’t an option. Avril’s always there, and I’d end up shoving the beret down her throat.
    â€˜I deliberately drank all her organic soy milk yesterday, if that makes you feel any better?’ says Russ.
    â€˜That was my organic soy milk,’ says Tom, but it’s a quiet clarification rather than a protest.
    Russ shakes his head as though he pities Tom. A few minutes later, once Russ is distracted by whatever he’s writing on the notepad, Tom deposits a present on my desk.
    â€˜I didn’t get a chance to give you it