Page 54 of How We Began

And only a little bit of listening to other people's conversations, especially those behind me. I managed to keep my chair firmly on four legs, which I think is making good progress. I’ll admit, I did miss an entire conversation that Meredith had with me today in class. She shook her head at me with pity when she realised what I had been listening to.

Meredith had been looking at the primary source we’d been given for discussion and was giving me her initial highly intellectual feedback.

Instead, I heard:

“So, Ben. When’s the band next playing?”

“Um, Saturday, I think.”

“Oh really? Whereabouts? Maybe the girls and I will come.”

“Uh, I can’t quite remember.”

“What? You can’t remember where you are playing this Saturday?”

“Uh, no. I tend not to get involved in the details. I just rock up and play.”

I’m smiling a little smugly at this. I know where he is playing. He told me yesterday when he invited me along.

Meredith elbowed me at this point, and I had to look at the diary excerpt she was waving under my nose. I tuned in again as soon as I could.

“So, is it true you have been offered to work on an album in the States?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Even I could tell from my desk in front he now sounded uncomfortable.

Give it up, Miss Plastic.

“So when do you go? I bet you can’t wait!”

There was a moment of silence.

“24th of June, after the final exam,” he answered with a slightly lower voice.

Now, that, I did not know.

Later we were walking across campus, Meredith ran off after seeing the strange green colour I went during my little eaves dropping exercise. “So 24th of June, hey?”

“Yeah, Liam has been sorting it all out.”

Liam is their manager and currently on the top of my people to hate list. He’s actually quite a nice guy, but he’s taking Ben away, which means he now has first place on my Black List of Doom. It’s a hard spot to climb down from.

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah, it is all kinds of crazy.”

“Mmm, yeah, crazy.”

Like really? I really hoped, in that moment, that someone would just run me over. What I needed was a big red double-decker to come careening out of control onto campus to put me out of my misery.

Apparently there were no big red buses available.

“Okay, just to clarify, you could just tell him right now, go and knock on his door, and he would change his mind at the drop of a hat.” Meredith had come home to find me hiding under my duvet. It’s been weeks since I was last found under there.

I stared at her. “Yes, Miss Brainy, but if I tell him that now then he will back out of the plans for his band and miss out on the biggest opportunity of his life. It’s a no-win situation.”

“Yeah, well, that is his choice to make, don’t ya think?”