A couple of days ago I had to revisit my old stomping ground to collect a few documents. I tried to make myself as invisible as possible because of my history there and with the people who were still there (Ella, Lyndsey etc). That night, out of the blue, my Blackberry buzzed.Ella: Hey, how are you?
Noah: I’m good, I’m home for a while, and you? Been up to much?
Ella: I’m also good. I’m going out tomorrow night. I can’t wait, I might see you. Are you at home right now?
Noah: Yeah I am, got back about a week ago. Where are you going, Liquid in Newcastle? Loads of people from the old stomping ground are going to be there
Ella: Yeah, Liquid. Never been before. How about you?
Noah: Liquid too.
Ella: Woah. Well...I might see you, I might not. Text me if you’re back at the old stomping ground.
Odd? I deleted the texts and took nothing from them, assuming her and her boyfriend would probably not venture to Liquid anymore.
The next night we queue-jumped, and on our way down to the ‘velvet rope’ I saw Ella with her boyfriend, who is nicknamed after dairy produce (cheese – when I first heard he went by ‘Cheesy’ the only thing I could think of was ‘cheesy dick’, and hence forth that was how I put him down to my friend, as all ex-boyfriends do about the new boyfriends). I hurried up and scuttled through the velvet rope. My leg was shaking, but I put it down to the cold. We had just walked from a bar on the other side of the city.
We got into Liquid, and like the queue had predicted, it was full – overly full. We couldn’t move. We made our way up to Envy, which was a balcony bar that overlooked Liquid’s dance floor, and considerably less packed. I easily slid into my old drunken ways. I swear, I don’t have a problem. We met up with Jayden, James, Chris and other guys from our old stomping ground and we hung out on the balcony while getting even drunker. I stood up, about to go to the bar, when I saw Ella, with Cheesy. I turned in hope she hadn’t seen me.
“Noah!” I looked up, pretending I hadn’t seen who shouted of me. “Noah!” She walked over, Cheesy following silently and unhappily behind her.
“Wow. Ella. How are you? How long did it take for you to get in?”
“Quite a while, but we’re in!”
“It’s really full isn’t it?” I kept asking questions in hope that there would be no awkward pauses. I glanced at Cheesy and he was stood, silent, and not even attempting to enter into the conversation.
“Yeah it is. Have you seen anyone?”
“Yeah I have: Chris, Jayden and few of the other guys. How about you?” Again, I asked another question.
“Um, no one.” There it was. The awkward pause I’d been expecting. She turned and said something to Cheesy.
“Well, I think we’re going to go to the bar, so I’ll see you around.” I interrupted. Brooke and I hurried through groups of people to the bar.
“Dude, my leg is shaking. My hands are. I’m trembling. Why?” I told Brooke. It was at the point I had a thought: had I made a big mistake a year ago?
