Exactly half an hour later, I walked down the dainty stairs to the store, instantly spotting a mop of dark, curly locks amongst the jacket section. I headed over.
"Do you not have anything better to do today?" I ask him and he turns to look at me, a wide grin on his face.
"Mmm, no. Nice place by the way." He continues sifting through the jackets.
"Are you going to buy something, or are you just going to continue loitering?"
"Are you going to continue being a massive bitch?" He says sarcastically.
"I'm not being a massive bitch." I smile.
"I know." He laughs. "You're being nice, in your own, twisted way."
I scoff, "I am nice." We move out the way for a teenage girl to pass, she looks up at us in awe. "Hi, how are you?" I greet her.
"I'm good." She looked nervous and quickly scurried off, making her way to look at some jeans.
"Way to make your customers feel welcome." Matty chuckles and I flick him on his bicep, if you could even call it that.
"Fuck off."
"You know, you haven't been nice to me since the night we met, and Friday night. You were so weirdly nice to me, I was worried." I roll my eyes at his statement.
"I'm always nice." I mumble.
"I'm going to buy this." He takes a jacket off the rack, it's a long leather coat, with various colours of painted symbols and writing.
"I painted that." I told him.
"How could I tell. I always knew you had a shaky hand." I stop my foot down on his toe as I laugh, he winces in pain, before joining me in laughter.
"Serves you right, follow me." I walk towards the counter and open a register. I take the jacket from him and scan it. He hands me the money.
"I'm meeting George for lunch, wanna come?" He takes the bag from me, the jacket inside.
"No thanks, I should stay, it's getting busy."
"Well, I'll catch ya later. I'll text you." He smirks and I roll my eyes.
"Yeah, bye." I practically shoo him away.
"You're hanging out with your ex?" Mary, the store manager says as she joins me by my side, beginning to serve the next customer.
"Not really, he just came by to check out the store for the first time." She raises her eyebrow at me, starting to chuckle in amusement.
"I've seen him here a few times. He just comes in, looks around, and leaves." She laughs again and shakes her head.
Being cliche, I look off into the distance and ponder. What the fuck is up with Matty Healy.
High-pitched screams erupted from the cot, making me jump in my position on the couch. Baby Kristina.
"Could you take care of that demon child, please." My sister, Ivy, was completely disheveled in the kitchen. She was attempting to cook the greatest meal ever. It was not going well.
I put my arms around Kristina and held her closely to my body, bouncing her up and down slightly. Is this how you stop a baby crying? I wouldn't know, and neither would Ivy.
Ivy was three years older than me, she was always the party girl, ever since high school. She'd come home some nights, completely wasted, mum and dad would wake up and go off at her, then they'd all go back to sleep as if nothing happened.
And then one night she just fell in love, and that was that. His name was Hamish, he was studying law at Uni. They moved in together after three months. They were always at home. Studying or whatever. Next thing we know, Ivy is telling us at a family dinner at her place that she had applied for Uni to study interior design. She was doing so well. When she graduated, he proposed, they had a magical wedding. Ivy and Hamish both got drunk, but they were happy. Three years later Ivy rang me while I was in a hotel in Milan, screaming in excitement through the phone, telling me she was pregnant. And now she has baby Kristina. Or as she likes to call her, 'demon child'. Me and Ivy are a lot a like.
I placed Kristina gently back in her cot once she had fallen back to sleep.
"Could you cut these up for me?" Ivy called me over. I started running the knife carefully through a sweet potato.
"I saw Matty, and George, on Friday night."
"Oh that's nice, how are they?" She said with a smile, stirring a pot of soup on the stove.
"Now that you say that, I didn't really ask them. I assume they're doing pretty well. They're on break from tour."
"Cool. Are you going to catch up with them?"
I pause, "I don't know how to act around him, around Matty."
She raises her eyebrow at me, "What do you mean? Just act normal, or as normal as you can be." She giggles and I laugh sarcastically.
"I mean, should I just forget everything that happened?"
"Um yeah?" Ivy says this like I'm stupid. "The guy definitely had his problems, maybe sometimes he didn't treat you great-"
"He didn't treat me 'great' at all." I interrupt.
"But, he is a good guy. I could tell from the moment I met him."
"You think I don't know that? He's perfect." I start cutting the sweet potato again, not realising I had stopped.
"Then what's with all the, fudging, fuss?" Ivy looks at Kristina, careful not to swear when she's in the room, even when she's asleep. "Just, I don't know, chill with him. See what happens."
I stop cutting to look at her, "Are you subtly suggesting that I get back together with him?"
She puts her hand up in defeat, "Hey, would that be so bad?" We laugh. "But seriously, you've known him for eight years, and you dated for almost four years. You can at least be friends with him."
I sigh, "I can try."
After being shooed away by Ivy, I sit on the couch and decide to text George, who's number I'd gotten from Nina. It would be nice to catch up and see how they've been doing these past few years. But I am not giving Matty the satisfaction of receiving a text from me.
'Hey it's Tati. Do you wanna meet up for drinks tomorrow night or something? Bring your mates.'
I receive a reply ten minutes later.
'Tati! My girl! Yeah sounds good. Meet at Yubio at 10pm. Bring your mates.'
----
how I imagine Ivy above
