When We Were Friends Read online

  Praise for When We Were Friends

  “A blistering, confronting, and utterly compelling read. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and disquieting in equal measures. This is Holly Bourne at her very best.”

  —Louise O’Neill

  “I will never, ever forget this book… It’s more than a page turner—it’s the sort of story you inhale. Fern is one of the most real, most loveable heroines I’ve met. This book will leave its readers kinder and wiser, and it will inspire us all to forgive ourselves for our complicated pasts.”

  —Daisy Buchanan

  “A total tour de force…all at once shocking, validating, shrewd and sharp-witted. I didn’t even know female friendship could be altered by the male gaze until I read this! And that is what is so astounding about Holly’s work: she makes you understand what you didn’t know you needed to examine… Buy it for every friend you have, and then hold a book club to discuss immediately.”

  —Laura Jane Williams

  Praise for Pretending

  “I love this book! YOU MUST READ IT! It’s beautifully written and completely engrossing but also a really important, timely book. Sheer brilliance.”

  —Lucy Foley

  “MAGNIFICENT. The whole sorry mess of gender and sexual politics wrapped up in a compelling story told by an ADORABLE heroine.”

  —Marian Keyes

  “Bourne is searingly honest about the trials and tribulations of modern dating and unafraid to examine the dark side of human relationships.”

  —Sunday Express

  “Pretending [is] a brilliant takedown of the rules and expectations of the dating game, with a spot-on analysis of the falseness and contradictions within. It is insightful and relatable and excruciatingly honest, with a serious heart.”

  —Caroline Hulse

  Holly Bourne

  When We Were Friends

  For my girls.

  Holly Bourne is a UK bestselling author and is an Ambassador for Women’s Aid. Inspired by her work with young people, and her own experiences of everyday sexism, Holly is a passionate mental health advocate and proud feminist. She lives in London but dreams of the day she has a garden, dog, chickens and a beehive.

  Contents

  Age 31

  Age 14

  Age 31

  Age 14

  Age 31

  Age 14

  Age 31

  Age 14

  Age 31

  Age 15

  Age 31

  Age 16

  Age 32

  Age 16

  Age 32

  Age 17

  Age 32

  Age 17

  Age 32

  Age 17

  Age 32

  Age 17

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 18

  Age 32

  Age 32

  Age 33

  Age 33

  Age 33

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  31

  now.

  If I’d known Jessica was going to turn up unexpectedly after all this time, I would’ve worn a different outfit.

  Though it’s not as if that would’ve stopped her looking better than me, and no outfit could rescue my general limp appearance that day. I’d woken up to a vibrating notification from my period tracking app. “Warning—you may be experiencing PMS symptoms today.”

  “What is it?” Ben had asked, in a voice thick with sleep.

  I’d kissed his creased face and handed over my phone.

  He read the screen and smiled. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll get my panic room ready.” He cradled my head and kissed me quickly on the lips, before returning my phone and rolling out of bed to get ready for work.

  I grinned as I listened to him sing in the shower, shifting to lie in the leftover warmth of his sleeping body. I inhaled his scent on the pillow and couldn’t imagine any PMS capable of breaking through my Ben-induced oxytocin.

  My boyfriend emerged dripping in a towel, looking both cute and sexy. “How are you feeling about tonight?”

  “It will be fine,” I sighed. The thought of the upcoming evening curdled the edges of my good mood. “It’s not like I sell out every day.”

  “You’re not selling out,” Ben repeated for the twentieth time. He leaned over to kiss me, sprinkling me with drops of shower water. “Remember, Fern, some days you just need to do your job and pay the rent.” He glanced at the time on his phone to check he wasn’t late. “If this ‘author’—” he made air quotes with his fingers “—says some stupid things, then that’s on her, not you.”

  “Stop being so nice to me if you’re now going to dare to leave for work when you’re so naked and brilliant,” I groaned.

  He laughed into my mouth as he kissed me, and I felt positively sickened by my own happiness.

  “I’ve got to go.” Ben gave me a final kiss, before straightening up, and pulling a shirt and trousers over his damp body. After he’d finished brushing his teeth, he appeared in the doorway with a breakfast bar in his hand to eat on the bus. “See you later, gorgeous. Message me when the event’s over. You’re going to smash it.” He picked up my phone, which still had the warning up. “When you look at the PMS dark side, careful you must be,” he said in a Yoda voice.

  I couldn’t help my smile. “You’re ridiculous and I love you.”

  “You too. Oh shit. Late. Always, always, late. Right. Gotta go.”

  When the front door clicked behind him, I sank again into the glorious smell of his pillow.

  * * *

  Of course, it didn’t take long for the app to be proved correct. My best friend, Heather, messaged me to say she wouldn’t be able to make it that night as she’d been given a last-minute late shift at the clinic. I dropped my toast peanut-butter-side down, spilled legions of coffee over my notes for that evening, and couldn’t get through Week Five of my Couch to 5k app. After I showered off the sweat from my failed run, I found my body had swollen like proven dough. My chosen outfit, which had looked fine a week earlier, now taunted me with its clinginess. Despite my shower, my hair still had a greasy sheen to it, and hung lankly around my shoulders. I tried curling it, but burned my neck—flinging my GHDs onto the carpet, and calling them “a self-satisfied pair of cunts.” These “cunts” proceeded to singe our landlord’s acrylic carpet in retaliation, and, it was just as well I hadn’t applied makeup yet, as I actually rage-cried for a full minute.

  By the time I left for the event, I’d masked my low mood and estrogen levels with red lipstick, and arranged my hair so it covered my GHD hickey. I wore an old and reliable black, long-sleeved jumpsuit and had gold heels I’d change into when I got to the venue. I was pelted with long strings of rain as I ran to the bus stop, soaked by the time I reached shelter. I checked my appearance using the selfie mode on my phone, and admitted defeat. This was just going to be a ball-ache of a day, with the event still to come.

  “At least no one you know is coming,” I reassured myself, as the bus hissed its way around the corner, splashing the bottom of my jumpsuit with puddle water.

  * * *

  “Fern, you made it. Oh my God, isn’t the weather terrible?” Gwen, the bookshop’s event manager, met me with the standard publishing industry two air kisses.

  “February is a very determined month,” I said, while my umbrella dripped onto her brogues. “Oh no, I’ve made you wet. Sorry.”

  She waved her hand. “Don’t worry. Right. Sit down. Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Wine? Stacy isn’t here yet.” Gwen checked her watch as she clattered over to a laden table and started putting food I’d not asked for onto a paper plate. She checked the time again as she dumped freshly cut melon onto my palm.

  “Oh, right. Thank you. Umm, Stacy’s just posted an Insta story on her way here. She’s on her way from the hairdresser. Stuck in traffic by all the rain.”

  Gwen twitched. “Oh, yes. OK. Have you seen the queue outside? They’ve arrived so early. They’re all going to be soaked.”

  “I’m sure they’re too excited to care.” I pushed a watermelon slab into my mouth to stop me making a sarcastic comment.

  “Shall I show you the stage setup? I know you’ve done this loads of times before, but can’t hurt to go over it, can it?”

  I sensed it was to ease her nerves rather than mine, but nodded, and followed her scuttling through the corridors out onto the giant empty stage. Stacy was too big for her events to fit into a bookshop, so they’d hired out a theater. Gwen and I stepped out into the blinding lights, while a technician paced around the stage, clapping at different moments. A jolt of nerves went through me. So many people would be witnessing this damn carry-on. Stacy’s publishers had done a paid partnership with Gah!, the website I worked at, and wanted me to chair the event to give her autobiography credibility. From what I’d been told, we couldn’t afford to turn down the advertorial, and I was stuck p
retending to like a book I’d thrown across the room seven times the previous weekend.

  “It’s dangerous and outdated...nonsense. I don’t think Stacy’s ever met a psychologist,” I’d told Ben—both before and after lunch, and twice more before bedtime. “And yet Gah! are splashing it all over their home page for a whole week.”

  He’d laughed and lowered his lips onto my eyelids. “And just think, out of all the chair people they could’ve chosen to peddle such misinformation, they chose you.”

  I stared out at the ocean of space. “That’s a lot of seats,” I said.

  Gwen grinned. “It sold out in an hour, did I tell you? One of the quickest we’ve had. Do direct them to buy the book at the beginning and the end. So many people forget.”

  “Of course.”

  “Shall I show you the Gah! stand?”

  “The what?”

  She led me past a side table dwarfed by the wobbling piles of Stacy’s book. Hulking hot-pink hardbacks towered toward the high ceiling, and, just past it, was a sorrowful-looking table with the Gah! banner above it, loaded with some promotional key rings I doubted anyone wanted.

  “That’s your table. It will be nice for you to be able to chat to people afterward.”

  “Oh great,” I said, immediately furious at my editor, Derek, for not telling me about this part of the evening. Nobody mentioned me having to loiter around some stand afterward.

  Gwen’s phone went and she leaped on it, her eyes wide with relief. “Stacy’s here,” she told me, as if Beyoncé had just arrived. “Quick.”

  * * *

  “Can you BELIEVE this weather,” Stacy bellowed to everyone, rushing into the green room with her tiny publicist, knowing she didn’t need to introduce herself. “I spent so long getting my hair perfect, and all for what? Oh my God. It makes you want to kill yourself. Whoops. Bad joke. You know me! Hey, do you guys have a phone charger I can use? Cheers.” Stacy snatched a lead from Gwen’s twitching hands, then spied the snacks. “Oh, cakes, yummy. Is this all for me? How sweet.”

  We all hovered and watched Stacy eat a cupcake, while I wondered when I should introduce myself. The young influencer had clearly made a “book launch outfit” mood board at some point after googling “what writers look like.” Gone was her usual array of erratic revealing clothing. Instead she’d poured herself into a crisp white shirt with skinny tie, dark blue jeans, heels, and gathered her hair into a professional ponytail, topped off with prescription-free large-rimmed glasses. “Wow. Watermelon too. Oh this is great.” She pulled out her phone. “Look. Everyone outside is so excited.” Stacy fell down a social media rabbit hole, and it was now slightly weird she hadn’t said hello to anyone. I coughed, to alert her publicist, who was also buried in her phone. She looked up, and I saw the obvious effort it took her to pretend enthusiasm for me.

  “You must be Fern! Oh my. Lovely to meet you.” She launched herself up and air-kissed me.

  “Nice to meet you too. How’s it been going?”

  “Oh crazy. Just crazy! We found out today we hit the bestseller list though. After only three days of sales.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “So much thanks to you and Gah! of course.”

  “We were so happy to support Stacy.”

  Stacy, behind us, held up her phone, and started filming a video to post. “This, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between...is what a green room looks like,” she said, narrating herself without a whiff of self-consciousness. I sucked my stomach in as the lens swept over me, pretending I didn’t know I was being beamed to over four hundred and fifty thousand followers.

  “Stacy? Are you free for a second? I’d like you to meet Fern, your amazing chair.”

  The influencer stood up to shake hands. “It’s great to meet you.” She smiled with the full wattage, as if I was one of her fans. “Fern, was it?”

  Her publicist filled her in. “Fern’s the Mental Health editor of the Gah! website. And she founded the Hold On For Tomorrow project. You know? That blog post that went viral a few years ago, encouraging people to post reasons to stay alive? She started that.”

  I watched Stacy’s expression as she realized I was, actually, quite relevant. “Oh my God, of course that was you! I loved that project! I knew I recognized you from somewhere. We must take a photo. Hayley, could you?” She tossed her phone to her publicist and smooshed her face against mine. Awkwardness reigned my body as I tried to pose in a way that didn’t make me look as if I was trying to get down with the youth. I was highly aware of my eye wrinkles compared to Stacy’s smoothly made-up face. One of her many “youth privileges,” like being able to shop at boohoo without looking like mutton, and her instant understanding of TikTok, the gender spectrum, and which brand of oat milk was morally questionable that week. The phone clicked, and Stacy grabbed it back, zooming in on her own face before pocketing it.

  “It’s great to meet you too,” I gushed. “I loved the book.”

  This was the toll I’d found you must always pay in the publishing industry. You must first lie that you’d read the book the whole way through, and then you lie about having loved it.

  Stacy accepted my payment, smiled, and offered up an equally inauthentic response. “Oh, really? Thank you. That means so much coming from you, Fern.”

  Me, a woman who needed formal identification less than two minutes ago.

  We grinned inanely at one another, our cheeks aching.

  “Do you have a few minutes to go through the event?” I asked. “My questions?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Do you mind if we didn’t? I feel like I lose my flow if I know what’s coming up. You know?”

  “Oh... Of course.”

  Hayley the publicist appeared at my side, while Stacy sat down again and disappeared through the portal of her phone screen. “Stacy’s just so comfortable in front of her followers that it all flows really easily,” she reassured me.

  “Of course.”

  “Honestly, just let Stacy be Stacy, and it will be amazing.”

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  Of course, the event was the train wreck I knew it was going to be from the moment I’d read her book. Not that anyone else, a) noticed the train wreck, or b) minded it. At least my reputation, and Gah!’s, didn’t appear to be harmed by it. In fact, as Stacy had so kindly tagged me into her socials afterward, I was privy to the hundreds of her fans crying and shaking at the beautiful energy of the inspirational evening. It was the easiest money I’d made in a long while. After we’d been miked up, we emerged in front of hundreds of cheering faces, and, as chair, I had to ask only one question to fill the forty minutes. “So, tell me, Stacy, what led you to write this book?”

  Stacy spurted into a manic monologue that was literally impossible to interrupt, even when she started sharing, in explicit detail, the exact methodologies by which she’d considered killing herself when she got “canceled” after a viral YouTube video, and discussing the success rates of each one. I winced and tried to interject as she broke every single Samaritans safeguarding guideline. As I watched this twenty-four-year-old talk about her gritty breakup, half of me wanted to hug her and the other half wanted to throw one mental health book at her that wasn’t her ghostwritten autobiography. Instead, I arranged my face into nothingness and reminded myself this was on Gah!, not me. Eventually, after calling her ex-boyfriend a “carrot cock,” which led to thunderous applause, and some eyebrow raises from stressed-looking parents sitting with their devoted eleven-year-olds—the show was over. Everyone stood and cheered, most of them in tears. I threw my arms in her direction. “Ladies and gentlemen, Stacy Smith,” and they all went crazy. As I mumbled the Samaritans’ help-line number into the microphone, they flung themselves out of their seats to join the queue to get their books signed.

  Stacy turned to me, glowing with a dew of sweat and validation.

  “Well done,” I said, trying not to lie. “Everyone loved it.”

  “Thank you. You were a wonderful chair. It was so great to meet you. We should totally grab a drink or something one time.”