Entangled (3 page)

day 7

No change. Nothing.

day 8

Today is dark.

day 9

Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnine.

day 10

Ready to write’n’roll. The last few days have been pretty crappy. Not much to tell; a lot of pacing back and forth. It’s driving me insane, not being able to move around. I need some space. Or at least a treadmill. Ethan has washed the bed sheets, and he’s replaced my surgical gown with some new clothes – I now have two pairs of bright white pyjamas to choose from. Might be progress.

He’s hardly said a word to me for four days. Pretty much every time he’s come in I’ve been lying in bed. He often glances over to the table hopefully, and he seems disappointed (deflated?) that I’m not there, scribbling away. If he comes in and sees me now, it’ll probably make his day. Don’t want that happening. Sometimes I glare at him, just daring him to say something. And sometimes he looks as if he’s about to speak, but then thinks better of it. What is his deal?!

The longer this goes on without anything happening, the more confused I get. I don’t exactly feel scared any more. Maybe there’s only so long you can maintain that level of fear, before it gets too exhausting.

I’ve been here ten days now. I wonder how Mum is doing. Frantic, probably. Maybe engaging in a spot of retail therapy to distract from her trauma. Or sitting on the sofa next to a policewoman, like a character in a TV drama. Acting like a good mother – one who cares. I wonder if the police are still looking for me. Maybe they’ll have given up by now. Maybe there’s only so long you can maintain that level of hope too.

I keep thinking about Sal. Does she feel bad? Does she feel
anything
? Are her insides writhing and twisting in guilt and shame?

Sal. I don’t even know where to start. The beginning seems like as good a place as any. She moved here from Edinburgh with her parentals and annoying little brother just over a year ago. Before Sal arrived, I was sort of good friends with Those Girls at school – the ones who think they’re better than everyone else. I was always on the fringe though, never too close to anyone. I never thought I was missing anything by not having a real proper best friend.

The first time I saw her, I knew we’d end up being mates. I just knew it. She was sitting in the corner of the common room, frantically scrawling in a notebook. None of that self-conscious new-girl air about her. She had awesome hair and good clothes. Not that I’m superficial, but these things help when you’re trying to decide whether or not to make an effort with someone. OK, so maybe I
am
superficial, but so is everyone else.

I slumped down on the seat next to her, asked her what she was writing. It was a story. Something we had in common – we both liked to write. So that was how we got talking. I’d never really talked to anyone about my writing before. English teachers don’t count. From then on Sal and I gradually started hanging out together at lunchtimes, break times, free periods. It seemed like every day we spent a bit more time with each other, until I barely bothered talking to anyone else. I stopped hanging around with my usual crowd and they barely even noticed.

After we’d known each other about a month, I felt ready to take the Next Step. It’s a big deal when you make the leap from seeing someone at school to hanging out with them
in your own time
. But I was ready. I invited Sal round to my house one Friday when Mum was in London visiting a friend.

We ordered pizza and vegged out on the sofa. I found out some more about her: pepperoni was her favourite; we both thought social-networking sites were for losers; she wanted to be a lawyer or a writer or a marine biologist or star in a West End musical; she was totally in love with Chris, a boy from her old school, but she’d never done anything about it and he didn’t have a clue and now it was too late cos he lived 200 miles away. Which was sort of lame when I thought about it, but I let her off. Just cos.

All in all, I was more than a little bit excited (secretly, of course) to have a New Best Friend. Not that there was an
old
one for her to replace. Sal was good for me. She was always so
happy
, and not in an annoying way. Just the right level of shiny. She was so damn optimistic about everything. Always sure that tomorrow would be better than today. So sure that we’d both get exactly what we wanted. Should have known that wasn’t possible.

Sal and I became pretty much inseparable. I practically lived at her house at weekends. Mum didn’t seem bothered. I think it suited us both: she got to pretend she was childless and carefree and I got to pretend I had a mum who actually liked me. And a dad too, just for good measure.

One night just before Christmas, I was staying at Sal’s house (Chinese takeaway, wine,
Skins
on DVD). We were getting ready for bed, brushing our teeth in front of the bathroom mirror. I reached across Sal to grab a hand towel. She caught me by the wrist and said, ‘What’s this?’

My stomach did that horrible flip-flop motion, like a washing machine at the start of its cycle. I made a big deal of spitting out a mouthful of toothpastey foam while I thought hard. I don’t know why I was surprised; it’s not like I thought the scars were invisible or anything. I tried to play it down – it’s nothing, just some scratches I got when I was a kid … from my grandma’s cat?

It was hard to look at her. And even harder to look at myself. She put her hand up to my face and moved my chin so that I had to face her. ‘Grace, you know you can tell me
anything
. You’re my best friend.’ I’d never been anyone’s best friend before. No option but to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the bloody truth. I followed Sal into her room, sat down on the bed and talked.

I’d just turned fifteen the first time I cut. I was in my room, writing an essay. My music was blaring, as usual. It was a pretty normal night. No more depressed than any other day. That’s the thing: I was never happy, not really. Kind of just existed from day to day, on a weird plateau of feeling nothingness. That’s not to say I didn’t feel happy at times – of course I did. But they were fleeting moments, gone before I could even begin to appreciate them.

I was looking around for something to distract me from my essay. I drew round my hand and coloured in the fingernails with a red biro. Opened up my desk drawer and rooted around a bit. I found Dad’s old Swiss Army knife. I opened up all the blades, and found some tweezers that I hadn’t realized were there. The last blade I opened was the knife. Sharp and shiny and strangely appealing in a way I couldn’t quite understand.

I pressed the blade against my thumb, applying just a little pressure – not hard enough to draw blood.
Huh. Unsatisfactory
.

I drew the blade across my forearm – hard. For a millisecond it looked like I hadn’t really done anything. There was just an indentation in the skin. But then the blood welled up so fast. It was so red. And there was so much of it.
Better. Much better
.

It was mesmerizing. I held up my arm and watched the blood drip drip drip down into the crease of my elbow. One or two drops splashed onto the desk. I felt slightly floaty and weird – but mostly good.

A little pain. But it was a good pain, a clean pain.

That first night, I only cut myself once. No one noticed. I don’t exactly go around holding my arms out for people to inspect.

After that night, I cut more. Amassed a pretty serious collection of scars.

I got better at choosing where to cut, finding ways to hide the angry red slashes from the world. And later, hiding the silvery scars. I hadn’t really thought there would be scars. Hadn’t really thought.

To me, the scars are obvious. They stand out like they’re screaming, ‘Look at her! Look at what this freak does to herself!’

It’s more like a whisper though, to anyone who’s listening.

Sal was listening.

She sat opposite me, her legs crossed like a seven-year-old’s in school assembly. I
knew
she was looking at me with a mixture of worry, pity and maybe something else (horror?). I didn’t look at her to check though. Just concentrated really really hard on the duvet.
Red stripe, white stripe, red stripe, white stripe. Red. White. Red
.

When I’d finished my inadequate explanation and answered Sal’s questions (also inadequately), she took my arm in her hands and looked.
Really
looked. My forearm was exposed in the harsh overhead light. The scars seemed to stand out more than ever before. She touched them with her fingertips, murmuring, ‘What have you done to yourself?’

I had no words. Not even a smart-arsed joke. Just tears.

I cried more than I had ever cried in front of a real live person. Sal hugged me and stroked my hair and told me everything was going to be OK. I cried myself beyond red blotchy puffy-facedness and into sleep.

When I woke up, the room was dark and Sal was lying next to me wide awake. I apologized for making such a scene, tried to make light of it. I was embarrassed, big time. I’m not used to losing control like that.

Sal propped herself up on one elbow and looked at me all serious. ‘I think you need to get help, Grace,’ she whispered. I was horrified by the idea. We went back and forth for a while, until she realized that she was getting nowhere.

She made me promise that a) I wouldn’t do it again, and b) whenever I felt I
wanted
to do it, I would pick up the phone and call her. She said she would come to me any time, day or night.

I actually believed that a) and b) were entirely possible.

I was
sort of
glad I’d told her. It was good to share the secret. But I felt stupid and ashamed and pathetic at the same time.

Sal and I were closer than ever after that night. Bound together by my dirty little secret. That was just over nine months ago.

Ethan’s just left.

He found me sitting at the table, sobbing. He brought my tray over and gathered up all the paper and put it on the floor. He put his hand on my shoulder ever so gently, and it stayed there while I cried. When the tears ran out, I picked up the fork and began to eat. I could only stomach a couple of forkfuls. I had to swig down some Coke just so I didn’t choke. Ethan sat on my bed and watched me.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘You should eat. You’ll feel stronger.’

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘Grace …’ He looked at me imploringly.

‘I don’t want you here. Please leave.’

He left.

day 11

Had a dream about Sal last night. Hardly surprising really.

She was here with me and we were sitting opposite each other at the table. Ethan was leaning against the wall, watching us. Sal and I were talking about something important and Ethan was repeating every single word I said. I got annoyed, and told him to leave us alone. And just like that, Ethan was gone, replaced by Nat. A smug Nat who smiled too much. Sal got annoyed and told him to leave us. I smiled at Sal and reached across the table to hold her hand, but she morphed into Ethan and said, ‘Maybe we’re getting somewhere, Grace.’ Then I woke up, wishing that dream people would at least have the courtesy to stay as the
same
dream people and not be so bloody confusing.

I thought I’d pick up where I left off yesterday, chronicling the complete life cycle of a friendship. After I told Sal about the cutting, things were OK for a while. No one else would have noticed a change, but I noticed a difference in the way she looked at me. I felt like she was always trying to gauge my mood. Like if I was in a mard for no particular reason (not exactly a rare occurrence), she’d cock her head to one side and look at me thoughtfully. I could practically
hear
her wondering if I was going to cut. Sal probably thought she was being subtle, but I often clocked her looking out for fresh cuts (which she never saw). I didn’t mind all that much. She was acting exactly like a best friend should. It was nice.

Occasionally she’d try to get me to talk about it – about why I did it. I would listen to her theories and then try to change the subject. Why does there have to be a reason for everything? Some things just
are
.

So our friendship might have seemed a bit unbalanced: me being all self-pitying, Sal looking after me most of the time. She certainly took care of me enough times when I was puking in the toilets of some cheesy club. And she had a nice line in rescuing me when I was about to do something I’d probably regret with someone I’d
definitely
regret.

I didn’t exactly relish the role of Pathetic Needy Friend, but Sal seemed to want to look after me. And maybe I needed looking after.

Everything changed a few months ago.

I’d been to Glasgow to visit my grandma over Easter. Had a fine old time: bit of shopping, lots of reading, nice long chats over a lovely cup of tea. (It was always a
lovely
cup of tea,
never
an average one.) I came back all cheery and bearing gifts from Sal’s homeland: a cuddly Loch Ness Monster and a Scottish bagpiper doll with super-scary staring eyes.

The Sal I found was not the ever-optimistic-little-ray-of-sunshine Sal that I left. Oh, it wasn’t obvious. She laughed at the presents I’d brought her and listened in an interested enough way to my enthralling holiday tales. But there was something wrong – I knew it. It was subtle, like when you mess with the brightness levels on your TV. She was duller somehow, faded. She didn’t seem sad or depressed or worried or anything you could put your finger on. She just wasn’t quite Sal.

I asked her what was up almost as soon as I saw her, but she was adamant that nothing was wrong. I knew she was lying, so I pushed it a little, but backed off when she started getting annoyed. I figured she’d tell me when she was ready. I didn’t realize just how long I’d have to wait.

Things carried on more or less as normal for the next few weeks. Sal was clearly doing her best to act her usual upbeat self, but I wasn’t buying it. No one else seemed to notice that anything was wrong. Her parents were too busy dealing with Cam, who was being bullied at school. And everyone at
our
school was too busy being wrapped up in themselves, as usual.

About a month passed and I watched Sal closely, looking for clues. She seemed to be getting worse. I noticed her pushing her food around on her plate at lunchtime – completely out of character. And she looked like she was losing weight. But still she maintained that nothing was wrong.

My daily ‘Hiya, how’s it going?’ now had a hidden meaning, as in ‘Hiya, how
are
you,
really
?’ But Sal wouldn’t take the bait. She seemed more and more distant. I felt like she was backing away from our friendship. It was upsetting.

One Thursday afternoon just before our exams, Sal and I meandered towards the park. We were headed to my house for a bit of English revision. Not that we needed to do any, but we had to at least
look
like we were making an effort.

It had been a gorgeous morning, a kind of birds-singing, break-into-song, 1950s-movie-type morning, but as soon as we left school, top-heavy dark clouds seemed to fast-forward through the sky, finally letting loose a torrent of stupidly heavy rain as we passed through the park gates.

We just stood there, looking at each other and giggling. Within a minute or so, we both looked as if we’d taken a shower in our clothes. I grabbed Sal’s arm and ran towards a huge old oak tree near the swings. We sat with our backs against the trunk, laughing and shivering and watching mothers frantically trying to fasten up waterproof covers on pushchairs. Soon, we were the only ones left in the park. Still the rain drummed on.

We sat there for a while, hypnotized by the show the rain was putting on just for us. Sal turned and looked at me like she was trying to read my mind – or maybe trying to weigh something up in her
own
mind.
Uh oh, here it comes
. I felt a bit sick. Scared.

‘There’s something I need to tell you.’ Did I know that what she was going to say would change everything? Maybe not. But I knew it was going to be big.

‘I think I’m pregnant.’ Four words, that’s all it took. All I could manage to splutter out was ‘Jesus!’
Nice. Good work. Very supportive
.

Sal began to cry and it just about broke my heart. I put my arms around her and held her tight. She kept saying the same thing over and over again: ‘What am I going to do?’ I said that it would be OK and that we’d figure it out and was she really sure? But I wasn’t getting through to her, so I held her face between my hands and made her look me in the eyes. ‘Listen to me, Sal. Are you sure you’re pregnant? Have you done a test?’ Sal shook her head and sobbed, ‘I know I am. I know it, I know it. How could this happen?’

We must have sat there for a good twenty minutes before I noticed that Sal was shivering really badly. She looked terrible. We headed to the bus stop, me with my arm around Sal’s shoulders, her stumbling along in a kind of dazed stupor. I think she was all cried out.

We sat in silence all the way home. I could
not
have been more shocked.
How could this happen? I thought she was supposed to be a virgin … Surely she’d have told me if … When? Who with? And why hadn’t she told me before?

I led her into my house and straight up to my bedroom. We changed out of our wet clothes. I even let her wear my favourite jeans. She sat at the dressing table while I ran a comb through her matted, damp hair. She was looking in the mirror, but I could tell she wasn’t really seeing much of anything.

I looked at Sal’s reflection. Would I call her beautiful? Maybe. Definitely. Blonde hair that skims just above her shoulders. She often gathers it up in some complicated arrangement that always looks completely effortless. Brown eyes and permanently honey-hued skin. Lucky cow.

When I was done with Sal’s hair and had quickly run the comb through mine (boring brown beneath MANY layers of red dye), I sat down on the edge of the bed. Sal turned around on the stool to face me. We were practically knee-to-knee, but somehow more distant from each other than ever before. ‘So, are you going to tell me what happened?’

She shook her head. No eye contact.

‘Okaaay, how late are you?’ The words almost got stuck in my throat.
I can’t believe we’re having this conversation
.

‘Two weeks,’ she said softly. Two weeks? Could she be two weeks late just from stress or something? Or did it definitely mean she was pregnant?
Aargh. I haven’t got a clue about this stuff
.

‘OK, two weeks. You know, you can’t be sure till you’ve done a test. You could just be late cos you’ve been stressing so much. Let’s not jump to conclusions here.’ That sounded all right in my head, but pathetically inadequate when said out loud. Maybe you just
know
when you’re pregnant. Maybe your body feels different? How the hell was I supposed to know?

The supply of tears had been replenished and began to spill out again. ‘I
know
I’m pregnant. I’ve known ever since …’

‘
Please
tell me what happened, Sal. I’m your best friend – if you can’t tell me, you’re screwed …’ I winced. ‘Sorry … bad choice of words.’ She half laughed at my bad joke, but then shook her head and looked at me sadly.

‘Please … you have to understand. I just can’t.’ I felt like I’d failed some sort of test – probably the most important test our friendship would ever face. If only I’d said the right thing I could have got her to open up to me. Instead, I’d put my foot in it as usual, making a joke of something that was
so
not funny.

I practically begged her to tell me, but she wouldn’t budge. And I couldn’t help but feel a seed of resentment planting itself within me. I’d told her my deepest, darkest secrets; shouldn’t it be a give-and-take sort of thing? I looked away and gazed out the window. The rain had finally stopped.

Sal took hold of my hand. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Grace. I couldn’t bear it if you were angry with me.’

‘I don’t know what you want me to say. How can I help you if you won’t even talk to me about it?’ I
was
angry, but I didn’t want her to know it.

‘It doesn’t matter what happened. I don’t want to think about it. Please don’t make me think about it. I don’t want you to hate me or think I’m any more stupid than you must do already. I just need you to be here for me.’ She was pleading with me now. Scared and vulnerable and sad. My anger faded.

‘Why would I hate you? Why would I think you’re stupid? Stuff like this happens. I mean, it’s a bit of a shock, but it’s OK. I’d never think any less of you, you daft cow. You know me better than that. But if you really don’t want to tell me, then I suppose I’ll just have to get over it, won’t I?’
Tell me tell me tell me NOW!

Sal seemed grateful that I didn’t push it any further. She stood and yawned. ‘God, I’m
so
tired. Mind if I just have a little sleep? Just for a few minutes.’ She curled up on the bed, kitten-style.

‘Er … Sal, don’t you think there’s things we should be talking about?’
How can she be thinking of sleep at a time like this?

‘Later, Gracie. Later, I promise.’ She sounded so exhausted that I decided to leave it – for now.
Maybe she’ll be more rational after a bit of shut-eye
. I lay down next to her and stared at the ceiling until I heard her breathing relax into sleep.

So, my sweet and innocent best friend was pregnant. Or at least she seemed pretty sure she was. There was a
baby
growing inside her. An actual real, live baby/ foetus/whatever. This was bad bad bad. Couldn’t get much worse in fact. First things first though. I had to make Sal get a pregnancy test, just to be sure. It would be annoying to be stressing this much over a false alarm.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine
who
she’d slept with. Sal wouldn’t have sex with just anyone – she’s too damn choosy for that.
Oh God, maybe someone raped her. That could explain her reluctance to tell me what happened
. I wanted to wake her up right that moment and ask her. But she looked so serene and peaceful – I just couldn’t do it.

I decided that a cup of tea was probably in order. Nothing like a cuppa in a crisis. So I went down to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Leaned against the worktop and sipped my tea. My mind was racing – it couldn’t seem to stay on one topic for five seconds before flitting on to something else.
How could this have happened? And why the hell hadn’t she taken the morning-after pill? And where was I when this was all going on? Easter. It had to have been at Easter. If I’d been here, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. My fault?