Forget Me Never (2 page)

‘You mustn’t blame yourself for this, Sophie. Yes, you two were close – but people can be very good at hiding things. Danielle clearly didn’t want you to know how sad she
was feeling. It’s hard to help someone who won’t let you help them.’

Her words made me feel a little less guilty – though later I wondered if that last bit had been partly directed at me.

I was thinking about this the day I turned down Paloma’s cinema offer. I’d decided to get busy to stop myself feeling bad about that, so I began to sew. Sewing, while an
‘uncool’ hobby, was something I really enjoyed. I liked to pick up clothes from the charity shop and customize them with unusual buttons and scraps of fabric.

I hadn’t got anything particular I wanted to work on that morning, so I dug through my wardrobe for inspiration. There were probably loads of old clothes I’d forgotten about at the back. Sure enough, I found some – including stuff that had belonged to Danielle.

‘Jesus Christ,’ I muttered. Lots of her things had been passed on to me, but that didn’t stop me feeling odd about it, now that she’d gone. I pulled out a pair of
Dani’s jeans and held them against me. They’d be a good fit. Maybe I could lop a couple of inches off the legs and wear them as cut-offs.

There was a funny bulge in the pocket of the jeans. It was a memory stick. I knew it wasn’t mine – I always used the ones school issued us with. It had to be Danielle’s.

May as well have a look, I thought, booting up Edith, my laptop. She had been Dani’s, and Dani had lent her to me that last weekend to help me with my GCSE revision. I’d called her
Edith because she was a bit slow and unsteady, like a little old lady. When Edith finally allowed me to view the USB’s contents, I saw folders of photos pop up. Curious, I clicked on the
first and saw a familiar face.

I swear the world stopped moving. It was Danielle, posing with a brightly coloured cocktail. I’d never seen this photo before. I only had a few ancient pictures of her. I opened up more
folders – these were Danielle too. God, I must have stumbled upon her entire photo collection.

Almost heady with excitement, I scrolled through, eager to view each new snapshot into my cousin’s life. After a couple of albums though, I had to pause.

It was too much, too much all at once. I felt a little floaty, as though part of me was somewhere else. They captured parts of her life I’d never known existed, and they made me realize
how many opportunities I’d missed to get to know her better. And now, I never would.

It felt like someone had punched me hard in the gut, slamming home the emotions I was usually so good at ignoring. Tears spilt down my cheeks, my heart pounding.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Eventually my tears dried and I curled up on my bed, feeling exhausted. I looked across at the picture that was still on the screen. It was from a folder
labelled ‘Party’. It showed Danielle standing in a door frame, wearing a floral smock over skinny jeans and at least three different necklaces.

I look a lot like her now, I thought. We both took after our mums, who’d been sisters. The same fair complexion, long necks, strong eyebrows and dark hair, though Dani’s had always
been dead straight while mine had a wave to it. We had different builds – Dani was curvier and shorter than I was. Apparently height was something I’d got from my dad – not that I
would know. I’d never met him, and what I knew about him barely covered a Post-it note. He probably didn’t know I existed.

After a while I got up and returned to my desk. I didn’t really want to look at the photos any more, but I also didn’t feel like I could do anything else. As I browsed further, I
began to realize that Danielle had had a boyfriend. He was in a lot of the party shots and it looked like they’d gone on holiday together too. I half smiled; Danielle had always been obsessed
with the sun, even though we both burned rather than tanned. The boyfriend was cute too, if you liked that kind of thing – he looked a bit like he’d stepped out of a boy band, with
carefully ruffled blond hair and a photogenic smile, and he seemed to like wearing tight T-shirts that showed off his six-pack. The photos showed the date in the bottom left-hand corner –
three months before Danielle had died.

I wondered where he was now and why Dani had never mentioned him to me. He definitely hadn’t been at her funeral – they must have split up. Maybe she’d been really gutted. That
could even have been the reason she’d killed herself, and why she’d hidden her depression from me. Though I’d never have said it, I’d always thought Dani was needy around
people. She was incredibly quick to trust, something I noticed because I was the opposite, and I suspected part of her generosity sprang from wanting to be liked. It seemed a bit of a contradiction
for someone academically smart like Dani to be so naive, but I guess book-smarts don’t necessarily equal being streetwise.

The clock in the hall chimed; I jumped. Twelve o’clock – I’d been looking at photos for well over an hour. Realizing how dry my throat was, I went downstairs and picked up a
can of cola. Luckily Julie and the kids were out – I didn’t fancy explaining why my face was so red and blotchy.

Is it good or bad that I found the memory stick? I asked myself as I returned to my room. Bad – because I felt awful, and somehow I knew this sense of loss wasn’t going to ever leave
me. But good too – because now I had more to remember my cousin by.

I looked through the photos again, pausing on a shot of Danielle’s boyfriend. I hadn’t paid it much attention the first time – it was poorly composed, perhaps taken by accident
– but this time something about it made me look more closely.

I frowned, chewing the top of my straw and blowing bubbles into my cola. He reminded me of someone . . .

I still hadn’t figured it out an hour later when I grabbed lunch – a banana sandwich and a handful of raisins. It was only after I’d finished altering the jeans that I
remembered.

The day before Danielle had died we’d been in town, which was teeming with Saturday crowds. It wasn’t the easiest shopping expedition – Dani and I wanted to do the clothes
shops, but Reece had made loud noises about being bored, and when I’d poked my head into a New Age place that looked interesting, Dani had said it was a load of rubbish that only nutters
believed in. To keep the peace we’d stuck to department stores and gadget and music shops. We were just coming out of HMV when Danielle froze. There was a man further down the street, waving
at her.

‘Dani?’ I’d asked. ‘You OK?’

Danielle grabbed my arm. ‘I’m sick of town. Let’s get back to the flat.’

Reece and I exchanged a look but did as she said. A bus was passing and we jumped on. Danielle pressed her nose to the window, looking back towards the street we’d come from. She seemed to
relax once the bus turned the corner. When I asked her about the man, she laughed.

‘Oh, that’s just someone from work. Super-annoying – drones on for hours about the most boring things. We’ve had a lucky escape!’

Reece and I had accepted this explanation and forgotten about it. But now I knew otherwise – because the man waving at Dani had been the boyfriend in the photo. Or at least . . . I was
fairly certain it was. But had his hair been blond? I remembered it being darker . . .

Suddenly I wasn’t sure. My memory of him was like one of those painting-by-numbers pictures you get given as a kid – outline sketched out, but minus any details until you add the
colour.

Maybe it didn’t really matter. Danielle was dead. Whether or not the man in the Bournemouth street was the boyfriend didn’t change that. But heck, I still wanted to
know.

If only I could get a second opinion . . .

The last thing I’d been expecting to find in my inbox when I logged in that Wednesday morning was an email from Sophie Hayward, my ex-best friend. But there it was
– untitled and out of the blue.

I read it again, frowning. The bowl of porridge I’d been eating sat in front of me going cold. What an odd coincidence. I’d been thinking about Soph quite a bit this
summer, even though we hadn’t talked for months – probably because I’d been spending a fair bit of time on Sticky Wicket, an online cricket forum for teenagers. Like most forums,
many of the members were idiots, but they were always fun to pick arguments with.

Back when we were mates, I’d even argued with Sophie on the forum. Soph was the only girl I’d ever met who actually understood the rules of cricket. That was one of the reasons
we’d first made friends. I later found out that her initial motivation for getting into cricket was that her mum had once hinted her dad liked it.

It was three months ago that Sophie ditched me, back at the start of May. I was still unclear as to why, and I doubted I’d find out. Nothing was ever simple with Sophie. I used to joke
that she thought so much that I was surprised her brain didn’t explode.

As far as our friendship went, the end had come shortly after my stupid school play. I’d been forced into it by the drama teacher. He said it’d be a ‘good use for my big
mouth’.

The play was
Measure for Measure
, which was, predictably, Shakespeare. Mum got irritatingly involved. She wrote my lines down on Post-it notes and stuck them all over the house – on
my wardrobe, the fridge, even by the loo roll, something my little sister Neve found hilarious. ‘It’s so you can’t help but learn them,’ Mum explained. ‘This is
incredibly important to your future, darling – Berkeley’s produced some really well-known actors. It’s a great honour to be in one of their plays.’

Quite who these actors were I didn’t know, and neither, I suspected, did she.

‘But I don’t want to be an actor,’ I pointed out. ‘Anyway, I know my lines. I told Sophie I’d be online now.’

‘Practice makes perfect, Reece,’ Mum said primly. ‘I’m sure Sophie wouldn’t mind your not talking to her tonight. It’s not like she’s your
girlfriend.’

I decided to ignore that last bit. Mum wouldn’t understand that I used to see Sophie every day at school and never ran out of things to say. I was trying hard to keep up with her properly.
It wasn’t easy, not being at the same school any more, especially now I had new mates who wanted to see me too. Soph didn’t seem keen on them for some reason.

By the time the day of the performance came, I was kinda looking forward to it. Sophie was coming. We hadn’t seen much of each other that week and there wouldn’t be much of a chance
to catch up the night of the play. But there’d be time for that at Paloma Watson’s party, which was on Saturday.

The show went smoothly. As soon as I’d changed out of my costume I made a getaway and met Sophie and Mum in the foyer. Mum had wanted to bring Neve too, but I’d managed to talk her
into getting Aunt Meg to babysit. I didn’t think two hours of Jacobean verse was the kind of thing even the most cultured three-year-old would get a kick out of.

‘Well done, darling!’ Before I could stop her, Mum grabbed me and planted a kiss on my forehead. ‘I heard the parents sitting behind me whispering about how good you were. I
wanted to turn around and say, “That’s
my
son!” but I didn’t want to interrupt your big moment—’

‘Mum! Stop it,’ I begged. Embarrassing or what! I looked at Sophie. She had her hands shoved into her pockets and wasn’t meeting my eyes.

‘What’s up?’ I whispered as we walked out. ‘The play wasn’t
that
bad, surely.’

‘It was fine,’ Sophie muttered. ‘I’d better go now.’

‘It’s only nine. Come over for an hour. Some of my mates are coming. Unofficial after-show party.’

Sophie made a face and instantly I felt annoyed. She never made any effort with my Berkeley mates. They thought she was bad-tempered and moody. I wasn’t sure they believed me when I
explained she was a different person when we were alone.

‘See you at Paloma’s at the weekend then,’ I said.

Sophie shrugged. ‘Parties aren’t really my thing. Always feel out of place.’

‘You might feel more comfortable if you looked the part more,’ I said. ‘I mean, you look cool whatever you wear, but if you dressed up a bit sometimes, it might make you fit in
better.’

I nodded at two girls my mates were talking to. They were both wearing sleeveless tops and short skirts, maybe a bit overdressed, but it got my point across. Sophie stared at them, then mumbled
that she was going home. I began wondering if she was interested in staying friends with me at all. It felt like I bent over backwards to meet up with her, and nine times out of ten I was the one
to text or email. From the way she behaved sometimes, maybe I shouldn’t have bothered.

‘She’s probably just moving on,’ Mum said the next afternoon. Neve was nearby watching
Postman Pat
, nose almost touching the screen. ‘Sad, but it happens. Why
don’t you invite some friends from school over next week to take your mind off her?’

‘Things were just dandy until recently,’ I said. ‘I sent her a text today. She never even replied! What’s changed?’

‘Be fair, Reece,’ Mum said. ‘Don’t forget, it’s only been a few months since that dreadful business with her cousin. Bereavement can affect people in strange ways
– as you well know.’

Mum actually sticking up for Soph shocked me into silence. She was right. Danielle’s death had unsettled me enough. We’d been eating lunch with her like everything was normal, then a
few hours later she was gone. Totally surreal. And how I felt must be nothing next to what Sophie must be feeling.

Maybe I hadn’t been looking out for her enough. But beyond being there for her and keeping in touch, I wasn’t sure how I could help. I didn’t think Sophie would ever really
open up to me about Danielle.

‘Anyway,’ Mum continued, ‘Sophie’s a young woman now. She probably wants to hang out with girlfriends and talk girl stuff. It’s quite unusual for a girl and boy to
have a friendship like yours at this age.’