Girl Heart Boy: No Such Thing as Forever (Book 1) (19 page)

‘Aw, McSarey, I didn’t know you cared.’

I sniffed. ‘Yeah, you’re all right. Listen, I’ll text you when I know what’s happening, ’K?’ I’d reached the station. The display told me that another train was going in two minutes. Suddenly being on that train was the most important thing ever. I jigged up and down on the spot, as if that would hurry Ollie up.

‘Cool,’ he said. ‘You sure you’re OK, flower?’

My eyes welled up. Damn him for being so nice. ‘Yeah, no, fine. Totally. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ I tucked my phone into its special pocket in my rucksack, wiped my eyes with my sleeve and legged it down the stairs to the platform. I leapt on to the train just as the doors were closing, found an empty seat and slumped into it. Joe would be at work by now, smiling at strangers, chatting with his workmates behind the bar. I wished I was with him so much it hurt.

Sitting on the sofas in Costa the next day with my friends, I wished I’d never suggested meeting up. Never had a day seemed more Sundayish. It was freezing cold and the sky was heavy and grey, my eyes felt tired from crying myself to sleep the night before, and everything that ever annoyed me about my friends was annoying me now. Cass was going on about Adam – he’s so different recently, he’s really settling down, he really loves me. Meh meh. Right. Until the next time he shags a slapper in a nightclub. Ash had taken her boots and socks off and was sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the sofa. We were in a high-street coffee shop – there was really no need to be so bloody alternative the WHOLE FREAKING TIME. Donna was nursing a hangover and banging on about her great night and how she’d been like reeeeally hammered. YAWN. Rich was depressed and grouchy – a hangover too, but not from booze. Jack was sickeningly upbeat after winning some football match that morning, and Ollie was obliviously eating the foam off his cappuccino with a spoon.

I slouched in the corner of the sofa and checked Mimi’s Facebook. She didn’t have any privacy settings, leaving me free to snoop around at will. There was nothing much new on there. A couple of wall exchanges. Her status said: ‘Mimi Sedgwick is the most … to say the least’. Eight people Liked it and it had six comments, one of which said, ‘Meemsy meemsy moo i love yooooooooooou.’ I turned my phone off in disgust, then immediately turned it on again in case Joe texted. I fired off another to him for good measure – the third since I’d left him yesterday, but I was past caring.

I deleted all the extra ‘o’s in boring, then added them in again. He still hadn’t accepted my Facebook friend request, but that’s probably because he never went on it. He hadn’t changed his profile pic since I’d known him (a picture of Stewie, the evil baby from
Family Guy
).

‘Uh, SARAH?’

I looked up, surprised. I was engrossed in Googling Joe’s family. Both his parents were lawyers. I thought lawyers earned a fortune, but maybe they were the type who thought their children should fend for themselves to learn the true value of money blah
blah. I clicked my screen off and blinked at the faces all looking at me expectantly.

‘Yeah?’

‘Ollie was just saying he’s having a bonfire-night party at his house?’ Ashley stared at me with heavy eyelids. Her not-impressed face.

‘Oh. Right. Good idea,’ I said, and met her gaze. Her eyes didn’t falter, and I looked away first, my face flushing. What just happened? Were we arguing?

‘Uh, yeah,’ said Ollie, his eyes flickering from Ash’s face to mine. ‘The house’ll be empty, so …’ He spread his hands and smiled.

‘Can Joe come?’ Having an actual event to invite Joe to could be just what I needed to pin him down. I swear Ashley, Donna and Cass exchanged a rolly-eyes look, but they could piss off. They were just … Well, actually I didn’t know what their problem was. But still. They could piss off anyway.

Ollie shrugged. ‘More the merrier.’

I beamed at him. ‘Thanks, Ol.’ As the others started talking among themselves again, I turned back to my phone and texted Joe.

When I looked up, Cass and Donna were shrugging on their coats and Ashley was buckling her boots. ‘You off?’ I asked, suddenly not wanting them to go. At least, not like this, without me.

‘Yeah, thought we might catch a matinee at the cinema,’ said Donna, looking down as she zipped up her jacket.

‘Oh … OK.’ I don’t know why I couldn’t just say I’d join them. Normally I would have, but something about the way they wouldn’t catch my eye made me feel like it wasn’t an option. Cass asked me if I wanted to come, but I’m sure Ashley shot her a look. First Joe, now my friends. It was getting very tiring trying to be low-maintenance about everything.

After they left I blinked rapidly, drank a few gulps of tea and cleared my throat while scratching my eyebrow.
Et voilà
: the tears disappeared. I stood up. ‘So. I should be off too. I’ve got a French translation.’ I stretched my mouth into some semblance of a smile and, without looking at any of the boys, weaved through the tables and out the door.

‘All right, babes?’ It was the first day back at school after half term and Ashley had just sat down beside me at our usual table in the maths room and cracked open a can of Diet Coke. ‘Feels like ages since we last sat here.’

It did. I couldn’t believe our daring sea rescue had
happened less than a week ago. I smiled at her, happy that things were back to normal. Everyone was allowed to be moody every now and then. Didn’t mean you hated them forever.

Ash offered me her drink. I shook my head. ‘How was the film?’

‘Shit. You didn’t miss anything.’

I wondered whether it was OK to talk about Devon and decided to risk it. I was feeling brave after getting through yesterday’s weirdness. ‘So are you, like, totally better now?’

She rocked back on her chair and braced one foot against the table. There was a sticker stuck to the sole of her boot. It had a picture of a grinning cartoon crocodile with ‘I look after my teeth’ written above it. ‘Yeah, no, totally. I’ve got to go back to the doc’s tomorrow for a check, but … yeah, I’m fine.’ She paused. ‘Look, I haven’t even thanked you yet for … what you did. You know I’m really grateful, right?’ She smiled at me, almost shyly. It was good to hear, but before I could answer she looked in the direction of the door and said, ‘Whoa. Somebody’s keen.’

Not only was our tutor alarmingly early but he also made a beeline for our desk, pulling out a chair and sitting astride it backwards, his legs either side of the backrest. I smirked and caught Ashley’s eye. Really, the man was a tit.

‘So, dramatic half term then, yah?’ he said to Ash.

‘Yah, I suppose you could say that.’

‘Well, you just take it easy this week, hmm? No physical exertions.’ He smirked, possibly sleazily.

Ash raised an eyebrow. ‘Right. Thanks, Paul.’

‘All your teachers are aware of your … situation, so not to worry if you need to sit a lesson out, just for the next week or so while you’re getting back on your feet.’ And with that he did a monumentally cheesy wink and double tongue click and left the room. It was only five minutes till he needed to take the register, but whatever. Busy busy busy.

Ash watched him leave. ‘Does he think I’ve had a backstreet abortion?’ she said, shaking her head. She adopted Paul’s lopsided smirk. ‘Your “situation”? Shit.’

‘He’s an idiot,’ I agreed.

‘I really don’t want to make a big thing out of this,’ said Ash seriously. ‘Honestly, I just want to forget it ever happened. Move on, you know?’

‘Yeah, course,’ I said, although a part of me (the same shameful part that hoped for a media circus at the hospital) felt strangely hurt.

I went to the field by myself at lunchtime. I wanted to be able to call Joe and check my phone in peace. He didn’t answer – obvs – so I texted:

I had another look at Mimi’s Facebook while I ate my sandwich. Her status was something boring about her phone being out of action. I was about to look up Joe’s uni website when I got a reply:

I did a bit of a squeal and, chucking the remains of my sandwich into the bushes that lined the school field, ran back to the canteen.

‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Cass, pulling her bag off the chair they’d saved me.

‘Just had to do a bit of research … Where’s Ollie?’

‘Loo.’

‘Oh good, I wanted to tell him that Joe’s coming to his party.’ I peeled back the lid of the yogurt I’d just bought and sniffed it. ‘Does this smell funny?’ I held it out to the table at large.

Donna snatched it off me and stuck her nose into the pot. ‘It’s fine.’ She handed it back, but I pushed it to one side. Milk and yogurt have to be in tip-top
condition if they’re going to pass my lips. Otherwise you might as well be drinking rancid phlegm.

‘Yeah, Joe’s really up for it,’ I continued. ‘You’ll really like him. He’s really sweet and, like, witty, y’know? Right, Ash? God, I can’t believe you’re the only one who’s met him!’

Ashley shrugged. ‘Yeah well, I haven’t actually met him properly.’

I sat up straight in my seat. ‘Oh my God, it was sooo funny. We were on our way to his house on Saturday, on the Tube, and he kept pretending to scratch his cheek but actually giving me the finger, you know? I was pissing myself. The other people on the train must’ve thought I was mental.’ I chuckled, but nobody joined in. Cass, Jack and Rich were kind of smiling encouragingly, like they were waiting for a punchline, but Ash and Donna were expressionless.

‘Guess you had to be there, Sar,’ said Ash. She nodded at my manky yogurt. ‘You going to eat that?’ I pushed it towards her. I cleared my throat and fluffed the back of my hair casually. She was right – it was a crap story. And a total lie. I just wanted an anecdote to offer them that didn’t involve sex or, y’know, disappointment. Me and Joe just didn’t see each other enough, but that would change in time. I stood up.

‘Anyway … I’m going to get a Twix. Anyone want anything?’

I tried to do cleansing breathing while I was waiting to pay. I hated this. It was like everything I said and did was being stored up by the others to add to some invisible list of crimes I was committing without even knowing it. I tapped my fingers against my teeth. Getting Cass on her own would help. She understood what it was like to have a boyfriend. I’d ask her to come shopping with me after school, I decided. I was skint after Devon, but she always ended up buying something (her parents gave her, like, a £100-a-month clothing allowance), and I could talk about stuff while she was distracted.

Feeling slightly better, I went back to the table. Ollie was there and everyone was discussing if there was a way to have a bonfire in his garden without his parents finding out. This I could help with. My granny and grandpa had bonfires on their allotment all the time.

‘You just dig up the grass in, like, flat squares, then put it back when you’ve finished,’ I said through a mouthful of Twix. ‘It’s not difficult.’

Ollie leant across the table, took my face in his hands and gave me a smacker on the forehead. ‘That’s
what I’m talking about, people. Bit of common sense.’ He smiled at me. ‘Cheers, flower.’

Next lesson was art history and Andrea, our teacher, sat on the edge of a table, her legs crossed at the knee. She was telling us about Andy Warhol’s Factory studio in 1960s New York, where artists, writers and rock stars came to make art and, ahem, ‘practise free love’. It was fascinating. Honestly, she totally had the room. Andrea was a good teacher and everyone liked her, and you could tell she was really into the Sixties art scene stuff. She even looked right, with her graphic print headscarf, cargo pants and ballet pumps.

Anyway, one of the photos she showed us was of a woman, not that much older than us, who was Warhol’s muse: she inspired him. In the picture this woman’s leaning back but sort of thrusting her body upwards. It doesn’t look sexual though, cos she’s got no boobs to speak of. She’s holding a cigarette and a glass of, what, vodka? I guessed it wasn’t water, anyway. She’s wearing a tight black top and huge black earrings, and staring at the camera with these big, black, Sixties eyes. She looks beautiful and confident and don’t-give-a-shit, and everything about her made me feel dull and conventional. Even when we learned that she’d died of a drug overdose when she was
twenty-eight, I envied her. I didn’t want to take drugs or die young (like, duh) but I wished I could be a bit less … obvious. A bit less het up about bloody Joe and my does-he-like-me woes. I sighed wistfully. I would so, so love someone to want me to be their muse. But as Joe, not even an artist but a boring old politics student, seemed to forget me from one day to the next, what hope did I have?

I nibbled at a hangnail. Self-pity is a very ugly emotion, I sternly reminded myself. And Joe hasn’t forgotten you, because he’s coming to Ollie’s bonfire-night party. So get a grip.

After the lesson had finished I hovered outside the door and waited for everyone to leave so I could call Joe. I left a voicemail saying I was looking forward to the party, and could he call or text to make arrangements, and was about to go to the canteen for a mid-afternoon muffin when Andrea came out of the classroom. She was carrying a huge blue-and-white-striped canvas hold-all. In a shop I wouldn’t have looked at it twice, but on her shoulder, with her outfit, I wanted it.

‘OK, Sarah?’ she asked, smiling at me.

‘Yes, thanks … Uh, I wasn’t waiting for you,’ I said, and then instantly worried that she hadn’t been thinking I was anyway.