Heart (15 page)

“Maybe you should tell campus security?”

“Tell them what? There’s a boy who wants to go out with me and he bought me some flowers? There’s nothing else to tell. Maybe it’s just in my imagination.”

“That’s bullshit, Neve, and you know it. What about your personal tutor? If you’re scared, you have to tell someone. Promise me you will.” I knew her concern was based on her own experience last year; after all, if she had told someone the first time Rob attacked her, things might not have panned out the way they did. But this wasn’t anything like that. Garrett was annoying, but he wasn’t going to attack me.

“Okay, I’ll talk to them this week,” I promised, sure she couldn’t see my crossed fingers within the Skype screen. “Can we talk about something else now?”

“Are you feeling down? Could do with a pick-me-up?” Cass’s sing-song voice was an abrupt shift in mood.

“Umm, yeah, I suppose so. Why?”

“I think it’s open-the-box time!” Her smile beamed at me across the miles of ether. My facial expression belied my incomprehension. “The box! You know, the box I gave you when you came home!” I looked over to the corner of my room at the said box, sitting next to the pile of pebbles.

“Oh,
that
box!”

“Yes,
that
box. Now hang up, open the box and follow the instructions. Ring me back in ten minutes and we can start.” Her strange instructions were followed by the monotone of a disconnected line.

I sat the box on my bed, wondering what I would find inside. After carefully unwrapping it, I took off the lid and smiled. Inside was a selection of items intended to give me a reminder of home and, especially, time spent with Cass.

I put the rainbow-coloured socks with toes on; we always joked that socks were the only thing we could share, given the difference in our sizes. I lit the vanilla candle, breathing in the scent Mum always chose for home. I put the family size bag of Minstrels to one side, ready to enjoy whilst watching the DVD which was the only thing left in the box:
Ella Enchanted
. Just seeing the cover took me back to being ten years old again. Cass and I had gone to see the film at the cinema and had become obsessed with both the film and Hugh Dancy. I swear the only DVD we watched for close to a year was that film. We knew every single word; I had even written it out as a script in an old exercise book somewhere. I grinned and picked up my phone.

“You absolute frickin’ superstar!”

Cass and I hit play at the same time, watching the film in synchronisation, even across the miles which separated us. We sang along together, swooned over Prince Char and cheered on ass-kicking Ella. Just like the old days, we muted the final, cringe-worthy song and dance number.

“That was ace. Thank you so much!” Even though I felt slightly sick after devouring the whole packet of Minstrels, I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so happy. It certainly wasn’t since before Jake had ended things.

“I told you we’d manage, being so far apart.” Cass had intended her words to make me feel better, but they’d done the opposite.

“Why couldn’t Jake see that, then?” I asked.

“Because he’s a bloke?” she joked before her more serious response. “Because we’ve been friends for years. We’ve survived worse than this. So we know we’ll be okay. You and Jake don’t have the security blanket of that history. And he has all the crap of his family to contend with. That’s why.” Her words made sense, but they didn’t make the Jake-shaped hole in my heart any easier to deal with.

“It hurts, Cass,” I admitted.

“I know and I wish I could make it better. Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah?” I wondered where she was going with this.

“When I last saw you, you said you could never forgive him. But do you mean that?
Really
? What if it was him trying to make things right with you today, rather than Garrett?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“I think you do.” She paused. “I love you to bits, Neve, but sometimes you can be too stubborn for your own good. I think you still love him and want him back. But you’re too scared to admit it.” Only Cass could get away with such honesty.

“Yes,” was all I could muster. Finally admitting the truth was like unburdening myself.

I loved Jake.

I still loved Jake.

I would always love Jake.

“Well, do something about it then.”

“But what if he doesn’t want me back?” I’d never felt rejection like I had when he ended us. Could I risk putting myself through that again?

“Well, for one, according to Flynn, he’s a mess and was only thinking of you when he did it. And, secondly, you’ve got to take a risk sometimes. What’s the worst that could happen? He says no? How can that make you any unhappier than you are now? But what if he says yes?” The thrill which coursed through me at her final question was all the answer I needed. I took a deep breath.

“So, what do I do about it?” Cass yelped with glee at the other end, bringing a smile to my face as well.

“We can sort a plan of attack when you come home next weekend. I’ll speak to Flynn. It’ll be okay, Neve.
You’ll
be okay.” God, I hoped she was right.

Wolfing down the microwaved lasagne as fast as I can, the throb of a motorbike pulling up to the door tells me I haven’t been quick enough. Jim’s in the kitchen before I’ve finished and I wonder why he’s made a beeline for me. At least it’s better than him looking for Josh or Grace.

Knowing better than to believe I can hide my contempt from him, I turn my back and start rinsing off my plate.

“Whatcha doin’ that for, pussy? That there’s women’s work.” Yes, this enlightened vision of masculinity is what my stupid mother thinks is some sort of replacement for Dad. Well, one of a string of replacements, each more grotesque than the last. “I said, what are you doin’ that for? Didn’t you hear me?”

I try not to antagonise him by keeping my voice neutral. “Habit, I suppose.” I allow myself a slight shrug but still face the opposite way.

“That’s about right. You like women’s work, don’t ya? All growing pretty flowers and shit? Ha, you wouldn’t know what being a man is if it hit ya on the arse. Or would you like a bit of arse action? Hey?” Forcing myself to count to ten in my head, I can’t stop my fists clenching as the need to prove how much of a man I am to him bubbles inside. “You wanna grow something, grow weed, man. Then you’d be raking it in and you wouldn’t have to live here. You ain’t gonna get rich making things look pretty. Well, not unless you’re a girl and then you use that God-given talent and spread them legs. Make the world pay to see how pretty you are.” Disgust at his words flows through me, making the burning desire to hit him ever stronger. “See, that’s where Grace’s got it made. She’ll have men begging to play in her garden, if you catch my drift—”

My fist makes contact with his nose before he finishes the sentence. Yes, the sight of blood pouring from his face makes me feel better, but I’m not stupid enough to think this will be the end of it. He pulls the tea towel up to stop the bleeding and looks at me with hatred-filled eyes.

“You’re gonna regret doin’ that, kid.”

“Don’t you ever talk about Grace like that again or I’ll do more than that, dickhead.” I walk out of the kitchen, head held high but inwardly shaking.
Have I just made things worse?

It doesn’t take long to find out.

Packing up the van the next day, I take a final look at my work, mentally admiring how I’ve honoured Neve. The garden now has a hedge of myrtle running along its west side. In a year or two, they will be a wall of green, a memorial to what I had. Neve. Myrtle.

Myrtle
. She is a ghost haunting my days, my nights, my dreams, my hopes. Voiceless but still in control. Every day is spent following her lead, walking the paths of our scenes and shadows. Every night is spent being haunted as the ghost taps at the window of my sleep. Nothing I do appeases her.

I text Bill to tell him I’m finished and then wonder what to do. I’ve got time to kill and don’t want to go home. Home. That’s a joke. I think back to the home we had when I was a kid. Don’t get me wrong, life wasn’t perfect then, but it was damn closer than it is now.

Dad had worked long shifts as a paramedic but he would also have runs of several days off at a time. That’s why he got into gardening; it gave him something to do when we were at school. I can remember the hours we spent, digging and planting. He grew all of our vegetables at the far end, even though us kids were less than grateful at the abundance of fresh food it meant we had for dinner each night.

Dinner that Mum cooked. Like she made us packed lunches every day. Her life was looking after us. Loving us. To show how much he loved her for loving us, Dad kept a small section of the garden for flowers and plants. For her. She had a deckchair there and would sit, book in hand, watching him work. Those are the happiest memories I have: the two of them, content, in love, whilst we played in the garden.

It was losing the garden that killed me more than losing the house. The day when she sat us down and told us that we were moving is definitely up there in the crappiest days of my life. I knew I had to be strong for Josh and Grace but, deep down, I wanted to bawl my fucking eyes out. We had lived in that house my whole life. I could remember every layer of wallpaper in my bedroom, every colour Dad had painted the kitchen, every room we had laughed in.

But the garden? I had helped him to create that. He had taught me all he knew from his own dad, a keen gardener. It was ours. His and mine.

She didn’t care about leaving the garden. Hell, she didn’t seem to care about leaving the house, even though it was filled with every memory that belonged to us as a family.

We had no say in where we moved to. She made all the decisions. Moved us to a godforsaken estate, crippled with crime. Moved us to a smaller house where we tripped over each other, unconsciously invading each other’s space. I get that she couldn’t keep up the mortgage payments once he’d died. But I didn’t get the way she could uproot us all, take away the one thing that tied us to Dad, in the way she did.

And now, her attempts at getting a job long-forgotten, she moves from one loser to another, each time surprised he doesn’t turn out to be half the man Dad was. Forcing us to pick up her pieces over and over again. I’ve learnt to cope, but it’s not fair on Grace and Josh. They don’t even have the same memories I have to remind me that life isn’t always this shit.

So I drive to the park.

The park where Dad used to take us as kids.

The park where I learnt to ride my first bike.

The park where I first told Neve I loved her.

The closest thing to home I’ve got.

I sit in the car park, put in my earphones and listen to every song that now makes sense to the broken man I am. I get it now: what all of those songwriters and poets are trying to express: every metaphor for heartbreak strikes deep within me, every wail replicates the sound of my own soul crying.

When I pull up outside our house an hour later, anger threatens to overwhelm me and make me do something I’ll regret. Everything I own, everything that is mine, is scattered across the front garden. Clothes are strewn everywhere, like flyers thrown from the skies. CDs dot the lawn. My laptop lies on the slabs, smashed beyond use.

And then I see her. Grace. Sat on the doorstep, crying. I lock up the anger and go to her.

“I tried to stop him, Jake. I did. But he was so strong. I couldn’t make him stop.” I sit next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. Try to make sense of the scene in front of me. “He was just so mad, picking anything up and throwing it out the window. And all the time he was saying really horrible things about you. What did you do, Jake?”

I couldn’t tell her the truth. Well, not all of it anyway.

“I hit him. He pissed me off. So I hit him.”

“He said you can’t come back, that he’ll leave Mum if she lets you back in. She was crying, but I don’t think she wants him to go, Jake. What are you going to do? I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to live here without you.” Her crying gets louder and I feel every sob rip through me, tearing at the little bit of heart I have left. That one impulsive moment has jeopardised everything I was trying to do for Josh and Grace.