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

by Ali Cronin

  Suddenly it was like I was looking down on myself from above. I hadn’t showered or changed my clothes in nearly two days. I’d alienated my friends and wasted forty-eight hours of my life watching shitty telly and feeling sorry for myself, and now Joe – the cause of all this grief – had casually blown me off after nearly a week of radio silence. I’d had enough.

  If Joe couldn’t come to me, I’d go to him. If we had any kind of a future together, he needed to sort himself out. Even if I had to make him.

  17

  As if I’d been conserving all my energy for this moment, I leapt into action. I showered, put on my favourite outfit – the jeans and big jumper – and dried my hair. I bunged some overnight stuff in a bag, brushed two days’ worth of fur off my teeth, swilled with mouthwash, and I was ready to go.

  I sat in front of a Post-It for a minute, tapping my pen on my teeth and wondering what to tell my parents, then thought, Sod it, and wrote: ‘Gone to London. Will call you later. xxx’. Honesty was the best policy and all that. Anyway, they both had meetings after work. By the time they saw the note, I’d be on the train.

  It was nearly dark when I got to the station, and the adrenalin rush had all but disappeared. The whole idea was beginning to seem ridiculous, but I forced myself to buy a ticket. I couldn’t see how else I was going to see Joe. And face to face was the only way I could be sure of pinning him down and making him sort it out.

  On the train I found a seat and purposefully opened my book. A couple of girls I vaguely recognized from school – Year Tens I think – walked past. One of them was saying, ‘Can you believe her?’ and the other one shook her head and sucked her teeth. I went scarlet, like an idiot. I don’t know in what reality they could have been talking about me. They didn’t even know me.

  I splayed my book page-down across my lap and used the dark window as a mirror to stare at a couple sitting in the seats across the aisle. They weren’t much older than me. She had her legs thrown over his and was resting her head on his shoulder. He murmured something to her and she laughed and reached up to stroke his cheek. She was wearing a ring on her fourth finger. It was a solid band with a diamond – or whatever – kind of embedded in it. It was exactly the sort of ring I’d choose. I thought: what must it be like to be her? To be loved by someone so much that they want everyone to know they’re going to be with you forever? I literally couldn’t imagine. All I knew was that I thought I might hate that woman. It’s not like I was looking to get married – that would be stupid. I just wanted to be wanted.

  I narrowed my eyes as the woman idly turned the ring with her thumb and smiled. Smug bitch. As if she could hear my thoughts she looked into her window and we made strange, reflective eye-contact. She stared at me for a brief second then carelessly looked away. Nothing to see here. I refocused my eyes so I wasn’t looking at her, but at the darkness and shadows of the world outside. The train bumped gently on the track as it sped towards London, its muffled dugga dugga like I was hearing it under water. I had a sneaking suspicion I might be turning invisible.

  The train got into Victoria station at just gone eight. The place was packed with commuters on their way home for the weekend. I imagined welcoming lit windows, a bottle of wine on ice, Ikea double beds covered in throws and pillows, maybe a sheepskin rug on the floor. Couples waking up together in the morning, reading the Saturday papers in bed, having sex …

  Being seventeen and still at school suddenly seemed so stifling I could hardly breathe. Coursework, exams, watching Friday-night TV with my parents and Daniel … it was kill-me-now tedious. I wanted to be like Mimi, basically. Not a total bitch-ho from hell, of course, but at college, away from home, free to be whoever I wanted to be. I wondered if the way she was had been a conscious decision. Like, every night before bed she looked in the mirror and chanted, ‘I am confident, and groomed, and have silky hair like Kate Middleton. People want to be my friend.’

  Or probably it just comes naturally, I thought gloomily.

  I tried to shake Mimi from my mind. This was not about her, it was about Joe. I ran down the escalator to the Tube platform. The northbound platform was rammed and the digital display thing blank. I hovered outside the platform entrance. I couldn’t understand how people weren’t toppling on to the line, it was so packed. A tannoy announcement informed me that due to signal failure in the Seven Sisters area there were severe delays on the Victoria line. Brilliant. I only needed to get to Oxford Circus – from there I could get the Bakerloo line all the way to Kensal Green, where Joe lived. I ran back up the escalator to ground level to look for a bus map. It told me I needed a 73, which arrived just as I got to the stop. I edged my way down the packed bus until someone got out of their seat just as I was passing, and I sat down gratefully. Two bits of luck in a row: I took it as a good sign.

  We’d been juddering and bouncing along for a few minutes when the woman next to me said, ‘Excuse me?’ She was pretty old with really short steel-grey hair and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a bottle-green velvet coat (which I so would have worn myself, if Ash hadn’t already bagsied the vampire-coat-wearing slot in our friendship group. And then I remembered I wasn’t in her friendship group any more). She peered over half-moon glasses and smiled. The woman didn’t fit any kind of description of axe-murdering rapist, so I felt safe enough answering her, even on a London bus. I smiled politely, like the good girl I am.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, but do you go to Woodside High?’

  I gawped at her. ‘Uh, yeah … How did you know?’

  She pointed to the lower-school prefect badge I’d pinned to my rucksack in an attempt at ironic retro chic (or at least that’s how the magazine where I got the idea put it).

  ‘I used to teach there! Gosh, fifteen years ago now.’

  ‘Really? Wow! I bet it’s changed a lot since then,’ I said lamely.

  She nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh, I expect it has.’ She put her hand on my arm. ‘What a wonderful coincidence meeting you!’ She beamed at me and I smiled back. What else could I do?

  ‘I’m Kate,’ she said, and offered her hand. I shook it and told her my name. ‘So what brings you to London, Sarah?’ she asked, folding her hands in her lap as if she was settling down for a chat. I didn’t mind. I liked her.

  ‘I’m going to see my boyfriend.’ I tried on the word for size. It felt strange and a bit false, but I could get used to it. ‘He goes to uni here.’

  ‘Ah. Did he used to go to Woodside too?’

  I shook my head. ‘We met on holiday actually.’

  The woman leant back towards the window as if she was examining me anew. ‘Wow! A holiday romance that’s lasted. Well done you!’

  I smiled weakly. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So tell me, is Greta Parsons still teaching history?’

  I shook my head, and she proceeded to reel off a list of teachers, some who were still at school, most who weren’t. It would have been a nice way to pass the journey, if I wasn’t still thinking about the holiday romance comment.

  At Oxford Circus I got off the bus, along with almost everyone else, and joined the throngs trudging down the stairs to the Tube station. There were no problems with the Bakerloo line, I was relieved to see, and I got a seat straight away. But as the Tube drew closer to Kensal Green the knot in my stomach got tighter. It wasn’t as if I was surprising Joe – I’d texted to let him know. But still. I was nervous. A lot rode on this visit. I closed my eyes and imagined him opening the door, giving me his saucy lopsided smile and silently pulling me inside and upstairs to his room, where I’d barely have time to take off my coat before he drew me down on to the bed with him. He would take a few seconds to look at me, to take me in. He would trace round my mouth with his fingers and gently kiss my eyelids, then he’d slowly remove my clothes before tenderly making love to me. Afterwards he would hold me in his arms and tell me he loved me.

  Positive thinking. If you want something badly enough, it will hap
pen. Yeah, right.

  I opened my eyes. Don’t hope for miracles, I told myself sternly. Just be happy if he’s pleased to see you and willing to talk. That’s all you can ask.

  I didn’t know why I was worrying so much. Despite his crapness at keeping in touch, Joe had never been anything other than happy to see me. That was the trouble: we were the kind of couple who needed to be together.

  By the time I was walking to his house from the station, I felt better. I was here now. I’d just take it as it came. But as I turned the corner into his street it struck me that he might not even be home. I supposed Rav and Ben could let me wait in his room, but what if they’d all gone out together? How long would I wait outside his house before I gave up and skulked home? What if they’d gone out for the night? They might not be back till, like, two or three in the morning. But as I approached his house I could see the light in his room was on. I stood for a moment just out of sight and took a moment to calm myself. Then I strode confidently up the path and rang the doorbell.

  18

  One of the girls from the pub opened the door. Mara/Lara or – what was the other one? Rosie. Anyway, not Mimi, thank God. Whoever-it-was looked at me blankly for a second, then smirked as she recognized me. ‘Can I help you?’

  I flashed her a brilliant smile. ‘Hi! Is Joe in …?’ I peered round as if I was expecting him to materialize at any second. She moved to block my view, then apparently thought better of it and stepped aside. She smiled sweetly. ‘Yeah, course. Come in.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks.’ I moved past her into the hallway. It was weird being in the house with her.

  ‘He’s in his room,’ she said unnecessarily. I was already going upstairs – it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d be anywhere else. It was the only room in the house we’d ever been in together, although the thought didn’t strike me till later.

  I stopped outside his closed door. I could hear music coming from inside. I knocked, tentatively first, then louder. When there was still no answer I turned the handle and went in.

  The light was so dim I could hardly see anything. There was a lava lamp next to his bed, which I’d never seen before. Deep red blobs floating languorously to the top then flopping down again. It was kind of mesmerizing. I couldn’t see Joe – I thought he must be in the bathroom, but then a sound came from the bed. I looked over and frowned at the mass of light hair hanging over the end of the mattress. Joe didn’t have hair like that. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the light, I finally understood. I gasped and bolted from the room. I stood outside for a second, blood pounding in my ears. Without knowing what else to do, I ran into the bathroom and locked the door.

  The hair had belonged to Mimi. And her legs were wrapped round Joe’s back.

  My breath came in shallow gasps. I dragged my fingers down my cheeks. What the hell was I going to do? I looked at the bathroom window, but there was no way I’d fit through there. Anyway, it was a straight drop down two floors into a paved alley. Then I shrieked as someone banged on the door.

  ‘Sarah, I know that’s you.’ He knocked again. ‘Come on, open the door.’ It was Joe’s voice, but not the one I remembered. It was cold and hard.

  I unlocked the door and barged through, knocking Joe to one side. He caught my arm, but I shook him off and hurtled, head down, towards the stairs.

  ‘What the hell did you think you were doing coming here anyway?’ he yelled after me. ‘I told you I didn’t want anything serious … Sarah!’

  At the top of the stairs the sight of Mimi leaning against the wall – her smooth, bare legs crossed casually at the ankle, one of Joe’s T-shirts barely covering her arse – made me stop short. She waved her fingers at me. ‘Bye then!’ I swallowed the desire to spit in her face and skidded down the stairs, wrenched open the front door and ran.

  ‘Please let there be a train, please let there be a train,’ I keened through gritted teeth as I careered across the road to the station. But there was no sign of one, and wouldn’t be for ten minutes, according to the display. I walked to the far end of the platform and pressed myself against the wall. I hadn’t cried like this since I was little. Noisy, racking sobs that made my teeth chatter. ‘But I love him’ kept running through my head. As if that could ever have been enough.

  The train rattled through the stations, but I was oblivious. I felt disembodied. That girl with the puffy face and snail trails up her sleeve wasn’t me. It was some other stupid, delusional cow. Whoever came up with ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ was (a) talking bollocks and (b) assuming the love went both ways. Did I have any right to complain about losing something I never had in the first place? Because I’d finally realized what everyone else must have known all along. Joe didn’t love me, and he never had. He never would.

  The thought triggered another crying explosion, forcing out a giant snot bubble. Lack of tissues meant I had to bend down and wipe my face on the underside of my jumper. Not for the first time I was grateful that strangers don’t talk to each other in London. Except for that woman Kate on the bus. I remembered her comment about holiday romances. Even a complete stranger could tell that Joe didn’t give a toss about me. And I’d even looked into going to his uni! Thank God nothing had come of that.

  I pulled at my hair and made a strange buzzing sound from moaning through bared teeth.

  ‘Excuse me, is there anything I can do?’

  I squinted through swollen eyes at a woman in a suit. She was standing in front of me holding on to the overhead bar for support, her forehead creased with concern. I must have looked a state: crying and rocking and making weird animalistic noises. She was quite brave, when you think about it. I shook my head, and, when she still didn’t go away, I croaked, ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  I gave her a look, and she went back to her seat. There wasn’t anything anyone could do. Least of all me.

  I started crying all over again when I finally arrived back in Brighton. Cry me a river? I was the bloody Nile. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, as my dad would say. Ha ha.

  It was nearly midnight, and the centre of town was buzzing with couples, draped all over each other like adverts for their own sex lives. I remembered my public display of affection with Joe at Victoria. It meant nothing to him, therefore maybe it meant nothing to all these people. So you can just smug off, I thought bitterly as another couple passed by, their hands in each other’s bum pockets.

  I stood outside the station, snivelling and wondering what to do. I couldn’t go home. Mum and Dad had left two increasingly irate messages on my phone. I’d texted to say I was fine – that I was staying with Ashley’s cousin again – but something told me that wouldn’t be enough. And obviously I couldn’t call any of the girls. Rich and Jack? That would be too weird. I sighed. It had to be Ollie. I needed him. He’d understand.

  And luckily the sound of his voice when he answered the phone unleashed torrents of fresh tears, so he was too busy feeling sorry for me to feel used. (Anyway, I wasn’t using him. He was now my closest friend. Ollie: my best friend! The thought was startling, like watching something on the news and realizing it happened in the next street.) I asked if I could stay at his. He said yes – he even offered to come and get me, but I told him I needed the air. Which I did, but more than that I needed to sort my face out. I’d cried so much I must have looked like I’d had some kind of allergic episode. I went into a McDonald’s that was too busy for anyone to notice I was using the loos without buying anything, and spent five minutes splashing my face with cold water and applying liberal amounts of tinted moisturizer. It helped, a bit. I still looked hideous, but who cared?

  By the time I got to Ollie’s – he lived a good twenty-minute walk from the station – I’d composed myself enough to say ‘hi’ to his parents, who were watching late-night telly in the sitting room. Obviously not early-to-bed types, then. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to see them, but his mum just smiled at me sympathetically and didn’t try
to do small talk, so he must have told her I needed a place to stay. His parents were pretty relaxed about him having girls over, anyway, or how else could he maintain his impressive record as everyone’s favourite commitment-phobe?

  He led me into the kitchen, which was cosy and still done out in the orange pine it always had been. He pulled a chair out from under the table. ‘Take the weight off.’

  I smiled gratefully, too exhausted to make conversation. I looked around while he made the tea. Nothing much had changed since we were tiny. The fridge was still covered with Ollie-phernalia: old drawings, school notices, attendance certificates. Poking out at the bottom was a yellowing piece of paper with a felt-tip drawing of two big stick figures and one little one. They were holding hands with long, spindly arms. At the bottom an adult had written: ‘My family, by Oliver Glazer, age 5’.

  I gestured to the picture. ‘Pride of place on the fridge. ’S’being an only child for you. When Dan started school I threw a fit because I thought Mum and Dad were favouring his works of art over mine.’

  Ollie smiled. ‘Yeah, well. Mum and Dad tried to have kids after Zac died, but they couldn’t. I used to really want a brother or sister.’

  My blood ran cold. I was appalled. ‘I’m so sorry, Ollie. I completely forgot about Zac.’ I put my head in my hands. ‘Talk about self-obsessed.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said lightly, a cup of tea in each hand. ‘Shall we go upstairs?’ I picked up my bag and followed him up to his room, still mentally cursing myself. ‘You’ve got the spare room,’ he said. ‘But come and talk to me first.’ He pushed open his bedroom door with his foot and nodded for me to go in. I sat on the edge of his bed, feeling disorientated and spacey. He handed me my tea and sat down beside me.