40 Things I Want to Tell You

by Alice Kuipers

  She jumped up to sit next to me, precariously. The table groaned in protest. “Casual is not a problem for me. It’s commitment I find hard. Hang on. How are we talking about me and not you? How do you always manage to do that? Come on. I want to hear all the details about your hot sex life.”

  The bell rang and a girl burst in, clearly hurrying so as not to be late to class.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said. “Send me that catering stuff and I’ll get back to you.”

  A Top Tip for my website slid guiltily into my brain, to be typed in when I got home.

  TOP TIP 4: SOMETIMES YOU’RE LYING WHEN YOU SAY NOTHING AT ALL

  I REALIZED I WAS AVOIDING GRIFFIN WHEN I DUCKED OUT OF SCHOOL at the end of the day without even looking for him. This was ridiculous. He was my boyfriend, my best friend, the person I was most intimate with in the world, and I was acting like this. We hadn’t spoken all day. I crossed into the park opposite the school and slunk to sit shivering on the bench by the lake. The water was calm but reflected the deep grey clouds above. There was a rumour that snow was coming. In London. In November. The weather was going mad. The world was going crazy. I let out a deep sigh just as Pete Loewen appeared in front of me.

  He crossed his arms and said, “Look who we’ve got here.”

  I stood up, which only made me physically closer to him. I was surprised to find I was furious with him for the way he kept getting into my head. My tone sharp, I said, “What do you want?”

  “Now that’s not very friendly.”

  “God, Pete, what are you playing at? What was that text about on my birthday? How did you even get my number?”

  “It was your birthday? I didn’t know that. Okay, I did. I saw it on Facebook. And I was right, wasn’t I? You were thinking about me.”

  “You’re so arrogant. Of course I wasn’t. I don’t know you or like you or think about you or … or anything.” He’d Facebook stalked me!

  He took a step nearer to me. His eyes were open and honest. “You didn’t even bother replying to my texts. What’s your problem with me, Amy?”

  My body fizzed. I said, softening, “I wasn’t thinking about

  you.”

  He reached a hand up so that one of his fingers rested on my chin. It was the first time he’d touched me and I held my breath.

  He said, “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “I … I … just …” Words were failing me. What did I know about this guy? Nothing. What did I like about him? Everything. I liked the way my body felt. I liked the way he seemed to see right through me even though he hardly knew me.

  I took a tiny step in his direction.

  His hand slid to the back of my neck, making all the hairs on my arms and legs stand to shivery attention.

  “Can I kiss you?” he said, and the tone of his voice made me feel like he was hopeful, not arrogant at all. Maybe I’d got everything about him wrong. He said, “Amy?”

  He said my name like I had bewitched him.

  And the way he said my name made me do it.

  I leaned my face up toward him and pressed my lips lightly to his. God, his mouth felt good against mine. I kissed him a little harder, letting my tongue slip to touch his. Then he put his other hand along my back and crushed me against him. My arms were around him, his tongue was in my mouth, my body melted entirely in his embrace and I felt … free.

  When I was eight years old, I climbed up a tree and told my mum I was a bird. Before she could stop me, I jumped out the branches trying to fly.

  I could remember being at the top of the tree, the branches wide around me, the leaves dancing in the breeze. I’d balanced at the edge of one branch and looked into the blue, tempting sky. My mum had screamed at me, “No, Amy, stop.”

  “I’m a bird,” I cried, and flew.

  That was how I broke my leg.

  Now, in the park, with huge effort, I pushed Pete away. I wiped my mouth. This was too risky. I cried, “What am I doing?”

  His grey eyes sparked with frustration.

  “I can’t, Pete.” I took another step back. “I can’t believe I did that. Oh my God.” I turned away from him and started walking fast. I had to get out of there. I had to get as far away from Pete Loewen as possible.

  I spent the rest of the evening ignoring my phone and studying hard. When I went to bed, I couldn’t help but notice that Pete hadn’t texted. And that Griffin had—three times.

  THE NEXT MORNING I SLEPT THROUGH MY ALARM. IMMEDIATELY UPON waking I checked the time, bewildered, and then I thought of Pete, remembering him sliding his hand to the back of my neck, remembering him kissing me. My skin got goosebumpy. For a moment, I felt light and cheerful. Weird that I could be happy when I should be feeling like the worst person on earth. My joyful mood dissolved like sugar in hot water. I’d cheated on Griffin. Cheating was the sort of thing other people did. Not me.

  My phone beeped. It was Griffin. Guilt seeped through my veins.

  Am outside. U up? We really need to talk xxx

  I stuck my head up to look out the window. I’d forgotten to shut the curtains the night before. The sky was full of white flurries. It was snowing! I sat up properly and looked down to the road. The whole of the street was blanketed in white. A car was trying to weave along the road, headlights on. And there was Griffin, waiting by my front gate.

  He waved. I waved back and sent him a text. Going through the motions.

  Give me 5 mins.

  Outside, my boots sank in the thick snow blanketing the front steps. The cold sneaked up the sleeves of my jacket and twisted round my arms. Brrr. Griffin stood looking the other way. He wore a black coat and striped red-and-navy scarf. He swivelled his head and a smile lit up his face. He looked good. Bright blue eyes, big smile. My camera was slung round my neck. I lifted it and clicked. In the digital screen, I could see it was a good photo. A perfect image of a perfect moment in a teen girl’s life: cute, loving boyfriend framed by the snowy street. I felt suddenly tired and worn out. I had to tell him what I’d done. Oh my God, what had I done? Telling him would ruin everything.

  He threw a snowball at me and it hit me lightly on my jacket, bursting into powdery flakes. “Hey, Bird,” he said, “you look pretty in the snow.”

  TOP TIP 5: SNOW SUCKS

  “It looked good from the window,” I said, wondering guiltily if Pete found me pretty. “But it’s so cold,” I added.

  “I didn’t know we even had snow like this in England,” Griffin said. He was so oblivious of what was going on inside my head, so oblivious of what a lying, cheating, horrible girl I really was.

  I smiled at him, trudged down the path and kissed him lightly on his cold lips as he was expecting. “It’s November. It’s crazy. I’ll have to buy proper boots.”

  “Even with the wrong boots, you do look really pretty.”

  “Griffin—”

  “Come on, Bird, lighten up. Let’s not talk about the other night right now.”

  I remembered the last time I’d seen Griffin as I rushed out of his room.

  Later, I told myself, I’ll tell him later. The argument began in my head. I had to tell him about kissing Pete, I had to deal with it, I had to fix what I’d done.

  Or I could break up with him. I could tell Griffin it was over and, I dunno, start dating Pete.

  Just the idea made my brain whirl. I could never actually do something like that, could I? It would be so … so … I imagined telling Cleo that I’d dumped Griffin to be with a guy who everyone knew was no good. I just wasn’t the sort of girl who fell in love with a bad boy and started breaking all the rules. Drugs? Expelled? Those were the words that came to mind when I thought about Pete. Plus, I couldn’t be sure he even really liked me. He was the kind of guy I warned Cleo about all the time, the kind she adored. Sure, Pete seemed to have a soft, sweet side when he spoke to me, but he was probably like that with all the girls. Even thinking about Pete made me all confused and crazy. There was no way I could date him.

 
I looked at Griffin standing there, as excited by the snow as a lovable puppy. With Griffin, I knew exactly where I was and where we were going. I plastered on a smile and slipped my camera from my neck to place it safely in my bag.

  “You have to catch me first.”

  I started running but the slippery blanket under my feet made me tumble. Griffin grabbed me before I fell, which made both of us collapse onto the snowy ground.

  “You want to take the day off with me?” he said, pinning me down. Snow slithered down my neck.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “No school. Don’t you check your email?”

  Good. No school. No Pete. Although half of me wanted to see him, half of me was dreading it. “I only just got up.”

  “You got up late? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I guess I just—”

  He flopped down next to me and we lay cuddled in the cold, nose to nose. “I’m worried about Mom,” he said.

  I waited for him to say more. It was rare that he wanted to share his worries. His breath came out in steamy clouds that puffed over my cheeks.

  “How’s she doing?” I prompted.

  “Not great. I don’t know. She left the oven on last night.”

  I put my hand up to his chest. My fingers were so cold I could hardly feel the wool of his sweater.

  He continued, “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You can’t deal with this on your own, Griffin.”

  He said quietly, “I know. But I don’t want anyone else involved.”

  “Surely they have someone in Social Services or something—someone who could give you some support.”

  He glared at me. “This isn’t anyone’s business but mine. She just hasn’t got over Dad yet.”

  “Let me help, then.”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’ll be fine. I don’t need any help.”

  Bile rose in my mouth—I was disgusted with myself. Griffin needed me. I pulled him closer.

  He kissed me. His mouth was warm. Familiar. Nice. And completely different from Pete’s mouth.

  I mumbled, “I’m sorry, G. I just have to tell you—”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s me who’s been pressuring you. I get it.”

  “That’s not true. It’s normal to want— It’s not you. You’re great.”

  He turned so his face was in profile. “I just wish it was easier right now. I wish Mom would just, I dunno, just get back to her old self.”

  I was selfish and horrible and awful to even think about ending things when he was going through such a hard time. He needed reassurance. He needed a proper girlfriend.

  I forced thoughts of Pete and what had happened from my mind, and I said, “No school, hmm?”

  His eyebrows lifted. My back was freezing. The ground was very hard. He kissed me on the neck.

  “What do you want to do?” His voice was low, his breath close to my ear.

  I was about to answer when a white car skidded round the corner and swerved to a stop near a tree. We both sat up as the horn beeped into the still air.

  “Who is that?” Griffin said, pushing his hair back off his face.

  It was such a familiar gesture and it drove me crazy, but not in a good way. I reminded myself that he was just being himself. It was me who had to get my head in the right place.

  The window opened and Cleo stuck out her head. Her dark brown skin and big dark eyes contrasted with the white of her car and the white of the snow around her. She wore a cute sky-blue woolly hat and white scarf. Movie star. She puffed words into the frigid air: “Come on, lovebirds, get up and get a room. Check out my dad’s car!”

  “You nearly crashed,” I yelled.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “You haven’t passed your driving test yet!” I was giggling.

  Griffin’s eyes narrowed. He jumped up and pulled me after him, then dusted the snow off us both in swift, light slaps. We stumbled over to her. I grabbed my camera from my bag and took a few photos of her posing out through her car window.

  “Make sure you get me at my best, darling,” she cried. She had the hugest smile on her face. She said, “Mum and Dad are away. The car was sitting there, like, calling me to drive it. Cleo, it said. Cleo, come and drive me. Too tempting. No school, it said—”

  “You’re crazy,” I cut in.

  “Come on, where shall we go?” she asked

  “How about … um, I don’t know,” I said.

  She said to Griffin, “I’m almost qualified. Don’t look at me like that.”

  Griffin’s blue eyes deepened to indigo. “We’re supposed to spend the day, the two of us, together,” he muttered so Cleo wouldn’t hear.

  “I know,” I whispered back.

  Cleo honked the horn. “Enough secret talk. Get in.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t drive. You haven’t passed your test.”

  “Bird, live a little, would you? Come on, Griffin.”

  “I’m staying right where Bird is.”

  I looked at him. I looked at Cleo in the car. My blood quickened. I imagined us driving somewhere we’d never been before, the snowy road like a blank page waiting for us to write a new story on it.

  I said, full of enthusiasm, “Should we, Griffin? It might be fun.”

  He shrugged. “If you say so.”

  I leaned in her window. “Okay, then, where do you want to go?”

  She said, “Anywhere.”

  Griffin said, “Bird, are you sure?”

  Cleo said, “I won’t kill us. I got here, didn’t I?”

  “She did,” I said, then wished I hadn’t contradicted him, because he turned away.

  He started walking back toward his house. It seemed like lately one of us was always walking away from the other. My heart squeezed to see him trudging through the snow.

  I turned to my friend. “I can’t, Cleo.”

  TOP TIP 6: YOU CAN REGRET WHAT YOU HAVEN’T DONE

  She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, yeah. I knew it. You’re way too, you know, sensible,” she said. She wasn’t being mean, but the words crawled like wasps under my jacket and stung me hard. She chattered on. “Calm that lovely boy of yours down. I’ll leave the car here and we can hang out. Unless you guys want to, you know, spend some quality time together?”

  “No,” I said, a little too abruptly. “It’s fine,” I added. “Give me five minutes. By the way, that hat is very cute.”

  She looked sorrowfully at the car as she got out. “It could have been so fun,” she said.

  “Look, go over to my house and see what we have for breakfast,” I said to her. “Here’s the key. Mum’s at work. And you know what Dad’s like; he won’t mind. I’ll come back in a few minutes. Let me just go get Griffin and we’ll all eat together.”

  I jogged up to Griffin’s house, my shoes sliding on the ice. The air hung empty and crisp. I pushed open his front door and called to him, “Griffin, don’t be angry.”

  He appeared in the corridor, definitely angry. “I just don’t get you. It’s like you’re, I dunno, just different today.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m sorry.”

  He pushed the hair from his eyes. “I just don’t … I don’t understand.”

  “I guess we should probably talk.”

  “Right.” He leaned against one of the bookshelves that lined the corridor wall. “Okay, what?”

  “I’ve, um, I have to tell you something …” My voice trailed off and I grasped for the right words.

  His mum burst onto the upstairs landing. She flung her arms wide. “Bird, little Bird, you’re so big now. My Griffin loves you, dearest Birdy.” She danced out of sight.

  “Mom,” Griffin called, pushing away from the bookshelves. He said to me, “Sorry. I’ll come over to your place in a while. Go hang with Cleo.”

  “Do you want me to stay?” I added, “Can I help? Griffin?”

  “No, just go. She’s not herself.”

  I said, “Cleo an
d I are making breakfast next door. Come over when you’re ready.”

  He replied quickly, “Yeah, okay, whatever. I’ll see where things are at.”

  “Really, I can stay.”

  He shook his head. He was already halfway up the stairs. “It’s okay, Mom.”

  She yelled, “Can I get a biscuit? I want a biscuit.”

  I felt tears pricking my eyes: Griffin’s mum frightened me—I’d never seen her so childish. Griffin shouldn’t be handling all this on his own. He needed help, but I was the only one who knew what was going on and he wouldn’t even let me help. If I called someone in, he’d be furious.

  I hesitated, not sure what to do, then I opened the door quietly and headed into the chilly morning.

  CHAPTER 6

  Thurs 11 Nov

  Dear Miss Take-Control-of-Your-Life,

  I have never written for advice before and you’ll probably think this is nothing. Well, we were all at this party. It was Jamie’s birthday. I have never had a girlfriend and I have been friends with Jamie since we were really young. He’s always the life and soul of the party, and he’s got a beautiful girl. Anyway, it was getting late and his girlfriend and me were in the kitchen just chatting. Well, on some weird impulse I kissed her on the mouth, and she kissed me back. We didn’t say much and went back to the others. I can’t get her out of my mind. I don’t know what to do.

  CyberG, 15

  I was the worst teenage advice columnist ever. I couldn’t figure out how other people made it look so easy to give advice when I was so clueless. I typed out a lame answer and deleted it, retyped it, deleted it again. I needed to find my confident Miss Take-Control self. Everything going on in my own life was getting in the way of me being able to deal with CyberG’s question, and I was sick of being so overwhelmed with my own drama: Griffin, his mum, Pete. Okay … kissing the wrong person—with my own recent experience, I should be able to figure out the right thing to say.

  I read the question over, then began to type.

  Dear CyberG,

  Your friend Jamie probably doesn’t realize that you are a bit jealous of him and his life. It doesn’t seem to me that you really like this girl, even though you’re thinking about her now you’ve kissed her—that’s normal. Earlier you describe her by saying, “He’s got a beautiful girl.” It makes me think you want her because she’s his girlfriend.