by Sara Barnard
“Do you still love me?” I asked. I’d meant to tease, but as I spoke I pictured Suzanne the previous night, the look on her face when she’d reminded me that no one would stop loving me because I’d stayed out for one night.
I saw the reluctant smile break out on Tarin’s face. “Of course I still love you, you donkey. Here.” She angled her wrist and tossed the origami bird toward me. It landed, small and delicate, safe in my lap.
* * *
Rosie called later that evening, and was allowed to speak to me because she was The Good One. I could hear in her voice that she was nervous, even as she tried to sound bold.
“Did you get in trouble?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I said shortly. “Happy?”
“No,” she said, her voice quieting. “What happened?”
“They yelled. I’m grounded. Did you want anything or were you just calling to gloat?”
“Of course not,” she said, sounding hurt. “Look, I’m sorry you got in trouble. But that’s not actually my fault. You were the one who went. And you were the one who lied.”
“The only reason you did it was to get back at me,” I said, “which is really petty, Roz.”
There was a short silence. “Well, we’re even now,” she said eventually. “Maybe I was a bit petty, but you were stupid. So.”
“Even?” I repeated, incredulous. “You just ratted me out to my parents. Who does that?!”
“Who leaves their friend at a party?” Rosie shot back, fire back in her voice. “And anyway, I spoke to Tarin, not your parents.”
“Rosie,” I said sharply, “why don’t you just apologize?” As I spoke, I realized she’d already sort-of apologized, but I carried on anyway. “You haven’t just got me in trouble; you’ve completely screwed things up for Suze. My parents are saying we can’t even be friends anymore.”
“God, Caddy! Suze has screwed things up for herself. AGAIN. I can’t believe that even after something like this, you still can’t see that.”
Almost without warning, I felt tears springing to my eyes. How had we got here? Rosie and I had never been the kind of friends who argued. And now here we were, fighting two Sundays in a row.
“You both brought all this on yourselves,” Rosie said. “If you don’t like the consequences, that’s not my fault. But I’m your best friend. I’m not going to tell you everything’s fine when it’s not. I think your parents are right, okay? She’s clearly a bad influence on you.”
This was when something in me snapped. “Why do you all think you know me better than I know myself?” My voice was suddenly louder than normal. “Do you really think I’m so stupid I can’t make my own decisions?”
“Caddy—”
“You’re just jealous, Roz. It’s so obvious. And you know what? You should just get over it. Really.”
Tarin had appeared in the living-room doorway, her eyes wide and incredulous. I turned away from her, pressing the phone so hard against my ear it was starting to burn. “And actually—” I stopped. There was a dial tone on the other end of the line. Rosie had hung up. “Oh,” I said.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Tarin asked.
“No,” I said, getting up and walking past her, the tears finally breaking free and spilling down my face. “I really, really don’t.”
* * *
Here’s the thing though. For all the talk of consequences, nothing actually happened. Yes, I was grounded, but I knew it wouldn’t be forever. True, I was fighting with my best friend, but I was sure that too would pass. My parents were disappointed in me, but Suzanne had been completely right about one thing: they weren’t going to stop loving me.
I’d stayed out drinking and smoking in a park with a bunch of relative strangers in a city I didn’t know, and I was fine. Everything was the same. I woke up on Monday morning and went to school, and nothing had changed. It made no sense, but I felt buoyed by the weekend’s events. I’d done something wrong, I’d gotten caught, and the world had carried on turning and my cereal tasted just the same in the morning. All these years I’d been so worried about being good. The taste of the alternative was caramel sweet. I wanted more.
The problem was Suzanne. With all methods of communication severed between us, I had no way of knowing how she was, and I worried for her. If Rosie was angry with me, she’d surely be furious with Suzanne, the catalyst for all the changes she didn’t like. And what about Sarah, who’d sent Suzanne to Brian in the first place because she didn’t know how to handle her behavior?
I used my lunch break to send her an e-mail. I kept it short, hoping she’d had the same idea and would reply before I had to go to math. But no response came until Thursday and it only made me feel worse.
Thursday 1:23
From: Suzanne Watts ([email protected])
To: Caddy Oliver ([email protected])
Cads,
Sorry for late reply. No access to anything. No phone, nothing. God, everything is so shit, Caddy. I ruined everything. I’m so sorry you got in trouble with your parents, and Roz. Are you sure ur not mad? I’d be mad if it was me. I don’t know why you put up with me.
When I got back on Sunday Sarah just cried, and then I cried and Brian got all awkward and then left. I don’t know why I do this. What’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just go to brian’s like I was meant to? Sarah says she doesn’t know what to do with me. No, Roz and I aren’t fighting. She’s just completely ignoring me. It’s horrible.
Better go. I love you and I hope you’re not in too much shit. I haven’t come to see you coz no way am I risking getting you in more trouble. I’m not really sleeping, though. My head won’t shut up. I miss our little walkabouts and talking things over with you. That really helped.
Anyway. Sorry.
Lots of love
Sz xx
I printed the e-mail out and read it over a few times more that evening, sitting on my bed with nothing else to do. She sounded so empty and lost it was almost frightening.
Folding the paper in my hands, I went to my parents’ room, knocking softly on the door and poking my head around it. Mum was sitting on the bed watching the news. When I appeared, she smiled at me and muted the TV with the remote. “Hello,” she said. “Come and sit with me.”
I sat down next to her, crossing my legs underneath me. “Can I talk to you about Suze?”
“Oh, Caddy . . .”
“I mean properly,” I said. “No shouting or anything.”
She sighed and rubbed the edge of her forehead. “I’ve spoken to Sarah,” she said. “At length. And your father and I have discussed it. I really don’t think there’s anything you can say that will change things.”
“But—” I unfolded the paper, ready to show it to her, knowing its contents would probably get me into more trouble but not caring.
“I know this is hard,” Mum said, as if she hadn’t even noticed I was trying to speak. “I know you want to help your friend. But your actions aren’t helping her, and hers certainly aren’t helping you. Some distance between you two will do you a world of good, I’m sure. You’ll come to understand where we’re coming from.”
I gave up. Why had I thought for even a second that she’d listen to me? I folded the paper back up, this time into quarters, pushing it into my pocket out of sight.
I retreated back to my room, lying flat on my back on my bed and staring at my ceiling. My anxiety had gone into overdrive, thinking about Suzanne’s e-mail. My head won’t shut up . . . I’m not really sleeping.
And what was I doing to help? Absolutely nothing. Lying on my bed and worrying. I hadn’t even made any real effort to change my mother’s mind. So much for being trustworthy and dependable. I was just as useless as everyone else. Too worried about getting in trouble to do anything. Too passive, too scared to act.
By the time the house had quieted and everyone else was in bed, I hadn’t got anywhere. My thoughts were still a tangled, guilty mess. I forced myself to get up and brush my teeth
, then collapsed back onto my bed, crawling under the covers and trying to turn my brain off. I couldn’t help but think of Suzanne, most likely doing the same. She was probably wishing she could just take off for a while to clear her head, but couldn’t now because it had caused so much—
I was jerked out of my thoughts by the sound of my bedroom door creaking open slightly. I closed my eyes instinctively, feigning sleep, and heard my mother’s whisper: “She’s here.”
After she’d gone, I actually laughed. The situation was so ridiculous. Six months ago the idea that my mother would feel the need to check I was in my bed after midnight would have been ludicrous. It still was ludicrous. As if I’d risk further trouble by sneaking out again.
And then, suddenly as a slap, I realized something. There was no further trouble. I had surely reached peak trouble. I sat up and gave my head a frustrated shake, trying to sort out my thoughts. But there was no need. The idea had crystallized in me and it was clear what I needed to do.
25
IT WAS SCARIER BY MYSELF.
The moment my feet touched the ground beneath our garage I felt a rush of nerves so strong I almost climbed back up again. Maybe I was wrong; maybe I wasn’t brave enough to do this alone. I hesitated, my hand still on the rough wall of the garage. I closed my eyes, took in a slow breath and then let it out, counting the beats. Then I opened my eyes and started walking away from my house.
My heartbeat picked up further as I walked, to the point where I found myself breaking into a run. There was no one around; the streets were deserted. I wasn’t sure if this was better or worse. With each empty street corner turned, the need to see Suzanne, to validate my recklessness, increased.
I was breathing hard by the time I reached her door, realizing too late that as her bedroom was at the back of the house I would have to double back on myself and then try and find my way, in the dark, into her back garden. This was when it started to rain.
I stood there for a moment, feeling raindrops begin to trickle down the back of my collar. There was a reason girls like me didn’t do things like this. It was because we were crap at it. I had none of the fuck-it spirit that Suzanne possessed in spades. I was all nerves and second guesses.
But you don’t have to be, I told myself, clenching my hands into fists and feeling my nails dig into my palms. Maybe we have a degree of choice in how our personalities are formed. I could be brave. I could be reckless. I could be trouble.
It took me a while, but I eventually found the wall that I was sure backed onto Suzanne’s garden. On tiptoes, I recognized the pink of the Judas tree that had always caught my eye from their living room. I made it over and crept across the grass.
I crouched by the window I knew to be Suzanne’s, hesitated, then knocked softly. Nothing. I bit down hard on my lip, then knocked again.
For another agonizing minute the stillness remained unbroken. I was just wondering whether I should give up on this ridiculous exercise and go home when the curtains twitched, then moved aside. When she saw me, Suzanne’s mouth dropped open in shock, then shifted into an enormous grin. As her fingers scrabbled at the window, I felt my nerves subside. I’d been right to come here, of course I had. I was pretty sure that no one, in my entire life, had ever been that happy to see me.
“Oh my God,” Suzanne whispered once she’d opened her window. She leaned out of it, reaching out to hug me. “Oh my Gooodddd, Caddy!!!”
“Who did you think it would be?” I asked, attempting a joke and hugging her back.
“I thought I was imagining it!” Suzanne replied. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you,” I said. “Obviously. Want to go somewhere?”
“Did you climb over the garden wall?” she asked, her voice incredulous.
“Yeah, of course.” I was starting to feel unsure of myself again. Did she have to be so surprised?
“Why?”
“To come and see you,” I said.
“Oh my God,” she said again, this time sounding a little nervous. “Everyone’s right. I am a bad influence on you.”
“Oh, don’t you start,” I said, annoyed. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I am!” She laughed a little, but her eyes were still anxious. “I really don’t want to get you in more trouble though. Maybe you should go home, before they realize you’re gone.”
I shook my head. “It’s fine—my mum already checked on me. Let’s go somewhere. Let’s actually do something, instead of just sitting on the beach. What about the pier?”
She shook her head. “You can’t access it at this kind of time. It’s completely locked up.”
“You’ve tried?”
“Once.” She smiled coyly. “With Dylan.”
It had never occurred to me that she and Dylan had ever actually gone anywhere at night. I’d kind of thought that was our thing. Why did I assume so much about people and their lives? Why did I think that if it didn’t happen in front of me it didn’t happen at all?
“I have an idea,” she said.
* * *
Suzanne had the intelligence to bring an umbrella with her, and we huddled together underneath it as we walked away from our two houses.
“So go on, tell me,” she said, tucking the umbrella closer to us as we walked under a particularly low hanging tree, “what made you come to get me?”
“What made you come and see me all the other times?” I asked, thinking I was being clever.
“Loneliness,” Suzanne said simply.
“Oh,” I said, thrown.
She looked at me expectantly.
“I tried to talk to my mum,” I said. “To try and explain. But she basically made it clear that nothing was going to change. And I kind of thought . . . fuck it.”
For some reason she smiled. “Really? Is that what you thought?”
“Yes!” I said, defensive. “Fuck. It.”
“But seriously, have you thought about what you’ll do if you get caught?” she pressed.
“Stop it, you’re spoiling my buzz,” I said.
At this she outright laughed. “I love you so much.”
“Then stop patronizing me,” I said, wiggling the umbrella so the water dripped onto her face. “Don’t forget I’m older than you.”
“By about three months,” she said, grinning. “That hardly counts.”
I decided to ignore this. “I kind of want to get caught,” I said instead, realizing as I spoke that it was true. The feeling of recklessness that had propelled me out of my window and over the garage roof welled up inside me again.
“Hmm,” she said, noncommittal.
“Then they’ll see that trying to stop us being friends is never going to work,” I explained. “They’ll have to accept that part and move on to helping you.”
I felt her bristle beside me. “Helping me?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t need help,” she said. “What you mean is, they’ll accept that we’re going to be friends no matter what and just deal with it. Right?”
I paused, trying to think of a way to respond. It didn’t seem like a good idea to say what was in my head, which was that she clearly did need help, and she was the one with the problem, not me.
“You’re the troubled one,” I said, making my voice as light as possible so she’d know it wasn’t a judgment.
Suzanne took a step backward, out from under the umbrella. I stopped walking and turned back to look at her. “You’re as bad as they are,” she said, her voice fierce. “That stupid word. I hate that word. Troubled. What the fuck does that even mean?”
Shit. “That you’ve had a hard time. It’s not a bad thing.”
“Of course it’s a bad thing! Look at us!” She gestured between us—me standing helplessly under the umbrella, her already half drenched just outside it, then upward, presumably toward the two a.m. sky. “You want to fix me, just like everyone else. You want me to be better, so you can be all proud of yourself.”
I was abo
ut to object, then reconsidered. “Well, yeah, of course I want you to be better. But I’m not trying to ‘fix’ you, and I’m not trying to be proud of myself.”
Her expression was dubious.
“Come back under the umbrella, you head case,” I said, determinedly upbeat. “You can yell at me and be dry at the same time.”
She smiled reluctantly. “I wasn’t yelling at you.”
“Little bit,” I said. When she still didn’t move, I let out an exaggerated groan and moved toward her instead, holding the umbrella up over us both.
We started walking again, this time in silence. After a while she said, in the voice of someone not yet completely placated, “Did you have to try out your rebellious streak while it was raining?”
“It wasn’t raining when I left,” I said. “And I didn’t check the forecast before I climbed out the window. Sorry.”
“Rookie error,” she replied.
“Well, I’m not proud of myself,” I said.
She laughed. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry I said that. I just get it a lot.”
“Isn’t people trying to help a good thing?”
“Not if it starts to feel like that’s the only way they know how to talk to you. Like everything else about you is erased because you’re the poor sap who got hit. And they tell you how you’re feeling, instead of asking. Like, you must be feeling awful. You must feel like it’s your fault. It must be just terrible being you. And then they tell me I should be in therapy! Where—what—we can pay someone to carry on telling me how crappy my life is and how bad I should be feeling about it?”
It took me a moment to realize she’d finished talking because I was trying to remember our conversations over the last few months. Did I do that?
“Yes,” she said.
“What?”
“Yes, you do it.”
“Did you just read my mind?”
“No, I read your face.”
“Oh.” What was I supposed to say? Well, sorry? I still wasn’t convinced that caring about someone was a bad thing. What did she expect? That people wouldn’t try to empathize?
“You know who doesn’t do it?” Her voice had started to relax. “Rosie.”