Everyone gaped at us like we’d just told them that we’d become devil worshippers before Jesse shook his head. ‘No, man,’ he complained bitterly. ‘I wanted to know where you’d been, not what you did when you got there.’
I still had to register at the hall of residence which was just down the road and the band had to sound check which was also just down the road, but, like, in the other direction. After one of those arduous sorting-things-out conversations that take half an hour, we agreed to split up but meet back at the gig venue for pre-show drinks.
There was an awkward moment when Grace insisted that she wanted to come with us and Poppy told her that she had to sound check.
‘You’re the guitarist,’ Poppy snapped. ‘Act like it!’
‘Oh stop bossing me about just because you’re in a bad mood,’ Grace snapped back in a very un-Gracelike manner and they glared at each other with matching expressions of pissed-offness, until Jesse stepped in and said that he could sound check for Grace instead.
‘So it looks like you’ve grown a pair since we’ve been away, Grace,’ Dylan commented as we drove to the hall of residence.
‘You mean balls?’ Grace asked and my mouth hung open in shock. Grace caught my look and smirked. ‘Girls have balls, they’re just higher up,’ she added before giggling.
‘I don’t know, Grace, you’re all grown up,’ I said to her later as I was unpacking my holiday bags and Dylan, Shona and Paul were bringing up my other bags that I’d packed before I went away.
‘I don’t feel all grown up,’ she confessed. ‘What do you think of Jack’s hair, it’s crap, right?’
Maybe she hadn’t grown up after all.
I carried on upending my bags while Grace watched.
‘What’s that?’ she asked as I pulled out my diary, which was looking a bit dog-eared and sweat-soaked.
‘It’s my diary.’
Grace looked interested. ‘I didn’t know you kept a diary,’ she said and reached out a hand. ‘Can I have a read?’
I swiped the top of her head lightly with it. ‘No, it’s private!’ I admonished her. ‘I’ve always kept a diary,’ I added as an afterthought.
‘What do you write about?’ she wanted to know.
I shrugged. ‘I s’pose I write about how I feel and what I’ve been doing and I bang on about Dylan a lot.’
Grace nodded. ‘That sounds cool.’
I put the diary away in a drawer. ‘It helps when I’m all messed,’ I tried to explain. ‘I write it down and things become clearer somehow.’
Grace was silent for a minute. ‘Maybe I should start keeping a diary because my head is way messed at the moment.’
When Shona and Paul arrived they decided to drive Grace to the venue. I think it was Shona’s tactful way of giving us some alone time. Dylan lounged on my tiny bed and watched while I put away my clean clothes and threw the dirty ones on the floor. What the hell – it was a system.
We walked back to Camden, holding hands, but not saying anything. To tell you the truth, the last thing I felt like doing was going to see a band. Even if it was a band with my friends in it, but it would have been rude not to.
When we got to the pub and had our names ticked off on the guest list, we found a quiet table and sat down.
Dylan lifted one of my hands and began to absentmindedly stroke the palm with the tip of his fingers.
‘I can’t believe that I’ll be on my way back to Manchester in a few hours,’ he said finally.
The minute he said it, it became real.
‘I was trying not to think about that,’ I muttered. ‘It’s going to be weird sleeping without you tonight.’
‘Your bed is so small we’ll have to take it in turns to sleep in it when I come to visit,’ Dylan said.
‘It’s still going to be too big without you,’ I told him, running my hand along his cheek. ‘It’s strange how quiet the halls are in that place.’
‘You are a day early.’
I closed my eyes for a second. ‘Why are we sitting here making small talk when you’re going in a little while?’ I cried. ‘There’s all these things I want to tell you and instead we’re talking about how small my stupid bed is!’
‘All you have to tell me is that you love me and that you’ll see me in a couple of weeks,’ Dylan said firmly.
‘I do love you, art boy,’ I said, using my favourite pet name for him. ‘And thank God for long holidays.’
‘And I’ll be doing my Masters degree in London,’ Dylan decided, perking up momentarily before slumping down again with his elbows on his knees. ‘That’s a whole year away though.’
‘But, hey, long holidays,’ I reminded him. ‘So that will help.’
‘I don’t want you to not enjoy yourself because you think you should be with me,’ Dylan said carefully. ‘You’re in London and there’s going to be loads of exciting people and places and you should make the most of that.’
I put a finger to Dylan’s lips to get him to shut up. ‘Look, I’m really excited about being here and tomorrow I’ll be hitching a ride on the welcome wagon,’ I began. ‘But right now you’re here and tomorrow can just go hang itself.’
‘Like I said, Eeds, we’ll always be together,’ Dylan murmured softly. ‘Even if we ever did split up, you’d still be with me.’
‘You have to stop now ’cause I will cry,’ I sniffed. ‘And my mascara is not tear-proof.’
The others left us alone. Like we had an invisible barrier surrounding us which had a sign that read, ‘Emotional Goodbye Zone, Please Keep Out’ printed on it. Even though the emotional goodbyes were temporarily paused and Dylan and I were arguing about whether bacon crisps were made with any part of an actual pig and if not could vegetarians eat them.
I looked up from examining the ingredients on a packet to see Poppy disappearing into the Ladies.
Dylan followed my gaze.
‘I have to sort things out with her,’ I stated decisively, standing up.
Dylan held his hands in front of him. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ he protested. ‘I’m going to find Shona.’
Poppy was nowhere to be found so I figured I might as well have a wee before I went to look for her.
As I came out of the cubicle, Poppy was standing there with her hands on her hips in a confrontational way.
Oh dear.
I busily washed my hands and waited for her to speak. Our eyes met in the mirror.
‘C’mon Poppy, don’t leave it like this,’ I pleaded. ‘You knew about the road trip last September and you knew I was going to university.’
‘But I didn’t think you’d go through with it,’ Poppy snarled, running a hand through her platinum curls. ‘It’s like the band and being with me meant nothing to you.’
‘No, it’s not,’ I protested. ‘You’re like an honorary sister to me. You’re my best friend, Poppy.’
‘You could have stayed this summer so we could do the tour,’ she said softly. ‘But you left us in the lurch. Grace is completely crap on guitar.’
‘Well you shouldn’t have organised a tour without telling anyone,’ I reminded her. ‘There’s you and there’s Dylan and there’s my parents and there’s everyone else. And I was trying to juggle it all Poppy, but I can’t keep all of the balls in the air at the same time.’
Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘Oh God, I’m so not going to miss your convoluted metaphors.’
‘So you are going to miss all the other bits of me,’ I pounced.
‘I’m not saying that,’ she said sulkily but I turned away from the mirror ’cause you can’t really have a heartfelt talk to someone’s reflection and lunged at her.
‘Get off me!’ she yelped as I enveloped her in a bear hug.
I could smell the rose perfume she smothered herself in. It was one of my happy smells because it meant that Poppy was near. I squeezed her tighter until I felt one of her hands reach up to stroke my hair.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ I mumbled into her neck. ‘Even if y
ou are moody and unreasonable.’
‘Hmmm and I might remember to thank you when I go up to get my MTV award,’ Poppy conceded. ‘Maybe.’
We came up for air. Poppy clutched my hand.
‘When you phoned me I knew there was something wrong,’ she suddenly announced. ‘And all I could think was that I wasn’t there for you. Y’know if we hadn’t argued before you went away and I hadn’t been such a bitch, you’d have told me what was wrong and I could have helped you sort it out.’
I bit my lip. ‘I shouldn’t have phoned you, it was unfair to do that to you,’ I said. ‘But everything had gone wrong and you were the one person I wanted to speak to.’
‘But it’s OK now?’ she said worriedly. ‘You and Dylan seem even more surgically attached than usual.’
I bumped her with my hip. ‘Now, now, Missy, we’ll have no talk like that,’ I mock-pouted. ‘And what about you and Jesse? I heard all about how he’s been getting in touch with his inner lad.’
Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, I can handle Jesse,’ she husked. ‘I’m not getting mushy,’ she added. ‘But you and me we’re all right. And any time you want to see sense and join the band well… you’ll have to audition.’
‘You couldn’t afford me,’ I joked. ‘My rates have gone up.’
Poppy grabbed my hand. ‘C’mon, I guess Dylan’s waiting for you,’ she said as we walked back into the bar. ‘I think he wants you all to himself this evening.’
Dylan was standing by the stage and impatiently tapping his foot as Poppy led me over.
‘Right you!’ she said aggressively to him. ‘Take her. I don’t want her any more. She’s a crap snog!’
‘Oh, I guess you two have made up then,’ Dylan winked at me as he pulled Poppy into his arms and kissed the top of her head while she squirmed and pretended like she didn’t love it.
‘You two are so touchy-feely, it creeps me out,’ she managed to say with mock vehemence. ‘Well, I guess I’m ready for my close-up.’ And with that she disappeared backstage. That girl was born to be a star.
The band had improved at least ten times since I’d last seen them. Or been in them. They were tighter, which is a muso term that means they start and finish the songs at the same time as each other and don’t hit so many bum notes. Poppy was transformed when she was on stage. She was like a glitter goddess as she shimmied and swayed and brandished her guitar like it was a young man who’d done her wrong.
Atsuko was banging ten shades of hell out of her drum-kit and Darby was wiggling her hips and winking at boys in the audience but Grace was the coolest of all. Instead of moving around like the others, she stood rooted on the spot, making wonderful noises come out of her guitar. The static pose was probably because she was nervous and concentrating on the notes, but it seemed to everyone else like she really didn’t give a toss about being on stage. She was a study in nonchalance as she stood with her head slightly bowed and her weight resting on her right leg, the cute little pooch of her belly sticking out the top of her jeans.
They did all the old songs and some new ones that I didn’t know and were just coming to the end of the set when Poppy suddenly stepped up to the microphone.
‘There’s someone very special in the audience,’ she announced. ‘A former member of Mellowstar, in fact.’
I felt icy fingers of dread clutching at my heart as Dylan turned and arched his eyebrow at me.
‘She’s been touring the United States of America,’ Poppy added in the peculiar Southern American accent she always used when she was making onstage pronouncements. ‘But now she’s back for one night only, so can you find it in your hearts to give the girl a round of applause, Miss Edie Evil!’
Dylan gave me an amused look.
‘You know it was my stage name,’ I hissed.
Poppy beckoned for me to get up on stage but I was too embarrassed. And besides I was wearing a really short dress and I didn’t want to flash my pants.
‘C’mon, Edie Evil,’ Poppy shouted, reaching forward so Dylan could push me towards her outstretched hands. ‘Don’t be shy.’
Everyone was turning to look at me and with a resigned sigh, I let Dylan lift me on to the stage.
I gave a little curtsey as the clapping got louder and whispered to Poppy, ‘I’m going to eviscerate you.’
‘Edie Evil and me would like to sing a little song we wrote a long time ago,’ she told the audience, putting an arm around me. ‘It’s called ‘Welcome to Loserville’ and it’s about boys ’cause they break your heart and they never walk you home.’
Secretly I loved being back on stage with my best girls and Dylan looking at me as if his heart would burst with pride while I dissed on the rest of boykind through the medium of song.
It was cool to spend five minutes of my last night with him looking at me as if he couldn’t quite believe that I really was his.
And that’s how I want to remember that night; Dylan looking up at me and laughing. Because after that, there were kisses that tasted salty from tears and a goodbye that took so long to say but was over way too soon.
The band had packed their gear away and driven off and Paul and Shona were in the car with the engine running waiting for Dylan as we clung to each other like he was going off to war.
‘Dylan,’ Shona said softly. ‘We have to go now.’
He gave me one last bittersweet kiss before getting into the car.
‘I’ll phone you tomorrow,’ he said because everything else had already been said. He wound down the window and held out his hand. I grabbed it.
‘It was a great trip, D,’ I called out over the sound of the engine, as Paul started to ease away from the kerb.
‘It was more than a trip,’ Dylan shouted. ‘It was like, I don’t know, this life-changing experience.’
The car started to speed up and I ran and ran until Dylan had to let go of my hand. He stuck his head out of the window so he could watch me as I waved. And even though he was on his way back to Manchester, I felt like he was standing right beside me.
’Cause we’d been on this epic voyage that had nothing to do with the miles that we’d covered or all the weird places that we’d visited. Although we’d had all these adventures and mucho angst and changed in all these unique and exciting ways, we were still together. I guess sometimes you have to go a long way to get right back to where you started.
I stood and watched the car’s tail-lights until they were tiny specks that eventually faded into the night.
THE END (really, really, really)
Author’s Note
And so to the end.
And it really was the end of Edie and Dylan’s story.
Though the question I get asked more than any other is a variation on the same theme: Will you write a sequel? What happened next? Do you think that Edie and Dylan are still together?
The answer is always no. No sequel. Diary of a Crush was always meant to be a teen series. I originally wrote it for a teen magazine after all. If I’d continued with Edie and Dylan, it would have left the teen domain and it would have had none of that wonderful drama and tears and tantrums.
But also I felt that there wasn’t much left to say and that their story had been told. I liked to think of them frozen in time on a London street; Dylan with his head stuck out of a car window and Edie waving and waving and waving even when the tail-lights were a tiny glowing speck of light in the distance.
So, are they still together? I don’t know. They were fictional characters who lived in my head for four years and then they left, which was another reason why I stopped writing Diary of a Crush. I don’t think about Edie and Dylan any more but it has been lovely to hang out with them again as I got the trilogy ready for republication.
I love that people still want more; it’s a huge compliment and something that every writer hopes for – that they’ll create a story and characters that connect with the readers. Even though I didn’t have a giddy clue of how to write fiction when I started Diary of a Crush, b
ecause people like me didn’t get to write novels, I must have figured it out along the way.
I owe everything to Diary of a Crush. It taught me how to write. It got me my first publishing deal. It gained me readers that have stuck with me from the heady days of 1999. And there’s a line running through the years from that afternoon at my desk at J17 when I plotted out the first few chapters of Diary of a Crush to this evening at my desk in my study, with actual books that I actually wrote that people have actually bought sitting on my shelves.
Diary of a Crush changed my life. I hope in some small way, it changes yours.
Diary of a Crush: Sealed With a Kiss Page 20