The Missing Pieces of Me: Discover the novel that will break your heart and mend it again

by Amelia Mandeville

  ‘Woah, you look like shit.’

  We both turn to the door, where Georgia is standing dressed in leather knee-high boots, leather jacket and shorts, though I’m not sure it’s strictly the right weather for that.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Georgia lives in Surbiton now. She didn’t tell me she was coming back to New Haw. She didn’t tell me she was popping round. I would have made sure I was out.

  ‘Your delightful sister let me in. She’s changed a bit,’ Georgia says, never one to mince her words. She waves at Mum. ‘Hey, Carol.’

  ‘Hello, Georgia,’ Mum says with a thin smile. She’s not Georgia’s biggest fan. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Aw, that’d be lovely,’ Gee says brightly. ‘My mum passed you at the supermarket car park the other day, she sends her love.’

  ‘Oh how lovely,’ Mum says, imitating Georgia’s chirpy tone. ‘I’ll pop the kettle on.’

  Once Mum’s back is turned and she’s busy rummaging with cups, Georgia’s fake smile drops. She rolls her eyes and turns back to me.

  ‘You really do look like shit. Have you been eating?’

  I glare at her. I’ve always had a weird relationship with Georgia. She’s one of my closest friends and yet every time we see each other we somehow manage to piss each other off. Like brother and sister annoying the hell out of each other, but with plenty of mutual affection deep down. I had worried my dating Willow would put a strain on my friendship with Georgia, but it didn’t. If anything it made it better. We became the three musketeers.

  ‘What’s up, Georgia?’

  She rolls her eyes again. ‘Why are you calling me Georgia?’

  ‘I don’t know, it just reminds me that she—’

  ‘That Willow called me Gee?’ She tuts. ‘Oh, Dustin, stop being so mopey.’ I look hastily back at Mum, who stiffens but doesn’t interrupt. I shoot Georgia a warning look and she cocks her head to the door, motioning for me to follow her.

  I don’t know why I do, but I let Georgia lead me through my own house to the hallway. She stops at the stairs and sits down, indicating for me to do the same. ‘Dustin,’ she says calmly, ‘this can’t go on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can’t keep ignoring everyone’s texts and phone calls. It’s all on your terms at the moment. You ask about Willow, we reply, then you ignore us again. You ignore us trying to help, trying to talk, trying to be there for you. We want to see you.’

  When she means everyone, she means the group. I don’t talk to the group that much. We kind of drifted when I moved away. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to bits, but my life in Brighton was a bubble. Mine and Willow’s perfect, satisfying bubble. So I did neglect the group, I would rarely chat to them, I would rarely see them, unless they came down and visited us in Brighton, and that happened less and less frequently over time. Georgia was the exception, though. I would see Georgia about once a month, Willow stayed in touch with her more regularly than that, and Georgia would come to stay.

  ‘OK, well, congratulations, you have seen me. What now?’ I say, shuffling Zara onto my hip.

  She looks at me for a second. ‘I’m going to take you on day release.’

  I don’t know if Georgia is playing a game with me, but she’s taken us back to our regular pub. The White Hart. I haven’t been here in two years, and the last time I was here was with Willow. It’s the pub where she and I met. Bringing Zara here without Willow is horrible. We always talked about coming back here with her one day, maybe on her eighteenth birthday for her first drink. Giving her the whole ‘This is where we met’ story. I always thought it was unlikely to ever actually happen. Then again, there are a lot of things I never thought would happen and I turned out to be pretty wrong about some of those.

  ‘You bringing your baby in this pub is strange, right?’ Georgia says, slurping on her rum and Coke.

  I frown, taking a sip of my pint. Mum tried to convince me to leave Zara at home, she’d happily have looked after her. But nope. Mum always offers to take her on walks, but I can’t bear to be away from her. And what if Mum loses her like I almost did? At least I don’t have to worry when she’s with me.

  ‘Are you going to have cuddles with Auntie Geebean?’ Georgia says in an annoying high-pitched voice, lifting Zara off my lap and onto hers.

  She looks at me, proudly. ‘I love her. I always love seeing her.’

  I nod my head, taking another sip.

  ‘How is it being back home?’

  I shrug my shoulders. ‘Well, it’s not the best of circumstances. And Alicia hates me. She doesn’t talk to me.’

  ‘No kidding. You guys used to be pretty tight before you cut her out,’ she says.

  ‘I didn’t cut her out!’ I say angrily. ‘You know what happened.’

  Georgia arches an eyebrow in an infuriating way.

  ‘What are you saying, Georgia? You think it was all my fault?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ She says it with an air of finality and turns her attention back to Zara, making it clear she’s not going to let me drag her into an argument. She starts bobbing Zara up and down and I think about warning her that Mum fed her just before we came out.

  But I stay silent. If Zara throws up, Georgia’s cleaning it up.

  There’s a pause. ‘How’s your mum?’ she asks.

  ‘OK, actually. It’s weird. She’s being really nice.’

  Georgia smiles, a fake smile. ‘Well, that’s good,’ she says. She’s never liked my mum much either. They’re just both strong personalities, I guess. Whereas Willow was the total opposite – mellow and eager to please – so it should have worked.

  I don’t like the silence, and every question Georgia asks scares me, so I decide to take control of the conversation. ‘How’s your job going? How’s living in Surbiton?’

  Georgia sighs. ‘I’m already bored of commuting into London, and I’ve only been doing it for a month. But it’s nice to not live at home, though I’m staying there tonight.’ Her face softens slightly. ‘And I can stay at home longer, if you need me to, you know that, right?’

  I nod. I do know that. ‘Thanks, Gee.’

  Georgia smiles, then she pulls a face and holds Zara up in front of her. ‘I think she’s done a poo.’

  ‘Great.’ I reach for the pram to pull out the changing bag.

  ‘You should come see the others; they miss you. It’d be a nice change, actually seeing everyone in Surrey for once.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Yep, rather than everyone going to Brighton, paying for a hotel or getting the last train home. I know. You always say this, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be going back to Brighton at the moment so you don’t need to worry about that.’

  Georgia ignores my gripe. ‘We’ve dispersed a bit but most of us still make it back here every few weeks or so. It’d be nice to be back together again.’ She grins at me. ‘Obviously it’s not nice circumstances. Obvs.’

  I have to say this. It’s starting to piss me off.

  ‘How are you so calm about all of this, Georgia? Do you not care about Willow? Aren’t you frantic?’

  She narrows her eyes at me.

  ‘Of course I’m worried. She’s my cousin and my best friend. What she’s done is really fucked up, and I have no clue why she’s done it. Or where she is. It’s not like her and I’m really worried.’

  Though we’ve had this conversation, the certainty with which she talks about this being Willow’s decision still stings. Even if I think she’s probably right.

  ‘But right now we’ve done all we can. And honestly, Dustin, I think she’ll come back when she’s ready.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Definitely,’ Georgia says and smiles down at Zara. ‘She needs to come back for this little stinker.’

  What about me? She needs to come back for me.

  Chapter 22

  Willow

  Then – February 2018

  We’ve been going out officially for a good few months now. He still has
n’t invited me round to his house and he comes over here all the time. He talks about how much he loves Gran and how at home he feels here, which is a good thing, of course, but I don’t understand why he hasn’t returned the invitation yet. What is he afraid of?

  Music is playing through my room, as I stare at myself in the mirror. My outfit has a ‘flung-together appearance’ as Gran would say. Velvet shorts, an oversized shirt, and my DMs. All from the charity shop. This looks OK, doesn’t it? Yeah. It looks OK. I look OK.

  ‘The door,’ Gran shouts.

  I turn the music down, running to the door to let Dustin in. His eyes trace every inch of me before he says, ‘I like your outfit.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, trying to hide my smile.

  Dustin walks in, seeing Gran on the sofa, knitting away. ‘Oh wow, Mary, you’re looking as stylish as ever. I’m going to have to get some style tips from you.’

  Gran chuckles. ‘How are you, Dustin?’

  ‘I’m better now I’m here.’

  Gran shakes her head, smiling. ‘Make sure you two stay safe – you have to be careful walking around at this time of night.’

  ‘I will always protect her,’ Dustin says, flinging his arm around me.

  I roll my eyes, and drag him towards the door. ‘OK, that’s very sweet, but can we go please?’

  Dustin drops my hand dramatically, and stares at me. ‘What’s this, Willow? Keen to go to a party and socialise? Never thought I’d see the day.’

  I sigh, and Gran decides to chime in on the joke. ‘I know, Dustin, tell me your secret. I’ve obviously been doing the wrong thing for all these years.’

  ‘Well, Mary, the secret is, I’m such bad company that she is now desperate to spend time with ANYONE but me. So now she likes going to parties.’

  ‘Ah. I see, I never had that issue. Willow likes my company.’

  I roll my eyes again. ‘All right, all right, very funny, guys, can we go now … please?’

  ‘Liam, where is the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?’

  Liam stares at the group. He’s blushing and his eyes are flicking towards the rest of the room. ‘Um, I … er … Dare, I change my mind – I want a dare.’

  We are at Liam’s house, and even though we got here relatively early it’s already pretty crowded. I realise with a warm jolt that I know or at least recognise most of the people here now. A few of them I know from college, such as the girl Liam has been trying to flirt with all evening. Charlotte’s pretty and seems sweet from the few times I’ve spoken to her, but we don’t talk much. Then there is her twin brother Luke, and her friend Sandy. Harrison comes back from Birmingham University for occasional weekends, and then of course Gee is still here. She opted for the University of Surrey, so she didn’t have to move out ‘and live with gross strangers’ as she puts it. There’s Joe, who is taking a gap year like Dustin. He’s been on a lot of road trip adventures recently and is telling Tony, also home from Exeter for the weekend, all about it. I guess you could say we’re kind of a loose gang. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever had anything that could even vaguely be called a gang.

  Since we’re here all the time, Dustin and I are by default the core of it and this has been the first time in a while that everyone has been around. We are celebrating with a game of Truth or Dare, a great favourite of theirs and one I had never played before I became friends with them.

  Liam is currently giving Tony a blindfolded lap dance, which is very entertaining. I almost choke on my drink as I watch. Dustin places his hand on mine, I lace my fingers through his. We try not to be too couply with the group. At the beginning we didn’t even tell anyone we were dating. My fear was that I would just become Dustin’s girlfriend that way, rather than part of the group in my own right. But then we got drunk one night at the pub, and ended up kissing in front of everyone, which put paid to that little secret. Everyone was super nice about it though. They still feel more like Dustin and Gee’s friends than mine, if I’m honest, but I don’t really mind. It’s much better than anything I’ve had before.

  I see Gee watching us silently. For someone who loves talking, she doesn’t say much about our relationship. I have a few theories about this, though none that I’m ever planning on running past her. It could be that she’s trying to respect our privacy, and worries that making a big deal out of it will make us uncomfortable. That doesn’t feel much like Gee though. Perhaps she doesn’t like that I’m dating her friend. She feels left out now. Or maybe she is already worrying about being caught in the middle if we break up. Perhaps she’s convinced it’s only a matter of time before we do.

  I’m so afraid it’s the last one.

  ‘Aw, look at you guys,’ Joe says, his attention drawn from Tony and Liam to Dustin and me. ‘You’re like a proper little couple.’

  Dustin says nothing, but he squeezes my hand tighter. I feel the blood rush to my cheeks.

  ‘You guys are pretty serious, right?’ Harrison chimes in.

  I glance at Dustin. ‘Yeah, of course,’ he says confidently.

  ‘Dustin in a proper relationship,’ Joe says. ‘Never thought I’d see the day.’

  I notice Georgia turn to look at Joe, who sits next to her, but she doesn’t say anything.

  ‘So have you brought her home yet, Dustin?’ Harrison smirks. ‘What did your mum say?’ He and Joe burst out laughing and in my confusion I turn to Dustin. He is shaking his head and smiling, but it’s a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

  What’s the joke here?

  Chapter 23

  Dustin

  ‘Can you remember all our games of Truth or Dare?’ I say to Georgia. We’ve lapsed into silence since she mentioned Willow coming back. ‘Here, every time someone had a free house. How did we not get bored of it?’

  ‘I know!’ Georgia says, covering her eyes. ‘We were so young and easily amused. Now look at us. We’re old, Dustin.’

  ‘Yep,’ I say, quietly.

  ‘We are all adults now. You are an estate agent and a dad, Joe’s doing a masters, Liam’s an accountant. Even Tony got that design job he applied for recently. Harrison is training to be a teacher. It’s all changed.’

  ‘Yeah, and you have a fancy job in London.’

  Georgia smiles. ‘Yeah, we’re all grown up now. We all had to follow suit once you had a baby.’ She grins, but as she scans my face, her smile drops. ‘I hate what she’s done to you.’

  I’m now holding a sleeping Zara in my arms. Georgia’s a few drinks down, and I think she’s drunk. So this is why she wanted to walk to the pub and not drive. ‘What do you mean?’

  Georgia moves her hand forward and touches mine. ‘You’re so sad, Dustin.’

  I exhale heavily. ‘What do you expect? I can’t pretend everything is fine like you.’

  I feel the tips of her fingers on my chin, lifting my face to look back at hers. ‘Everything is not fine, I’m really not OK. I’m just pretending I am. Fake it till you make it, and all that. Sometimes it’s the best way.’

  ‘I wish I could fake being a good dad. But I can’t even do that.’

  ‘You are a good dad,’ Georgia replies firmly.

  ‘Honestly, Georgia, I realise it now – I’ve never spent much time with Zara. Yes, I was working a lot but also I went out too much. It’s just a fact: I’m not a good dad, I don’t know what I’m doing. And it’s like half the time I can barely even think of Willow because I’m so busy with Zara. Then the other half I don’t even want to do anything for Zara because I’m so caught up with everything with Willow, and I just feel like I’m walking—’

  Georgia places her palms against my cheeks. ‘Shut up, Dustin,’ she says. ‘You’re doing this all on your own. It’s going to be hard. And you’re not a bad dad. I mean, at least you didn’t leave your baby.’

  I stare at her. Until today I’ve never heard her say a bad word about Willow. She’s always been so fiercely defensive of her.

  ‘I still don’t think Willow would have left if she h
ad a choice,’ I mutter.

  Georgia smiles at me in pity, the way you’d look at a puppy wanting a home. ‘Yeah,’ she says, but I know she doesn’t believe me. And not for the first time I wonder if she’s hiding something from me.

  ‘This sort of thing … leaving, without reason. It’s not the sort of thing Willow would do, is it?’

  Georgia frowns. ‘No. I have no clue why she’s doing what she’s doing.’

  ‘Unless she was kidnapped,’ I quickly say.

  ‘Yes. Unless she was kidnapped, even though she keeps reading my Facebook messages, and had time to write a note, and block everyone on every social media. I’m so pissed off with her.’

  I pause, feeling a lump in my throat. ‘Was she hiding anything from me? Anything that might be linked to her leaving? If she did run away?’

  Georgia shakes her head. ‘Nope. She gave me no inkling, no hints, she seemed normal when I saw her last month. I have no clue. But I think you need to stop with this idea that Willow has been kidnapped or something. It’s so unlikely.’

  I lower my head.

  ‘You know I got sent the blanket, that I left at the house.’

  Georgia nods. ‘You told me.’

  ‘How do you explain that? What would it mean? Maybe it’s her trying to give me a clue or something.’

  Georgia doesn’t seem enthused. ‘You sure it wasn’t Naomi? Trying to make you think Willow is playing games with you or something?’

  ‘No it wasn’t.’

  ‘You sure? I never fully trusted that girl.’

  ‘Um, OK, where did that come from? And no, Gee, she wouldn’t do that, she’s genuinely worried.’

  ‘Maybe your landlord found it and passed it on?’

  ‘But he didn’t know where I used to live, and it was hand-delivered, remember?’

  ‘OK!’ she shouts and her tone is so forceful that I jump. ‘OK, let’s say it’s Willow. Does that make you happy? If it’s Willow and she’s come down here and delivered that post to you, but not popped in and seen anyone, or talked to anyone, or even asked for some help, or given even the smallest explanation as to why she left, does that help you in any way? Because from my point of view, that sucks. That hurts me more.’