by Marie Yates
‘It’s fixed,’ he proudly announced.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ I sang. I raced out of the room seizing the opportunity to escape while Jane was scribbling in her diary.
So now, up in my room, I need to figure out my future plans, but I have other things to focus on first.
Goals
One weekend with Jane and I’m all over this again. Even if I’m only doing it to avoid thinking about the long-term stuff, at least I’m doing it.
It is May and I have my black tag. I only have to spend five minutes with Lucy and I want to train harder to get my black belt. She might not want me hanging around at Jane’s but she’s still my taekwondo heroine.
It’s New Year and I have spent time with my friends. That’s going okay. I had a brilliant day with everyone in town last week and we’ll be getting together before we go back to Sixth Form. They might help me figure out what to do about Uni.
It’s New Year and I have completed everything on my plan. My updated plan, that is. The updated one is a bit more realistic. Now that my screen isn’t blue, I can try to get it done. Not today, but next week!
Success
I think I have successfully made it through Christmas without any dramas. That’s a good thing!
Gratitude
Having a good day today, apart from being questioned by the fake doctor, but I knew she’d bring it all up at some point.
Twenty-Four
This is how Christmas should be. Never mind Christmas, this is how every day should be. I understand it now. I understand how people ‘know’ when something is right. I’ve heard people talk about their ‘gut feeling’ or ‘intuition’ or whatever you want to call it, but I have never really understood what they meant when they said they ‘just know’.
‘When I met your grandma, I just knew she was the one,’ was something Grandpa said when I was writing his Christmas cards for him. I smiled and I would never have questioned it, but I had wondered ‘how?’ How could he ‘just know?’
Now I know.
I was a bit nervous this morning on the way to Frankie’s. Having our own Christmas sounded great, but I was overthinking it, worrying about it and starting to freak out a little bit. I’d stuck to my half of the deal and bought our favourite pizzas, garlic bread and ice cream. I had Reggie’s rucksack, which as usual was double the size of mine. But as I knocked on the door, I wondered if it was a good idea at all.
‘REGGIEEEEEEE, Happy Christmas, Dude,’ Frankie welcomed cheerfully. ‘I’ve got you a present.’ I followed an excited Reggie into Frankie’s house, dropping the pizza on the way, and headed for the kitchen. I heard ripping paper and the distinctive sound of a squeaky toy that would no doubt soon be de-squeaked as I unpacked the food and put the kettle on.
‘You’re well trained,’ Frankie said from the doorway. ‘I’m impressed!’
‘Thanks for getting Reggie a toy, but sorry if it doesn’t last very long.’ I knew that it had a predicted life expectancy of about three minutes.
‘It said it was indestructible,’ she announced proudly, closely followed by, ‘Oh, he’s destroyed it.’ I followed her back into the living room.
‘Sorry! But I can promise you that’s the best couple of minutes he’s had so far today.’ I felt bad, but Frankie wasn’t bothered at all. She took a photo of Reggie with what was left of the toy and started unpacking his rucksack, making him a bed by the sofa, taking him some water and leaving a little biscuit for him.
‘I want you both to feel welcome. Today is going to be the best Christmas ever,’ she said, looking at me. She looked at Reggie and then the moment disappeared with the words, ‘So, where’s my present?’
I don’t think I have ever laughed as much as I laughed today. We opened presents, walked to the pub for lunch and had the dubious honour of being allowed to sit in a quiet corner with Reggie so we didn’t have to sit outside in the freezing cold December weather to eat. Walking back to Frankie’s hand in hand, I whispered, ‘Thanks for today, it’s definitely the best Christmas I’ve ever had.’
‘We’re only halfway through, so it can only get better,’ Frankie whispered back to me, squeezing my hand and sending a jolt through my whole body.
She was right. We watched films, curled up on the sofa and decided that when we left Sixth Form we would travel the world. Talking about the adventures we could have made it feel real – like we could actually make it happen. ‘We can do anything we want to do,’ Frankie promised me. In that moment, I believed her. I believed that I could do anything I wanted to do.
‘It’s just a shame that I don’t really know what I want to do,’ I joked. ‘I know that right now, there’s nowhere on earth I’d rather be, so that’s a good start.’
I meant it. I couldn’t think of a day in my whole life when I’d felt as happy and relaxed, and then it happened.
Frankie kissed me.
‘I’ve wanted to do that since the first day we met,’ Frankie admitted.
‘That would have been an interesting introduction to Sixth Form PE.’ I could just imagine the comments from the idiot lads in the class with us. ‘I would definitely have freaked out if you’d done that instead of just saying hi.’
‘Are you okay?’ Frankie asked.
‘I really am.’
I was surprised, but I really was okay. More than okay. I had worried about it for ages, worried that I’d be too scared to allow myself to be close to someone. I’d had nothing to worry about.
You can use whatever words you want, there might not be any words to describe it properly, but I now know exactly what people mean when they say they just ‘know’.
Any element of doubt went away with that kiss. The feelings I have for Frankie have nothing to do with what happened to me, nothing at all. I was lost in the moment, I didn’t want it to end and felt an indescribable wave of emotion.
Being close to someone who cares about me, who likes me for who I am and isn’t scared off by my past, is the most amazing feeling in the world.
Without a doubt, today has been the best day ever. Happy Christmas!
Twenty-Five
If the start to this year is as amazing as the end of the last year, I’ll be very happy.
New Year’s Eve was the first time I’d celebrated properly and the first time I’d had someone to celebrate with. Mum doesn’t count and in this case, Reggie doesn’t really count either. I don’t think he was awake when the New Year started and he definitely didn’t care about what year we were in.
In fairness, I don’t really care what year we’re in either, but I do know that this is going to be a big year for me. I have big decisions to make and now I have Frankie to consider too. She’s trying to work out what she wants to do after Sixth Form and neither of us want to plan too far ahead. Things are amazing at the moment, but it’s all so new. I can’t imagine my life without her right now, but I guess that’s what everyone says at the beginning. I know that Mum trusted Daniel, the sperm donor, enough to start a family with him. They were living together and had made so many plans, then one day, he was gone. That was it. Never to be seen again. Jane has had her fair share of heartache over the years and even Katie now seems to have trouble in paradise. Cal didn’t turn up to the party last night and was seeing in the New Year with his rugby mates instead of Katie. But what a party it turned out to be.
‘I’m not bothered, we’re not joined at the hip,’ Katie said when we arrived there and I walked over and asked if she was okay. She obviously was bothered though. She had spent all night checking her phone and looked like she had been crying. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she snapped.
‘That’s fine by me, I was only going to ask if you wanted to dance,’ I lied.
‘Maybe later,’ she said, without even looking up from her phone.
I didn’t want to be in that position, staring at my phone, wishing Frankie was with me instead of out somewhere else. It was as if she had read my mind, as she came over.
&n
bsp; ‘I don’t want to be anywhere else on earth right now. I want to start the New Year with you,’ she whispered into my ear, handing me another drink. ‘Even if this is the world’s weirdest party.’
Frankie was right. It was quite weird. One of Callie’s friends had invited us to her house for her annual New Year’s Eve party. Because Callie was a budding tattoo artist, doing really well at Art College and becoming a bit of a local legend, we thought it would be an amazing party. It wasn’t.
Callie came over and dragged us off to introduce us to some of her friends. Afterwards she said, ‘I don’t know the others, I think they’re friends of friends, but we’ll have a good night anyway.’
‘Who invited the snakes?’ Frankie asked. Maya was hiding behind her having just spotted them too.
Across one wall of the living room were two enormous glass tanks with two equally enormous snakes. I wasn’t worried about the snakes as they looked perfectly happy in their glass houses, but looking around the room, I wondered how Callie’s friends lived like that. I thought I was untidy, but the room we had walked in to had taken it to a whole new level. There were clothes, mugs, dirty plates and random pieces of paper strewn everywhere. I almost tripped over a laptop on the floor as we made our way to the kitchen.
The music was loud enough to ensure we all had to shout. Katie had decided before we got there that she was going to have a rubbish night, Maya was preoccupied with her fear of snakes and Callie was drunk. I didn’t care. I was determined to have a good time, and I did.
I danced, I drank and I had the weirdest, but best night out ever.
‘Where do you think we’ll be this time next year?’ Frankie asked after the excitement of the New Year countdown was over.
‘Right now, I’m just excited about where we are this year,’ I replied. I couldn’t think that far ahead. So much could happen and so much was going to change. ‘We have to get through Sixth Form, that’s the priority,’ I said. ‘I can’t think past all those essays I have to finish tomorrow, and I reckon I’m going to have a major headache.’
I felt quite sick in the taxi home but managed to get in and up to bed without making too much noise. Mum and Sammy were nowhere to be seen but his car was outside so I tried to be extra quiet.
I woke up with that major headache I talked about.
‘Good night, last night?’ Mum asks when she brings me a cuppa and some toast. ‘Happy New Year.’
‘Yeah, not bad. Callie’s friend has snakes,’ I tell her.
‘How much did you have to drink?’ she asks.
‘Seriously she has two snakes in her living room, in tanks, obviously.’
‘Okay, love, maybe you should go back to sleep for a bit.’ She quickly makes an exit.
I send Frankie a text to double-check that I haven’t imagined the snakes. She reassures me that she saw them too.
‘Thanx for last nite x,’ I send to Callie. Even though the party was weird, it was still brilliant and I knew she had been a bit worried when we’d arrived.
‘Nice 2 c u so happy x,’ she replies.
I really am happy. It feels good. I’m not even miserable about trying to get some work done, now that’s a miracle. It’s been the perfect start to the New Year and now I have to make this year count for something. I’m not going to scare myself by trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, not today anyway. I’m just going to get some work done and worry about it all another day. First, I think I might take Mum’s advice and go back to sleep for a bit!
Twenty-Six
I found getting up early this morning a shock to the system. Dragging myself out of bed was an effort and the walk to Sixth Form felt like a marathon. A slow marathon. The reality hit me as I was walking. It was the beginning of the end of Sixth Form. It was only a matter of weeks until all the coursework had to be finished and the exams started.
The panic overwhelmed me. It wasn’t just about the exams, although that was enough to scare me back to bed so I could hide under the duvet, it was the fact I had no idea what to do next. It should have been an exciting time, where I was planning for the future – focusing on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Instead, I was just moving from a state of panic to a state of fear to a state of being overwhelmed approximately every two minutes.
‘You must have some idea what you want to do?’ Katie said when we met up in the corridor and I told her. She sounded unconvinced that I was still trying to figure things out. She had picked the degree she wanted to do at the start of last year, knew exactly what grades she needed, which Uni would be her first and second choice, and now even seemed to know which Halls of Residence she wanted to stay in. ‘It’s a no brainer for me,’ she said. ‘The one I’ve chosen has an en-suite, it’s not like I’m going to share toilets with fifteen other students.’
She had thought it all through, while I had been avoiding it completely. She had narrowed down all the careers she wanted to do and settled on being a Physiotherapist. ‘I know I said I wanted to be a doctor,’ she explained, ‘but it’s years and years of training before you actually get to be one. If I’m a really good Physio, I’ll still get to help people but I can also run my own business, work from home and have a much nicer lifestyle.’
‘You really have got it all planned out, haven’t you?’ I was a little bit jealous while also thinking she was missing out on any sense of adventure. She’d even talked to Callie about her business logo.
‘You’ll wish you’d thought it through when you visit me in my big house, with my own Physio room and you’re still floating around wondering what you want to do with your life.’
‘Harsh!’ I laughed, but the sense of panic washed over me immediately. I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to be ‘floating around’, without any purpose. Katie hadn’t just thought about what she wanted to do, but she had thought about all of the other aspects too. She would make a great doctor, and was definitely smart enough to get into Uni to do medicine, but she had thought beyond the career. She didn’t want the lifestyle that went with being a doctor. She wanted to be her own boss, to make her money and be able to enjoy it. I could see Katie working for herself. She had the drive and motivation to get up and work, I was not sure I did.
Maya joined us. ‘What are you going to do with a music degree?’ I asked her, wondering if it was only Katie who had planned out her entire life.
‘I’m going to teach. As long as I get into my first-choice Uni, I can study teaching alongside the degree and hopefully get a job in a good school as soon as I finish. I can teach posh kids with rich parents to help pay my way through Uni while I’m studying too!’
It really was just me who had absolutely no idea what to do. Maya had never talked about teaching, or maybe I had been so wrapped up in my own stuff that she hadn’t bothered to tell me, or even worse, maybe I hadn’t been listening.
‘Hey, can I do work experience with your mate, pls x,’ I later asked Jane in a lazy attempt to at least try to find out if I’d like Sports Psychology. Some work experience would be a good way to find out if I’d enjoy the subject, but also if I’d enjoy the lifestyle.
‘Will get it sorted for half-term x,’ she replied, no doubt pleased that I had made an effort to do something.
Starting the way I mean to go on, I’m spending some time in the library. I actually quite like it in here. I can put my headphones on and concentrate while surrounded by people who are also in a mild state of panic.
The result is that I now have a plan for how I’m going to get myself the grades I need to go to Uni. I don’t need to worry about exactly what I’m going to do, I have added into my plan some time to research jobs, courses and different careers. There’s no point dreaming about an awesome career if I don’t have the grades I need to learn about it. I won’t have any choices if I fail my exams.
So, here’s what I’m aiming for and I’m feeling motivated.
It is May and I have my black tag. I have to keep focusing on that as tae
kwondo keeps me sane. Without exercise, I get very grumpy.
It’s half-term and I have work experience with Jane’s friend sorted out. I guess that’s more of a goal for Jane, but I can be ready. If I have researched loads of different careers and this is still the only one that I’m interested in, then at least I know that I need to enjoy it!
It’s half-term and I have my Uni application ready, which means I will have decided if I want to move away from home or stay here. I should probably check with Mum that she’s okay with me staying at home!
Success
Today has been seriously productive. I know what I need to do, I know that I don’t have much time to do it, but I also know that it’ll be totally worth it. If I know what I’m aiming for, then I’ll be much more motivated to get good grades.
Gratitude
Frankie. She is making me really happy.
I’ve had the best Christmas and New Year ever, mainly thanks to Frankie!
I’m grateful that I’m starting the New Year with a focus. Even just having these couple of hours to plan what I’m going to do has made me feel much better. I never thought I’d be grateful for the library, but there’s a first time for everything.
Twenty-Seven
This evening, after a week of mock exams, I just want to lie down, watch films and hang out on the sofa with Reggie. I even put into my plan for this week that I am allowed an evening without any work so that I can relax. Frankie has another exam on Monday so she is locked away at home, revising. Callie meantime has invited us all to one of her friend’s parties but I think we’ve all made our excuses. We’ve had enough of the weird parties for a while and we are all knackered after the exams.
I am aching all over thanks to the hardest taekwondo training session of my life too. Working for my black tag is fun, but it pushes me to the limit.