by Beth O'Leary
‘I love you,’ he says. ‘I love you, Addie.’
It sends a shock zinging through me. Like someone pressed refresh. My heart beats in my ears. I think of that poem, about how scary it is handing over your heart, like a soldier lowering his weapon.
But I do love Dylan. I love him when his friends are taking the piss out of his poetry, and I love him when he’s just woken up, sleepy-eyed and grumbling. I love him so much I sometimes genuinely find it hard to have a conversation with anyone else, because all I’m thinking about is him. Us.
‘I love you too,’ I whisper.
I’ve never said it before. When my ex tried to bring up the love thing I would usually find a reason to slip away: an empty drink, a friend across the room, a passing spider. And before him, there was nobody serious. I wonder whether Dylan’s ever said it before.
‘I sense some thoughts are occurring,’ Dylan says, nuzzling into my neck. ‘Are you about to head off to the Intermarché?’
I laugh at that, though I hadn’t realised he noticed me slipping off when things felt too intense.
‘No supermarket necessary,’ I say. ‘I guess it’s just . . . I mean, you’re going travelling now, so . . . What does this even mean?’
I kiss him then, because I can hear the need in my voice. I don’t like it. I don’t want to think about how much I’ll miss him.
‘It means we’ll talk all the time on the phone, and on Skype. I’ll send you poems on postcards. I’ll come find you the moment I’m back in England,’ Dylan says. He smooths back my hair. ‘But . . . I could stay here for the rest of the summer instead? Should I stay?’ He pulls back slightly.
I could say yes. Miss out on your summer plans, don’t go to Thailand and Vietnam, stay here with me. I could tell him what to do. He’d do it – if there’s one thing I’ve seen this week, it’s that Dylan is easily led.
For a moment the temptation tugs at me. It would be such a small thing to do it. Like a foot slipping, the brush of a hand.
‘No,’ I say, pressing my lips to his. ‘You go. Don’t let me mess up your plans. This summer’s about figuring out what you want, right? So go figure. And then come find me when you’re done.’
Dylan
For the rest of the summer, we travel, Marcus and I. My shoulders become accustomed to the stinging ache of the backpack’s weight; I lose count of the number of wonders I try to comprehend, beaches so white they look like snow, jungles so lush the path you took yesterday has to be recut with a machete the next day. Boat rides and cramped trains and the yells of marketplaces, bartering and sweating and drinking and wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life and always, always missing Addie.
I should be having the summer of my life, but wherever we are, I’m lost. With Addie, for those beautiful, sun-soaked weeks in Provence, I felt myself take shape – falling in love with Addie took the whole of me, and for once I felt completely happy with where and who I was.
I thought I’d leave France and take that with me, but I left it there with her. Some days, once again, to my disgust, I struggle to even get out of bed; I’m as formless and fretful as ever, always one line away from a finished poem, always a step behind Marcus. Always disappointing my father.
He rings me when I’m at Phnom Penh airport. Addie will be going home to Chichester in three days; Marcus has gone off somewhere in search of bottled water, and I’m staring at the departures board. We’re due to leave for Preah Sihanouk for our last week before heading home, but . . . perhaps I could just leave now. Be waiting for Addie at the airport when she returns, see the joy on her face when she catches sight of me in the waiting crowd and sets off at a run to throw herself into my arms.
‘You better be coming home,’ Dad says, when I pick up.
It’s late August. According to our original plan, we should have been home weeks ago – but what was the point of going back to the UK while Addie was still in France?
‘Nice to hear from you, Dad,’ I say. The tone is less sharp than I’d intended – I cop out at the last minute and end up sounding quite pleasant.
‘Enough nonsense. This trip to Europe has escalated ridiculously.’
I scowl. ‘I only stayed a few extra weeks.’
‘You’ve missed all the deadlines for graduate schemes. What are you doing, Dylan? When are you going to grow up?’
I lift my gaze to the ceiling. The criss-crossed strip lights leave a garish tartan pattern on the inside of my eyelids. There’s no need for me to say anything – Dad will say what he wants to say, irrespective of my responses, or lack thereof.
‘You’re planning on living at home, I presume. As much as you’re planning anything. Your mother says it’s no use buying you a flat in London yet, and I’m inclined to agree with her. You haven’t earned it, frankly.’
Mum wants me to decide for myself if London is where I want to be. In some ways, her quiet faith that I’ll figure my life out is almost worse than my father’s absolute conviction that I won’t.
‘We’ll talk it all through properly once you’re back, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find you something in the business – though you’ll have to commute to London, which won’t be easy.’
I feel the life eking out of me as the call goes on. I’m a toy version of a man, flopped in my seat, waiting for someone to lift my strings and jerk me into life.
Marcus ambles back to me with two water bottles; his hair is longer than ever, dry and sun-streaked, and his clothes badly need washing. He grins at me and throws me a bottle from too far away – I can’t catch it with the phone to my ear, and it hits me in the stomach.
I do know, on some level, that this problem of mine is not real. I have a whole world of opportunities in front of me. I can do anything I want, more so than almost any other being on this planet, probably.
But the dread doesn’t seem to know it. The dread just knows that the future is enormous, and awful, because, inevitably, no matter what I do, I’ll fail at it.
‘I’m actually going to stay out here a while longer,’ I say, when there’s a break in my father’s monologue.
I sit through the silence. It’s a relief, like the moment when you scratch at a scab. From the second I saw Dad’s name on my phone screen, I knew this silence was coming; everything leading up to this has just been a horrible means of building suspense. Once it’s done – once I’ve let him down – it’s perversely easy.
‘I don’t know why I bother,’ Dad says, voice already rising into a shout. ‘This is useless. You’re useless.’
And so begins the usual diatribe: waste of space features heavily, as does the question of what he ever did to deserve such disappointing sons, which I have heard enough times not to attempt to answer, tempting as it might be. I stay quiet, that miserable dreadful weight sitting heavy on my chest. Marcus taps his watch and nods at the departures board – the flight to Sihanouk International Airport is boarding.
Dad hangs up when he’s run out of unpleasantness to shout at me. The sharp beep makes my eyes prick. As I follow Marcus to the gate, I think suddenly of holding Addie, my hands splayed against the tight muscle of her back, and I physically falter, half stumbling for a step, as if my feet are trying to tell me I’m walking the wrong way.
Marcus turns and looks at me, eyes measured.
‘Come on, man,’ he says. ‘Fuck your dad, fuck all of them. Let’s forget the real world for a few more days.’
Addie
‘Where is he, then, this Dylan?’ my mum asks, settling down on the sofa beside Deb.
We’re in the living room at my parents’ house. At last. I hadn’t realised how much I missed home until Deb and I walked through that door and I breathed it in. I’m still in the clothes I travelled in – it’s weird to think that the dust stuck to the sun cream on my shins has come back with me all the way from Provence.
‘He’s not home from
travelling yet,’ I say, sipping my tea. Proper, English tea, with chalky water from a kettle that needs descaling.
‘You’ll like him, Mum,’ Deb says as she tugs her socks off. Deb only really feels at home when she is no longer wearing her socks. ‘He’s sweet. And obsessed with Addie. Which is good because she is completely obsessed with him.’
I flush. ‘No, I’m not,’ I say automatically.
Deb rolls her eyes. ‘Please. You pined after him all summer.’
‘I did not pine! I just missed him, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, well, I miss being able to eat what I like without getting fat, but you don’t see me crying about it,’ Deb says. She grins at me as I pull a face.
‘Deb helped loads with the heartbreak,’ I tell Mum. ‘Really understanding.’
‘I was excellent,’ Deb says placidly, crossing her ankles on the coffee table. ‘I kept her fed and watered and didn’t use the WiFi when she was Skyping Dylan. I was saintly.’
My mum smiles at us both over her mug, eyes crinkling at the corners. I’ve missed her so much – it hits me right in the gut.
‘And when will I be meeting this boy?’ she asks.
‘Soon,’ I promise. ‘I’m not sure when he’s home, but he says it’ll be soon.’
‘Hey, I can hear you!’
‘Hello? Can you hear me?’
‘Yep! Yep! Hi? Hello?’ I wave at the laptop screen. My grin is becoming more and more fixed.
‘Hey!’ Dylan’s face breaks into a smile. He’s in a dark corner somewhere. All I can see is brown panelled walls and the fan in the ceiling. I think he might be in Cambodia, but it could be Vietnam. I’m a bit embarrassed to have lost track.
‘How are you doing?’ Dylan and I say at the same time.
We laugh.
‘You go.’ Both of us, again.
‘OK, I’ll start,’ I say, because this is going to stop being cute soon. ‘I’m nervous.’
‘Yes, you are!’ Dylan says. ‘You are going to be brilliant.’
That doesn’t make . . . total sense, but I reckon he got the gist.
‘These training days have just been a lot,’ I say. My face stares back at me on Skype: I look so young. Way too young to be teaching teenagers anything.
‘Teaching Direct is famously tough, but so are you,’ Dylan says.
I smile reluctantly. ‘I wish you were here.’
He beams. ‘You do?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Well, you never say it,’ he says.
‘Yes, I do! I totally do.’ Don’t I? I feel like I must, right?
‘Nope. Never.’
‘Well, I thought you’d be home by now. When are you coming home?’
His face goes sort of dark, like he’s had a bad thought. ‘I don’t know. I need to figure out what I want to do before I come home, you know? That’s the deal we made, right?’
‘Right,’ I say, and in the back of my head I’m thinking, What, you can just travel for ever if you want to? Are you not going to run out of money?
‘My dad has these plans for me, and I’m not sure how I’m going to . . .’ He chews his lip, staring off at something in the distance. ‘I need to be able to present a different plan to him if I’m going to get out of living at home and working for the family business.’
‘Oh, OK.’ I know enough to know Dylan doesn’t want to work for his dad, but I’m not really sure what he does want to do, other than write poetry, which he obviously can’t make a living from right now. ‘So what are you thinking? In terms of your different plan?’
His face is falling and falling. He looks morose, almost sulking. I frown slightly.
‘Dylan?’ I prompt.
‘I don’t know,’ he says, brushing his hair out of his eyes irritably. ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m still here.’
‘You think you have to be, like, in Thailand to figure that out? Wouldn’t it help to just come home and be looking at job ads and stuff?’
‘Don’t push, Addie,’ he says, and I pull back from the screen, startled. ‘God, sorry,’ he says immediately. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m just worrying about all this a lot and feeling like a bit of a waste of space and just generally getting all up in my own head about it, and Dad’s ringing me almost every day, threatening all sorts, and I just want to escape the world for a bit longer, you know? When I’m out here, I can press pause on everything. I can’t mess anything up.’
I’m not sure that’s true, to be honest. But I can at least see the logic.
‘Well, take the time you need,’ I say. ‘Of course.’
His face lightens a bit then. ‘Thanks. I knew you’d get it.’
I push down the vague sense of unease. I don’t get it, honestly. I’m pretending because I don’t want to be that mean girlfriend who cramps his style.
‘So tell me all about what you’ve been up to this week,’ Dylan says, settling back in. ‘I want to hear it all, every single detail. I’ve been . . .’ But then he goes pixelated and his voice turns into a tut-tut-tut and he’s gone.
I slam the laptop closed in frustration. This is crap, this virtual relationship thing. It’s not real. I want him holding me. I want him back.
Starting my first term at Barwood School is totally brutal.
I’m so lucky to have got a place on this scheme. If I didn’t know that, I’d quit a hundred times over. Kids are evil.
By the first half-term I’ve almost managed to salvage my Year Eights’ respect after a catastrophic start. (I got them to make rockets out of papier-mâché and they all made cocks. I cried, someone broke their toe. It was all very bad.) Years Nine, Ten and Eleven have been all right from the beginning, and the Year Sevens are mostly quite cute. But Year Eight is filled with pre-teen demons. Winning them over is up there as one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, but hands-down the most rewarding.
And Dylan’s still not here. We still Skype at least once a week and we message all the time, but I’m freaking out. How could I not be? He seems different. So distant. When I ask when he’s coming home he says, Soon! And I try to understand, and not be pushy or needy or whatever, but no matter how sweet he is to me, he’s not here. He can say he loves me, but he’s not really showing it, is he?
We’ve had months apart now, and why? Because he’s, what, finding himself? If it was anyone else I’d be scornful. It’s only because it’s lovely, lost-boy Dylan that I’m trying really hard to see that he’s clearly not in a good place, and he seems to think coming home will make things worse. But God. It’s not exactly complimentary, is it, your boyfriend staying away for months for no good reason?
He’s forgotten you, says the little voice in my head. Middling, middle-of-the-road, nothing-special Addie. Did I really think I’d be able to keep a guy like Dylan interested beyond one hot summer?
It’s Fireworks Night. Deb and I have big plans.
She’s been my rock these last few months. We’re both living at home while we save up for our own places. Deb listens to all my tearful rants about work. She makes me tea every morning, bringing it in as I do my make-up and kissing me briskly on the top of the head. When I think about writing Dylan an angry email – Why won’t you just come home? – she confiscates my phone and reminds me Gilbert women don’t beg.
So Fireworks Night is going to be a celebration of sisterhood. I’ve booked us a table at a fancy bar in town, for their Fireworks Extravaganza, which is a regular night out but more expensive, basically. We dress up: five-inch heels, short dresses, no tights. After months of making myself look as dowdy as possible for school, I want to feel sexy. And maybe after all this time waiting for Dylan to come home . . . I kind of want someone to notice me.
To my surprise, it doesn’t take long.
‘No, don’t tell me. I’m going to guess your name,’ says the guy next to me in th
e scrum for the bar. He has to raise his voice over the music. He has a rugged sort of sexiness to him. Old acne scars on his cheeks, bright blue eyes, a short beard.
‘Give it a pop,’ I say. ‘You’ll be here a while.’
He nods at the queue ahead of us. ‘Conveniently, I’m not going anywhere. Hannah.’
‘Way off.’
‘By which I mean, Ella. No, nope, sorry, meant to say Bethan. Emily. Cindy?’
‘Are you even trying?’ I ask.
‘Well, hmm. What would you say if I told you this was a shameless gimmick to get you talking to me?’
‘I’d say I was shocked and appalled.’
He grins. ‘Will you let me buy your drink, Emma?’
‘Much too soon to say. It’ll be twenty minutes before we get to the bar.’
‘Hoping for a better offer in the meantime, Cassie?’ the blue-eyed guy says, looking around with his eyes narrowed comically, like he’s scouting for the competition.
Actually, I’m deciding. Is it crossing a line if I let him buy me a drink? Do I want to cross a line? Have I already crossed one, back when I wriggled into this dress that I used to wear when I wanted to pull on a uni night out?
‘Addie!’ Deb yells from behind me.
I turn.
‘Aha!’ says the blue-eyed guy. ‘Addie. My next guess.’
‘I got us a bottle for our table,’ Deb shouts.
Around me, the crowd groans with envy.
‘How?’ I mouth, already pushing my way back to her.
‘See you later, Addie?’ the blue-eyed guy calls, but I’ve made my mind up, and I don’t look back.
Dylan
She’s talking to some guy at the bar when I arrive. It’s searing, the jealousy, a hot lick up the back of my neck, a cold hand on my nape, and suddenly I am sickeningly aware of what I really did as I wasted all those days lying on my back on interchangeable beaches and failing to write, failing to think, failing to anything. I left her, here, looking like this: astonishingly beautiful, fay-like, perfection in miniature.