by Lia Louis
‘I’m glad,’ I say, a pang of something in my heart at the sight of the envelope, my name written in Frank’s spidery scrawl. ‘And Ian?’
Ian looks up at me.
‘You are family, by the way. You’re as much a part of this family as I am. We wouldn’t be without you.’
Ian’s eyes shine. ‘Well,’ he says swallowing. ‘Yes. OK. Thank you, Noelle. That’s very kind.’
iMessage to Charlie: Hi love. So I’ve been wondering – is Theo’s parents’ coffee stand still available?
iMessage to Noelle: WHAAAAAAT?
iMessage to Noelle: FOR YOU? Please say yes, please say yes!
iMessage to Charlie: Yes! Just making enquiries, that’s all. It might be totally not doable. But YES! YES! FOR ME!
iMessage to Noelle: Oh my God. I am DEAD. D E A D. And crying. Bloody hormones. Pathetic. They’re turning me into a right sap.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The reunion looks exactly how I imagined it would. The grounds are lit up with floodlights like they were almost sixteen years ago. There’s music playing – the tinny, bassy notes of a distant live band, and barbecue smoke billows in the distance. It looks alive. With people and cars and noise, the very same stars splattered across the sky.
At the entrance, a young woman beside a table of labels, smiles. She wears huge feathery eyelashes and her eyelids are powdered in hot pink, fading to canary yellow.
‘Take a tag and write your name on it,’ she grins excitedly. ‘And then you can go on in. The college is open too, if you’d like a look around.’
Something fizzes inside of me, as I move inside the building with a little crowd, through the reception area, and outside to where the whole courtyard is lit with fairy lights. Excitement, I suppose. Hope. Because this is where I left it, all the hope I had once. And I can have it again.
A band plays loudly, the barbecue sizzles and smokes, and people stand around in little groups, like a mini music festival. I stand still, my feet on the concrete, and look up at the window of the English classroom Daisy would wave to me from. Her beautiful face. Her beautiful, happy, full of life face. One minute she was there, and the next, gone, destined to be written about once or twice in a local newspaper, and slowly forgotten by most.
I close my eyes. ‘I miss you,’ I say to her, in my mind. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ I say to her, ‘but when I close my eyes, I know you’re watching me and you’re there, saying go on, Elle. Go out there and have adventures. It’s all waiting. And I believe you. This time, I believe you.’
I open my eyes then, and for a moment – I freeze. Because I think I see Sam. Sam. Of course I think I do, I see him bloody everywhere. It’s like I’m hallucinating lately – had too much Calpol or something. The back of someone tall, jogging through town. The sound of anyone with the slightest American twang to their accent. Dilly and Mum were watching a film the other night and butterflies fluttered in my gut as I heard someone say the word ‘dollars’. I miss Sam. I miss his voice and his lips and the way he makes me feel alive and seen and perfect, just as I am. Not for who I could turn out to be. It’s true what I wanted to say to Ed – that he loved me for who I could be. Not who I am. Love. It is love with Sam. At least what I feel for him. Shit. Well, there it is. Noelle Butterby is in love. It should scare me, but it doesn’t, and I can’t help the grin that seems to take over my face – so large, it’d crack plaster. A passing stranger side-eyes me and looks slightly haunted, so I hide it behind my hand.
I take a tour of the college, and drift aimlessly through the grounds, the air thick with woodsmoke, the occasional bang of far-away fireworks. Things I’d forgotten reveal themselves as I do, like the pages of a pop-up book, and with them, rushes of memories. Ed’s arm slung over my shoulder, Daisy, the way she’d gaze over at Lee, smoking in the distance. How happy we all were.
I buy a hot dog, like Daisy and I did fifteen years ago. I watch the band, like we did, and then I buy a non-alcoholic cocktail from the beer tent and make my way inside. I want the camera. I do. But if it’s lost – I’ve made my peace with that, I think. I have Daisy in my mind. I have the Ed and Noelle of back then, in my mind too. No camera will bring her back – bring anything back for that matter. She was a kid. I’m an adult. And I don’t have a corner sofa or a jumper-wearing husband. But I am here. The Noelle of right now, is right here.
In the large reception area, people are crowded around walls of old photos, and I slip into an open space by one of them that’s drawn quite a crowd. And I’m not prepared for it. But there she is. Daisy’s face, beneath a laminated sign that says ‘Gone too soon.’ Daisy Cheng. Aged 17. Beside her, is another student I don’t recognise. Robert ‘Duff’ Duffield. Age 16. There are more than anyone would expect. Smiling, frozen-in-time faces. And then – it’s him. It’s Lee, and my heart aches at the sight of him. He’s laughing in the photo, blue eyes and floppy hair, and I realise I never really knew what he looked like. Not properly, I never got close enough. He was just that smoking kid Daisy would shyly wave at. And I feel shame, then, prickle my body. I was so consumed with the grief of losing Daisy that I hardly thought about him. He was alive for a whole two weeks after she was. Mum had read the small, heartbreakingly small article in the local paper aloud.
‘He’s in hospital,’ she’d said to me. ‘You just concentrate on yourself, love. Daisy would want that.’
And then I’d heard, weeks later, that he’d died too. I hardly remember how I knew, just that I did. Whenever I think of that time, it feels like every memory is underwater. Slow and blurry and muddy. I don’t remember entire weeks, entire months, but I remember some moments with crystal-clear clarity, and I remember feeling relieved. There’d be no trial, no analysing of what happened, no anger and blame pinned on an eighteen-year-old boy that never ever wanted it to happen.
‘Bradley ‘Lee’ Goody. Age 18.’
I never realised his surname was Goody. I never realised he was a Bradley either. He was just Lee to us – the person who crashed the car that killed Daisy, for so long, and nothing more. Sometimes I’d feel shame. Our grief felt so enormous and important that I would forget there was another family feeling the same, somewhere close by.
I move away and towards the reception desk, which is crowded with people queuing for their items and envelopes. I’m ready to go now – say goodbye. I’ll ask for the camera and then I’ll go, whether it’s there or not.
But I feel sick. I feel swirly headed and my feet won’t move. I feel like everything is too loud. Something is bubbling inside of me opening, a black, deep hole.
Bradley.
Bradley ‘Lee’ Goody.
No.
No, no, no.
Then I see him.
Across the crowded room, at the front of the queue. And it’s him this time, undoubtedly. It’s not someone who looks, or sounds like him. It’s Sam, and although relief floods through me, because I’ve missed him, every single day, I can’t unfreeze my feet from the spot. I’m in quicksand, stuck and sinking. And now he’s seen me. And in his hand is an envelope. And I feel like I’m going to faint, that the ground is going to fall away beneath me.
He raises his other hand in a wave, as if I’ve just bumped into him in the street or the supermarket, but his brow crumples, confused. I must look as mad as I feel. My mouth is hanging open, my eyes are squinting – the face of someone trying desperately to join the dots in a room that’s too crowded, too noisy, a room that feels as though it’s swaying from side to side now.
He moves through the crowd. My head spins, but I know.
I know, I know, I know.
‘Noelle,’ he says. ‘Hey, what are you doing here––’
‘That’s Lee’s,’ I say, looking down at the envelope in his hand. Sam’s eyes shoot down to his hand, as if he’d forgotten he was even holding it. And I see it. A camera through the clear plastic. ‘Lee,’ I say, my heart racing, my head rushing. ‘Lee was your cousin.’
Sam nod
s, then he freezes. ‘Yeah. Yeah, he was.’
‘Daisy,’ I say. ‘Daisy was my best friend.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Daisy seemed to be secretly relieved when I told her I wouldn’t join her in Lee’s car. I beat myself up about it for such a long time, making up versions in my head that had Daisy looking sad or disappointed when Ed came along and said, ‘Come with me, Nell. Don’t let me go on the train on my own. Pleaaaase?’ In so many versions my brain dreamed up to torture me, in so many bad dreams, Daisy begged me to stay with her. She cried, she got really angry at me – snarlingly angry. ‘Why the fuck would you leave me?’ she’d spit. ‘So what, you’re just blowing me off for your boyfriend? Is that what you’re doing? You could’ve stopped him. You could’ve changed things.’
But the reality was so different. She gigglingly stumbled over the grass with me, then stopped and pointed out his car. A white Golf in the distance, low to the ground. ‘There he is,’ she’d said. ‘Next to that really tall one with the dark hair. I think that’s his cousin. But look. Look at him. Look at that super sexy hair.’
‘Fit,’ I’d said.
‘Both super fit. Well. Even you can see that from the back, and you can tell a hottie from the back, you know,’ said Daisy, ‘it is scientifically proven. And they are. Trust me.’
Then Daisy had put her arms around me and cuddled me tightly. Her hugs were always tight, as if she was squeezing something out of me. ‘I hate weak hugs,’ she used to say, ‘I’d rather they didn’t bother, if they don’t mean it. What’s the point? Hug me or don’t at all.’
‘Do you know he told me I had the sexiest mouth he’d ever seen?’ she’d squeaked and I laughed into her ear. She always smelled of vanilla, a perfume she used religiously, from a baby blue bottle. ‘You do have a sexy mouth.’
‘You wait till you hear his voice,’ she said, jiggling about on the spot, the way people do when they’re bursting for a wee. ‘It’s slightly like … I dunno … Canadian or something. Or maybe he’s just weird, like one of those blokes out of Busted. You know, they sort of talk American when they’re from like, Taplow or something. I like weird.’
‘Is he Canadian?’
She linked my arm. ‘Oh, no, he’s from Bristol, I think. You’ll know what I mean when you hear his voice. But his cousin is full-blown American, so I think he gets it from him. You know, it rubs off.’ And we’d laughed giddily then, like we might never stop.
We walked together, across the soft grass, green and lush and cushiony, and the floodlights lit us up as if the sun was shining. I think that’s why my last memories of Daisy are as if the sun was shining on her like a spotlight, turning her brown eyes copper, twinkling as if excited by the world and all that was waiting for her.
‘His cousin is proper tall, isn’t he?’ Daisy said. ‘And you know, I love our Ed, but it’s sort of a shame you’re not single, Elle, because I can really see you with a tall man.’
I laughed and she squeezed my arm.
‘I’m serious! I can see it if I close my eyes. You and this super tall guy with like … I dunno … a little twinkle in his eye and strong arms and …’ She put a hand forward, to Lee’s cousin who was now walking off, his hands patting his pockets. ‘I mean, look at those shoulders …’
She stopped, conscious of Ed being behind us now. ‘Cos you know, Ed might have that smile and those bloody Colgate teeth, and all that boring knowledge all the girls in biology love.’ She looked at me and smirked. ‘But Ed’s a proper fucking short arse. Like he could probably fit into my size threes.’
‘I’m a size nine actually, thanks very much.’
I felt Ed’s arm around my waist, warm and tight.
‘A very generous nine,’ I said, and Ed kissed the side of my face.
‘Size nine is quite pathetic, Edward,’ said Daisy. ‘Lee is an eleven. His cousin probably struggles to find shoes. The sign of a real man.’
I stopped on the grass, remembered how smoky my hair smelled, from the barbecue, the way I lifted a bunch of curls to my nose. ‘How can you know what size Lee’s feet are,’ I’d giggled, ‘but have no idea what his proper name is. Or where he lives. Or if he’s seventeen or eighteen or even nineteen.’
‘Because I find out the important stuff up front. Shoe size. Ability to write a poem …’
‘His real name?’ asked Ed, laughingly.
‘Yeah, it’s like, Stanley or Bradley or something. Anyway Edward, you’ve got to go.’
‘Have I?’
‘Elle, come in Lee’s car with me on the way home. Please. Then you can meet him.’
‘Bloke on the plumbing course? The one with the hair?’
‘Yup.’
‘Well, you’re not stealing my girl,’ said Ed, nuzzling his nose into my neck. ‘I’m coming too.’
‘No way. He’s not got the room. You are not getting in.’
‘What? So I have to go home on my own?’
Ed groaned and pulled me towards him as we stumbled along. ‘Get the train with me, Nell. You’ll be a third wheel. Nobody likes a third wheel, nobody wants to be a third wheel—’
‘She won’t be. Nell can scope him out, approve of him, and then we’ll drop her off. Then it’s to the twenty-four-hour Maccy D’s and a snog in the car park.’
‘And when is it you’re going to check out his feet?’ Ed asked. ‘Is that after a Big Mac or before?’
And we’d all burst out laughing, there under the stars, under the bright floodlights, our breath making fog in the air.
‘Seriously, come with me, Nell. She’s got a date.’
I really did weigh it up. I didn’t want to be third wheel, I wanted to be with Ed, but then I wanted to be with Daisy, meet this boy she never stopped talking about. But I could meet him another time, right? A time I wouldn’t be a third wheel, awkwardly squirming in the back seat with his cousin or whoever it was, as they made out in the front. ‘I should really leave you to it. If you’re gonna be kissing and stuff. Unless you want me to come, and then of course I will …’
At that moment, Lee called over. ‘Daisy!’ he shouted. I can still hear that part echo through my brain, if I think hard enough. It was so loud, it echoed.
‘I don’t see a car full,’ I whispered.
‘See,’ said Ed. ‘His tall mate with the special shoes is even walking off.’
‘God.’ She looked over her shoulder where Lee was still looking, smiling, a cool lazy hand in a wave. She waved back and turned to us, her eyes bright, two little lime-green studs glittering in her ears. ‘Maybe it is just us two.’
And then Lee had called again, and Daisy had sort of started walking backwards, her mouth in a rigid, tight, excited grin, all teeth and sparkling eyes.
‘Love you,’ she’d mouthed to me. ‘I’ll text you, Elle.’
‘You better.’
And she had. It was her last ever text. ‘He seriously just reached over and squeezed my hand. My heart is dancing! WHO KNEW THE HEART COULD DANCE!’
And I waited for Daisy’s ‘I’m home’ text, but nothing came. I was asleep until Ed shook me awake at our train stop and we walked home together, tired and lazy, blue lights streaking through the town. I’d tutted at the shrillness of the sudden sirens. Sirens I later found out were for Daisy and Lee. And would’ve been for me too, if I had got in the car.
Chapter Thirty-Five
In the distance, the band play loudly, and the smoke from the barbecue billows like a smoke signal. I stand on the wet grass, hugging my body, relieved that I wrapped up in layers before I left tonight. But still, I shake. From head to toe, my teeth chattering.
‘Are you OK?’ asks Sam.
I look up at him, the wind turning the lines of tears on my cheeks, ice cold. ‘I think so. Are you?’
‘I think so,’ he says, and he brings one of his gorgeous hands to his chest and pats it once. ‘Heart’s still going.’
‘Mine too,’ I say.
Neither of us say anything else, and I watch as
our breath clouds in the cold air of the field we both stood in all those years ago.
Sam was meant to get in the car that night. Drive, chaperone, keep Lee from speeding. I was meant to get in the car too. And if I had …
‘I would’ve met you,’ I say shakily, an icy breeze whipping through my hair. ‘If I’d gone with Daisy, to Lee’s car. If you hadn’t walked away––’
‘But if we’d got in …’ Sam stops, and he doesn’t finish his sentence. We would’ve died, I think, and something weighs down on my shoulders, unbearable. We were meant to meet in the car, that night. But if we had, Sam and I would’ve died. ‘He was lucky to get out alive,’ he carries on sadly. ‘We knew that, he knew that. The car was—’ He winces, his eyes closing momentarily, and I nod, because I know. Mangled, they said. Nothing but bent, crushed metal and smashed glass left. ‘He was in the hospital for two, three weeks. For a while, my uncle didn’t tell him what had happened to the girl. To Daisy. And I think he knew what would happen when he did—’
I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t – tears fall. Freely, one by one. A tragedy, for everyone. It really was. The guilt Lee would have let weigh him down, and the way Daisy, I know would’ve pleaded with him not to carry it.
‘He’d been out of hospital for two days,’ says Sam. ‘Then he did it. We’d been—’ He looks up at the sky, smiles so sadly to himself I feel my heart break right there, behind my ribs. ‘Playing video games. Mario Kart. And he convinced me to go out, grab some food and – of course I did. I was pleased that he was eating. And then – that was it.’
I wipe away tears on the back of my hand, the wind chilling them on my skin. ‘I’m so sorry, Sam.’
‘Me too,’ he says.
Distant music floats over from the reunion, guitars and a too-loud bass, and the silhouette of two people in the distance, drunkenly stumble over the wet field. ‘I wonder if – all this time, they’ve been trying again,’ I say, tearfully. ‘To make us meet.’
‘Who’s they?’ Sam asks, but he smiles at me, softly, blue moonlight reflected in his eyes.