Casting Shadows

by Sophie McKenzie

  She saw me and groaned. ‘These shoes are killing me,’ she said, leaning against the wall to take them off.

  As she straightened up, she shook her hair off her face. Once again, I was struck by how pretty she had become in the past year or so.

  ‘You look amazing,’ I said.

  She rolled her eyes but I could tell she was pleased. I suddenly remembered what James had told me the other day, that Grace knew about our stupid kiss in the back of that taxi. I’d been avoiding talking to her about it but now I knew I had to say something.

  ‘Grace, there’s something I need to talk to you about,’ I started, my heart suddenly thumping.

  She met my gaze. For a moment she looked confused, then her expression clouded slightly.

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘You really don’t need to say anything.’

  The space between us grew tense. Music blared out from inside the hall, people talking and laughing. Traffic hummed in the distance.

  ‘I’m just so sorry, Grace.’ I could feel my face burning red. ‘I was really drunk, Grace. I didn’t even want to . . . I just—’

  ‘I know.’ Grace looked down at her dress, her face flushed. ‘James told me: you were unhappy about Flynn and going on about this guy – Slug Tongue – who’d kissed you and . . . and you said that you wanted him to take away the feel of it or something . . .’

  I nodded, shame overwhelming me. ‘That’s right. Oh, Grace . . .’ I stopped. I couldn’t think what to say. I tried to imagine how I’d feel if she’d kissed Flynn. It was impossible. There was no way Flynn would have let it happen. Not unless he’d wanted it to. Which wasn’t how it had been with James.

  ‘It wasn’t James’s fault, Grace. You have to believe that. I was out of my head with drink and missing Flynn and thinking he didn’t love me and . . . and I just . . . it just happened. It lasted about one nanosecond, nothing, then I realised what I was doing and . . . I hated myself for losing control like that.’ Tears welled up at the terrible memory.

  ‘It’s okay, River.’ Grace looked up at me. Her eyes were sad but I could see no anger in her expression. ‘James only told me because he felt bad about us having secrets from each other. He said it meant nothing. He said he told you not to say anything to me because it would just upset me.’ She sighed miserably. ‘But I’d rather know the truth.’

  My chest tightened. ‘Oh, Grace, thank you . . . I’m still so, so sorry.’ I swallowed down the lump in my throat, hating myself for hurting her.

  ‘I know you are.’ She smiled again, this time more brightly. ‘Let’s go back inside. Maybe if you can’t stop feeling guilty I should go and have sex with Flynn to even things up.’ She laughed.

  I stared at her. I’d never heard Grace say anything that outrageous before.

  ‘Your face!’ Grace laughed. ‘What, you think it’s only you and Emmi who can say stuff like that?’ She took my hand. ‘Come on, Riv, forget it, it’s over. Let’s go and have some fun.’

  We walked back into the hall. Flynn was dancing in a big, mixed group. I stood for a moment, watching him move. He danced as well as he did everything, his movements smooth yet powerful. Again, I noticed several girls from my year eyeing him up. One – a blonde with long, slim legs from one of the parallel classes – leaned up to say something to him. Flynn pushed his hair off his face and bent closer to listen to her. A sliver of jealousy lodged itself in my stomach. I raced over, only slowing to a saunter as I approached the dance floor. Flynn must have felt me looking. He glanced up from the blonde girl, saw me and smiled.

  He looked so gorgeous and so happy to see me that I forgot about being jealous. The girl beside him melted away as I rushed over and hugged him hard.

  He hugged me back and then we kissed. Right there, right then, a big, long, sexy kiss while around us the dancers whirled and the music soared.

  School ended the next day and, the day after that, Dad came to collect me and all my stuff. I’d packed a couple of suitcases with my clothes and the little ornaments and make-up stuff I had on my side table plus a few old toys I didn’t want to leave behind.

  My head was still full of how emotional my final day at Langton had been – everyone hugging and weeping, signing each other’s school shirts and promising never to lose touch if we lived to be a hundred.

  For a few minutes, as I walked home that day, I felt sad to be leaving. I would miss Langton, especially all my friends there. Yet I knew it was time for me to move on. I would still see Emmi and Grace and, of course, I would make new friends at the sixth form college.

  Most importantly of all, I would be with Flynn.

  It was weird saying goodbye to Mum. Neither of us cried but I think both of us felt like it. I thought it would be liberating leaving the house and my old life but, as we drove away, I felt strange, like my old life was leaving me. I took a few deep breaths. Soon I would have a new room. Dad said he had already taken most of the junk out of the storeroom and had promised to help me and Flynn decorate it this weekend. Stone wasn’t going to come up this week – he was still at school – and Dad said they’d need the living room to put the furniture from the storeroom in while we painted.

  We picked Flynn up on the way. He had changed his shifts so that he could have weekends free to spend at the commune. We sat on the back seat, holding hands all the way. Flynn was quieter than on his last visit, but keen to get started on decorating the storeroom. Dad ran through our chores for the weekend. Washing up after the evening meal tonight, then working on the storeroom on Saturday. On Sunday morning Flynn was scheduled to work outside on the south field, while I was down to help prepare Sunday lunch in the kitchen.

  ‘Do we have to eat every meal with everyone else?’ Flynn asked.

  ‘Well, mostly, yes,’ Dad said, sounding puzzled. ‘That’s kind of the point of living in the commune. I thought you understood how it worked.’

  ‘We do, Dad.’ I grinned at Flynn. ‘It’s just a bit boring for us, you know, with everyone else being so old.’

  ‘Well, Leo’s here now,’ Dad said. ‘He’ll be company for you.’

  ‘Who’s Leo?’ That was Flynn.

  ‘Was he the one visiting with his dad the other day?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ Dad said, taking the turn signposted for Norton.

  ‘I met him for about five minutes,’ I explained to Flynn. ‘He was nice, though maybe a bit odd. His mum died last year, he told me, and his dad isn’t handling it all that well and he’s my age, starting at the sixth form college in September like we are.’

  Flynn raised his eyebrows. ‘You found out a lot in just five minutes,’ he said. His voice was carefully light, but I could hear the slight edge to it.

  ‘Like I said, Leo’s kind of odd. Anyway, don’t worry, he’s not my type.’

  Flynn poked me in the arm. ‘Better not be,’ he said with a grin.

  Ros and Gemma were waiting outside when we arrived at the commune. We said hello then rushed upstairs to dump our bags. The storeroom looked far bigger than usual. Dad had cleared out the camp bed and all the planks of wood and cardboard boxes and moved in a small double bed, a wooden chest of drawers with paint peeling from its sides and a hanging rail that ran along the small wall to the door. A new daisy-chain print curtain fluttered at the window. It reminded me of one I’d had when I was little.

  ‘Is it okay?’ Dad asked anxiously. ‘I know it needs a lick of paint, but—’

  ‘It’s perfect, Dad,’ I breathed.

  ‘It’s awesome,’ Flynn added.

  ‘You do understand you’ll just be using the room to store your clothes, don’t you, Flynn?’ Dad gave him a stern look.

  A shadow passed over Flynn’s face. I took his hand quickly, then turned to Dad and smiled. ‘Course he does.’

  ‘Okay,’ Dad said. ‘Well, dinner in ten. See you downstairs in a minute.’ He left the rooms.

  Flynn and I looked at each other.

  ‘I’m not staying outside all night on the sofa, w
hatever he says,’ Flynn said.

  ‘I know.’ I grinned. ‘Just make sure Dad doesn’t see you sneaking about.’

  Flynn shrugged.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, taking his hand. ‘As far as I’m concerned, this is our room.’

  The shadow lifted from Flynn’s face. He tugged me towards the bed and we lay down. I breathed in the scent from the white duvet cover: fresh and clean and comforting.

  Flynn put his arms round me. ‘River?’ he whispered. ‘Welcome home.’

  We spent the whole of the next day working hard on the bedroom. Flynn and Dad sanded the floor first thing, while I took the chest of drawers outside and gave it a lick of fresh blue paint. Feeling suddenly artistic, I dabbed a row of white daisies down the sides, then left the whole thing to dry.

  Once the floor was sanded, Flynn and I covered the walls with white emulsion, then Dad came back in to help us varnish the floorboards. It wasn’t a massive room but by the time we stopped at nine that evening, the three of us had been working flat out for nearly twelve hours and were utterly exhausted. Flynn insisted on going back up after dinner – once the floor varnish had dried – and putting eggshell paint on the windowsill and frame.

  ‘He works hard, I’ll give him that,’ Dad said as we sipped at a cup of tea outside, waiting for Flynn to finish.

  That night I slept on the bed in the middle of the room with the windows wide open against the smell of the paint. Flynn, as agreed, started out on the living room sofa but snuck into my bed once Dad and Gemma had closed their door. He was still there, his hair half over his face, when I woke up. I gazed down at him. This didn’t feel real. I couldn’t believe we were here together – that this was my new home. After a few minutes, I woke Flynn so that he could go back to the sofa before Dad got up. He grumbled a bit but went readily enough. Neither of us wanted a big row at this point, though I could see the situation as it was couldn’t last forever.

  Flynn and I did our work the following day, then Flynn left to go back to North London and his various jobs. I spent the rest of the week doing my chores and working on our room. I missed Flynn, of course – and it was weird not being able just to pop out and see Emmi and Grace, like I’d used to, but I didn’t miss living with Mum or Stone and, anyway, I had the thought of next weekend and Flynn’s return to keep me going.

  As soon as he arrived the following Friday evening, I took his hand.

  ‘Come up and see what I’ve done,’ I said.

  ‘Dinner in an hour,’ Gemma smiled, as we rushed through the kitchen.

  I’d worked hard on our room since he’d been gone and was proud of the result. The floor gleamed and the walls sparkled and all the little ornaments and photos I’d set out made the place seem really cosy.

  Flynn wandered from the bed to the chest of drawers, lingering over the array of bottles and bowls that sat on its surface.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked. ‘Does it feel like home?’

  He turned to me and nodded. ‘It’s brilliant, River.’ He held up a chain from one of the bowls. It was broken at the catch, but the tiny blue ‘R’ still dangled from one end.

  ‘I’ve never seen you wearing this,’ he said.

  I stared at the necklace. ‘Grace gave it to me,’ I said. ‘The first birthday I had after starting at Langton and meeting her and Emmi. The catch broke ages ago. I forgot I had it until I was going through my stuff from Mum’s.’

  I held up my wrist, from which the silver heart Flynn had given me dangled on its slim bracelet. ‘To be honest, I forgot I had any other jewellery apart from this.’

  Flynn smiled. ‘I’ll mend the necklace for you, if you like?’

  ‘Thanks.’ I looked around the room again. It felt so grown-up, so romantic to have a place of our own. ‘So you really like what I’ve done in here?’

  ‘It’s amazing, Riv,’ Flynn said, pocketing the broken chain. ‘Home.’

  Leo and his dad were at our evening meal that night. Flynn hadn’t really spoken to Leo last weekend but this time he took the trouble to chat, asking him if he was looking forward to starting at Norton Napier in September, and whether or not he played football. Leo didn’t play. In fact, he seemed very subdued throughout the meal and answered Flynn mostly in monosyllables.

  ‘Leo’s really weird, isn’t he?’ Flynn said later, when we were up in our room. ‘He didn’t seem to want to speak to me.’

  I sighed, remembering how quickly Leo had spilled all that stuff to me, about his mum dying and his dad freaking out.

  ‘Maybe you frightened him,’ I suggested with a smile.

  ‘Maybe he’s gay and finds me so devastatingly attractive that he doesn’t know what to say to me,’ Flynn said with a grin.

  I rolled my eyes at him but the truth was that this possibility had occurred to me too. It might explain why Leo had been so awkward around Flynn.

  I went back to London that week, to see Mum. Not that she and I really talked anymore. She’d already let Stone take my bedroom – it was unrecognisable, the walls covered with posters of indie bands and girls in bikinis. I spent my second evening out with Emmi and Grace. Emmi was full of questions about life on the commune.

  ‘How do you cope, River?’ she asked, wide-eyed. ‘All that mud and the wild animals and the cold water.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘There isn’t any mud in the middle of summer and, for your information, hens aren’t wild animals and the water is perfectly hot – at least it is in the mornings and evenings.’

  Emmi was going to France for a month – she was clearly totally over Alex already and massively excited about all the gorgeous French boys she was hoping to meet.

  ‘But I’ll come and visit when I’m back, River,’ she grinned. ‘Check out the commune. Plus your Leo sounds sweet.’ She winked at Grace, who blushed.

  ‘He’s not “my Leo”.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘And I’m not letting you anywhere near him.’

  The thought of predatory Emmi trying to get her claws into poor, anxious, possibly gay Leo was more than I could stand.

  Emmi raised her eyebrows. ‘You sound possessive, River.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I protested. ‘It is possible to get on with a boy without wanting to do it with them, you know.’

  Emmi laughed.

  ‘James and I are definitely going to come for a visit before the holidays finish,’ Grace said. ‘My dad’s got a tent we could use. It’ll be so cool sleeping out of doors.’

  ‘Awesome,’ I said, though I didn’t really see the attraction of spending the night outdoors myself, not when there was a nice soft mattress in our room.

  Our room.

  Emmi narrowed her eyes as if she’d seen my thoughts. ‘I’m sure it feels great now but once you’re together full time, you won’t ever be able to get away. There’ll be nowhere to hide out when you’ve got a zit or had an argument or when your period’s making you feel like rubbish.’

  ‘Flynn doesn’t care about those things,’ I said, defiantly. But inside I couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious. Emmi had a point, after all. What was it going to be like once Flynn was permanently living on the commune?

  9

  As it turned out, it was bliss.

  Mostly.

  Certainly, over the summer it was perfect. Once Flynn arrived for the weekend, we spent all our time together. At first Dad insisted he waited until Friday evening before arriving and left before dinner on Sunday night but pretty soon Flynn was coming up on Friday mornings and, after three or four weeks, he was arriving on Thursday afternoons and not leaving again until Monday lunchtime.

  We settled easily into a routine: sleeping late, then grabbing some toast for breakfast before starting our chores. Flynn always snuck into my room once Dad and Gemma had gone to bed. They must have known – as they had to pass the sofa on the way to our shared bathroom – but neither of them ever said anything and Flynn was always back on the sofa before morning.

  On Fridays and Saturdays we had to sweep and clean the downs
tairs rooms and communal toilets then we went outside, where our jobs varied each week, though often involved the vegetable patch and the hens. On Sundays we usually joined everyone else tending to the sheep or working in the apple orchard – the organic apples that we would harvest in September were one of the commune’s main sources of income. On Sunday nights Flynn and I always helped whoever was in charge of that evening’s meal. This meant peeling potatoes if it was the nerdy IT guy, experimenting with spices if it was Gemma or John and giggling over bizarre recipes if Ros was in charge.

  We only had to work two or three hours each day and, after our chores were done, we were free. The first half of August was blisteringly hot and sometimes we just sat outside in the long grass near the hen house, reading in the shade all afternoon. I pored over novels – romantic ones, mostly. Nothing heavy. Flynn studied what he needed to for his A levels. Moving to the sixth form college meant he had to change exam syllabuses and therefore was behind on some of his reading, but Flynn was unfazed about catching up. I’d always known he worked hard but, seeing him that summer, I realised I’d never met anyone so disciplined.

  Flynn was determined to get into law school and had already looked into the best courses around the country. Whenever he talked about it my stomach tightened into a knot. I couldn’t bear the thought of him going away – even though it would be over a year from now – and leaving me behind.

  Some days we went out, into the countryside near the commune. We’d wander around woods and fields, hand in hand, talking about stories and music that we liked. We often strolled to the stream that ran through the woods to paddle in the sparkling, shallow water. It was always cold, yet blissful on our hot, tired feet. We’d make out under the trees, then walk some more, finally stopping when we got hungry to eat the snacks and sandwiches we’d brought from the commune.

  James and Grace visited a couple of times, camping out in their tent as promised. We hardly saw anyone else. We hardly talked to anyone else. Both of us grew tanned and relaxed, while Flynn was happier than I’d ever seen him. He never shirked his chores or complained about having to do them. He ran every day, usually in the early evening when the sun was past its strongest. And I knew he worked out and shadow-boxed too, though he never let me watch.