Girl Heart Boy: No Such Thing as Forever (Book 1)

by Ali Cronin

  ‘I agree with Ollie, for what it’s worth,’ said Jack mildly.

  Ollie shook his hand. ‘Thanks, man.’

  ‘Go on then.’ Ashley stretched her leg and tapped Jack’s foot with her own. ‘What’s your answer? Have you ever been in love?’

  He smiled lopsidedly. ‘I have, actually.’

  That got everyone’s attention. ‘No way!’ said Ash. ‘Who?’

  ‘Leanne Hannigan.’

  Rich scrunched his forehead. ‘Why do I know that name?’

  Cass clicked her fingers at him. ‘C’mon: Leanne Hannigan. Twin sister called Carrie-Anne? Wet herself in PE once?’

  Rich smiled as realization dawned. ‘God, yeah. Leanne Hannigan.’ Then he frowned. ‘But sod off – that was in primary school. We were, like, five years old. That doesn’t count.’

  ‘Yeah it does,’ said Jack. ‘I was completely in love with her. She lived on our road and she’d play football with me after school. She was pretty good.’

  ‘Aw, that’s so sweet,’ Cass cooed, her head on one side. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Her family moved away. I was gutted when she left.’ He shrugged and smiled.

  Ollie patted his shoulder. ‘Tough, mate. Tough.’

  ‘What about you, Olster?’ Donna pulled up the ankle of her jeans to scratch an insect bite, then sat with her knees bent and her legs apart like a boy. I saw Jack glance at her crotch then look away quickly.

  Ollie put his hands behind his head and stretched out his legs. ‘You know me. I’m not one for the steady girlfriend.’

  ‘Or indeed any girlfriend,’ said Ashley drily. ‘Heart-breaker of Woodside High, you are.’

  ‘I’m bloody not!’ said Ollie indignantly. ‘Name one heart I’ve broken.’ Ash demurred grudgingly. He was right. Everyone loved him. It was like if you had sex with Ollie it was part of being his friend. He treated everyone exactly the same, and that never changed no matter what you did together. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me, from the outside. None of us had ever slept with him – that would have been too weird. He and Donna had snogged each other once, years ago, but that was kids’ stuff.

  ‘I’ve never been in love. Not even close,’ said Donna, as if she’d just remembered that incident too. She didn’t look bothered by her lack of love. I didn’t understand how she could fancy someone enough to have sex with them, and not fall in love with them just a little bit.

  Ashley shook her head. ‘Me neither. But then look at me …’ She ran the back of her hand up and down her body as if she was fanning herself.

  ‘What?’ Rich grinned. ‘Too “alternative” to fall in love?’

  ‘Piss off, that’s not what I meant.’

  Rich blew her a kiss and she picked an imaginary bogey and flicked it at him in return. He pretended to catch it in his mouth. ‘Mmm, meaty.’

  Sometimes I think it’s a good thing that Rich is in the closet.

  ‘I’ve been in love. Still am,’ said Cass, after the laughter and groans of disgust had died down. ‘But you knew that already.’

  ‘Ah yes, the delectable Adam,’ said Donna into her mug, before taking a few gulps. Cass shot her a hurt look but didn’t rise to it. There was a pause in the conversation.

  ‘What about you, Sar?’ said Rich. ‘You’re very quiet over there.’

  I’d been pondering what to say. I was in love with Joe, no doubt about it, but it seemed too important to reveal in a game. Like to say it would make it less real. And anyway, I didn’t want the others to take the piss or think I was being hasty or whatever. Yes, it was soon to be feeling this strongly, but when you know you know.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ I shot back to give myself more time. ‘I notice you haven’t answered the question yet.’

  He rubbed his back where it’d been pressed against the cold metal of the bunk bed. ‘Pass.’

  ‘You’re not allowed to pass,’ sniped Cass.

  ‘Who says? The rule book?’ said Rich reasonably. ‘Sorry, I’m not answering this one.’ And because it was Rich, and because we were being gentle with him cos of his nan, we let it go. I wished I’d thought of passing. I couldn’t now, or they’d think I was copying him.

  ‘C’mon, McSarey, spill the beans.’ Ollie waggled his eyebrows at me.

  ‘The answer is no,’ I said, looking into my glass to avoid making eye contact with anyone. ‘I’ve never been in love.’ I’d expected everyone to call me on it, but they didn’t.

  ‘OK, my turn,’ said Ash, rubbing her hands together. ‘Have you ever … had a sex dream about a teacher?’

  Back in the girls’ room a couple of hours later I lay on my top bunk (result!) and texted Joe. He hadn’t replied to my earlier message, but I knew he was working a double shift at the bar.

  ‘You’re so texting Joe.’ Cass’s voice came floating up from the bottom bunk.

  ‘No sexting in communal spaces, thanks very much,’ added Ashley. ‘Très bad form.’

  ‘As if.’ But I wasn’t really listening to them. I was deciding whether writing ‘tonite’ instead of ‘tonight’ would put Joe off or make me seem relaxed and easy-going. But then the automatic spell check changed it to ‘tonight’ anyway and I decided it was massively lame to deliberately misspell a spell-checked word.

  ‘How’s it going, babes?’ asked Donna. ‘You’re seeing him on Thursday, right?’

  I pressed Send and clicked the button that switched off the screen. I turned on to my side, the bed springs twanging and creaking beneath me. I could feel the pupils of my eyes expanding in the darkness. ‘Yeah. It’s good, thanks … he’s good.’

  ‘Oooh!’ squealed Ash. ‘You lurve him.’

  I smiled. ‘He is rather lovely. I can’t wait to see him … It’d better work this time. We have just the worst luck – something always seems to come up and he has to cancel. I suppose that’s what you get for having a boyfriend –’ I giggled slightly at the word – ‘who’s a student. He works, he has essay deadlines, all that stuff … We just have different stuff going on, you know? But, like, give it ten months and I’ll be a student too. We just have to work through this first, difficult bit. We’ll get there.’ I stopped to draw breath, but before I could continue Ashley suddenly gasped and changed the subject, making my stomach constrict. Had I been going on about Joe? I really hadn’t! And Donna shouldn’t have asked if she didn’t want to know the answer. I sighed to myself. Anyway, moving on …

  ‘Oh my God, what was with Rich and refusing to say if he’d ever been in love?’ said Ash.

  ‘I know! Do you think it’s cos he’s in love with …’ Cass lowered her voice to a scandalized whisper. ‘A boy?’ We giggled vaguely hysterically, me included. This was so not something we were supposed to talk about. Even among ourselves we rarely brought it up, although I didn’t really know why. I think it was because Rich wouldn’t talk about it, so as his friends we had to assume he was straight, even though we all thought he wasn’t. None of us wanted to be the first to out him, basically, in case we were wrong after all.

  ‘Or maybe he’s in love with one of us?’ I said, earnestly. ‘He did eat one of your bogeys, Ash. Only someone who really loved you could do that.’

  ‘Oh man, you’re sick. He’s so not my type.’

  ‘Well, it’s good to know you draw the line somewhere,’ said Donna. ‘Even if it is at people who don’t actually fancy girls.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ said Cass, seriously. ‘He could be bisexual.’

  Donna suddenly sat up, making the whole bunk wobble. ‘Oh my God, I’ve just thought of something. Like, he and Jack have been best friends forever. Jack hasn’t got a girlfriend …’

  ‘Shit, you’re right. They’re probably humping away next door as we speak.’ Ash tried to keep her tone dry, but she was getting as over-excited as the rest of us.

  ‘Ugh, don’t,’ said Cass. ‘Poor Ollie.’

  I giggled. I know everyone thought I was sweet and gullible, but really. Cass was way worse. ‘You do k
now they’re not actually having sex, right?’

  ‘Piss off.’ But I could hear the smile in her voice. ‘It is quite sad though, when you think about it,’ she went on. ‘Rich feeling he has to hide his love.’

  I rolled my eyes in the dark. ‘Yeah. Either that or he just wanted to seem mysterious and interesting.’

  ‘Yeah, no, that’s a good point,’ said Ash. ‘That’s totally the kind of thing he’d do.’

  And with that the conversation petered out and we fell asleep.

  ‘Wake up, time to eat!’

  I peered over the edge of my bed to find the source of the disgustingly chirpy voice and rhythmical thumping. It was Donna doing star jumps. Of course.

  ‘What time is it?’ I croaked. I ran my tongue over my teeth. I’d have killed for a glass of water.

  ‘Just gone nine.’ Donna’s voice shook as she continued her morning exercises. She looked amazing, and slightly terrifying. Mad hair all over the place, mascara smudges down her cheeks, and un-tethered boobs bouncing crazily beneath her Snoopy pyjama top.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, woman?’ groaned Ashley from underneath her covers. ‘It’s the crack of dawn.’

  Donna changed to a kind of leap-up-and-down-while-punching-the-air-with-alternate-fists thing. Probably not its official title, but I’d rather have chewed my arm off than go to an exercise class. Coordination and me are not best friends. I once tripped over my own shadow. (Not a joke. The scar on my knee proves it.)

  ‘I’m getting energized,’ she panted, moving on to lunges. ‘And it’s late. They stop serving breakfast in, like, twenty minutes.’ She sat on the edge of her bed, breathing hard.

  ‘I’ll come with you. I’m starving,’ I said, climbing down from my bunk, the ladder creaking metallically.

  She gave me a breathless thumbs-up. ‘Nice one.’

  In the end we all trooped downstairs to eat. Cass and Donna had refused to go until they’d showered and done their make-up, so by the time we made it to the dining room we had to do some serious sweet-talking to get them to serve us. Well, Cass and Donna did the sweet-talking. They did, after all, look the most respectable. The rest of us looked like dehydrated scarecrows in pyjamas. Surprisingly the boys were already there, fully dressed and tucking into sausage, egg and beans. Rich waved us over with his fork.

  ‘Just what I like, a man waving his sausage at me first thing in the morning.’ Ash flopped down in the chair next to him and stole a chip from his plate. ‘Since when were these acceptable food for breakfast?’

  ‘Get your bloody own,’ he griped. ‘And chips are the food of champions. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘Whatever.’ A youngish man with blond dreadlocks came to take our order. ‘I’ll have what they’re having,’ said Ash, accepting Rich’s ironic high-five graciously.

  We all ordered then leant back in our chairs contentedly. No parents, no deadlines, no responsibility. It was a good feeling.

  ‘So what are we doing today?’ asked Cass, whipping her notebook from her sleeve like an OCD magician. ‘What? It’s useful!’ she said over our jeers.

  Jack stroked her hair. ‘You’re gonna make someone an excellent wife one day …’ He waved his hand airily. ‘Organizing dinner parties and what not.’ He smiled sheepishly and twiddled his fork. Like his parents ever had dinner parties.

  Cass smiled as she wrote something at the top of the page and underlined it. ‘I think you’ll find, young Jack, that my organizational skills will be invaluable when I become Prime Minister.’

  ‘Right on, sister,’ I said, doing a quick air-punch. Ash and Donna joined in with some whoops, and Cass beamed, her cheeks turning a becoming pink. She was so rarely the centre of attention, bless her, but she wasn’t even joking – not much, anyway – about the Prime Minister thing. Beneath the puppy-dog exterior lay ambition of steel. The girl had a twenty-year plan, for God’s sake. I barely had a one-week plan, and we know what – or who – that centred on.

  And, as if by magic, my mobile chirped, making a manic brrr noise as it vibrated against the plastic table top. ‘Ahem, très rude,’ said Ash, giving it a pointed stare.

  ‘Sorry, sorry. I was just waiting for this. I’ll put it away in a sec.’ I quickly tapped in my passcode and the text came up in full:

  Sounds good. Don’t get

  too drunk. See you in

  couple days x

  Most of the time with texts from Joe I had to scroll up to remind myself exactly what he was replying to. There were way more texts from me to him than from him to me. But that was boys for you. I was itching to text back, but I put the phone in my pocket and concentrated on demolishing the huge plate of food that had just been put in front of me.

  We never did get round to making Cass’s list. Jack got everyone into the idea of playing volleyball on the beach. It was me, Rich and Ash against Donna, Cass and Ollie. Jack was the ref cos it wouldn’t be fair on the other team if he played. He drew a line in the sand with a stick.

  ‘Right, this is the net. Your aim is to get the ball to touch the ground on the other side. We’ll play best of three.’ He held the ball we’d borrowed from the hostel over the line and chucked it up in the air. If he’d had a whistle, he’d totally have given it a sharp blast.

  Rich and Cass both leapt for the ball, with Rich – who’s a good five inches taller than Cass – bashing it over the ‘net’. Cass threw herself after it, managing to hit it back. I went for it, but it slipped through my hands. One–nil to them.

  ‘Nice one, Sarah,’ sniped Rich, scooping up the ball and shooting me evils. I didn’t mind. He and Cass both turn into tyrants when it comes to competition. They’ll do pretty much anything to win – including cheat. It’s not worth getting worked up about.

  Ash dug her elbow into Rich’s side. ‘Cheer up, Venus Williams, it’s only a game.’

  He looked at her scathingly. ‘Hello? Venus Williams is tennis?’

  Me, Ash and Ollie exchanged grins. How to rile Rich in one easy step.

  Jack put his hand out for the ball. ‘Right. One–nil to Cass, Donna and Ollie. Nice work, Cassie.’

  She smiled at him, showing her dimples. ‘Cheers, Jack.’ But his head was back in the game. Sport is a v. serious business for our Jack.

  ‘Ready?’

  We nodded, all leaping from foot to foot and puffing extravagantly, except Rich and Cass who were doing it for real, and he chucked the ball into play again.

  ‘IT’S MINE!’ screamed Ash, and she sent it barrelling at a million miles an hour into the opposing side.

  But Ollie was on it. ‘AAAGGGGHHHH!’ He did a double-fist punch under the ball, and it spiralled way up into the sky, seemed to hover in mid-air for a second à la Wile E. Coyote before he falls into the canyon, then came whizzing back down to earth, landing a millimetre on the wrong side of the line. He looked round at us, a lopsided grin on his face. ‘Bugger. What are the chances?’ We all fell about laughing, although obviously Cass wasn’t amused. Ollie put his arm round her. ‘Sorry, babes. I’ll do better next time.’ She scowled, but not really. It’s kind of impossible to be cross with Ollie for long.

  And so it went on. We won, but only just. Rich was a good winner, thumping Cass on the back and telling her it was a close thing and we’d been lucky really, which was true. It’d been great. Bright and gusty and fun, and, as if it had been waiting for us to finish our game, the temperature dropped and the sky started turning grey just as we trooped back to the hostel for lunch. A perfect morning.

  After a distinctly non-Seven-Go-To-Devon-y lunch of limp sandwiches and Tesco Value crisps, everyone decided they were gagging to play the slot machines on the seafront. Needless to say, it wasn’t me or Cass who suggested it, although Cass seemed enthusiastic enough. I couldn’t think of anything more depressing, so I stayed behind to sit in the hostel lounge, drink tea and read magazines in front of the fire. At the last minute Ash changed her mind about going, making some joke about going for a swim instead. So the rest skipp
ed off to waste their money, leaving me to an old Woman & Home magazine, and Ash to annoying me. I could feel her presence in the next chair like an itch. I knew she wanted something before she even opened her mouth.

  ‘Sarah?’

  I sighed. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Can I ask a reeeeally big favour?’

  Another, bigger sigh. ‘What?’

  ‘Will you come swimming with me? In the sea?’

  My mouth dropped open. She’d been serious about that? ‘No, freako, funnily enough, I won’t.’ I pointedly turned back to my magazine.

  ‘Oh come on, please,’ wheedled Ashley. ‘Don’t be a wuss. It’ll be exhilarating.’

  I shook my head. ‘No way. I’m not bloody swimming in the sea in late October. Anyway, I haven’t brought my swimming costume. Obviously.’

  ‘Well, just come with me then. Please, Sar.’ She looked at me beseechingly.

  I threw down my book. ‘Bloody hell.’

  She clapped her hands. ‘Yay! Thanks, babes.’ I harrumphed, but got my coat and followed her out of the door.

  ‘Why would you even want to do this?’ I asked as we stumbled back down the path to the beach. ‘It’s freezing. And we live in Brighton, for God’s sake. Does that not have enough sea for you?’

  Ash shrugged happily. She was skipping along beside me like a little kid. ‘I’ve just always wanted to do it. When I was little I saw something on telly about those people who go swimming in, like, arctic temperatures and, I dunno, it just looked amazing … Like –’ She stopped skipping to grasp for the right words – ‘like they were cheating nature. And Brighton’s not special enough for that.’

  I shoved my hands into my pockets grumpily. ‘It’s not bloody cheating nature … it’s just mental. Why d’you want me there, anyway?’

  Ash linked her arm through mine. ‘Dunno. Just suddenly wanted someone to mark the occasion. C’mon, Sar, this is one of my ten things to do before I die. Be happy for me.’

  Surprised, I turned to her. ‘You’ve got an actual list?’ Ash nodded. ‘What else is on it?’