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

by Ali Cronin

  ‘Yeah, thought we might catch a matinee at the cinema,’ said Donna, looking down as she zipped up her jacket.

  ‘Oh … OK.’ I don’t know why I couldn’t just say I’d join them. Normally I would have, but something about the way they wouldn’t catch my eye made me feel like it wasn’t an option. Cass asked me if I wanted to come, but I’m sure Ashley shot her a look. First Joe, now my friends. It was getting very tiring trying to be low-maintenance about everything.

  After they left I blinked rapidly, drank a few gulps of tea and cleared my throat while scratching my eyebrow. Et voilà: the tears disappeared. I stood up. ‘So. I should be off too. I’ve got a French translation.’ I stretched my mouth into some semblance of a smile and, without looking at any of the boys, weaved through the tables and out the door.

  ‘All right, babes?’ It was the first day back at school after half term and Ashley had just sat down beside me at our usual table in the maths room and cracked open a can of Diet Coke. ‘Feels like ages since we last sat here.’

  It did. I couldn’t believe our daring sea rescue had happened less than a week ago. I smiled at her, happy that things were back to normal. Everyone was allowed to be moody every now and then. Didn’t mean you hated them forever.

  Ash offered me her drink. I shook my head. ‘How was the film?’

  ‘Shit. You didn’t miss anything.’

  I wondered whether it was OK to talk about Devon and decided to risk it. I was feeling brave after getting through yesterday’s weirdness. ‘So are you, like, totally better now?’

  She rocked back on her chair and braced one foot against the table. There was a sticker stuck to the sole of her boot. It had a picture of a grinning cartoon crocodile with ‘I look after my teeth’ written above it. ‘Yeah, no, totally. I’ve got to go back to the doc’s tomorrow for a check, but … yeah, I’m fine.’ She paused. ‘Look, I haven’t even thanked you yet for … what you did. You know I’m really grateful, right?’ She smiled at me, almost shyly. It was good to hear, but before I could answer she looked in the direction of the door and said, ‘Whoa. Somebody’s keen.’

  Not only was our tutor alarmingly early but he also made a beeline for our desk, pulling out a chair and sitting astride it backwards, his legs either side of the backrest. I smirked and caught Ashley’s eye. Really, the man was a tit.

  ‘So, dramatic half term then, yah?’ he said to Ash.

  ‘Yah, I suppose you could say that.’

  ‘Well, you just take it easy this week, hmm? No physical exertions.’ He smirked, possibly sleazily.

  Ash raised an eyebrow. ‘Right. Thanks, Paul.’

  ‘All your teachers are aware of your … situation, so not to worry if you need to sit a lesson out, just for the next week or so while you’re getting back on your feet.’ And with that he did a monumentally cheesy wink and double tongue click and left the room. It was only five minutes till he needed to take the register, but whatever. Busy busy busy.

  Ash watched him leave. ‘Does he think I’ve had a backstreet abortion?’ she said, shaking her head. She adopted Paul’s lopsided smirk. ‘Your “situation”? Shit.’

  ‘He’s an idiot,’ I agreed.

  ‘I really don’t want to make a big thing out of this,’ said Ash seriously. ‘Honestly, I just want to forget it ever happened. Move on, you know?’

  ‘Yeah, course,’ I said, although a part of me (the same shameful part that hoped for a media circus at the hospital) felt strangely hurt.

  I went to the field by myself at lunchtime. I wanted to be able to call Joe and check my phone in peace. He didn’t answer – obvs – so I texted:

  Ollie wants to finalize

  numbers for 5 nov party.

  You coming? There will be

  fit girls (i.e. me)

  I had another look at Mimi’s Facebook while I ate my sandwich. Her status was something boring about her phone being out of action. I was about to look up Joe’s uni website when I got a reply:

  Sounds good. Shd be fine

  but need to check x

  I did a bit of a squeal and, chucking the remains of my sandwich into the bushes that lined the school field, ran back to the canteen.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Cass, pulling her bag off the chair they’d saved me.

  ‘Just had to do a bit of research … Where’s Ollie?’

  ‘Loo.’

  ‘Oh good, I wanted to tell him that Joe’s coming to his party.’ I peeled back the lid of the yogurt I’d just bought and sniffed it. ‘Does this smell funny?’ I held it out to the table at large.

  Donna snatched it off me and stuck her nose into the pot. ‘It’s fine.’ She handed it back, but I pushed it to one side. Milk and yogurt have to be in tip-top condition if they’re going to pass my lips. Otherwise you might as well be drinking rancid phlegm.

  ‘Yeah, Joe’s really up for it,’ I continued. ‘You’ll really like him. He’s really sweet and, like, witty, y’know? Right, Ash? God, I can’t believe you’re the only one who’s met him!’

  Ashley shrugged. ‘Yeah well, I haven’t actually met him properly.’

  I sat up straight in my seat. ‘Oh my God, it was sooo funny. We were on our way to his house on Saturday, on the Tube, and he kept pretending to scratch his cheek but actually giving me the finger, you know? I was pissing myself. The other people on the train must’ve thought I was mental.’ I chuckled, but nobody joined in. Cass, Jack and Rich were kind of smiling encouragingly, like they were waiting for a punchline, but Ash and Donna were expressionless.

  ‘Guess you had to be there, Sar,’ said Ash. She nodded at my manky yogurt. ‘You going to eat that?’ I pushed it towards her. I cleared my throat and fluffed the back of my hair casually. She was right – it was a crap story. And a total lie. I just wanted an anecdote to offer them that didn’t involve sex or, y’know, disappointment. Me and Joe just didn’t see each other enough, but that would change in time. I stood up.

  ‘Anyway … I’m going to get a Twix. Anyone want anything?’

  I tried to do cleansing breathing while I was waiting to pay. I hated this. It was like everything I said and did was being stored up by the others to add to some invisible list of crimes I was committing without even knowing it. I tapped my fingers against my teeth. Getting Cass on her own would help. She understood what it was like to have a boyfriend. I’d ask her to come shopping with me after school, I decided. I was skint after Devon, but she always ended up buying something (her parents gave her, like, a £100-a-month clothing allowance), and I could talk about stuff while she was distracted.

  Feeling slightly better, I went back to the table. Ollie was there and everyone was discussing if there was a way to have a bonfire in his garden without his parents finding out. This I could help with. My granny and grandpa had bonfires on their allotment all the time.

  ‘You just dig up the grass in, like, flat squares, then put it back when you’ve finished,’ I said through a mouthful of Twix. ‘It’s not difficult.’

  Ollie leant across the table, took my face in his hands and gave me a smacker on the forehead. ‘That’s what I’m talking about, people. Bit of common sense.’ He smiled at me. ‘Cheers, flower.’

  Next lesson was art history and Andrea, our teacher, sat on the edge of a table, her legs crossed at the knee. She was telling us about Andy Warhol’s Factory studio in 1960s New York, where artists, writers and rock stars came to make art and, ahem, ‘practise free love’. It was fascinating. Honestly, she totally had the room. Andrea was a good teacher and everyone liked her, and you could tell she was really into the Sixties art scene stuff. She even looked right, with her graphic print headscarf, cargo pants and ballet pumps.

  Anyway, one of the photos she showed us was of a woman, not that much older than us, who was Warhol’s muse: she inspired him. In the picture this woman’s leaning back but sort of thrusting her body upwards. It doesn’t look sexual though, cos she’s got no boobs to speak of. She’s holding a cigarette and a g
lass of, what, vodka? I guessed it wasn’t water, anyway. She’s wearing a tight black top and huge black earrings, and staring at the camera with these big, black, Sixties eyes. She looks beautiful and confident and don’t-give-a-shit, and everything about her made me feel dull and conventional. Even when we learned that she’d died of a drug overdose when she was twenty-eight, I envied her. I didn’t want to take drugs or die young (like, duh) but I wished I could be a bit less … obvious. A bit less het up about bloody Joe and my does-he-like-me woes. I sighed wistfully. I would so, so love someone to want me to be their muse. But as Joe, not even an artist but a boring old politics student, seemed to forget me from one day to the next, what hope did I have?

  I nibbled at a hangnail. Self-pity is a very ugly emotion, I sternly reminded myself. And Joe hasn’t forgotten you, because he’s coming to Ollie’s bonfire-night party. So get a grip.

  After the lesson had finished I hovered outside the door and waited for everyone to leave so I could call Joe. I left a voicemail saying I was looking forward to the party, and could he call or text to make arrangements, and was about to go to the canteen for a mid-afternoon muffin when Andrea came out of the classroom. She was carrying a huge blue-and-white-striped canvas hold-all. In a shop I wouldn’t have looked at it twice, but on her shoulder, with her outfit, I wanted it.

  ‘OK, Sarah?’ she asked, smiling at me.

  ‘Yes, thanks … Uh, I wasn’t waiting for you,’ I said, and then instantly worried that she hadn’t been thinking I was anyway.

  ‘Right, well. Have a good evening!’ she said and, feeling strangely disappointed, I watched her walk away from me down the corridor towards the staff room.

  ‘… So then I left another message, but he still hasn’t got back to me.’

  Cass picked up a grey top with tiny silver birds sewn round the hem. She held it up against herself and raised her eyebrows.

  I glanced at her. ‘Yeah. Really nice,’ I said then went back to chewing my cuticles. It was gone five. We’d been shopping for nearly two hours and I was hungry. I hadn’t asked Cass why she, Ashley and Donna were being off with me. Now I was here I realized it would have to involve sort of implicating Cass. And not only would that pretty much amount to picking a fight but it’d also be like reinforcing Cass’s place with Ash and Donna as the three of them against the one of me. So I was trying to get Cass to sympathize about Joe instead. I thought if I made him out to be a bit crap, she’d want to give me the benefit of her (considerable) experience. After all, we were still the only ones in our group with a boyfriend (or whatever).

  Cass folded the top to almost its original perfection and carefully put it back in the pile. She flicked through a pile of different tops. ‘Look, Sarah, if you don’t want to be here, go home.’

  I rubbed my forehead. ‘I’m sorry, Cass. I’m just really tired. I haven’t been able to sleep much these past couple of days.’

  ‘Yeah, you have mentioned it,’ said Cass, almost under her breath. Then: ‘What about this one?’ She held up the same top in a different colour.

  I tried to do nodding with enthusiasm and sat down on the floor. She was obviously going to be a while. I fiddled with my bag strap. ‘So … I wonder if Joe will call me tonight.’

  Cass closed her eyes long-sufferingly. ‘I don’t know, Sarah. It’s impossible to say. His record isn’t great, so …’

  I felt a spark of annoyance. Friends were supposed to be happy to listen to each other’s troubles. I’d listened to her bang on about Adam often enough.

  ‘Actually, I think I will make a move.’ I leant on the wall as leverage and stood up. ‘I’ve just remembered Mum said she was making tea for half five cos Dan’s got Scouts.’

  She barely even looked at me. ‘Fine. See you tomorrow.’

  I tried to catch her eye, but she was apparently engrossed in comparing tops.

  I felt self-conscious and strange as I walked to catch the bus, as if I was being filmed. I adopted a vague smile and hummed softly to myself. Weird behaviour, yes, but it stopped the horrible traitorous tears that were yet again pricking the backs of my eyes.

  On the packed bus I miraculously found a seat. I called Donna. She and Cass hadn’t always seen eye to eye, ever since a couple of years before when Donna had told her to her face that Adam was a cheating wanker and only a sap would stay with him. They’d had a massive row, which ended with Cass in floods of tears and Donna storming off in disgust. They’d made up soon enough – Donna had apologized and Cass had accepted it – but there was still an atmosphere. So, yes, phoning Donna wasn’t in the Top 10 of Nice Things To Do, but Cass hadn’t been very nice to me.

  As always, she answered almost straight away. ‘Hey, girlfriend. Wait a sec …’ I heard vague clattering noises over the rumble of the bus. ‘Sorry, just putting the chips in the oven.’ Donna and her dad shared cooking duties, which had the power to make me feel very useless. I didn’t even know how to bake a potato. ‘Good shopping?’ she continued.

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘That’s what I was phoning about actually … Cass went all weird.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ That got her attention. I could picture her leaning against the worktop in the tiny kitchen, opening and shutting the washing-machine door with her toe.

  ‘Yeah. I was just telling her about Joe and stuff, and she basically told me she didn’t want to hear it.’

  There was a pause at Donna’s end. ‘Oh.’

  My stomach clenched. I was getting the impression I’d been the subject of distinctly non-favourable group discussion. But, ever the ostrich, I carried on regardless. ‘Like, how many times have I sat and listened to her go on about Adam when he’s been unfaithful?’

  Donna sniffed. ‘Yeah. See, thing is, babes, most of the time she doesn’t talk about Adam. But Joe is literally all you ever talk about.’

  I scratched my eyelid and flicked my hair out of my eyes, although my eye wasn’t itchy and my hair was fine.

  ‘… Like, have you even asked me how I am? Do you remember the last time you actually asked any of us anything about our lives?’ she went on. Even though she couldn’t see me, my face was burning. I could feel my pulse in my ears. Donna said, ‘Look, I know you hate confrontation, but that doesn’t mean you’re always right …’ She softened her tone a bit. ‘Seriously, Sar, we love you, but you’ve got to snap out of this Joe thing. We want the old Sarah back.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’m sorry you think I’ve been neglecting you … Really sorry, in fact. But I don’t think you will get the old Sarah back …’ I took a slow breath. I was feeling braver now, if only because I didn’t think I had anything more to lose. ‘Whether you and the others like it or not, I’ve met someone that I really like … I can’t always be boring, dependable Sarah just because it suits you.’ I took my phone away from my ear. Donna was speaking, but I didn’t want to hear any more. I pressed End Call and tucked my phone into my bag, then faced the front and clenched my hands in my lap. I just prayed that the boys still liked me.

  I couldn’t eat breakfast the next morning. I thought about pretending I had a migraine and staying in bed, but I figured I had to face the girls sometime, so it might as well be today. And I didn’t want them thinking I was avoiding them. I had nothing to be ashamed of.

  Even so, I waited till the last possible minute before leaving for school. I could miss registration for one day. I texted Ollie to say I’d overslept and could he tell Paul I’d gone to the loo.

  He pinged back, ‘No probs xx,’ and I felt slightly better. Seemed at least Ollie was still on my side. And first period was double French, which meant I wouldn’t see the girls till lunchtime. Feeling slightly better, I managed to force down a couple of pieces of toast and Marmite.

  French was listening comprehension, which took all my concentration and meant I couldn’t talk to Ollie anyway. I felt exhausted by the end of the lesson, but at least I’d not thought about anything except Mme Rochelle’s trip to Paris with her two children, Pierre and Delph
ine, for the past hour. I wearily shrugged on my coat and picked up my bag.

  ‘All right, flower?’ asked Ollie. ‘You look sad.’ And to my horror my eyes instantly filled with tears. ‘Oh no, McSarey. What’s wrong?’ He put his arm round me and I buried my face in his shoulder. ‘C’mon,’ he said, leading me out of the room. ‘You’ve got a free now, right?’ I nodded into the thick knitted fabric of his jumper. It smelled of washing powder. ‘Well, I was going to bunk off music anyway. We can be miserable together.’

  I lifted my head. ‘Why are you miserable?’

  He looked down at me briefly and smiled. ‘I’m not really.’

  We ended up walking around the park near school. It was just what I needed. It was the kind of damp autumn day that somehow reminds you of brisk walks followed by tea and toast in cosy kitchens, rather than low clouds and chilled bones.

  Ollie tucked my hand through his arm. ‘So, what’s up?’

  I watched the mulchy leaves leaving wet marks on my boots. ‘It’s nothing. Probably quite boring.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Ollie amiably. ‘I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.’

  So I told him everything. It felt brilliant to just come out with it, not to feel as if I had to edit in case I was being boring or try-hard or boasting, or whatever it was that the girls didn’t like. When I’d finished, Ollie was quiet for a while, but it wasn’t an ominous quiet like it had been with Cass and Donna. It was a thoughtful silence, as if he was letting my words find their place in the world.

  ‘Poor old you,’ he said, at last. ‘What a bugger.’

  I laughed mirthlessly and nodded. ‘Yup.’

  ‘Obviously I don’t have a single piece of useful advice for you. I know jack about relationships. Especially girl relationships.’ He shook his head as if in bemusement at the weirdness that is girl interaction. I knew what he meant. We walked in companionable silence again for a while.