Life is Sweet

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘Give up,’ Kira tells me. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble?’

  ‘It’s all a mistake,’ I argue. ‘If I could just talk to Cherry, explain …’

  ‘Take the hint,’ Kira says. ‘It’s over.’

  I make it to the end of the school day, then have to endure the bus journey home. Surprise, surprise, Cherry is not saving me a seat; she is guarded by her friends who glare at me as I mooch past, looking for somewhere to sit. Luke and Chris both live in town, so they’re not around for moral support. Summer and Skye and their friends give me the cold shoulder; Alfie, who’s been hanging out with us all though the holidays and has just started dating Summer, shrugs awkwardly, mouthing an apology, turning away as I pass.

  ‘There’s a spare seat here, Shay,’ Honey calls from the back, and everyone watches to see what I’ll do.

  I am pretty sure they’d lynch me if I took that seat, so in the end I squash in beside Anthony, a quiet loner-kid from the village, who is known as a maths and computer whizz. His hair is greasy and still cropped into a little-boy bowl-cut, his shirt is greyish and un-ironed and his school trousers flap an inch above his ankles. Anthony doesn’t notice things like that, but he notices my misfortune all right.

  ‘Hear you’ve blown it with Cherry,’ he says brightly. ‘Too bad.’

  ‘It’s a glitch,’ I say. ‘A misunderstanding. Trust me, it’ll all be sorted by this time tomorrow.’

  ‘How?’ Anthony asks reasonably. ‘As far as I can see she wants nothing to do with you.’

  ‘I’ll email,’ I say confidently. ‘Or send her a message on chat, or on her SpiderWeb page.’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ Anthony says. ‘This afternoon she was asking me how to block people on email and chat and defriend them on SpiderWeb.’

  ‘She wouldn’t do that!’ I argue. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong!’

  Anthony smiles. ‘I know a lot about computers. If I wanted to, I could probably show you how to get past Cherry’s security settings … it’d cost you, mind. But that still doesn’t mean she’d read your messages. Too bad, huh?’

  ‘Thanks for the sympathy vote,’ I huff. ‘If you’ve heard the rumours, they’re all rubbish – I was just talking to Honey, that’s all. It was totally innocent, like when you did that maths tutoring with her last term …’

  He just shrugs. ‘I know her better than you think,’ he says. ‘We’re really close. Obviously, I didn’t believe the rumours. I don’t think anything’s going on with you and Honey – but Cherry does and that’s what matters. I happen to know that Honey wouldn’t take you back anyway. She says you’re vain and shallow –’

  ‘I’m vain and shallow?’ I echo. ‘That’s rich! This is all Honey’s fault!’

  ‘Is it?’ Anthony asks. ‘Are you sure?’

  I scowl, staring out of the window for the rest of the journey. If I stay angry, the self-pity can’t creep in, prickling my eyes with shameful tears. That can’t happen, it really can’t; boys don’t cry.

  6

  I learnt not to cry early on, soon after the incident with Ben’s go-cart. In my family, crying doesn’t earn you sympathy or hugs, just harsh words from Dad and smirks from Ben and pitying glances from Mum. It’s safer to put on a brave face, smile and hold your head high and pretend that nothing matters. You can build a wall round yourself that way, keep the hurt inside.

  The trouble is, Cherry learnt the same lesson. She lost her mum when she was a little kid, and got picked on at school too; she perfected the don’t-care mask, the smile that hid a whole heartful of pain. When we got together, it was pretty much the first time either of us had learnt to be open and honest with anyone else – we taught each other to trust.

  I’ve destroyed all of that now.

  Days crawl by. I fix my brave face on each morning and cycle to school – let’s just say it beats the school bus. After the first day or two, I begin to enjoy the cool breeze on my face, the misty mornings, the fast pedalling along twisty moorland lanes … but school itself is grim.

  Cherry acts like I don’t exist. I knew she was hurt, I knew she was angry, but I thought she’d calm down and let me put my side of the story. I didn’t think she’d shut me out, push me away, block my texts, my emails, my messages.

  Why would she do that? I’ve messed up, I know, but surely I deserve the chance to explain?

  ‘Maybe she was getting fed up with you anyhow,’ my friend Luke says helpfully.

  ‘Maybe she was planning to finish with you,’ Chris chips in. ‘Maybe all you’ve done was give her a good excuse.’

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ I say. ‘That makes me feel a whole lot better. Not.’

  ‘It was just an idea,’ Luke shrugs.

  I don’t like their idea, but I start to wonder if it might be true.

  Back home, I eat tea while listening to Ben’s latest exploits, teach the evening kayak club at the sailing school, mop out the shower block and tidy up the reception area, hide out in the den and play guitar for hours. No matter what I do, everything seems grey and pointless without Cherry.

  I sleep, and somehow I forget. I dream of moonlight and stars and sitting on the steps of the gypsy caravan with Cherry, last summer when we first met. In my dreams, the air is warm and the trees are strung with fairy lights and the two of us are talking, laughing, holding hands. We have big dreams, big hopes; and all of them are still possible.

  And then I wake up, and grim reality crashes back in.

  Tuesday turns into Wednesday, Wednesday into Thursday, and still Cherry won’t even look at me.

  What do you do when you feel so low you don’t even want to lift your head up off the pillow? When your dreams of stardom bite the dust and bring you crashing down with them? When your dad treats you like dirt and your friends think you’re crazy and the only girl you ever really cared about ditches you because you tried to stop your ex running away to London?

  You write a song.

  You stay up late night after night down by the ocean, playing sad melodies until the words you cannot say to her in the daytime fall out of your mouth and drift into the darkness, making patterns with the music, pulling the sadness from your soul and turning it into something new, something better, something beautiful.

  The song is called ‘Bittersweet’, and it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done – it’s a pity Cherry won’t ever get to hear it.

  ‘Bittersweet’ says all the things I want to say but can’t – if Cherry heard it she would understand, surely? She’d know that I’m sorry.

  If I had the guts, I would pick up my guitar, walk over to Tanglewood House and play my new song in the moonlight beneath her window. The trouble is Cherry has the attic room; she might not even hear me, and knowing my luck Summer and Skye would spot me first and chuck a bucket of water over me. Or possibly boiling oil?

  I sink on to a rock at the water’s edge instead, pick up my guitar and start to play, losing myself in the song:

  A seagull’s call cuts through the misty morning

  Sunlight hasn’t touched the blankets yet …

  I hear your voice whisper in my waking dream,

  And tell myself you’re here, and I forget –

  How yesterday your smiling eyes they left me;

  How yesterday your heart it turned away;

  Last night I dreamt of cherry-blossom trees, but now

  Comes the bittersweet reality of day …

  As the last chorus fades away, I hear gentle clapping from behind me and jerk round to see a shadowy figure against the cliffs.. Hope floods me and I drop the guitar, scramble to my feet.

&n
bsp; ‘Cherry?’

  But Honey Tanberry steps out of the shadows, and my heart sinks.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Shay,’ she says. ‘Of course, there was a time when you’d have been pleased to see me …’

  ‘Huh,’ I snap. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s a free country, isn’t it? Last time I checked, this wasn’t your private stretch of beach.’

  I scowl. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble?’

  ‘Me?’ she echoes, wide-eyed. ‘Shay, it was you who lied to Cherry!’

  ‘But you stirred things up,’ I remind her. ‘And you enjoyed it.’

  ‘Maybe I did,’ she admits. ‘The way I see it, Cherry had it coming – she did the same to me, didn’t she?’

  ‘It wasn’t the same at all,’ I say firmly. ‘What happened last summer was my fault, not Cherry’s, but you’ve never let either of us forget it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing wasn’t one big set-up, designed to split us up!’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Honey huffs, her eyes flashing anger. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Shay. What happened last summer is over with – I’ve moved on. I had way bigger things on my mind this Monday than you and your moody little girlfriend!’

  I sigh, sitting down again as the truth of this sinks in.

  ‘I guess,’ I admit. ‘Sorry, Honey.’

  ‘I have to admit I’ve kind of enjoyed the fallout, though,’ she grins. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you to mess up so spectacularly, Shay, but I was wrong. And Cherry is just as stupid and stubborn as you are, moping and mooning around like it’s the end of the world but too proud to do anything to fix it. Too bad.’

  ‘She’s moping?’ I say, suddenly hopeful. ‘She misses me?’

  ‘Like I told you, she’s not very bright,’ Honey shrugs. ‘She misses you, but she’s really hurt … Skye and Summer and Coco are telling her to be brave, stay strong. And none of them will talk to me! What a joke!’

  ‘But we didn’t do anything,’ I argue. ‘Nothing wrong, anyway!’

  ‘Tell her that,’ Honey sighs. ‘I already know.’

  ‘She won’t take my calls or read my messages or texts,’ I say. ‘I’m doomed.’

  ‘Maybe you’re better off without her?’

  Honey leans down towards me, brushing the hair from my face. Her fingers stroke my cheek, trace the shape of my lips, slide softly down my throat to rest on my collarbone. I close my eyes, my breathing suddenly ragged. I have never felt as lost or lonely as I do right now, and it would be good, so good, to hold someone close.

  But the person I want to hold close is not Honey.

  I pull back abruptly, and my ex-girlfriend laughs, tugging the beanie hat I always wear down over my face, turning the whole thing into a joke.

  ‘Hey, you can’t blame a girl for trying,’ she says, flopping down on to a rock a safe distance away. ‘I guess you really are missing Cherry – how else could you resist me? Better tell her, Shay. Stuff the emails and texts, be direct. Paint it in three-foot-high letters along the playing-field fence at school … do SOMETHING!’

  ‘Well, I wrote her a song …’

  ‘Is that what you were playing before?’ she asks. ‘Nice one. Mopey, but nice. Why don’t you put it online and send her the link? Declare your love for all to see? She’d fall for that, I bet!’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I think,’ Honey says. ‘Play it again and I’ll film it for you and email it over. You can do whatever you like with it then.’

  She perches on the rock, fiddling with her mobile, while I pick up the guitar and strum some chords. Then I start to play properly, and I forget that Honey is watching, filming. I put everything into the music … my heart, my soul, my feelings for Cherry.

  I lose myself and find myself again.

  And then the song is over, and the music lets go of me and I focus again, seeing Honey, the mobile, the empty beach, the sunset fading into darkness. Nothing is different. My life is still in ruins and my girlfriend hates me, and I am hanging out for the second time in a week with my ex, which really, seriously, cannot be a good thing.

  Honey puts away her mobile, stands up.

  ‘I’m not a total bitch, you know,’ she says quietly. ‘I’ve tried telling Cherry that nothing happened on Monday. I swore there was no funny business, but she didn’t believe me. Why do people never believe me?’

  I can think of a few reasons, but I say nothing. Honey is a magnet for trouble, but she has a sweet side too and right now she is trying to do something useful, something to fix up the mess the two of us have created between us.

  ‘I’ll load this on to my laptop and email it over to you,’ she says. ‘I hope you can patch things up. Really. And I hope your dad has a personality transplant and works out that he has two talented sons, not just one. It sucks about Wrecked Rekords.’

  ‘It does,’ I say. ‘Thanks for trying to help.’

  She pauses, the wind catching her hair. ‘You really love her, don’t you?’ she says. ‘Cherry. That’s cute. Really. Don’t mess it up.’

  She turns away, and I am almost certain I can see the glint of tears in her eyes.

  7

  I sleep late on Friday, and as I’m scrambling into my school clothes, my mobile rings: Finch.

  ‘Hello, mate,’ I say. ‘How’s life in the big city?’

  ‘Pretty dull compared to the dramas going on down your way,’ he responds coolly. ‘I was speaking to Skye last night. I never had you down as a love-cheat. What are you playing at, Shay?’

  I sigh. How could I forget that Finch and Skye were an item? They were practically joined at the hip all summer. Looks like I just lost another friend.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ I tell him. ‘Seriously.’

  ‘So what was it like?’

  I talk to Finch and the whole story spills out: Honey threatening to run away, Cherry calling at just the wrong moment, how trying to help turned into a disaster. I tell him about the awkward moment in the school canteen when Cherry saw her stepsister’s thank-you hug and got the wrong idea, how the school grapevine took it and blew it out of all proportion, turned me into a lying love-rat.

  ‘There was really nothing in it?’ Finch checks. ‘What a mess. Mate, you’d better set the record straight quick because right now you are not popular with the Tanberry-Costello family.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I say. ‘I’m not popular with anyone lately. It sucks.’

  ‘Gotta go, mate,’ Finch says. ‘School’s calling, and I’m helping in the studio later. They’re filming the last few studio scenes for the movie. Good luck with Cherry!’

  ‘I’ll need it!’

  By the time I end the call, it’s too late to even think about cycling to school. Looks like I’ll be braving the bus – and if I survive that, I might try yet again to screw up my courage and talk to Cherry. Finch is right – the longer I leave it, the worse it will be. Today I will swallow my pride and tell Cherry exactly what happened, even if it means grovelling a little. Or a lot.

  I grab a quick smoothie in the kitchen while Mum, Dad and Ben sit down to a full-English. Dad is sorting through his post and passes a long white envelope across to Ben.

  ‘Sheffield Hallam University,’ he comments, looking at the postmark. ‘What the heck do they want? You went to Birmingham!’

  Ben takes the envelope and slices it open, unfolding the sheaves of paper inside. He scans the contents, smiles, then folds it up and puts it back again.

  ‘Mistake, is it?’ Dad presses. ‘Just bin it, son. No worries.’

  ‘It’s not a mistake,’ Ben says.
/>   ‘Oh?’

  ‘They do a great postgrad course at Sheffield,’ Ben says carelessly. ‘I can turn my degree into a teaching qualification.’

  Dad pauses, a chunk of black pudding speared on his fork, hovering in mid-air.

  ‘Why would you want to do that, Ben?’ he asks quietly.

  My brother shrugs. ‘I’d like to teach,’ he says. ‘I’ve always enjoyed teaching the kids at the sailing centre, and it got me thinking about what I want to do with my life.’

  Mum moves her chair back from the table and stands, scraping her half-empty plate into the bin and catching my eye with an anxious expression. I don’t blame her – I’m feeling anxious too.

  ‘You already know what you’re doing with your life, Ben,’ Dad is saying. ‘You’re going to work alongside me, at the sailing centre – and take over one day. It’s understood.’

  ‘Not by me,’ Ben shrugs. ‘I’ve never actually said that was what I wanted, Dad. I’ve tried to tell you about this a million times – you never listen.’

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ Dad snaps. ‘It’s nonsense. You don’t need to do a postgrad course. Why would you want to be a poxy PE teacher, running round after snotty-nosed kids? I need you here – I’m happy to give you more freedom within the business, listen to your ideas – and in a year or two I’ll make you the general manager.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Ben says. ‘Helping out at the sailing centre has only ever been temporary for me. I want to teach, and this course is one of the best in the country.’

  Dad looks bewildered. He is used to Ben doing exactly as he suggests – I guess we all are.

  ‘Well,’ he blusters. ‘We’ll talk about it. Not many young men get to walk into a managerial job in the family business. I admire your independent streak, but we’re in a recession right now, son. A job means security, a future …’

  ‘Dad,’ Ben says patiently. ‘I’m sorry. I’m going to do the postgrad course at Sheffield. It’s all decided.’