Chapter 29
Dustin
‘Mum said to tell you a letter came for you.’
I have just returned from one of my regular walks with Zara (we are limited in our range of activities here) and Alicia is slouched in front of the TV. Elliott and Mum are, I assume, both at work. I am so focused on wrestling a grizzly Zara out of her pram that it takes me a moment to register what Alicia has said. We’ve barely spoken since our failed bonding smoke.
‘What did you say?’
‘Letter for you.’
‘For me?’
‘That’s what I said, wasn’t it? It’s on the kitchen table apparently.’
Alicia turns her attention back to the TV and, placing Zara securely on the sofa, I go into the kitchen. Sure enough, there’s the letter. A small white envelope, with my name and address on the front and a stamp stuck at a wonky angle in the top right-hand corner. I recognise the scratchy block capitals at once though. I go back through to the living room and perch next to Zara on the sofa. Part of me wants to tear it open, and part of me never wants to see what’s inside. What if it’s a letter from Willow? What if she’s writing to tell me she’s never coming back? In the end I decide the plaster option is best. Rip it off, get it over and done with. So I do, I rip open the envelope and empty the contents onto my lap.
‘Oh that’s pretty,’ Alicia says, obviously forgetting she’s supposed to be stroppy with me as I hold the necklace up to the light.
‘Yeah,’ I breathe.
‘Let’s have a look. I feel like I recognise that necklace.’ Alicia holds out her hand to take it and I quickly move it out of her reach. She can’t touch it.
‘Fine,’ she says moodily and slumps back into her chair. But for once I don’t care about upsetting Alicia. I’m too focused on the necklace in my hand, the delicate chain and, secured at the end, a tiny silver angel.
Willow’s necklace.
I check the envelope for a slip of paper, a scrawled message, anything. But there’s nothing.
I exhale and flop back against the sofa.
Why, Willow? Why?
Chapter 30
Willow
Then – May 2018
Dustin stayed round again last night. He stays over most Saturday nights after we’ve been out, and then we spend Sunday mornings lazing around before making a Sunday roast with Gran. This has become a routine now. He likes it, I like it, Gran likes it. I do go round to Dustin’s, just … not as much. It’s a bit more stressful for both of us. After one drink too many last night, Dustin decided to open up about how his mum is giving him a hard time about him staying over mine so much, which makes me feel great.
Right now Dustin is still crashed out, dead to the world. I prop myself up on my elbow, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest. He looks so relaxed. I can’t imagine I’m ever that relaxed, even when I’m sleeping.
Dustin’s phone pings with a new message, and quickly I grab it to silence it. But then I see the message. It’s from his mum.
Are you going to apologise yet?
I sneak a glance back at Dustin, and he’s still asleep. My fingers hover over his screen. This is a bad thing to do, Willow. It’s a breach of privacy.
But still I type in his passcode. I read the message.
And I don’t seem to stop there, I scroll up.
Are you eating dinner at home?
Not tonight Mum, eating at Willow’s.
Of course you are.
What do you mean by that?
There’s a half-hour gap between that and the next message.
I think you know, Dustin.
I scroll back up again, past the first message to those from the last few weeks. There are masses of them.
Ever since you met her you’ve lost all your drive. You’re throwing your life away.
She’s letting you waste your time in that coffee shop whilst she’s off studying. But would she do the same for you? Mark my words, she’ll go off to university and live her life and you’ll be stuck with nothing.
I don’t trust her, Dustin. You’re the one giving all your time to this relationship, what are you getting out of it?
And then I find myself lingering on one conversation, a month ago.
No, I’m being honest Dustin. I’m telling you this because I love you.
She loves me.
Not as much as I do.
I put the phone down. I don’t want to read any more. I’m disgusted with myself for looking at his phone, but what I’ve read makes me feel physically sick. I wish I could unsee those messages.
But I can’t, so I crawl back into bed with Dustin, my heart pounding in my chest.
She hates me.
What if Dustin starts hating me too?
Somehow I manage to put the messages out of my mind and the day passes as normal. Over lunch I tell Gran and Dustin about my plans to learn to drive, and they make jokes about the poor drivers on the road, and how they will need to make crash helmets a legal requirement, etc, etc, and I roll my eyes and ignore them. This has become our MO, Gran and Dustin teasing me and me pretending to get cross. It’s amazing how easily we slip into it. But then Dustin’s phone pings a few more times, and he says he needs to leave now, and I know the reason, and a pit of sadness whirls in my stomach. But I kiss him, hug him, and say I will see him tomorrow. I guess it isn’t an awful thing, it gives me more time to revise anyway.
As we are clearing the table, Gran keeps pausing and looking at me; she wants to tell me something. I take the plates into the kitchen, pop them in the dishwasher and come back, and she’s still staring at me.
‘What?’ I ask.
Gran sighs, her face dropping. ‘It’s not working, hon … I was going to wait and tell you.’
I frown at her. ‘Sorry?’
She sighs. ‘I miss Brighton.’
‘So do I, Gran, Brighton is special,’ I say, wrapping my arms around her, embracing her in a hug. I notice she is tense, she doesn’t hug back. I pull back, watching her.
‘Oh,’ I say, as I watch her guilty expression. ‘You want to move back?’
Gran sighs again. ‘We are moving back.’
I step away again. ‘What?’
‘After your exams. I’ve given notice with the landlord.’
‘Without asking me? Gran, I have a life here, finally. Finally I fit in. I have friends, I have a boyfriend, I nearly have a job. And you’re taking me away from that.’
‘I don’t have the life here I had at home. And Auntie Jayne has had her operation, she doesn’t need us any more. And I thought because you’ll be at uni it wouldn’t matter as much. I actually did some research and the halls are supposed to be really nice. I’d pay the extra money for you!’
‘But I wasn’t going to stay there! I never was going to go to halls. Do you realise how far Reading is from Brighton? And I don’t drive. How would I afford to see Dustin, how would I afford to see my friends?’
‘But the halls … ’
‘I don’t want to stay at halls, Gran.’
‘Ah, Willow,’ she says, taking a step closer to me. ‘I thought you’d have wanted to stay there! What about if I look into buying you some driving lessons? I just thought … that it was a money thing, that’s why you were adamant about staying at home. I thought—’
‘No, Gran, you didn’t think. I wanted to stay at home so I was with you and Dustin.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I back away. ‘You’re not, or you wouldn’t have done it.’
Chapter 31
Dustin
I am still crying when Mum comes home from work in the early afternoon. Slumped at the kitchen table, Willow’s necklace clutched in my hand, I haven’t been able to stop since the envelope arrived. Alicia tried to ask me what was wrong, but I couldn’t get the words out. After a while she slipped away awkwardly, taking Zara with her, and for the first time I didn’t mind that my daughter wasn’t glued to my side. It was probably better for her not to see me li
ke this.
‘Oh, sweetheart, what’s happened?’ Mum drops the bags of shopping in each hand and rushes to throw her arms around me.
For what feels like hours we stay like that, her cradling my head in her arms, stroking my hair slowly and rhythmically, telling me over and over that everything will be OK, I’m not to worry, she’s there. Just like she would when I was eight and had woken up from a nightmare.
I need to tell her now, I need to tell my mum everything because I can’t deal with any of this any more. Any minute now I’m going to fall apart, break into a million tiny pieces, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to put them together again.
‘She’s left me, Mum.’
‘Who, darling?’
‘Willow,’ I sniff. ‘We didn’t break up, at least, if we did I didn’t know about it. I just came home from work and she had gone. There was just this letter and … ’ My breath is so jagged it’s a wonder Mum can understand any of what I’m saying. ‘And I have no clue where she is, or why she … why she went or if she’s OK and she won’t answer any of my messages or Georgia’s … and … and she’s also been sending me stuff and I don’t know what it means and my head is such a mess and I just don’t think I can … ’
I lapse back into sobs and Mum says nothing, still stroking my hair, until my breathing slows again.
‘I needed to tell you,’ I whisper into her shoulder.
‘It’s OK, Dustin,’ she says, squeezing me tighter. ‘It’s OK.’
I hug her back. For the first time in over two weeks, I feel something like calm. Why didn’t I just tell Mum everything straight away?
‘My poor baby boy,’ Mum mutters. ‘I don’t know what she thinks she’s playing at. Still, it was only a matter of time, really, wasn’t it, darling?’
I freeze, and pull back, looking at her. ‘Mum … ’
‘What, hon?’
I shake my head slowly. ‘Please don’t.’
‘Well you know what my thoughts were, I made that quite clear at the time. I always thought she was very selfish, keeping you waiting around for her like that.’
I get up angrily. ‘Mum, don’t talk shit about her, I’m worried about her. I love her.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Now Mum is on her feet too. ‘Don’t tell me you still haven’t seen the light? She obviously doesn’t love you, otherwise she’d never have left you like this. Left her own child. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that girl was incapable of real love … what kind of mother abandons her own daughter, for Christ’s sake?’
I am trembling with rage, all tears banished. ‘What is your problem? What have you got against Willow? You’ve always hated her and—’
‘Is it any wonder?’ Mum is really shouting now. ‘When this is the kind of thing she does? But you’ve always been blind to it, Dustin, you’ve always been so stupid in that way. Tunnel vision for a girl who doesn’t care … ’
‘You’ve always been jealous of her,’ I yell. ‘Jealous of your own son’s girlfriend. It’s pathetic. You were so scared she’d take me away but in the end she didn’t need to, did she? You drove me away yourself.’
The words are out of my mouth before I can take them back. Silence echoes around our kitchen and I can see Mum’s jaw twitch.
‘You’re just like your bloody father,’ she said quietly. ‘Pissing off and abandoning your family then acting like it’s everyone’s fault but yours. Well, maybe it’s only right you’ve had a taste of your own medicine.’
I stare at her for a moment. Then I turn and leave the kitchen and keep going out through the front door, slamming it shut behind me.
Chapter 32
Willow
Then – May 2018
I can drink at the pub now. Yay to being eighteen, not so yay to the situation I’m in. I wait till I’m a few drinks down, I need the confidence.
I wonder what Dustin will think about Gran. He adores her. He calls her his fashion icon, Beautiful Mary, the Lady with Silver Hair Whose Earrings Always Match Her Clothes. She always giggles when Dustin says she’s his favourite. And she always says he’s a charmer.
‘Dustin, I have something to tell you.’
He sips his beer and grins at me. ‘If you’re asking to finish my pint, then yes, I guess you can. See, this is how much I love you.’
I watch him, feeling sadness creep over me. He’s doing the classic Dustin thing, of finding fun in every second of life, but he won’t be laughing in a minute. I want to dive inside his head, find out what he sees in me, what he thinks about when we’re together. I remember when living used to feel like just existing, but then I met him and everything changed. He gave my life purpose and meaning, he gave me meaning. What happens when I move away? Is that all going to fall apart? I take a deep breath.
‘Gran is moving back to Brighton,’ I blurt out.
It takes a second for Dustin’s grin to fall.
‘Wait … what?’
My heart is pounding in my ribcage.
‘Willow, what did you say?’ he says again, sliding his pint glass onto the table and taking me by the shoulders.
I close my eyes. ‘She’s … she’s moving back to Brighton,’ I mumble.
‘And does that mean you’re going … you’re going too?’
When I force myself to look at him again his eyes are filled with horror.
Neither of us has jobs – Dustin got fired from the coffee shop, he took too many ‘sick’ days on a Saturday, after we’d been to the White Hart the previous evening; he has applied for a few part-time retail jobs, and hasn’t heard anything back – and neither of us drives. We don’t have the money to pay for train tickets.
But maybe I’m overestimating how he’s feeling. Maybe he just throws the word love around, whereas I now realise that my love is all-consuming, overwhelming. I can’t control my love. Don’t cry, Willow, don’t cry.
‘Willow, does that mean you are moving too?’ he asks again, his eyes burrowing into mine.
Unable to look away from him, I nod slowly.
‘Shit.’ Dustin’s jaw clenches. ‘Why does Mary want to move back?’ he says.
‘This isn’t her home,’ I say, though I don’t really understand her myself. ‘I guess she misses Brighton. She didn’t think about how it would affect me. I was pretty annoyed at her, but I guess eventually she has to do things for her, rather than thinking about me, which she has done the last eighteen years.’
Dustin wipes his eyes angrily. Is he crying?
‘Dustin, please,’ I say, and can hear the tremor in my voice. ‘Don’t get upset.’
‘You’re going to break up with me?’ he says.
I take his hands in mine. ‘No, of course not, I don’t want to go.’
‘But I thought—’
‘It’s not my choice. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you. Leave the first group of friends I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t know what I’m going to do about uni, I don’t know if I will be able to commute. My life is down here. But I’ve got nowhere else to stay. And I want my gran to be happy. As much as Gran pretends she doesn’t, she feels lonely here. Loneliness can do bad things to people. She needs to go home. She needs to think about herself.’
He looks up to me, squeezing my hands. ‘I can be your home.’
‘I know, one day, but this is about Gran.’
‘Live with me.’
I sigh, letting go of his hands. ‘Your mum doesn’t like me, she’s only just started letting me come round again, after the weed thing.’
About a month ago, Dustin and I had come back to his late at night to find his mum waiting for us in the living room, holding the bag of cannabis Dustin keeps in his bedside drawer. It didn’t matter how much Dustin argued with her, she was insistent that he would never have been smoking that stuff before he met me. Which shows how little she knows me. I don’t touch it.
‘Mum just overreacts. You know she worries about losing me or whatever … but if we lived at mine we’d see her more,
she’d be more relaxed and she wouldn’t be worried about that stuff any more.’ He takes my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. ‘Would you feel comfortable staying there?’
‘If it means I get to stay with you,’ I say. He kisses my forehead, before encasing me in a hug. ‘I know she’s not all bad,’ I whisper into his chest. ‘She just cares about you.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, planting another kiss on my head. ‘She cares a lot, and this will be a good thing. I’ll talk to her tomorrow. Don’t worry, Willow, it will all be fine. I promise.’
He looks at me. Even in the darkness I can see him smiling at me, as he sips from his beer bottle. It was his idea to walk back from the pub, which is usually a ten-minute drive, and it has taken ages, but I don’t mind. I have his coat on, and his hand in my hand. We are just approaching the park when suddenly his legs buckle beneath him, and he falls to the ground.
Oh my God.
‘Dustin! Dustin?’ I shout, dropping to the ground next to him. He doesn’t reply, his eyes fixed on the sky above him.
‘Dustin, are you OK? Oh my God. Are you all right?’
‘It’s crippling … ’
My heart is pounding. ‘What is? What’s crippling?’
‘Wills,’ he whispers faintly. ‘It’s overwhelming … ’
I bring my face towards his so that I can hear him better, my breath coming in sharp pants.
‘I just … ’ he mumbles.
‘What?! Shall I call an ambulance?’
‘I just … I just love you so … so … much.’
I pause.
He turns his head, a cheeky grin forming on his face.
Oh my God.
He starts laughing. I scowl at him.
‘For God’s sake, Dustin, I thought something was wrong with you.’
‘It is, I’m in love with you, that’s what’s wrong with me.’
‘You’re a … a Di … a D bag!’
He smirks. ‘Oh, have you just made that up? I like that.’
I sigh and roll my eyes. He keeps laughing as he grabs me, pulling me onto the ground next to him. He wraps his arms around mine, as I try my hardest to stay annoyed. Why is he like this?
The Missing Pieces of Me: Discover the novel that will break your heart and mend it again Page 12
