Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘You look fabulous,’ Emma says. ‘I’ve got you some pizza and dips, and a bag of salted caramel popcorn. Boys like that sort of thing. When he comes, I’ll say hello and then pop across the road for a coffee with Josie. If you need me you know where I am. Your dad’s working late again tonight, so that won’t be a problem.’

  ‘Emma, thanks!’ I say, and I mean it. Emma has been brilliant since I told her about Riley’s proposed visit yesterday afternoon, genuinely pleased that I am settling in and making friends. Last night we dragged the Christmas tree down from the loft, wrapped it in sparkly pink lights and hung Emma’s designer glass ornaments on it – it looks like something out of a style magazine, seriously. Back home we have a real tree, lopsided, shedding needles, decorated with a million mismatched decorations made and accumulated over the years; it would never win any prizes for style.

  ‘Your dad won’t be too keen if he thinks this is a date,’ Emma reminds me. ‘He really does expect you to swear off boys for the next ten years, but you and I both know that isn’t very fair. You’re only human! I remember being fifteen … I used to fall in love every other day!’

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ I tell her. ‘We hardly know each other. We’re just … friends.’ I cross my fingers behind my back and hope for the best.

  ‘If you say so,’ Emma says. ‘Still, it’s nice to see you having some fun. Greg has been a bit stressed lately, with lots of big contracts on the line at work, but I know he thinks the world of you. He’s just not used to having a teenager around.’

  I blink, speechless. I do not want apologies and excuses from Emma for my dad’s angry outburst, no matter how well-meaning.

  ‘When I told Greg you had a friend coming over, I think he assumed it would be a girl,’ Emma goes on. ‘We don’t need to tell him any different! You can watch the film in the living room, so everything’s out in the open and above board.’

  ‘Oh … can’t we just watch it in my room?’

  Emma squeezes my arm. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you,’ she says. ‘I do, of course, but I think it’s best to keep things light and friendly. As you said, you don’t know each other well, and it might just give the wrong impression. Now, when did you say he was due?’

  ‘He just said straight after school,’ I say. ‘He didn’t give a specific time.’

  Emma smiles and I set my laptop up on the coffee table, checking the Watch-Again link. Once I’m happy it’s all working properly, I plump up a few cushions on the cream leather sofa and open the popcorn and pour it into a bowl. Where is he?

  I flick open a window on SpiderWeb in case Riley’s sent a message, but there’s nothing, so I flop down on to the sofa and pick up a handful of popcorn.

  ‘He’s travelling from the other side of the city,’ I tell Emma. ‘So, he could be a little bit late …’

  ‘Where does he live exactly?’ Emma asks.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Is he coming by bus or by train? Or is he getting a lift?’

  ‘I don’t know. Look, Emma, why don’t you just go over to Josie’s? I’ll send you a text when Riley gets here, if you like?’

  ‘No, no, I don’t mind waiting,’ she insists. ‘No trouble.’

  When Riley hasn’t shown up by half six, I’m struggling to keep my cool and Emma’s expression has gone from excited to embarrassed, pitying. She says something kind about a mix-up with the times, and nips across the road to see her friend, leaving me alone with my shame. He hasn’t messaged or texted, and stupidly, although I gave him my mobile number, I didn’t think of asking for his. Why would he say he was coming over and then not bother? Has he got the arrangements muddled? Or did something else come up, something more interesting than me?

  Why did I even ask him? I’ve only met him once, for a couple of minutes; when I picture us together the images morph into memories of me and Shay from long ago. The early morning SpiderWeb chats have made me feel like I know him, but was any of that even real? Bennie was right – my relationship with Riley was all fantasy, just a SpiderWeb flirtation. I wish I’d left things that way; I wouldn’t be feeling so let down now.

  I’m still hurt that Ash turned me down too, although I’d never admit that to anyone.

  I open my laptop and type.

  Riley? What’s up? Did I get the day wrong? Is everything OK?

  I press Send, but there’s no reply, no matter how many times I look.

  When Emma comes back at half eight, I pretend Riley messaged to cancel, and she puts an arm round my shoulders and tells me no boy is worth getting upset over. My mobile buzzes with the first of many messages from Tara and Bennie asking how things have gone; I switch it off and tell Emma I’ve got a headache, retreating to my bedroom. I curl up on the bed and stare blankly at the ceiling for hours, until I hear Dad’s car pull up and the sound of the two of them talking.

  He doesn’t come in to see me, so I have no way of knowing what Emma has told him. My head is hurting and my heart aches with self-pity. I imagine Riley, drinking beer at some wild student party; and Ash, walking along a moonlit beach with some unknown girl.

  What is it about me? What makes me so unlovable, so easy to walk away from? I wish I knew. Dad used to tell me I was his best girl, his princess, but that didn’t matter one bit when he decided he’d stopped loving Mum. In the end, I wasn’t wanted. I was left behind, thrown away like yesterday’s rubbish, and the hurt inside me slowly turned to anger.

  I’ve travelled halfway round the world to be with Dad. I’ve worked my socks off at the dullest school in the known universe, stayed in almost every night, washed dishes, been nice to Emma and bitten my tongue every time I felt a snarky remark bubbling up to the surface. Well, almost every time. I’ve tried my hardest, but guess what? Dad still doesn’t have time for me, even now we are living under the same roof.

  I push the thought away; sometimes the truth hurts too much.

  At midnight I eat cold pizza that tastes of cardboard and watch Scarlet Ribbons on Watch-Again, remembering the summer holidays at Tanglewood and the filming, when I still thought I could have it all, before I messed up one time too many. Watching myself in the movie is like watching a stranger – another version of me, brighter, braver, brimful of spiky, sassy backchat. I am wearing long petticoats and a cotton dress the colour of bluebells, my hair pinned up with fake plaits and a straw hat. It’s like seeing some ghostly, past-life version of myself, someone long gone. When I look in the mirror now I can’t see anything bright or brave or sassy. I just see a lost girl, someone who has run out of options. Can a person unravel so fast?

  I wish you could edit the past, delete the bits you don’t want any more.

  Kitnor looks beautiful in the movie, of course, with its lush, moss-green fields and little, twisty trees, its pebbled beaches stretching down to a silver sea. In the background, behind the real actors, I catch sight of people I know: Coco, dressed in a red pinafore, pulling Humbug the sheep on a lead; Finch, Skye’s holiday romance; there’s no Skye because she was working on the costumes behind the scenes, and no Summer because this was round about the time she started to get ill.

  As the film ends, the credits go up and Shay’s song ‘Bittersweet’, the song he wrote for Cherry, begins to play. It fits the mood of the film perfectly, and my mood too, with its talk of lost love and regrets.

  Shay … he left me too, of course. I thought he’d always be there for me, but my new stepsister came along and stole him. ‘I tried to make you happy,’ Shay said when we broke up. ‘I tried my hardest, but I can’t, Honey – only you can do that. You’re beautiful on the outside, but inside you’re all eaten up with hurt. It’s like some kind of poison. You have to stop being so angry, so destructive, so … lost. I can’t cope with it any more.’

  He walked away, and what was left of my heart just crumbled.

  Maybe Shay was right. Maybe inside I am all eaten up with poison, and nobody will ever love me. I lie awake most of the night, tossing and turning in t
he humid heat.

  Hope it all went well and you’re just not answering my texts because you’re all loved up and happy. Can’t wait to see you at school to get all the juicy details!

  B xx

  14

  My messed-up, jet-lagged head decides to fall asleep just when everyone else is getting up, and I sleep through the alarm.

  Emma shakes me awake at eight, and Dad calls out that he’ll give me a lift to school if I can be ready in ten minutes flat. I dive into the shower, drag on my uniform, grab my bag and sprint out on to the driveway just as Dad is backing the car out. I realize I’ve forgotten my mobile and my pencil case, but too bad. I fall into the passenger seat and hook the seat belt across just as the door slams shut.

  Any hopes of a nice father–daughter bonding moment after Dad’s angry outburst the other night are quickly squashed.

  ‘Planning, Honey,’ Dad says, without a trace of irony. ‘If you want your life to run smoothly, plan in advance and always allow enough time to get to where you want to be. These things make a difference.’

  I try to smile, but it’s not easy while applying lipgloss in a moving car and listening to Dad’s life lessons at the same time.

  Does he know how hard it is to listen to this kind of thing when your life is a train crash? If you want your life to run smoothly, choose parents who stick together through thick and thin and boys who turn up when they say they will, I think.

  ‘Just a blip,’ I say out loud. ‘My sleep patterns are still out of sync – I had about an hour’s sleep.’

  ‘You look awful,’ he says, and I sigh and pull out the concealer to wipe away the dark shadows under my eyes.

  Dad brakes suddenly to let a van out from one of the side roads, and I drop the concealer and have to scrabble on the floor for it. As my fingers fumble around, they close on something small and cold and metallic, and I open my hand to reveal an earring, silver and expensive-looking with a red stone. Emma usually wears simple gold hoops, but she must have gone flash for a special night out.

  ‘Emma’s lost an earring,’ I say, holding it up.

  Dad swerves the car in towards the kerb, a hundred metres away from the school gates.

  ‘It’s not Emma’s,’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘I think it might belong to that Malaysian client Emma and I took out to dinner the other week. I’ll see it’s returned.’

  A memory stirs, something niggling and just out of reach from long ago. The lost earring reminds me of something, but I can’t figure out what.

  ‘Honey? The earring?’

  ‘Oh … right,’ I say, handing it over. ‘No worries. Thanks for the lift. See you later, Dad!’

  School is agony. Tara and Bennie are lying in wait, demanding all the gossip on my date with Riley. I tell them that he didn’t turn up, trying to turn it into a joke, but my eyes mist over as I speak and after that they treat me like some sort of injured kitten, to be stroked and protected and spoken to in hushed whispers. It makes me want to scream.

  I stumble through the day as though I’m wading through porridge. My head is fuzzy from lack of sleep and wisps of memory tease me, hinting of something forgotten and significant. I just can’t hang on to the thoughts for long enough to make sense of them.

  Worse, something weird is going on with my classmates. It’s not everyone, but a few of the girls are looking at me strangely, disapprovingly. It’s like there’s some kind of joke at my expense, only nobody is actually laughing.

  ‘Did you blab about Riley?’ I ask my friends. ‘Because people are giving me some really odd looks.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Bennie frowns.

  ‘We wouldn’t,’ Tara chimes in. ‘Promise. There’s always some silly rumour going around in this place, but it won’t be anything to do with you.’

  I can’t help worrying, though. After study group, a couple of maths quiz girls, who have been quite friendly to me up till now, hang around on the school porch and tell Tara and Bennie there’s a team meeting down at the beach cafe.

  ‘OK,’ Tara says. ‘You coming, Honey?’

  I’d rather go home and sleep for a week, but I don’t get a chance to reply.

  A girl called Liane, who sits next to me in art class, steps forward. ‘Sorry,’ she says, giving me the same slightly sneery look I’ve been getting all day. ‘Quiz team people only. We’re discussing tactics for the Christmas quiz against the boys’ school. I know you have your own tactics for dealing with boys, Honey, but in the maths quiz it’s all about brains, not sleaze.’

  ‘Sorry?’ I echo, slightly stunned. ‘What did you just say?’

  Liane raises an eyebrow, then turns to link arms with her friends; they are already walking away.

  ‘What just happened?’ I ask Tara and Bennie. ‘Do those girls have a problem with me?’

  ‘Ignore them,’ Bennie says. ‘They have a problem with everyone!’

  ‘I don’t think she meant to be so rude,’ Tara adds, looking baffled. ‘She’s just … tactless. We should go, if it’s about the maths quiz, but you should come too, Honey, no matter what Liane says.’

  I think there is more to this than a tactless comment. A feeling of unease unfurls in my stomach, a feeling that’s been building all day. Something’s wrong, but Liane’s words have stirred up the rebel in me. I’m not going to let some crazy maths geek tell me what I can and can’t do.

  ‘I’ll come,’ I say. ‘Who does she think she is? The cafe’s a public place!’

  We walk along to the beach together, and I try to shake off the foggy, muddled feeling that has plagued me all day. I’m listening to Tara and Bennie talk about how Liane is totally out of order when I zone out again, and the long-ago memories begin to link up. We were driving home through the lanes near Tanglewood, after a picnic on the moors, everyone laughing and talking at once; getting out of the car, Coco held up an earring she’d found trapped in the corner of the back seat, a small gold hoop. The atmosphere turned frosty then, and later on, once we were safely in bed, an epic row blew up between Mum and Dad …

  ‘Honey?’ Tara is saying, waving a hand in front of my face. ‘Hello? You were miles away!’

  We’re at Sunset Beach, crossing the boardwalk that leads to the cafe.

  ‘I was remembering something,’ I tell her. ‘From years ago. Nothing important really; something that happened this morning must have triggered it …’

  ‘OK,’ Tara says. ‘Look, we’d better sit with Liane and the team. Are you coming over?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m very welcome somehow,’ I reply. ‘I’ll see you after your meeting, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Bennie says with a grin. ‘No flirting with Ash, mind!’

  ‘As if!’

  The chances of my flirting with Ash are actually zero after his brush-off the other day. Compared to Riley’s rejection, it’s fairly minor, but I seem to be missing a few layers of skin these days because it really hurt. I’d planned to ignore Ash and ditch my after-school trips to the cafe, but here I am again, just asking for trouble.

  I dump my schoolbag on the counter. Ash is out on the veranda, delivering a tray of Cokes to Liane’s gang amid lots of laughter and banter. I see Liane glance my way and I give her the fingers because it seems a little bit less childish than sticking my tongue out. She pretends not to see, which is even more childish in my opinion.

  Ash comes back through, and when he sees me his face lights up. It’s hard to stay frosty with him, but I do my best, and when he gets to the counter I tell him not to mess with my head because I am having a bad day and the last thing I need is more hassle.

  ‘You’re mad at me,’ he says. ‘Is it because I couldn’t come over to see your film? Because I’d have loved to, only it just wasn’t possible. Family stuff, y’know.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I reply. ‘Or, actually, don’t because I’ve had as much of it as I can take for one lifetime. OK?’

  Ash holds his hands up. ‘OK, OK … but I’m sorry, anyway. I would have explained, bu
t I was serving about a million people at the time and you kind of stormed off. And then you vanished from the face of the earth. Thought I’d scared you away.’

  ‘Trust me, you’re the least of my troubles,’ I say. ‘So what if you don’t want to hang out with me? Nobody else does either, not even my own family. At least you were upfront about it.’

  ‘I do want to hang out with you,’ Ash argues. ‘I can’t do evenings, that’s all. I live with my sister and her husband, and they work regular night shifts at the hospital. I have to look after my nieces and nephew most nights. My life is pretty much school, then job, then babysitting, with occasional library visits shoehorned in. I have no social life at all, except for this place.’

  I bite my lip. ‘You were … babysitting?’ I say. ‘Honestly? It wasn’t personal?’

  ‘Why would it be personal?’ he asks.

  ‘Because my life is a disaster,’ I tell him. ‘And trust me, it’s always personal. I am just the kind of girl who attracts trouble. Everything I touch turns to dust.’

  Ash laughs. ‘That’s rubbish,’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘Go on, try me … guaranteed not to turn to dust.’

  ‘You don’t understand!’

  ‘I do,’ he says. ‘Go on, touch and see. I’m not trouble, and I’m not made out of dust. See?’

  He presses his hand flat against my palm, warm and strong, and his fingers twine round mine, brown and white together. Nothing turns to dust except for the anger inside me. My heart beats hard. I look at Ash and his eyes hold mine for a long moment, and then I untangle my hand, untangle my eyes.

  ‘I’ll have a bit more time in the holidays,’ he says carefully, ‘if you still want to hang out. And I don’t think you’re trouble. Not at all.’

  ‘You’re wrong about that,’ I say.

  ‘I’m never wrong.’

  I smile, and wonder why a boy like Ash who is serious and kind and hardworking would choose to believe in a girl like me, when hardly anybody else in the world does. It’s a mystery.