Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey
Page 18
So … how do you start again? You shake things up, blot everything out, let the snow settle. It’s March now, and it’s snowing at Tanglewood, the kind of quick, swirling storm that blows up from nowhere and vanishes again just as fast. When the snow settles, everything looks perfect, just like the snow globe I got for Christmas. I know it won’t last for long, but that’s OK. I’m not looking for perfect any more. I’m looking for reality because mixed up with all its hurts and hardships and disappointments there are moments of pure happiness and wonder, moments when it’s all worthwhile. I curl up on the window seat of my turret room, reading a letter from Ash, pages of handwritten words that weave together to make a picture so real I can almost touch it, taste it. I think of a brown-eyed boy sitting in the sunshine, half a world away, and I know somehow that one day we’ll be together again and that will be as close to perfect as I can imagine.
I put the letter down and pick up my own pen. I’ve been writing to Ash, Bennie and Tara regularly, but there’s another, more important letter I’ve been meaning to write. I smooth out a clean sheet of paper, frowning.
What do you say? How do you begin? I have messed up so badly, for so long. I have hurt my family, done almost as much damage as Dad. There is one person I haven’t messed up with, though. I can still redeem myself, reach out to my brother, let him know he isn’t alone. I have learnt a lot about families, and though it’s a big risk, I am almost sure that Mum and Paddy and my sisters will understand why this is something I have to do.
I am not sure how to begin, how to say the things I want to say, but I take a deep breath and begin anyway.
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First published 2014
Text copyright © Cathy Cassidy, 2014
Illustrations copyright © Penguin Books Ltd, 2014
Illustrations by Sara Chadwick-Holmes
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ISBN: 978-0-141-97319-7