Melt My Heart

by Bethany Rutter

  My heart is pounding so hard I’m surprised I can’t see my chest vibrating. I have no idea what I’m going to say to her if she does show up. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t formulate any kind of excuse about results day that made sense to me or that said what I wanted to say without ensuring instant rejection and embarrassment.

  I check my phone to see what time it is, which once again shows me Cassie hasn’t been in touch. It’s eleven o’clock and there’s no Cassie-like figure stomping down the pier. I feel a lump rise in my throat. Although I knew it was possible she wouldn’t show, I hadn’t actually thought through how it would feel when she didn’t. The stinging heat, the panic of being so alone, the lost friendship which I might never be able to repair. It feels like I’m watching her run away from me in the club all over again. I close my eyes and steady my breath. I listen to the sound of the seagulls. The sound of the sea. I feel exhausted. I wish I was at home with Mum and Daisy and Princess, safe in our little cottage. But I’m here. And it’s eleven fifteen.

  I hadn’t decided how long to wait for her. But fifteen minutes feels like more than enough for someone who’s never late. I close my eyes again and start counting down from ten. If she isn’t here by the time I open my eyes, I have to go. I can’t let myself sit here all day, hoping she’ll show. I have to accept it.

  10…

  9…

  8…

  7…

  6…

  5…

  4…

  3…

  2…

  ‘Lily! Oh my god, thank god you’re still here!’

  And there she is. There she is! Cassie.

  Flustered and sweating and pale, but there. No purple lipstick. No gold lamé. Just an oversized black T-shirt and leggings. She’s still the most perfect person I’ve ever seen. ‘It’s been such a nightmare – my phone is broken, I dropped it the other night when I was pissed – the keyboard is just completely fucked, I can’t reply to anything and my bus was stuck in a traffic jam and I couldn’t even unlock it to call you let alone text you! I can’t believe how much I rely on it, it’s embarrassing.’

  ‘You’re here,’ I say in disbelief. In those ten seconds all I could see was Cassie’s horrified face when we kissed, all I could think about was how there’s no way she’d want to see me again knowing how I felt about her, and that she was probably making out with Taylor at that very second rather than coming to talk things over with me.

  ‘Of course I’m here,’ Cassie says. ‘I was so relieved when you texted me.’

  ‘Relieved?’ I ask.

  ‘I was so … embarrassed? And mixed up, I guess. And I was just grateful you even wanted to see me.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘After what I did? Kissing you like that.’ She shakes her head and closes her eyes. ‘Ugh … it was just … so stupid of me?’

  I feel confused and honestly a little thankful that she thinks she instigated it. I guess maybe I can get away with writing it off as just a drunken accident. But that wouldn’t be honest. It would be easy, though.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, turning towards her. There’s still time to fix this. Cassie is giving me a chance to take it back. I could say it didn’t mean anything and she would let me get away with it.

  My courage fails. My desire to stay truthful and own my feelings cracks. ‘It was just stupid. Just a drunk thing. Don’t worry about it.’

  And in that moment I see something break in her eyes. Something fall apart a little. ‘Yeah …’ she says, quietly. ‘That’s what I thought. Just a stupid drunk thing.’

  I rearrange my legs, buying myself a few more seconds, but my foot snags on my tote bag. The canvas falls forward. Daisy made me bring it for a reason. I can’t just back out now. I don’t want to back out now.

  I let myself be led into so many things, waking up months or weeks or days later wondering how I got there. Whether it’s a need to fit in, or just going along with what’s easy, I hardly ever get to feel like I’m really participating in my own life. But that has to stop now. I’m in control of my own life. I’m Lily Rose and I’m in love with Cassie Palmer. And I don’t want it to go back to how it was before the kiss.

  I take a deep breath. ‘But it wasn’t, was it?’

  ‘Wasn’t what?’

  ‘A drunk thing.’

  Cassie looks down at the floor. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you. I’m sorry it came out like that. I don’t want it to get between us. I love having you in my life. It’s been the best two years ever, and I’m going to miss you so much when you go away and I just … I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘So you … didn’t mean it?’ I ask, trying to understand, feeling my stomach drop further and further.

  She drags the toe of her trainer in a circle in front of her. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

  Shit, what do I say?! I reach into my bag and pull out the little stretched canvas. ‘This is … for you. Well, it is you. I never wanted to paint you before because I was scared about what I might find out about myself … I guess, it kind of revealed how I felt about you.’

  Cassie gasps and claps a hand to her mouth. ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever seen.’

  I know now that I have to be brave. That I have to be the artist of my own future. I have to paint us into existence. I just need to actually say it. To say the words. I close my eyes.

  ‘I’m in love with you,’ I say in one breath. ‘I know how easy it would have been for us to wriggle out of this whole thing without confronting it, and we could just go back to how things were before I knew how I felt about you, but I want to tell the truth. I want to shout it. I want to shout about your eyes and the way you’re never afraid to touch me. I want to tell everyone about the way you draw little cartoons of people and how patient you are, and about the little line that appears between your eyebrows when you’re staring at your phone and how you can make anything fun. I love how you seem to know exactly what I need before I know it myself. I want everyone to know you the way I know you. I think you’re the best person in the world.’

  She laughs and I open my eyes. She’s beaming at me.

  ‘I thought it was me who loved you.’ No fucking way. ‘I thought it was me who was sitting with this stupid secret, trying to work out how I felt about you and trying to pretend I didn’t feel anything. I tried to pretend that I helped you on our first day at college because I’m a nice person and not because I thought you were … well … I thought you were cute.’

  ‘This whole time?’ I ask in disbelief. ‘I’ve spent the last day and a half feeling like I’ve imploded everything!’

  Cassie laughs, throwing her head back and closing her eyes. ‘That is … literally how I’ve been feeling. Like I told you I loved you and kissed you against your will and then realized what a mistake it was so ran away to hide.’

  It’s my turn to laugh. ‘And there was me thinking you were running away from me.’

  ‘No, I would never run from you.’ She sighs. ‘Just from myself.’

  ‘Well … now that I’ve stopped running from the uni stuff, and the Cal stuff …’ I say, counting my various stresses on my fingers, ‘and the you stuff, I think I can safely accept once and for all that running, in fact, is not the one for me … and weirdly didn’t solve all my problems?’

  Cassie laughs and rests her head on my shoulder for a moment.

  I feel so light I could float away. My heart feels like it’s already floating up up up out of my chest and melting into the summer sky.

  ‘So,’ I say, hesitantly, forcing myself back into reality. ‘What happens now?’

  ‘I don’t want to throw a spanner in the works just before you go away …’ Cassie says, leaning her elbows on her knees and holding her head in her hands.

  ‘That’s, um, off,’ I say. ‘At least for a year. I’m trying to do the art foundation course at Lansdowne instead.’

  Cassie’s eyes light up. ‘So you’re staying?’

  ‘I’m staying.’
I shrug, beaming.

  ‘What the hell?!’ Cassie says, like she’s won the lottery.

  ‘Yeah, I’m as surprised as you are.’

  She stares at me like she really can’t believe it. ‘You’re staying.’

  ‘Still want me now I’ll be sticking around?’ I hold my breath, terrified of what she’ll say.

  Finally she breaks the silence with a wry grin. ‘Go on then.’

  I throw my arms around her and kiss her, in broad daylight, stone cold sober.

  I hope today’s new thing lasts forever. I think it will.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you, more than I can express, to Simran Sandhu, for holding my hand through every step of this book. It’s been a wild whirlwind and it’s been a huge honour to do it with you. I value your expertise and hard work and going from No Big Deal to Melt My Heart with you has been a joy.

  Thank you to Paul Haworth, artist and husband extraordinaire. Your encouragement and words of wisdom mean everything to me and make me think maybe I’m not so bad at this after all.

  Thank you to Rachel Petty for setting me off down this road. I would not be writing books without you.

  Thank you to Rachel and Kristina for creating another perfect cover.

  Thank you to Siobhan O’Neill and Anna Dixon at WME for doing the hard work of representing me.

  Thank you to my parents for always, always being my cheerleaders.

  Thank you to Alice Slater, Beth John and Jenny Tighe. You are, individually and collectively, the greatest.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bethany Rutter is a journalist and blogger who writes about fat bodies, plus-size fashion and body politics, including the benefits and limitations of body positivity. She works in marketing at a plus-size fashion brand and is an occasional DJ. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, Telegraph Magazine, Vogue, Dazed, RedOnline, The Debrief and others. She co-hosts the podcast What Page Are You On? and is the author of Plus+, a coffee-table book offering style inspiration for everyone.

  Other books by Bethany Rutter

  No Big Deal

  First published 2020 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2020 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5290-4117-0

  Copyright © Bethany Rutter 2020

  Cover illustration by Kris Atomic

  The right of Bethany Rutter to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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